Author: veritywilde

Journalist, armchair sports fan, book worm and show fiend. There's a sentence you don't hear too often.
reading challenges

Read Across the USA 2023: The Final Outcome!

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So the headline here is that I did it! It came down to the last day, and to Oklahoma, but I managed to get it done. There are a few series making repeat appearances on the list, and a few authors repeating within the list but I’m sure you’ll forgive me that. Of the other stuff, I’m not going to say that I liked everything that I read, but I did like quite a lot of them – as you can see from the number that have got links through to posts featuring them. I’m still debating doing it again this year, but I think I probably will, it’s quite fun – and every year I manage to do more of them without having to think about it – this year there were only about six that I had to do panicky searching for books to fit at the last minute…

Alabama – Cultured by D P Lyle*

Alaska – Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

Arizona – For Batter or Worse by Jenn McKinlay

Arkansas – A Crime of Poison by Nancy Haddock

California – A High End Finish by Kate Carlisle

Colorado – Catering to Nobody by Diane Mott Davidson

Connecticut – Better Late Than Never by Jenn McKinlay

Delaware – Rehoboth Beach by Michael Morgan​

Florida – The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

Georgia – Wild Dances by William Lee Adams

Hawaii – Maui Madness by Kathi Daley

Idaho – Maggie Moves On by Lucy Score

Illinois – From Dust to Stardust by Kathleen Rooney

Indiana – Faux Finished by Peg Marberg

Iowa – Six Geese a’ Slaying by Kathleen Bacus

Kansas – A Christmas to Remember by Beverly Jenkins

Kentucky – When in Rome by Sarah Adams

Louisiana – Lethal Bayou Beauty by Jana De Leon

Maine – Happy Place by Emily Henry

Maryland – Terns of Endearment by Donna Andrew

Massachusetts – Love Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

Michigan – In Farm’s Way by Amanda Flowers*

Minnesota – Fudge Cupcake Murder by Joanna Fluke

Mississippi – Double Strike by Gretchen Archer

Missouri – Guaranteed to Bleed by Julie Mulhern

Montana – Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman

Nebraska – Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell

Nevada – Puppies in Paradise by Kathi Daley

New Hampshire – Pumpkin Everything by Beth Labonte​

New Jersey – Cape May by Chip Cheek*

New Mexico – The Pot Thief who Studied Pythagoras by J Michael Orenduff

New York – Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan

North Carolina – Death Knells and Wedding Bells by Eva Gates

North Dakota – Cowboy Dancing All Night by Jessie Gussman

Ohio – A Lie for a Lie by Emilie Richards

Oklahoma – Ghostland by Jean Hager

Oregon – Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake

Pennsylvania – ‘Tis the Damn Season by Kimi Freeman

Rhode Island – Lost Summers of Newport by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White

South Carolina – Full Blast by Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes

South Dakota – Dakota Cowboy by Lisa Mondello

Tennessee – A Very Merry Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

Texas – Murder Served Neat by Michelle Hillen Klump*

Utah – Bookman, Dead Style by Paige Shelton

Vermont – A Holly Jolly Ever After by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone

Virginia – Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn

Washington – Role Playing by Cathy Yardley

Washington DC – An Invitation to a Killer by G M Malliet*

West Virginia – Sidecar Crush by Claire Kingsley and Lucy Score

Wisconsin – Winter’s Gifts by Ben Aaronovitch

Wyoming – Tempest by Beverly Jenkins

books, stats

December Stats

veritywilde

Books read this month: 37*

New books: 30

Re-reads: 8 ( 4 audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 4 (!)

NetGalley books read: 4

Kindle Unlimited read: 11

Ebooks: 11

Audiobooks: 4

Non-fiction books: 2

Favourite book this month: not sure

Most read author: not sure

Books bought: too many to list!

Books read in 2023: 360

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 728

Well here we are at the end of another year and with a month that turned out to be unexpectedly productive. Who could have predicted that because it was also a really, really busy month. I’ll probably have another rejig of the format of this post for next year, I’m not quite sure how yet but I’ve got a month to think about it haven’t I! I’ve also been thinking about my reading goals and aims for the year but that’s a story for another day. I’ve already told you about my favourite books of the year – you can find those links here, here and here. Onwards we go!

Bonus picture: one last Christmasy photo from the walk to work last week in the Twixtmas.

*includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – including this month

book round-ups, books

Recommendsday: Not New fiction of 2023

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So I was about to say this is the last look back at 2023 post, but I realised that I would absolutely be lying because I can think of at least two more. Any how, this is my favourite new-to-me fiction of last year. Many of them you’ll always have heard me talk about, but hey I enjoyed them and they’re worth it.

So in keeping with the celebrities and normal people romances that have been a theme of the year, let’s start with one of those: Nora Goes off Script by Annabel Monaghan. And I think this might have been the first of the trope that I read last year and it was really good. Nora’s been dumped by her husband but has to keep writing screen plays for romance channel movies. But when her new script is picked up by a major studio, the sexual man alive walks into her house (literally) to star in it and then doesn’t want to leave. It’s wonderful and just writing about it makes me want to read it again!

Next up is one of the books that Nora was comped with and which I finally got around to reading this year – Beach Read by Emily Henry. This has got two rival authors living in neighbouring beach houses and struggling with writers block – until they challenge each other to write in their genre. So Augustus had to write something happy, and Janet had to write a Great American Novel. It’s a grumpy-sunshine delight – even if I’ve only just realised that he’s got the summery name and she’s got the wintery one!

More authors in pick three: The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley and Austin Sigemund-Broka. This has got estranged writing partners forced back together to complete their original book contract after his new solo effort doesn’t sell. It’s friends to enemies to lovers as you flash backwards and forwards between the two different trips to the same Florida rental house.

Ok, that all the romance done, let’s go for some mystery! And The Three Dahlias by Katy Watson was one of my post Christmas sale buys between Christmas and new year last year and I loved it. It has all the things that I like – Golden Age mystery stories and a modern day cozy crime murder on the set of an adaptation of the books. So much fun and something I’ve recommended a lot this year. I’m counting down to book three.

And finally, something a bit different – Acts of Violet by Margarita Montimore. This one’s a bit quirky – with a missing illusionist and a podcast at the centre of it. I didn’t fully love the ending, but I did love the rest of it. This is actually the only book here from the second half of the year, and I have had a think about that and a look at the stats – there were less five star picks in the second half of the year among the not-new fiction but quite a few four stars that I’ve only just written about, so maybe that’s what’s gone on. And I did read more new fiction in the second half of the year than the first and that played into this too.

Anyway, here’s to the books I’ll discover in 2024!

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: If You Only Knew

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Well after a bumper week of reading last week to get the fifty states challenge finished, I’m starting the new year with a Kristan Higgins book for Book of the Week which wasn’t one of the missing states. Who could have predicted that!

If You Only Knew is a dual narrative story about two sisters who are both at turning points in their lives. Wedding dress designer Jenny is moving back to her home town to open a new storefront after her divorce in an attempt to get away from her ex and his new wife whose lives she’s still entangled in. Her sister Rachael has a seemingly enviable life – adoring husband and cute triplet daughters. Except Rachael’s just caught him sexting with a colleague and she’s not sure what what to do about it – she’s not sure she believes in second chances but she’s also not ready to give up on her family dream.

This is really readable – I read it across about 36 hours despite it being Christmas – I liked the mix of big city New York and small town New York State and it all works out alright in the end, despite my fears at various points while reading it. As always with stories like this I liked one side of the story better than the other – in this case it was Jenny I wanted more of, but maybe that’s because adultery plots are never really quite my thing and I loathed Rachael’s husband (although now I’ve finished the book I don’t think you were meant to like him but I wasn’t sure about that at the time) and wanted her to burn it all down straight away. That said I’m not sure Jenny’s strand of the plot on its own would have been enough to sustain a novel – and I definitely wouldn’t have read just Rachael’s – so it was probably the right decision to do both!

Anyway you can get this on Kindle and Kobo and it’s only £2.99! It does have a paperback version but as it’s a few years old now it may not be that easy to get hold of a physical copy – Amazon is certainly asking crazy money for it, but the ebook is cheap so that’s something.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: December 25 – December 31

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Happy New Year! I hope 2024 is every thing you want it to be and more. I have a stack of new year content coming up as well as the last bits of looking back at 2023. And thank you for reading this blog – I don’t say it enough but I appreciate you all. Anyway, I finished off the year with a stack of books – including those last few states for the challenge and also a binge reread of Drina after I put the idea in my head!

Read:

If Only You Knew by Kristen Higgins

Rivers of London: Here be Dragons by Ben Aaronovitch et al

Faux Finished by Peg Marberg

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

Dakota Cowboy by Lisa Mondello

Drina Dances Again by Jean Estoril

Drina Dances in New York by Jean Estoril

Drina Dances in Paris by Jean Estoril

Lethal Bayou Beauty by Jana de Leon

Ghostland by Jean Hager

The Falcon at the Portal by Elizabeth Peters

Drina Dances in Madeira by Jean Estoril

Started:

Birder, She Wrote by Donna Andrews

Still reading:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Animal, Vegetable, Criminal by Mary Roach

Three ebooks bought – including the latest Veronica Speedwell which has dropped to a sensible price presumably because the new one arrives soon.

Bonus photo: end of year jigsaw update…

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

books

Best Books of 2023: Non-fiction

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So after yesterday’s fiction post, today I’m back with the other stuff. And actually I didn’t read a lot of new-new non-fiction this year, so this is a general best non-fiction post, rather than a specific new books one, but hey, I’m all about rule breaking!

So let’s start with the chunkiest book I read this year – Michael Cragg’s Reach for the Stars. My sister and I really enjoyed reading this history of a decade of pop music from the mid 90s. I was a consumer of pop music during this era so it gave me a lot of nostalgia but it also gave me some insights into what I was listening to at the time and the way that the bands involved were covered by the press. One of the bands in this – Girls Aloud – have announced they’re touring again next year, and another (S Club) were touring this autumn so the music and bands are really still out there.

Also in the pop culture sort of space but not new this year is Wild and Crazy Guys by Nick de Semlyen, which I read while I was on holiday this autumn. The Guys in question are the comedians of the early 80s whose careers launched through shows like Saturday Night Live and went on to dominate comedy movies for a decade or more – people like Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Dan Ackroyd and John Candy. I’m too young to to remember this all happening, but some of the movies that they made – Ghostbusters, Uncle Buck and Cool Runnings – were all over my childhood and some of them are still all over movies and streaming now – after all I’ve just binged Only Murders in the Building!

Also in the new to me not new new is Maiden Voyages by Sian Evans. This is a look at women on board the cruise liners during the Golden Age of ocean liner travel. It touches on some of the famous faces who travelled on the ships but mostly focusses on the women who worked on board and the opportunities that shipboard work offered them. I really enjoyed Evans’ Queen Bees a few years back and this is also a really good read.

And that’s the lot I think. I think one of my resolutions for next year is to read more non fiction – and I’ve certainly got a delightful selection to chose from to help me!

books

Books of the Year: New Fiction

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It’s that time of year again, where I’m rounding up the best things that I’ve read this year, and I’m starting with the new fiction because it has been a really good year for it.

As I’ve said already, in contemporary romance 2023 has been the year of the celebrity and normal person romance in my reading life. I’m still not sure if it’s an actual trend or if it’s just what the algorithm has been feeding me but I’ve really enjoyed it and the hardest part is how do I pick just one for this list? Well the answer is I’m not. I’m picking two: Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld and Once More with Feeling by Elissa Sussman. Yes, they are two of the books that were on my half year favourites list, but I really did love them and they’re two of the books that I’ve recommended the most this year. Romantic Comedy is still the only book with the quarantimes in it that I’ve enjoyed and Once More with Feeling made me so happy for some bookish revenge on a Justin Timberlake type figure.

Also in contemporary romance is Lucy Parker’s Codename Charming – this was one of my most anticipated books of the year, and it lived up to my internal hype for it when it finally arrived in the autumn. Also excellent was Christina Lauren’s True Love Experiment and Role Playing by Cathy Yardley, the latter of which has an older pairing than you usually see which was fun.

And finally it wouldn’t be one of my end of year lists without a Rich People Problems novel, and this year it is Pineapple Street, which was also on the mid year list.

I realise now that there’s no crime on this list, which is a slight surprise to me given how much mystery I have read, but a lot of it was either not new or from long running series and you know my policy on that. I wonder what 2024’s fiction list will look like?

books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Twixtmas reading

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I’m already back at work, but as I’m still trying valiantly to cling to the Christmas spirit, for today’s recommendsday here’s what I’ll be reading (or listening to) between now and the end of the year – once I’ve got my fifty states challenge finished (why are West Virginia and the Dakotas always so hard?) and some ideas for you too.

If you turn on the TV in the afternoon at this time of year, chances are you’ll stumble across a movie version of an Agatha Christie novel – Death on the Nile was on on Christmas Day, Mirror Cracked this afternoon and Murder on the Orient Express is coming up too in the next day or too. And the novels make a pretty good choice for this time of year too – there are some Christmas-set stories, but my pick is always Orient Express – something about being stuck in a snow drift just makes it Christmassy to me.

You also could do worse than a Christmas Meg Langslow, the only reason I haven’t read the new one yet is because I haven’t read the summer one yet because the kindle edition is eye wateringly expensive and I’ve even reading them in order from the very start and I refuse to change that now after more than thirty books! There’s also a Christmas book in Jenn McKinlay’s Cupcake Bakery series that came out this autumn that I can’t read yet because: Reading in order and a book or two behind, but if you’re not bothered about reading in order they’re a pretty reliable series.

In fact most of my favourite series have Christmas books – I’ve mentioned most of them ad nausem (Royal Spyness, Daisy Dalrymple, Phryne Fisher etc) but I might actually reread one of my favourite Drina books this year – ballet at Christmas is such a thing and in Drina Dances Again she’s in Edinburgh, playing Little Clara in the Nutcracker (although not at Christmas!) and it’s a pivotal moment in the series for reasons that are a bit spoilery. If I want a boarding school story, the Chalet School series is full of Christmas plays – I usually pick one from the early days of the series so maybe I’ll go later this year.

Once I’ve got the last few states ticked off my 50 states challenge I’m planning on reading another of the Christmas stories from the British Library Crime Classics series – I think I have The Christmas Egg on the actual to-read shelf but there’s bound to be one in Kindle Unlimited too.

And finally, it’s not strictly festive, but I’ve been listening to the Radio 4 serialisation of Miss Buncle’s Book on BBC Sounds this week, and it’s just such a lovely cozy book, if you’ve never read it before, this time of year would be perfect to discover it for the first time. You can find my review of the trilogy here.

Happy Wednesday everyone (yes, it’s Wednesday!)