So I’ve read another couple of books in the Fetherings series recently, and it’s another series that’s really easy to read at this time of year – small town murder mysteries at the seaside make for perfect autumnal reading somehow. So this is another Simon Brett series – and has the same sort of humour and murder mix that you get in Charles Paris and Mrs Pargeter but this time with a duo at the centre in neighbours Carole and Jude and their contrasting personalities. I’m about a dozen into the series now and the setting are still pretty varied but with enough call backs to previous books and developments to make them fun if you’re binging, but not so many that you can’t just pick them up and carry on.
They’re also very bingeable – so if you can get hold of them it’s very easy to run through them at speed, but they do sometimes have a bit of a price issue – I can read them in a couple of hours and that effects how much I’m willing to pay!
We’re really into the run in to Christmas now and new releases are getting a little thin, so I was surprised to see that the sequel to Nita Prose’s buzzy hit The Maid was coming out in the US this week, but it is – although if you’re in the UK you have to wait until January. In The Mystery Guest, Molly is now head maid at the Regency Grand, but murder comes back into her life again when a famous author drops dead in his hotel suite and the hotel staff comes under suspicion. When I read The Maid last year, I thought that Molly was an interesting narrator, where the reader can see things that she doesn’t, and I was relieved when she was still the same person at the end of the book (if that makes sense), so I’ll be interested to see if that can translate into a sequel. The Maid got a really wide release, so I suspect this one will be easy to find if you want it.
It’s turned terribly cold here this week. The car is frozen in the mornings when I head for the station and I’ve caved in and cracked out the big coat. So today my recommendations are books ideal for reading while wrapped in a blanket, maybe in front of a fire, ignoring the cold outside.
Is it cheating to start with Murder on the Orient Express? Because the train literally gets stuck in a snow drift on the night of the murder. It’s also one of my all time favourite murder mysteries for reasons that I can’t explain without spoiling the plot. And I know it’s nearly ninety years old and if you’ve only read one Agatha Christie it’s probably this one, but it’s so clever I don’t want to ruin it for any first timers even now!
A similar sort of age but completely different, Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca is creepy and atmospheric and for some reason just feels like a book to read as the nights are closing in and it gets dark early. Be grateful you don’t have a creepy house keeper watching your every move as the second Mrs de Winter discovers a few things her new husband hasn’t told her about.
And now for something much more recent, and a former Book of the Week back in 2019. Evvie Drake Starts Over was Linda Holmes’ debut novel and features a widowed older heroine and an injured baseball player in Maine. They have actual conversations, they seem to like each other and it’s just a big warm hug, despite the death in the backstory. Also a romance, but a very different end of the gene, I want to give a mention to Nora Roberts – I know sinner people like romantic suspense at this time of year, but I’m never a big romantic suspense reader, so I’m going for a straight up romance and The Next Always which features a heroine with kids, a bookstore and a possibly haunted hotel. Perfect for a rainy day and if you like it, it’s the first in the Inn at Boonsboro trilogy.
Now I know it has its issues, but there aren’t many books that have transported me to a world like Memoirs of a Geisha did. Arthur Golden’s novel is about the life of a young woman in Kyoto in the run up to the Second World War as she trains to become a Geisha. It’s much better than the movie was. I promise. Just writing this has made me want to read it again. And that’s your lot, i hope there’s something that appeals to you.
Ok, so this is a slight cheat because I finished it Monday, but I know you’ll let me off, it’s been a long year and I’m only making myself problems for next week by doing this.
So as I said in my release day post, this is Alexa Martin’s latest book and it’s an enemies to lovers romance. Collins is back in her childhood bedroom after her professional life fell apart. On a trip to the coffee shop she runs into Nathaniel – her nemesis for years of high school. And it seems like nothing has changed – she’s still annoying him and he’s definitely still annoying her. And that’s how Collins ends up running against him to become president of the HOA of the subdivision she swore she would never come back to. Because they really, really hate each other – right?
I’ve already told you this is a romance, so you know they’re not going to hate each other by the end, and once you get past some pranking and mean behaviour towards each other (and you know I have a problems with pranks) it’s really good. I was a little worried about what the backstory was going to turn out to be on Collins and Nate in high school and how that could lead to a satisfying resolution but it actually worked really well in the end, for reasons that I can’t explain without it being a massive plot spoiler and you know I don’t do those.
I’ve been on a big old run of enemies to lovers contemporaries recently, and this is another good one to add to the list. I’m a Brit so Home Owners Associations are really not a thing here and only know them through books and home renovation shows when they are sucking their teeth about the HOA demanding they paint the house one of three colours or have dues that might affect whether buyers will go for a property, but I did really like the community that Collins is living in and her family are fun too.
I had my copy pre-ordered, so it’s out now in Kindle and Kobo and audiobook and paperback, although the price on Amazon suggests that it may be a US import rather than a UK version.
Given that I went out three evenings last week – and had a busy weekend, I’m surprised the list is as long as it is! Anyway a fairly mystery heavy week of what there was. There’s less theatre and more train time this week, so we’ll see what that means for next week’s list!
It’s forty years today (24th November) since the very first Discworld book, The Colour of Magic was picked so for today’s Friday series post returning to one of my absolute all time favourites.
✨️ 40 years of Discworld magic ✨️
Four decades ago, on November 24th 1983, Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic published.
One day doesn't seem quite enough to celebrate, does it? So, today marks the start of our Year of Discworld.
So I will admit that the early books of the series aren’t my favourites . Yes, I’ve reread them all, but I haven’t gone back to the first few any where near as many times as I have say, Going Postal or Guards, Guards. And if you’ve never read them, I do of course have a post for that – go and read my Where to Start with Discworld post. But that first book does introduce Rincewind, the incompetent “wizzard”, and the most famous trunk in literature, the Luggage. And although the social satire develops over the series, it’s here in embryonic form, as Twoflower introduces in-sewer-ants to Ankh Morpork, shortly followed by the first case of insurance fraud!
40 years ago our world changed when it met the Discworld. In the beginning there was the word… How many countless unsuspecting eyes have scanned these immortal lines, unaware of the journey to come? Thank you, Terry, for making this world a better place by giving it your own. pic.twitter.com/5AlogCAzDx
Book Four, Mort, is where I think it all kicks into gear as death and his white horse ride into the picture and in book six it’s the arrival of the witches and Granny Weatherwax. I’ve said before that the city-based and later books are my favourites, but really I find it hard to chose because they’re all old friends.
Back in the day, my sister and I used to fight to be the one who bought dad the new Discworld book for his Christmas book, and then we’d often read if before he did once it was unwrapped. And although it’s eight years since Sir Terry died, we have some new Discworld content this Christmas, because his daughter Rhianna and Gabrielle Kent have written Tiffany Aching’s Guide to being a Witch, which I haven’t seen yet but which I will probably buy at some point soon because I know what I’m like! Tiffany and the Wee Free Men were one of the brilliant final gifts Athert end of the series, and I’m interested to see what Rhianna has done with it all.
But basically the message of this is go read some Discworld, please and thank you!
This isn’t out until next week, but I really enjoyed it when I read it a couple of months back, and next week has a couple of books out, so I’m talking about it now, when you still might have time to pre-order a copy or ask your local comic book store to get you a copy. As you know I love a regency romance and I love a graphic novel, so this was pretty much ideal for me. It’s a Regency-set graphic novel that opens with a marriage of convenience (so much my jam) between Catherine, who has reputedly lost her virtue, and Andrew, who needs to marry a woman with a dowry for money to help fix the many problems on his estate. This is a delightful way to help fill in some time before the next series of Bridgerton hits our screens – or would serve as an introduction to graphic novels for people who have enjoyed the TV show (or in fact reading historical romance novels) but who haven’t previously consumed graphic novels. There’s no high peril – just two people in less than ideal situation and are now stuck with each other, but who work out that actually they might be the right fit for each other after all. What I also liked about this was that it left space for some of the secondary characters to get a bit of prominence, although I would maybe have liked a little bit more background to the main characters instead of one of the subplots. But I really liked the art and the whole feel of this. It’s quite open door though – like Bridgerton on TV – so go in aware of that. I would happily read more!
I was going to call this Thanksgiving books, but that’s actually not what this is about. It’s Thanksgiving in the US tomorrow, so today I’m talking about books that feature it somehow, somewhere. And not gonna lie, it was harder than I was expecting, but I did find some more books to read while I was writing this!
Steven Rowley’s The Editor featured in my Kennedy-adjacent books post – which means I should probably mention that today is also sixty years since JFK was assassinated in Dallas – and in it, when James is struggling to get the ending right, his editor – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis suggests needs to spend more time with his mother, and that sends him home for Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, in Casey McQuiston’s Red, White and Royal Blue, the traditional Turkey pardoning ceremony plays a key role in the early stages of the romance between first son Alex and his royal crush Prince Henry.
Jackie Wong’s A Match Made for Thanksgiving is set at Canadian Thanksgiving which was a couple of weeks ago, but I’m not letting that stop me including it here! Any way our hero is Nick, whose parents and grandparents have invited blind dates for him and his siblings, and his brother’s date turns to be Nick’s latest one-night stand, Lily, who he just can’t get out of his head… I loved the nicking meddling family in this and, total bonus, it’s the first in a series of linked novellas.
Now I was convinced that I’d read loads of Thanksgiving-set cozy crimes, but when it came down to it, I really struggled to find them in my book lists but there is a Thanksgiving book in Kathi Daley’s Tj Jenson series. I haven’t read Thanksgiving in Paradise, which is the tenth and final book in the series, but I have read seven of the others, so I’m going to take a chance in it! Daley also has Thanksgiving books in her other series, but I haven’t read any of them to vouch for the series or the specific books! Likewise Leslie Meier also has a couple of thanksgiving books in her Lucy Stone series, but I’ve had a patchy record with them.
And that’s your lot! There isn’t a Thanksgiving Meg Langslow (yet!) – no matter how convinced I was that there was, but maybe I can wish it into being? I leave you with my favourite ever Thanksgiving content from the brilliant Addams Family Values:
Back to historical romance this week – and this one isn’t actually out until next week, but I’ve already finished it, so I’m going with it today – sorry and all but you can at least preorder it if you like the sound of it.
Silver Lady is the first in a new series from Mary Jo Putney and is set in a lightly magical version of Regency Britain where some people are “gifted” – which means they have special skills that border on magic. Bran Tremayne is one of this – his powers of perception have made him an excellent investigator for the Home Office. But he finds himself drawn to Cornwall, where he was born before he was abandoned by his birth parents. When he is there he meets a mysterious woman who has had her memories suppressed. As she recovers her memories in his care, Bran discovers that Merryn is at the centre of a dangerous plot – can they survive the danger to get to a happy ending?
I mean it’s a romance novel, so I think you know the answer to that, but this is a fun read – it’s got some peril and adventure and the world building is pretty good – the “dangerous gifts” of the title are explained very well and naturally as part of the plot of the book . I’m not usually a lover of amnesia storylines, but this one makes sense within the framework that you’re given for the world and Merryn is less of a damsel in distress than I was expecting her to be. I’ve had a bit of a mixed record with Putney before, but I enjoyed this and will look out for the sequels when they come along.
Silver Lady is out next week – you can preorder it on Kindle and Kobo and if you’re in the US you should be able to get a paperback too.
Well, two nights at the theatre meant less time for reading, but I did finish a couple of things off and there’s an audiobook on there too as well as a comic, but actually it all worked out ok and I even think I have something to write about tomorrow!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 