Category: book round-ups

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Best Books of 2024: New to Me Fiction

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As ever, as well as reading a lot of new fiction, I’ve read a whole bunch of not new fiction that is still very good, and given that the non-fiction best of was a mix of new releases and old, it would be remiss of me not to complete the set with the old (so to speak) fiction. And I’m working from published longest ago to most recent for reasons that will become obvious very shortly…

Rivals by Jilly Cooper

TV-tie in cover of Rivals

Ok, I’m starting with the one on this list that I should absolutely have read before now, and which you’re going to have the least trouble getting hold of because the adaptation is (rightly) everywhere at the moment. As I said in my BotW review at the start of December the very 80s attitudes in the adaptation are there (and even more so) in the book. So if you didn’t get on with that aspect of the TV version (or don’t like books like that in general) than your mileage may vary. But I absolutely raced through it – Goodreads tells me it’s the longest book I’ve read this year (over 700 pages) and yet I read it in under three days. And only one of those days was a weekend (and that was the one where i only had about 100 pages to go and finished it on a plane) – so that’s fast even for me. Season Two has now been announced for the adaptation, and we can only hope that the scripts are already written (or at least part written) and so they can get on with filming it asap…

The Golden Hour by Beatriz Williams

Paperback copy of the Golden Hour

Beatriz Williams’s 2019 novel fits neatly into a couple of my reading interests – fiction set in the first half of the twentieth century, Edward and Mrs Simpson-related fiction and spy and espionage stuff that’s not too, too terrifying. This has a split narrative between Nassau in 1941, where Lulu has been sent to write an article about the former King and now governor of the Bahamas and his wife; and a sanatorium in Switzerland atthe start of the twentieth century. The blurb majors on the Windsor connection, but they’re not really the centre – that’s Lulu. I continue to be about three books behind on Williams’ solo releases because they just seem to be harder to get hold of here, but whenever I read them I really do enjoy them.

A Murder Inside by Frances Brody

Paperback copy of A Murder Inside

It’s the late 1960s and Nell Lewis has just been made governor of a new women’s open prison in Yorkshire. The job was going to be challenging enough before a body was found on the grounds and so Nell sets out to solve the crime and protect the women inmates from the suspicion of the local community. I really liked the set up and the 1960s setting – I haven’t read a lot of mystery series set in this time period, or at least not stuff that wasn’t contemporary to it when it was written. I’m not sure how many books it’s going to be possible to set around this one prison, but there are currently two of them we’ll see how the second ends when I get around to reading it. Frances Brody has published another in her Kate Shackleton series since this came out, so it may be that she’s going to try and run the two series in parallel to start with and see how it goes. I hope so, because I do like Kate, and I think there’s plenty more that she can investigate too.

Flying Solo by Linda Holmes

Laurie has just returned to her home town in Maine to sort out the estate of her 90-year-old aunt. She’s also recently cancelled her wedding and ended that relationship and is about to turn 40. Among her aunt’s possessions and mementos of travels around the world she finds a wooden duck and a love letter that references “if you’re desperate, there’s always the ducks”. And so Laurie sets out to discover the history of the duck – and in doing so gets caught up in antiques dealers and con artists and late night dates at the library with her high school boyfriend. This was Holmes’s follow-up to Evvie Drake Starts Over, and although both of them have A Novel written on the front, I would say this is further towards the Women’s Fiction end of the spectrum than the other one was. It has a satisfying ending, but it’s a grown up one – not a throw everything you know about yourself away and give yourself over to The New one. I really enjoyed it – and the only reason it wasn’t a BotW is because I read it the same week as The Rom-Commers (which is on the best new fiction list). Was my late November-early December holiday a real high point in my reading this year or is it recency bias – who can tell, but I did read a whole bunch of books I’d been saving on that holiday as a treat.

The Reunion by Kayla Olsen

Liv was the star of a hit teen TV show and grew up on screen. Twenty years on, a reboot is in the offing and she finds herself back on set with all her old castmates – including her former boyfriend. She’s built herself a new life since the show – but this is her chance to try and get closure on what happened with her on and off screen love interest when the show ended. Once they’re back on set together, they fall into old habits – but will this time have a different ending? This was released in January 2023 and is part of what is now a growing collection of novels set around nostalgia for TV shows or movies – whether it’s characters transported into them, or former stars of them involved in romances some how. I’ve read a few of them, with mixed success, but this is a really good one*. Like Flying Solo it has “A Novel” written on the front of it – and in this case it means that the novel is more about Liv finding herself than completely centred on the romance between her and Ransom. This one is harder to get hold of I think – I bought it in Foyles and it’s definitely an American paperback size, but if you do spot it, I think it’s worth it.

Have a great day everyone!

*so is yesterday’s BotW pick, but it is much more Christmas-themed and also a new release so doesn’t fit in to this post.

Best of..., book round-ups

Best Books of 2024: Non Fiction

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After the best new fiction on Friday, here I am with my favourite non-fiction books of the year, which is very much a mix of new releases and not new releases, but also features a suspicious number of books that fall into one of my favourite periods of history – aka the first half of the 20th Century.

Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell*

I think this is my favourite of the new non-fiction that I’ve read this year. I love a look at how women exerted power in male-dominated environments, and this re-examination of Pamela Harriman – who has previously just been dismissed as a femme fatale/grande horizontale who worked her way through all the men she knew – is a really interesting one. Purnell makes a strong case – and appears to have the evidence to back it up due to the amount of personal papers that she had access to. I was so pleased to see this prominently displayed in the bookshops this autumn.

Capote’s Women by Lawrence Leamer

Cover of Capote's Women

Harriman is one of the women in the title of Lawrence Leamer’s book – and the other women were definitely among those who dismissed Harriman as a modern day courtesan – after all she had slept with several of their husbands (one of whom she later married). If you don’t want to commit to an entire book about Pamela (and Kingmaker is 500 pages long) then you can catch a glimpse of her war years and immediate aftermath in this book about Capote and the women who featured in his notorious Esquire article La Cote Basque, which blew up his friendships with them forever.

Murder by Kate Morgan*

If you read as much mystery fiction set in the past as I do, this might be right up your street. It’s an examination of the evolution of the crime of murder in legal terms in England. If you’ve ever wondered about how the differences between murder and manslaughter came about, or when various forms of insanity defences evolved, this is the book for you. It also covers some of the more recent developments in murder trials that have come out of tragedies like Aberfan – and whether or not they have worked as intended. And if you’re writing historical crime fiction this is probably a must read to make sure you’re getting the legal side of things right!

Going Infinite by Michael Lewis

Copy of Going Infinite

Another of my areas of special interest in non-fiction (aside from interwar history) are spectacular flops/business disasters/con men. And the rise and fall of Sam Bankman Fried and his crypto exchange are among the most spectacular of recent years. Of course the challenge of such a recent scandal as this is being up to date and this was originally published in 2023 just as the trial was starting and the paperback edition that I bought (on the way to Malaysia and then mostly read on the plane) came out not long after the sentencing. But the big reason for reading this rather than listening to one of the podcasts about the story (which have the ability to add new episodes as things evolve) is that Michael Lewis was already working on a book about SBF when the implosion happened – and thus was on the scene in a way no one else was. And have a bonus podcast recommendation – Spellcaster from Wondery is my pick of the SBF specials, although The Naked Emperor series of CBC’s Understood is also good (and I have their series about Celine Dion waiting to be listened to as well).

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jenette McCurdy

Cover of I'm Glad My Mom Died

It would be remiss of me not to include a memoir in this list – and this also fits into a special interest area: Hollywood. But Jenette McCurdy‘s memoir comes with some important caveats: this covers abuse of many different kinds as well as addiction and eating disorders. It is a tough read. A very tough read. But at the end it is hopeful that McCurdy – a former Nickelodeon child star – has come out of the other side, and not just because her mother is dead and can no longer emotionally manipulate and exploit her. I really hope that she is in a better place – this book really illustrates why so few child stars emerge from that early fame unscathed.

And I realise that’s a bit of a downer to end on. Sorry about that. But hey these things happen.

Have a good Sunday.

Best of..., book round-ups

Best Books of 2024: New Fiction

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We’re nearly there. It’s nearly the end of 2024 – and with that, it’s time for me to take a look at some of my favourite reads of the last year. This year I’ve split it up across a couple of posts, and first up we have the best New Fiction that I’ve read this year.

The Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn

Cover of the Other Side of Disappearing

Kate Claybourn’s new novel came out in March, and was a Book of the Week when I got around to reading it in April. And you can click the link to read the full review, but it’s a road trip novel, as a reluctant participant in a podcast goes with her sister to try and find their mother, with the production crew in train. I liked it because of the way it portrayed the heroine’s relationship with her sister as well as the romance, but also because it was more uplifting than I was expecting considering it had a heroine who had been parentified because of the behaviour of her mother even before she abandoned them both. There’s still no news on when Claybourn’s next book is due, but I hope that it’s going in a similar sort of direction to this one because it was a really delightful read.

Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell

This was a rare case of me reading a Kindle sample and then abandoning all my usual rules about purchase prices to buy the book because I was so desperate to read it. And I’ve since seen it in two for ones in Foyles and at a big discount on Kindle, so if I had waited I would have saved a whole heap of cash. But this made me so nostalgic for the rom-coms of my teenage years. I loved You’ve Got Mail when it came out (still do now to be honest) and the description of this as You’ve Got Mail for a new generation is pretty much spot on. As I said in my review at the time, some people are going to have an issue with the way that the couple get together (their respective partners are cheating on them with each other, but they’re not split up) which is why I count it as “A Novel” not a romance, but I really, really liked it. Suzanne Rindell seems to be on an every other year sort of publication schedule, and I hope that her next one is as good as this.

The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear

This is slightly cheating, and I’ve swapped it in since mid-year point where I picked Mona of the Manor instead. The Comfort of Ghosts is the last in a long series, and I try not to recommend books where you need to have read all the others to get the maximum impact from it. But it’s also rare for a series to finish so satisfyingly as the Maisie Dobbs one does. At the end of eighteen books, Maisie is sent off to a bright new future, all the loose ends are tidied up – including some that you had forgotten, but unlike some final books in mystery series, the mystery plot in this isn’t an add on to the rest, it’s properly thought out and integrated. It’s satisfying enough that although I’m sad that Maisie’s story is done, I’m happy to leave her at this point. Hopefully I’ll like Winspear’s next book as much, and if the White Lady is any indication I think I will

The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center

Cover of The Rom-Commers

This is the first of two books in this list that I read on my late November/early December holiday and is that recency bias showing? I don’t know. But when I looked at all my top rate books these were the ones I wanted to include. And this is the second book in this list that gave me all the nostalgia for the movies of my teenage years. Charlie is a great hero – with the gruff and abrasive exterior hiding a soft and sentimental interior that he is trying his best to hide from everyone. The banter is great, the critique of the movie industry is also fabulous if you’re someone like me who wants to know where the (less problematic) successors to Notting Hill, Never Been Kissed and Two Weeks Notice are.

Birding with Benefits by Sarah T Dubb

And this is the only book on this list which wasn’t a Book of the Week – and that’s because I read it the same week as the Rom-Commers and there can only be one BotW each week. The heroine of Birding With Benefits is Celeste. She’s newly single and about to be an empty nester, so she’s trying to put herself out there and find some adventures of her own. So of course she says yes to a friend who asks her to help one of his friends out at an event. The friend is John, and it turns out the event is Tuscon’s annual birdwatching contest – which John wants to win to help him launch his own guiding business and to a lesser extent to show his ex-girlfriend that he’s just fine. And so the unlikely duo begin a fake relationship for the duration of the contest and it soon turns into something more than either of them expected. It’s charming and fun – and made me care about birdwatching, which is something I never thought possible. It deserves its spot on this list.

Here’s to as many good books in 2025 – and have a great weekend everyone!

book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: September Quick Reviews

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Just a couple of books to tell you about today – September was very much a month of series reading and some/many/a selection of those will feature elsewhere!

Hitchcock’s Blondes by Laurence Leamer

Leamer’s previous book Capote’s Women was a Book of the Week right back at the start of the year (side note: the mini series based on that one still hasn’t appeared on TV here which is annoying) and this one tackles another group linked by a man. Alfred Hitchcock was a great director, but not necessarily a great person as this book will hammer home. I think I would have appreciated a bit more a clarity about why he picked the women that he did – no Doris Day here for example and she was definitely blonde – but it’s an interesting read and there’s some good Classic Hollywood insider info in here too.

The Red House Murder by A A Milne*

I filled in a gap in my crime-fiction history knowledge by reading this, the only mystery novel by the author of (among many other things) Winnie the Pooh. It’s a locked room-type mystery and it’s hard to tell at this distance – and having read so many similar plots – how revolutionary this might have seen at the time. That said, it’s a really good example of the genre, with the long lost brother of the host of a house party found shot through the head shortly after arriving from Australia. I figured out part of the solution, but not the hows and whys of it – and enjoyed reading how it had all been done. Worth reading if you’re a fan of classic mysteries.

Worrals goes East by W E Johns

This is the latest in an occasional series of reviews of genuinely terrible Girls Own (or Girls Own-adjacent) books. Worrals was the female version of Biggles, in a very literal sense, and gets up to all sorts of adventures as a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. The last one of these I read, you could probably have swapped Worrals and Frecks names for Biggles and Ginger and it would have still made sense (or as much sense as these make) and as that one was set in occupied France, there was just the usual anti Nazi stuff rather than actual racism. You know where I’m going with this don’t you? This one at least has a plot that could only be carried out by women, but that’s because it’s set in Syria and Iraq and, yeah. I suggest you don’t read it!

That’s your lot this month – happy Humpday!

book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: August Quick Reviews

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Another mixed bag of quick reviews this month – but fairly on brand for my August – something Girls Own, some modern crime and some classic crime!

The Swish of the Curtain by Pamela Brown

This is the story of seven children from three different families who band together to start a theatre company in an abandoned chapel in their home town. Across the course of the book they grow in confidence and reputation to the point where they enter an acting competition against other amateur groups in their town. Children’s books featuring the theatre world are among some of my favourites (the Drina series, Sadlers Wells series and of course Ballet Shoes) so I was excited to read this. And although it’s a bit slow to get going, and may be a bit too long (although it does cover a two year period so maybe the length is understandable) but actually once it got to the final phase of the children trying to prove to their parents that they should be allowed to pursue careers on the stage it was much better. Probably not one that I’ll read again, but I’m glad I read it.

Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmire*

What happens when a hard-bitten LA cop and a little old lady who solves murders in her small village collide? Well, a completely brain fuddling murder mystery that’s what – and I mean that in a good way. The Cracked Mirror of the title is a screenplay, which seems to have lead to several deaths, which the authorities think are suicides, but Johnny Hawke and Penny Coyne are not convinced and end up investigating their separate cases – which soon collide. And lots of other things are colliding in this too – it’s really hard to explain without giving too much away, but I did enjoy it, once I had time and brain space to concentrate on it so that I could follow what was going on. But it is definitely not a straight-down-the-line crime or mystery novel and I know the blurb says that, but I really cannot emphasise that enough.

Death and the Maiden by Gladys Mitchell

Given how much I enjoy the other Queens of Crime, every now and again I acquire some more Mrs Bradley books and try again in the hope that I just haven’t found the right one to unlock the series for me yet, and every time it’s the same problem. They’re just so hard going compared to the others. The TV version clearly seduced me!

Happy Humpday!

Book previews, book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Summer of Sequels

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Something slightly different for this week’s recommendsday, because it’s a bit of a preview type thing. There are a lot of books coming out this summer that are sequels to books that I’ve really enjoyed, and per my rules, I probably won’t be able to review them, because: spoilers. So today I thought I’d flag them now – while I’m still excited about them and before any of them have the chance to disappoint me)!

First of all, and all ready in the shops, is Displeasure Island by Alice Bell, a follow up to last year’s Grave Expectations. I was hoping for a sequel to that – but for some reason this one had gone completely under my radar until I spotted it in the airport bookshop the other weekend! It came out at the start of May, and sees Claire and her friends off on holiday on a remote Irish island, where the hotel is double booked, there are fighting ghost pirates and – per the blurb – Claire is fighting off “anxious And Then There Were None vibes” even before a murder. This sounds like a lot of fun and I’m probably going to end up picking it up at some point.

Out yesterday in the US and who knows when in the UK is The Guncle Abroad, the sequel to Steven Rowley’s The Guncle, which I loved when I read it and started me off on buying all of Rowley’s books (except Lily and the Octopus because I think that’s going to be way too sad). The sequel finds us rejoining Patrick as he heads to a family wedding in Italy, in a very different place professionally from where he was at the start of the first book. He’s also nearly fifty, and out of favour with the kids, who a struggling to adapt to their new normal.

Next up, and out in a couple of weeks is How to Solve Murders Like a Lady by Hannah Dolby. This is a second book featuring Violet Hamilton, after last summer’s No Life for a Lady. This finds Violet hard at work as a lady detective, but when the body of a woman is found on the beach, her efforts to investigate are thwarted at every turn for some reason. The first in this series has been consistently in Kindle Unlimited for the last few months, so it may be that this one is too at some point in the near future.

And of course there are lots of longer running series that have fresh books out this summer, but I’m sticking to the actual sequels today, so that’s your lot.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

book round-ups, books

Recommendsday: February Kindle offers

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It’s the second Wednesday of the month so that means it’s kindle offer day and it’s a bumper crop this week.

First up, it was only was BotW a couple of weeks ago – but now Capote’s Women is 99p to coincide with the TV series that we still can’t stream over here. Not that I’m bitter about that. Also in the former BotW stakes, just from varying degrees of time ago are another few 99p deals: Ashley Poston‘s The Seven Year Slip, Annabel Monaghan’s Nora Goes off Script and Jenny Jackson’s Pineapple Street which is a great rich people problems novel and I think is on offer to coincide with its paperback release I think.

I read The Vanishing Half a lot longer ago than the rest, but it’s really good and stuck with me – it’s 99p too. 99p. Lissa Evans’s Old Baggage which is chronologically the first in her trilogy of related books (even if it was the last one published) is 99p and I really, really loved it.

In books I own but haven’t read (yet), Curtis Sittenfeld’s The Man of my Dreams is 99p as is Love in the Time of Serial Killers is 99p. And I already mentioned this offer, but The Breakup Tour is 99p this month, if you haven’t already had enough Taylor Swift in the aftermath of the Super Bowl (congrats Tayvis). In the related category of TV series I have watched but haven’t read the books of, Graham Norton’s Holding that the TV series was based on is 99p.

The Shadows of London, which is sixth in the Restoration mystery series about James Marwood and Cat Lovett is 99p – I’ve read this one and a couple of others in the series but with some gaps – so I can vouch for the fact you don’t need to have read all of them for it to make sense, and in fact if you don’t like on page sexual violence, you should probably avoid the first book in the series completely.

In series watch, this month’s cheap Terry Pratchetts are Night Watch at £1.99 and in his non-Discworld stuff The Long War from the Long Earth Trillogy he wrote with Stephen Baxter is 99p: The Georgette Heyer is Unknown Ajax is 99p as is the Bridgerton adjacent The Sum of All Kisses by Julia Quinn. And in Peter Wimsey it’s the second Peter and Harriet book Have His Carcase which is 99p – one of my favourites as you know, featuring the death of a dancer at a large coastal hotel. It’s actually better to read than listen to, on account of a section of code breaking that is really just a string of letters read out loud as an audiobook!

And that’s your lot – it’s a potentially expensive post depending on your reading tastes – I got off quite lightly writing it but I did also get four or five samples while I was writing this so I may yet regret saying that!

Happy Reading!

book round-ups, books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: 50 States Mop-up

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For today’s Recommendsday I’m taking the opportunity to talk about a couple of books from last years read the USA that I hadnt got to yet!

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

This is the story of an aviatrix in the first half of the twentieth century but intercut with the story of the Hollywood actress who is playing her in a biopic. Given my reputation with award winning bond, it may not surprise you that this was a slog for the first half. It has took me literal months to read this despite having bought it on Kindle to try and get it finished because I wasn’t prepared to lug the paperback around everywhere with me. The early stages of Marion’s story are so depressing and such hard work it made it hard for me to spend too much time with it at once. But once we got to the Second World War it really came alive and I read the last couple of hundred pages in a few days and the end was more satisfying than I had feared it would be.

Wild Dances by William Lee Adams

So this one is a little unusual because I know the author. William is one of the preeminent Eurovision bloggers but also someone u work with in my day job. This is his memoir about growing up in Georgia with a profoundly disabled mother and an undiagnosed bipolar mother, and that’s only the half of it. William discovered learning as his escape and it took him to Harvard and then eventually to the UK. It is a brilliantly written and almost heartbreaking in places, but I know that because I know William I might be biased. Anyway, even though it’s sold as how Eurovision helped him, it’s actually about much more than that, and if you know him as a Eurovision figure, don’t go into this expecting lots of ESC info because it’s mostly about William and his life from childhood onwards.

When in Rome by Sarah Adams

This is another famous person and normal person romance – in this case a slightly Taylor Swift- y popstar and a small town baker. This was my first Sarah Adams and I quite liked it although it was more New Adult than I was expecting I think, but I can’t quite put my finger on why. I liked the small town vibe, I liked famous people and normal people romances (go read Nora Goes Off Script if you haven’t already, it’s wonderful) and I liked the twist of it being the heroine that’s famous and the guy that’s normal. But something just didn’t click to tip it over into great for me. Hey ho.

And there you are, three more books and we’re done. If I was going to put links to all the other books from Fiftyt States that I’ve already talked about I’ve been linking all day, so I’m just going to point you at the wrap up post which had them all there’s for you already.

Happy Reading!

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 round-ups, books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: My summer holiday reading

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So as I mentioned in the Week in Books post, we’ve been on holiday, and although I’ve already told you about We Could Be So Good , The Lost Summers of Newport and The Mysterious Mr Badman, but I have a couple more reviews from my holiday week of reading. You’re welcome. And by a weird quirk, they’re all murder mysteries of various types. Who knew.

Lets start off with The Sea Breeze by S J T Riley. This came out last year and is a murder mystery set in 1950s Devon. A crime reporter at a London paper receives a call from an old friend after a boat is found abandoned in the harbour with one crew member dead and others missing. When he arrives in town, he finds his friend is missing and the locals are closing ranks against him. But that’s not going to stop him investigating. This throws you in without a lot of explanation and the pacing is a little spotty at times, but it’s a pretty well-executed murder mystery that will appeal to you if you like things like the BLCC titles that are set at sea (or near the sea).

Next up is A Death in the Parish, which is the second historical mystery from Reverend Richard Coles. I said that I would get to it didn’t I! I read the first Canon Clement book last year and I enjoyed that one, but this one definitely feels like he’s settling into writing cozy historical crime books. He’s established his late-1980s rural set up in the first one and in this one he gets to flesh out the characters and the world and show the aftermath of the events of the first one. And if you haven’t read the first one, this one will spoil the murderer in that – so that’s worth bearing in mind if you’re thinking of going in fresh to the series with this. But the mystery is good – and the clash between Daniel’s style of ministry and that of the vicar in the neighbouring parish is good, especially if you have ever been involved in a parish church and the various different factions that you get in one. There is a third one coming – and I thought I knew where some of the running strands were heading towards the end of the book, only for it to surprise me at the last so I’m looking forward to seeing where this is going to go next.

And finally and less successfully my latest attempt to try and find another mystery-thriller type series in the vein of things like Janet Evanovich’s Steph Plum or Carl Hiassen was Cultured by D P Lyle – which mentions both of those authors in its blurn. This is the sixth in a series (but it’s very clear that you can read them standalone) about a retired professional baseball player whose PI father gets him involved in investigations. In Cultured, he’s asked to try and infiltrate a self-improvement programme by an anxious mum after her daughter who was working there disappears. Is The Lindemann Method a scam? A Cult? A front for something else? Jake and his girlfriend Nicole are going to find out. This had all the elements that I wanted in the blurb, but just didn’t really work for me. It doesn’t really have the humour of Evanovich or Hiassen and Jake doesn’t have enough personality to carry a book. Add to that a lot of focus on how attractive the various women are, some unexpected changes of Point of View and pacing that means it doesn’t quite flow and it didn’t really work for me. Never mind.

That’s your lot for today, but there are a couple more things that I read on holiday that I suspect will pop up on here in the future – but I’m going to leave you guessing as to what they are!

Happy reading!