Category: Book previews

Book previews, bookshops

Books in the Wild: New Releases

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I’ve been wandering the bookshops again in search of new books to add to the ever expanding want to read list on Goodreads, and I’m back with my results. The good news is that they’re all hardbacks, so I was able to resist buying them because of a) price and b) the fact that hardbacks impulse buys sit on my shelves for a lot longer than paperbacks. And paperbacks can sit there for a long time…

Honestly non-fiction hardbacks are the hardest thing for me to resist, but also the things that take me longest to read. Here you can see the new Hallie Rubenhold which I mentioned in my 2025 preview back in January, but also Edward White’s Dianaworld which I hadn’t heard about until I saw it in the store – and then came home to find a review of it in the latest Literary Review which only made me want to read it more. I also hadn’t come across The Fall of the House of Montague before and that looks right up my street too – it’s all about the collapse of the fortunes of the Dukes and Earls of Manchester across four generations. I’m also tempted by The Dream Factory, but given that I already have at least four books about Shakespeare (or his plays) on the bookshelf waiting to be read I didn’t even let myself pick it up!

This selection of hardback fiction was facing the entrance – I really want to read the Emily Henry but I’m restraining myself because I’m fairly convinced there will be an airport paperback version of this that I can buy next time I fly somewhere, if there isn’t a deal on the ebook first. Open Heaven is described as “heartrending” and I think we know I’m not in the market for that, the Isabel Allende sounds interesting, but I still have at least one of hers on the Kindle waiting to be read but the Sayaka Murata sounds interesting – about a world where most babies are conceived by artificial insemination and marriages are sexless – but also I’m still not in the market for dystopian future stories!

And then finally we’ve got Julie Chan is Dead in the wild, The Marble Hall Murders – which like the Emily Henry I’m hoping will have an airport paperback version (although it is huge and possibly unmanageable as a physical copy), and the new S J Parris which is the start of a new series and which I have on my kindle waiting for me to read. Apart from that we have a few thrillers that are clearly too scary for me and Fair Play by Louise Hegarty which is a murder mystery where two thirds of the blurb sounds like I would like it and then the final sentence makes me wonder: Louise Hegarty’s Fair Play is the puzzle-box story that brilliantly lays bare the real truth of life – the terrifying mystery of grief.

That’s your lot today – have a lovely weekend.

Book previews

Out Today: New K J Charles

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We have a bit of a surprise new release today – I only found out about this one about ten days ago when Amazon sent me one of those “new release from an author you like” emails and was surprised to see it was a new release coming very soon. Anyway, K J Charles‘ latest is Copper Script which is set in the 1920s and features a Metropolitan Police Detective and a graphologist who can work out people’s lives and personalities from their handwriting with freakish accuracy. I pre-ordered this off the back of that email – so I have a copy dropped onto my Kindle just waiting to be read once I’ve finished the current Mitchell and Markby….

Book previews

Out Today: The Elopement

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I mentioned Jane Austen yesterday, and today I wanted to mention Gill Hornby’s new book which is the third that she’s written around Jane Austen’s family. I really enjoyed Miss Austen and Godmersham Park and I’m looking forward to reading this one. Looking at the blurb this is focusing into a family that Austen’s niece marries into and the family from Godmersham Park. I suspect this will be really easy to get hold of – the others have been and of course we’ve just had the TV adaptation of Miss Austen (which I really need to get around to watching) which may lead to increased visibility for this unofficial trilogy of Austen-adjacent novels.

Book previews

Out Today: Mrs Spy

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Anyone fancy a Lady Spy novel set in the 1960s? Well this is out today and sounds intriguing. This from the blurb:

Maggie Flynn isn’t your typical 1960s mum.

She’s a spy, an unsuspecting operative for MI5, stalking London’s streets in myriad disguises. 

Widowed and balancing her clandestine career with raising a Beatles-mad teenage daughter, Maggie finds comfort and purpose in her profession – providing a connection to her late husband, whose own covert past only surfaced after his death.

It goes on to say that there’s a Russian agent and her husband’s death may have been because he was betrayed by someone on home soil. And as you can see from the cover above it’s got a “Thursday Murder Club for Spies” line on it. If I can just get over my need for comforting familiarity, this will be jumping right to the top of my list!

Book previews

Out this week: New Rachel Lynn Solomon

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For this week’s new release it wanted to mention the new novel by Rachel Lynn Soloman. Her last book Business or Pleasure was a book of the week, but she can be a bit hit or miss for me or at least the books can sometimes not quite live up to the promise of the blurb. The blurb for What Happens in Amsterdam promises a second chance romance with a heroine who moves from California to Amsterdam after being dumped only to run into her first love, a Dutch exchange student who mysteriously ghosted her a decade earlier. I love a second chance romance – just as long as the reasons for the first time going wrong aren’t too, too awful – so I’m hopeful about this one.

Book previews

Out Today: Julie Chan is Dead

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Welcome to May everyone and I’m starting the new month by mentioning a really buzzy book that came out today, but one which may be too far down the thriller and of things for me!

Julie Chan’s identical twin sister is an influencer. Julie is not. But when Julie finds Chloe’s body and unlocks her twin’s phone to call the emergency services, she sees the reality of her sister’s life: the sponsorship deals, her money, her followers. And Julie wants some of that for her. So she decides to take over Chloe’s life. All she’s got to do is try and blend in with the gang of influencers that Chloe was a part of. Except someone seems to know that something is up…

One of the blurbs describes this as edgy and vicious – hence my doubts about whether it is a Verity Book, but it sounds totally intriguing so I look forward to seeing if it turns up around the swimming pools and on the airplanes this summer!

Book previews

Out this week: New Simon Brett series

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Given that I’ve already written series posts for most of Simon Brett’s other series – namely Fetherings, Charles Paris, Mrs Pargeter – it would be remiss of me not to mention that he has a new book out this week and it’s the first in a new series. It’s called Major Bricket and the Circus Corpse and there is already a second book in the series listed on Amazon for this time next year. Our new amateur sleuth has just retired to the village in Suffolk where he’s owned a home for years, although he hasn’t really lived there because his work has taken him abroad a lot. The village has speculated about his occupation, but when he discovers a body on his lawn, he uses his professional skills to try and figure out what happened. I’ve actually read this already (thank you NetGalley) so this could actually count as a bonus review so your luck is in!

Now I’ll admit that I haven’t read Brett’s Blotto and Twinks series, so i can’t include them in this but if there is a scale of realism in his books where Jude and Carol in Fetherings live in the most realistic world and Mrs P is the least – then Major Bricket is the new measure of the far end out beyond Mrs P. Brett is doing his thing on your spy-thriller-secret identity type novel with more than a dash of the OTT about it. I’ve been trying to figure out what it reminded me of, and I can’t quite work it out – but it’s definitely closer to the M C Beaton Hamish MacBeth-everything-falls-into-place end of the cozy scale than it Brett usually is. Overall, I’m glad I read it, but I would rather have had another Charles Paris I think!

Book previews

Out This Week: New Vinyl Detective

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Happy new Vinyl Detective week. Underscore, which is the eight in the series came out on Tuesday and I have my pre-order in my grubby little hand! This time we’re in the world of Italian Movie Soundtracks, which is a great excuse for me to drop a video of one of an ice dance routines into this, because there have been some really good programmes to Italian film music. Anyway, I continue to be impressed with Cartmel’s ability to find new genres to use for this series, although I didn’t love last year’s instalment Noise Floor as much as I have liked previous books in the series. Fingers crossed this is a return to full form… If you want to dip back into my archive, check out my Series I Love post from 2022 here.

Series I love post was 2022, last year got a out today.

Book previews

Out Today: New Magpie Murders

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Honestly. I’m so excited about this. I’ve been saying in my reviews of Anthony Horowitz’s Hawthorn and Horowitz books that I hoped that there would be another Magpie Murders book and today is the day: the third Susan Ryeland mystery book is out. This has a continuation to the Atticus Pund series being written by the grandson of a beloved children’s author who, coincidentally thinks his grandmother was murdered. The reason why I wasn’t sure if there would be another in this series is because how many murders could be tied into the Atticus Pund series. So I’m incredibly excited to see what Horowitz has come up with – and it’s already been bought up for a third series of the TV adaptation. I can’t wait!