Category: Book previews

Book previews, books

Out this week: New Beatriz Williams

veritywilde

A bunch of Beatriz’ Williams’s books have featured on the blog over the years. I’m enough of a fan of hers that I was on her mailing list, back in the time when authors had actual, physical lists and still sent stuff to readers abroad – so I have a postcard from her for the release of A Certain Age. Her Last Flight and A Hundred Summers were Books of the Week and a couple of others have featured in various recommendsdays and roundups. And of course she also writes books with Lauren Willig and Karen White. Her earlier books tended to be interlinked, but more recently they’re more standalone. And The Beach at Summerleys looks like it’s a standalone-y one. The blurb is promising Cold War intrigue, New England rich people and secrets and a split timeline between 1946 and 1954. I’m also really interest that the cover art is quite different to her other novels – in colours and design so I’m wondering if that’s indicating a change too. I’m looking forward to reading it – when I can justify getting my hands on it!

Book previews

Out this week: New Ali Hazelwood

veritywilde

The latest novel from Ali Hazelwood is out this week – I think The Love Hypothesis was one of the first books that I saw advertised as “TikTok made me buy it” and I also enjoyed Love on the Brain so I’m looking forward to reading Love Theoretically, which promises fake dating and academic feuds. I have to admit I am hoping that we’re not in another Teeny Tiny heroine and Great Big Heroe situation, but that may be because I’m a 5’10 woman and no one can sweep me off my feet and carry me around, unless it’s a fireman’s lift and a short distance!

Book previews

Out This Week: New Elissa Sussman

veritywilde

The stats are coming, but today I’m disrupting the schedule because I wanted to mark that the new book from Elissa Sussman has just come out. I loved Funny You Should Ask when I read it back in March and immediately preordered myself a (paperback to match) copy of Once More With Feeling. This one is a former popstar who is tempted out of retirement by the former boybander who exploded her career (and his) when they had a one night thing. This is billed as second chance romance and enemies to lovers (and friends to lovers) so it’s all the things that usually tick my boxes. I can’t wait to read it!

Book previews, books, new releases

Out this week: Poppy Harmon and the Shooting Star

veritywilde

A bonus review today – that’s breaking some of my rules because this is the fifth in a series. But it doesn’t actually matree because this is the first in Lee Hollis’s Desert Flowers Mystery series that I’ve read. Interestingly I’ve read a couple of novellas by this author and one novel in a different series previously and wasn’t keen, but this really worked for me.

The set up is this: Poppy Harmon is a former actress who has been forced out of retired life to become a private investigator and runs a detective agency with two friends. In this instalment, one of Poppy’s former acting rivals has reappeared in her life. Serena has asked the agency to do an urgent background check on her husband to be. It seems easily done – but then Serena is found standing over a dead body holding a smoking gun and the team find themselves caught up in the investigation.

This has plenty of action, lots of twists and is really easy and fun to read. I thought I had the solution figured out – but I wasn’t entirely right and I liked that too. My copy came from NetGalley – and I even managed to read it in a timely manner! Even better, some of the earlier books in the series are in Kindle Unlimited at the moment (although not the first one) so I can go and read some more. I love it when that happens.

Enjoy!

Book previews

Out this week: New Summer Romances

veritywilde

I wanted to mention two books that are out this week – firstly the new Jenn McKinley is out on Kindle, no not new entry in her cozy crime series, but her latest romance which is set on Martha’s Vineyard. As you can see from the picture, it’s blurbed by Annabel Monaghan who wrote Nora Goes Off Script, which is still one of my favourite reads so far this year, and I have high hopes. I’m about halfway through it at the moment – so you may yet hear more about it. Fair warning: if you’re in the UK and want a physical copy, that doesn’t arrive here until July.

Also out this week is the latest Christina Lauren and as I mentioned in my Book of the Week post for The Soulmate Equation, it’s the story of Fizzy who is the heroine’s best friend in that. Fizzy is a romance writer who has never been in love and who finds herself starring in a reality TV show and the hero is a single dad who is one of the people making the show. I am very excited to see how this one works – I loved The Soulmate Equation and when Christina Lauren did TV show adjacent in The Honey Don’t List I also enjoyed it. So basically I really want to read this, stat!

Book previews, books

Out today: New Mhairi McFarlane

veritywilde

Another one of my frequently recommended authors has a new book out today – this time it’s Mhari McFarlane. She writes romances with serious issues at the heart of them – I originally wrote rom-coms, but actually although they have humour in them it, it feels a bit wrong as she’s dealing with issues like relationships breaking up, gaslighting and similar. Between Us is about Roisin, who discovers on a weekend away with her writer partner and all their friends that Joe seems to have been writing her and their friendship group into his work – so that would track with being more serious than a rom com would make you think. I’m looking forward to reading this – but if you want a bit more of a sense of what McFarlane does you can check out my reviews of Mad About You, Don’t You Forget About Me and If I Never Met You.

Book previews, books

Out this week: new T J Klune

veritywilde

I’ve already written about one book out this week, but actually it’s a busy week for it. And among them is a new one from T J Klune who wrote The House in the Cerulean Sea which I loved a few years back. This one is called In the Lives of Puppets and is a Pinocchio retelling. I’ve read a fair few fairytale and folktale retelling a over the years but I’m not sure I’ve ever done Pinocchio – or at least I can’t remember that I have so this is definitely intriguing!

Book previews, books

Out this Week: New Katherine Heiny

veritywilde

Despite the fact that it’s tempting fate, given what happened with Pineapple Street last week and then BotW, I’m going to take a chance on mentioning that the new Katherine Heiny book is out today – and it’s a collection of short stories. Why am I taking this risk? Well given that Early Morning Riser and Standard Deviation have both featured on the blog and I’ve recommended and loaned them out, it feels logical that I should mention a new book from her. Single, Carefree, Mellow which was her first book was also a short story collection, which I read after I had read and loved Standard Deviation. Looking back at my goodreads reviews, I’ve definitely preferred Heiny’s novels so far so I’m looking forward to seeing how this compares and if her short story style has evolved after two novels.

Book previews, books

Out Today: Pineapple Street

veritywilde

I mean I say out today – but I did find a copy of Pineapple Street in Waterstones on Saturday when I was looking for Susanna Hoffs’ novel. Anyway: NetGalley tells me it’s out today, and as Amazon was still only offering preorders on Kindle I’m going to assume that someone got a bit over excited and got it out early. This is Jenny Jackson’s debut and our first candidate of the year for a Rich People Problems book – and you know how much I love them.

Helpfully I also got sent this nice graphic which gives you some authors who have liked it – in case that’s a thing you use to help you chose books (I know I do). But this is a novel following the women of the Stockton family – the two daughters Darley and Georgiana and their brother’s wife Sasha. I started this on Tuesday and I’m really enjoying it so far and I’m hoping that continues. You may yet hear more about it…

Book previews, books

Out Today: New Curtis Sittenfeld

veritywilde

Honestly I think I’m allowed to squeal about this one – you all know how much I love Sittenfeld at this point. I’ve reviewed a bunch of them here, and I got excited about this arriving only a few weeks ago. I’ve got a hard copy ordered and I’ve got an advance via NetGalley – which of course I’ve started – and it’s so good I’m trying to ration myself…

Anyway as the title suggests this is a romantic comedy where a writer of a comedy show that is Definitely Not Saturday Night Live falls for one of the guest hosts. It’s only a week since I wrote about Funny You Should Ask and a few weeks since Nora Goes Off Script and I’m hoping this follows them in the famous people and normal people romance stakes, rather than another couple I’ve read hunting for the magic but which haven’t worked as well.