Category: books

books

Series Redux: Cupcake Bakery

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Amidst all the romance releases last week, the sixteenth (!!!) in Jenn McKinlay’s Cupcake Bakery series also emerged into the world. I’m still a few books behind – I still haven’t spotted number 14 in the bookstores that stock cozy crime, Amazon wants more than £11 for it in paperback (which is mad) and it’s not on kindle in the UK so I’ll have to wait. But this is my favourite of McKinlay’s series and the one where I think there’s the most potential for different locations for the characters to find bodies – particularly now they’re franchising the bakery. Although given how many bodies they find, would you want to franchise with them?! Anyway, go read my original series post about them and I’ll go off and chunter in a corner about the cost of US cozy crime mass market paperbacks in the UK!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: June 3 – June 9

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Well that was a week. I’m trying to get ahead on my summer reading so I can recommend some of them but there’s just so much good stuff. And yes I did buy the final Maisie Dobbs, on release day, in hardback – but I am trying to pace myself with it so it’s not over too soon. And given that it is a hardback and I don’t want to wreck it, that may be easier than if I had bought the kindle version!

Read:

Grilled Cheese Murder by Patti Benning

Chicken Pesto Murder by Patti Benning

The Fashion in Shrouds by Margery Allingham

Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan

A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie

Truly, Madly, Deeply by Alexandria Bellefleur

The Body in the Bookstore by Ellie Alexander*

The 4.50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie

Rebel by Beverly Jenkins

A Telegram from Le Touqet by John Bude

Started:

The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear

One Last Summer by Kate Spencer*

The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin

Still reading:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Three book-books bought, one ebook, two preorders arrived – one ebook and one actual book.

Bonus picture: Virginia Water on Saturday looking so quintessentially English countryside it almost hurts!

*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, bookshops

Books in the Wild: Works summer update

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I wasn’t going to do this this week but then I went into my local The Works and they had a tonne of summer books and I though that I had to flag it to you all so you can get your holiday/vacation purchasing underway.

This is the new book section – and there’s a few that aren’t my thing but there’s the new Emily Henry, some of the big memoirs from Christmas at a bargain price (now coming out in paperback which is presumably why) the paperback of Yellowface, some TV tie-ins and cook books.

Let’s start by saying that if it wasn’t for NetGalley, pre-orders and airport purchasing, I would have spent a tonne of money because they have such good stuff at the moment. There’s the new Olivia Dade, the Tessa Bailey I bought on the way to Manila, Elle Kennedy, the new Amy Lea, and so many of the current New Adult favourites.

This is the slightly older but still not old enough to be in the 3 for £6 selection – all the Richard Osmans, Lessons in Chemistry, The Maid, the first Megan Clawson (the new one is in the first photo), Beth O’Leary and a tonne of sagas and crimes that are too much for me!

This shelf was where I learned that there are now three Finlay Donovan books! And I still haven’t read the first one. There’s a tonne of magic, sports romance, murder mystery and paranormal. Basically there are books for you in all the key genres that are trending at the moment no matter what sort of budget you’re working on. As long as you don’t read as many books as I do. For once I managed to resist purchasing, but that’s only because I was heading to buy a stack of books to give as a gift and couldn’t carry any more!

Have a great Saturday everyone

books

Out this week: Final Maisie Dobbs book

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Fitzroy Square (location of Maisie’s office) in the sunshine

It pains me to say this, but the final Maisie Dobbs book has hit the stores this week. We know it’s the last one because Jacqueline Winspear has told us it is – in her newsletter and in the blurb for the book. We’ve reached the end of the Second World War and Maisie is looking to the future, so it does seem like a good point to end because the world is about to change, but that doesn’t stop be being sad about it. I’ve loved following Maisie’s life over seventeen books so far, there has been triumph but also quite a lot of tragedy and I’m hoping that book 18 sends her out to a bright new (happy) future. I’m hoping that this doesn’t mean that Jacqueline Winspear is stopping writing – although obviously I’ll live with it if she is retiring – but I’m holding on to the fact that she put out a standalone mystery last year, and that maybe she’s got a new idea that she wants to explore.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: May 27 – June 2

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I’m hoping I’m getting into my summer reading stride. Of course it could all go terribly wrong – and it frequently has in the past – but I’m choosing to be optimistic. I think the weird and unpredictable weather has helped with this, because when it’s not sunny outside it’s nice to read summer-y books to hope that the nice (but hopefully not too boiling) weather is coming soon.

Read:

The Case of the Late Pig by Margery Allingham

The Love of My Afterlife by Kirsty Greenwood*

The Winner Bakes it All by Jeevani Charika*

Dancers in Mourning by Margery Allingham

Corned Beef Murder by Patti Benning

Cold Cut Murder by Patti Benning

Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell

A Scream in Soho by John G Brandon

Started:

Rebel by Beverly Jenkins

Truly, Madly, Deeply by Alexandria Bellefleur

Still reading:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

One book bought

Bonus picture: Summer statues near St Paul’s last week, in a rare moment when they weren’t being climbed on by happy children!

*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, stats

May Stats

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Books read this month: 31*

New books: 22

Re-reads: 9 (all audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 2

NetGalley books read: 3

Kindle Unlimited read: 14

Ebooks: 3

Audiobooks: 9

Non-fiction books: 0

Favourite book this month: really hard to pick between Mona of the Manor, You Should Be So Lucky and The Winner Bakes It All

Most read author: Margery Allingham because of the ebooks

Books bought: 5 books and 6 ebooks and one preorder

Books read in 2024: 171

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 740

I’m going to call this the month of Kindle Unlimited, because it’s true really. I’ve read so much from there this month for various reasons, but it’s really justified its subscription price.

Bonus picture: another Lagos picture. Not that you can really tell!

*includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – including 8 this month!

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: The Reunion

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As I said yesterday, it was a busy week last week, but I did have time to finish The Reunion – which I started before the Lagos trip, but couldn’t take with me because I was too far through to make it worth it. And given how much I enjoyed it, it was an obvious choice for today’s pick.

Liv is an actress working in LA. As a teenager, she was star of a wildly popular TV show – Girl on the Verge – and she spent a lot of her teenage years having to live up to and in the shadow of her character on the show. Now it’s twenty years since the show’s premiere and a streaming service is getting the original cast back together for a reunion episode. The fans are excited to see some unfinished business from the original finale resolved, but for Liv, it’s about seeing Ransom Joel again. He was her character’s love interest on the show – and her best friend and confidante in real life. But as the show ended he told her he needed space from her and left her reeling. Once they’re back on set together, they fall back into their old habits – but can this time have a different ending?

If you watched any of the WB shows back in the day, you’ll understand what this is trying to evoke – and there have been enough old tv shows getting reunions like this since the advent of the streaming services that it all feels pretty plausible. I was a teenager in the heyday of these sorts of series so I was a total sucker for the premise of this, but The Reunion has the worrying words “a novel” on the front – which can sometimes mean “we’ve written a blurb that suggests it’s a romance novel, but don’t get your hopes up for a happy ending” so I was slightly apprehensive going into this. But I think in this case, “a novel” is warning you more that this is about Liv and how she grows and develops as much as it is about her relationship with Ransom. There is not a lot of tension in their relationship – and when there was an issue, I had the culprit pegged pretty fast. But I still enjoyed it – I’m at a place at the moment where I don’t really want high angst and drama in my reading, so a meander through the life of an actress and a reunion of a show that reminded me a lot of the sort of thing that I used to watch was pretty perfect for me at the moment.

This looks like Kayla Olsen’s first book in this sort of area – I see some dystopian future type stuff on her good reads page, but nothing else giving these sorts of vibes – so I hope she does more because this was a really nice way to spend a few hours. My copy of The Reunion came from Foyles (in store, although they claim to have no click and collect copies at the moment), but it’s also on Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: May 20 – May 26

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So it turns out that despite there being no time difference between Nigeria and the UK, it can still make you exhausted. To be honest, I think it was the night flight home that was the big problem – and then I had (another) super busy week on top. Hopefully this week will be calmer/better/easier!

Read:

Lips Like Sugar by Jess K Hardy

Sweet Danger by Margery Allingham

Death of a Ghost by Margery Allingham

An Assassination on the Agenda by T E Kinsey

The Reunion by Kayla Olsen

Flowers for the Judge by Margery Allingham

Pastrami Murder by Patti Benning

Started:

The Love of My Afterlife by Kirsty Greenwood*

Still reading:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Hold on to your hats: No books bought! Frankly I’m as amazed as you are.

Bonus picture: The Mall on Sunday late afternoon – where the Ride London event had been taking place.

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

book related, books, bookshops

Books in the Wild: Heathrow Terminal 5

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You all knew this was coming once you saw I’d been to Lagos didn’t you? I don’t go to Heathrow very often – it’s not the most convenient airport for us for where we live if we’re sorting our own holiday out, and package holidays don’t tend to leave from there if we’re doing that. So I was excited to get a look at what Heathrow had to offer. And then it turned out that what Terminal 5 had to offer was disappointing. At least at the end of the terminal we were at before we had to hustle off down to our gate.

So in the interests of completeness, these are the new book options they had – everything else was backlist or magazines, and we all know that’s not what I’m there for. So this is the paperback selection – where you can see that a lot of the last year’s big hardback releases – including stuff I liked like Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and the fourth Thursday Murder Club – are not out in paperback and near the top of the charts.

That theme continues on the second paperback case – with last year’s Emily Henry, Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy and Monica Heiny in there, along with the tie-in edition of Romancing Mr Bridgerton and This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune, which I would have bought if I hadn’t already just bought the Kindle edition because it was on offer.

On to the airport exclusives, and you will see that I am already doing pretty well on the, – and a lot of the stuff that I would have bought, I already have. Like this year’s Emily Henry and the new Anthony Horowitz. This was the point where I started panicking that I wasn’t going to find anything I wanted, and I hadn’t brought a paperback with me. Not that it would turn out to matter, as I didn’t have a lot of reading time, and the time I did have I spent on the Kindle. But I didn’t know that at that point!

And this photo is awful, but there wasn’t a very wide aisle and I was crammed in and this is the best I could do. But this is the point where I heaved a sigh of relief, because The Ministry of Time was the book I was hoping to find at the airport – it’s the buzzy book of this summer and I think it has the potential to be this year’s equivalent of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow if you know what I mean. So I snaffled that, and then had to figure out what else. And I did find another one for the offer – but I’m going to tease you and make you wait until the next Books Incoming to see what!

Have a great weekend everyone – enjoy the bank holiday if you have one where you are.

books, new releases, previews, romance

Bonus review: Fake Flame

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I read it in April and it’s been out in the US for about a month now, but Adele Buck’s new romance Fake Flame is out in the UK today, so I’m taking the opportunity to give you a little bonus review!

Fake Flame opens with a public proposal – of the most unwanted kind. University professor Eva’s ex-boyfriend has decided that the way to win her back after cheating on her is to serenade her in the middle of the quad. Eva disagrees and finds it deeply manipulative (she’s not wrong there!) and tries to set the piano on fire. Sean is one of the firefighters called to the scene and manages to talk her down. And soon he’s offering to be her fake boyfriend to keep the Awful Ex off her back. He’s hot and sweet – but he’s also younger than Eva – but there’s something about him that makes her agree. And soon they’re enjoying spending time together – but it can’t go anywhere can it?

This is the first in a new series from Adele Buck and it’s a lot of fun. It’s a reverse age-gap, fake relationship romance, with a smart heroine who knows what she’s looking for in life, and a hero who is pretty wise for his age, but needs to work a few things out. There’s not a huge amount of conflict between the two of them until quite late on, but I actually liked it more for that – and there’s other sources of conflict going on to keep the tension going. I think if you liked Cathy Yardley’s Role Playing, then this will hit some of the same spots for you. I basically inhaled it, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what the rest of the series brings. And if you haven’t read any Adele Buck before, may I point you at my post about her Centre Stage series, which I read last year.

My copy of Fake Flame came via NetGalley, but it’s out now in the UK as well as the US on Kindle and Kobo, and Waterstones is claiming to have the paperback too, which is exciting.

Happy Reading!