Category: books

Book of the Week, books, LGTBQIA+, romantic comedy

Book of the Week: 10 Things that Never Happened

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Today’s Book of the Week is actually out today – so it’s very apt and I’m sort of pleased with myself for the timing of my reading. Look, it’s the small things at the moment. I’ll take positives where I can find them.

Sam is the manager of a bed and bath store. His days are spent trying to pull the rest of the staff out of whatever disaster they’ve just caused. They need the jobs and he likes them. Trouble is, Jonathan, the owner of the chain has noticed that’s Sam’s store isn’t doing as well as the others so he sends for him to visit the head office in London. The trouble is, while Sam is there, there’s a little accident involving a shower enclosure and the next thing Sam knows he’s in hospital with concussion and he’s accidentally made Jonathan think he has amnesia. With no one to call to help, Sam ends up staying at Jonathan’s house and how on earth is he going to get out of this, especially as maybe Jonathan isn’t as bad as he thought he was…

So, amnesia-related storylines are not my favourite type of romance plots, but generally I have loved Alexis Hall’s contemporary romances, so I made a rare foray in to the trope to see what he would do with it. And it’s a lot of fun. It made me surprisingly emotional at times – and obviously faked amnesia is an easier sell for me than actual amnesia – although there are some issue still around how you un-fake the amnesia. It’s a grumpy-sunshine sort of thing, although I’m not sure we really got to understand enough of why Jonathan is the way he is – especially as he’s so mean to start off with – I wanted more of him being kinder. Also I wanted to know a bit more about Sam – but then when I did, I got what was going on there, and yes I know that’s a bit cryptic but it will make sense if you read it! I don’t think I love it as much as I loved Boyfriend Material, but it’s still a really, really good read and I will happily recommend it. In fact I already have, even before this post!

My copy came from NetGalley (praise the gods of books!) but as I said at the top it’s out today in Kindle, Kobo, audiobook and paperback – which Waterstones seem to have in stock across their Central London branches so I’m optimistic that you’ll be able to get a copy if you want one!

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 9 – October 15

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Well that was quite a week. I don’t really have much to say today, except that my reading mojo is a little bit awol at the moment but I’m working on trying to get it back.

Read:

Murder on the Lusitania by Edward Marston

10 Things that Never Happened by Alexis Hall*

Worralls on the War-Path by W E Johns

New Adult by Timothy Janovsky

Started:

Shot with Crimson by Nicola Upson*

The Magpie Lord by K J Charles

Still reading:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Animal, Vegetable, Criminal by Mary Roach

Sweet Mercies by Anne Booth

One book bought and that was a pre-order of part three of the Fangirl Manga that had arrived at the comic book store and I hadn’t had time to pick up until this weekend!

Bonus photo: a London skyline on Friday night.

*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

Books Incoming: Mid-October

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Quite a restrained month to be honest, I’m fairly impressed with myself. One charity shop buy, one second hand purchase, one vintage store pick and then the two airport purchases which are on a separate photo because I lent them out to my dad as soon as I got home! Will the restraint last? Hard to tell given that there’s a lot of good stuff coming out at the moment, but I will try!

books, Children's books, series

Children’s series: Wells and Wong

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The second book in Robin Stevens’ new series is out this week, so I’m taking the opportunity to talk about her Wells and Wong middle grade mystery series this Friday.

So Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells meet at Deepdean School for Girls in the 1930s. In the first book, Murder Most Unladylike, they’re desperate for adventure and form their own secret detective agency in the hope of excitement, but it’s all pretty boring until one of their teachers is found dead in the gym and they start to investigate. And then across the next nine books they keep stumbling across bodies and intrigue in a variety of settings inspired by the best Golden Age mysteries. It’s doing Agatha Christie crossed with Enid Blyton.

I read these as they came out – and various of them were reviewed here at the time. I think my favourites are First Class Murder (Daisy and Hazel do Murder on the Orient Express), A Spoonful of Murder (Hazel on getting home advantage over Daisy in Hong Kong) and Death in the Spotlight (Daisy and Hazel do an Inspector Alleyn theatre mystery) but the books are a lot of fun and I think if I’d read them at the right age (if you know what I mean) it would have been a delightful gateway to Agatha Christie and Peter Wimsey. As it was, I went straight to Miss Marple when I was about eleven and loved it right up until the point I scared myself! I’ve bought these as gifts for the middle graders in my life – and loaned them out to the middle graders in my work colleague’s lives (although I’m still not sure how I ended up with Jolly Foul Play in ebook *and* paperback!

By the end of the series, Daisy and Hazel are almost grownups and it gets a little bit melodramatic in the Death on the Nile Homage, but I forgave it because I had enjoyed the series so much – and it was also setting up the Ministry of Unladylike Activity series, which you can also see in the picture above, where the new main character is Hazel’s little sister May.

I’ve read both of the new series too – which are World War Two-set spy adventures. I liked the first one better than the second but I think the premise of the new series is fundamentally a little harder for an adult to get on board with than the first series is. But if you are looking for a Christmas book for an older primary age child this Christmas (and they’ve already read Wells and Wong) they would be a safe bet. And they have cameos from Daisy and Hazel too.

You should be able to get these basically anywhere with a children’s section because they’ve been hugely successful – and the ebooks go on offer from time to time too.

Have a great weekend!

Book previews, books

Out this week… Christmas Meg Langslow

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Last week it was the Christmas memoirs starting to appear, now it’s the Christmas-themed novels. And how could I not mention that the new Meg Langslow has arrived this week. Birder, She Wrote was a great title, but I think Let It Crow! Let It Crow! Let It Crow! may be the best Christmas-themed pun of the year. Anyway, everyone’s favourite blacksmith, mum and super-organiser and her family are back and it’s promising actual weapon forging as well as the return of Faulk and Ragnar. I’m really looking forward to reading it. Also book 35 has a title now too – Between a Flock and a Hard Place. Honestly I don’t know who comes up with Donna Andrews’s titles – Donna or her team – but I salute whoever it is.

Enjoy!

books, books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: October Kindle Offers

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It’s the second Wednesday of the month, so it’s Kindle offer day, but it’s also an Amazon promo event at the moment, so apologies in advance if there are a few deals in here that don’t last long.

But I’m starting this list the way I started the month – by buying Sarah MacLean’s latest book, Knockout, which is 99p on kindle. These don’t go on offer often, so grab it while you can. There are a few other historical romances on offer too – Just Like Heaven and The Lost Duke of Wyndham by Julia Quinn as well as Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer. In contemporary romances, there is former BotW The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood and an older Katie Fforde – Wild Designs – and Trisha Ashley – Wish Upon a Star – that are 99p

Lets move on to mysteries of various types and there is Death comes to Marlow by Robert Thoroughgood, for 99p, which is the same price as latest HM The Queen mystery Murder Most Royal. In classic crime, The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham is on offer if you want a hit of Albert Campion. The very dodgy looking Peter Wimsey editions continue, but the 99p good edition is one of my favourites – Strong Poison.

Moving on to stuff in other categories, About Time in Jodi Taylor’s Time Police series is on offer for 99p, as is The Rosie Project by Graham Simsion and The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatio Sanchez by Patterson Joseph. There’s a couple of non fiction books worth a look – including Lucy Worsley’s Agatha Christie biography and Hello World by Hannah Fry

And finally it’s about to turn 20, so maybe that’s why The Wee Free Men is 99p – it’s the first of Terry Pratchett‘s four Tiffany Aching books, which are childrens books in the Discworld and I love them, even if I’ve never been able to reread the last one, which was also Terry Pratchett’s final book. As a bonus Carpe Jugulum from the adult bit is £1.99.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: Three Times a Countess

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A non-fiction pick again this week, after a bit of a mixed week, where as I said I got side tracked by re-reading some Mrs Pargeter!

Tina Gaudoin’s book is looking at the life of Raine, Countess Spencer. Now if you’ve heard of her it’s probably because she was Princess Diana’s stepmother, but she was also the daughter of romantic novelist Barbara Cartland, a debutant of the year and had a career in politics as well as. I’m a Northamptonshire girl, so Althorp the ancestral home of the Spencer’s is just down the road from me and so I knew a bit more. The stories about the changes/renovations she made to the house have lingered, as has the fact that her Spencer step children called her Acid Raine. But that’s about it. So I picked this up to find out a bit more and see what the rest of the story was behind this.

And I now know a lot more about it all. It’s a really interesting life and a much more purposeful one than I was aware of. But this book is also so positive about her which is obviously the opposite of the stories that I had heard previously. And (again as a Northampton local) I spotted a couple of little errors that should have been picked up in fact checking. So now I want to go and find some more stuff about Raine to try and work out whether Raine’s legendary people skills have managed to seduce Gaudoin from beyond the grave in the research of this!

But it’s very readable – and that’s why I’m writing about it today. I read the whole thing in about four days – which is fast for me for a non fiction paperback when I’m not on holiday (because I don’t take physical books on my commute anymore now I’m schlepping a laptop around with me the whole time) and I’m now going to lend it to my mum who is much better on the local history than I am and will undoubtedly have a view on it all.

I hadn’t heard of this until I spotted it in Waterstones that day when I had a spending spree in The Works, but it’s in Kindle and Kobo as well as in paperback. I’m not sure how easy it’ll be to find in the shops – I suspect Northampton Waterstones had it because of the local connection and I haven’t really looked for it elsewhere (I didn’t make it as far up Foyles as the history/biography section when I was in there last week!)

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 2 – October 8

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Did I get distracted midway through the week by rereading the first couple of Mrs Pargeter books? Absolutely. Do I regret it? Not really! I also had a bit of a weed of the to-read pile on Sunday evening unintentionally because everything I started I didn’t like. Still every little helps doesn’t it.

Read:

Deeds of the Disturber by Elizabeth Peters

Ministry of Unladylike Activity by Robin Stevens

The Body in the Blitz by Robin Stevens*

Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang

A Nice Class of Corpse by Simon Brett

Three Times a Countess by Tina Gaudoin

Mrs, Presumed Dead by Simon Brett

Started:

Sweet Mercies by Anne Booth

Still reading:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Animal, Vegetable, Criminal by Mary Roach

One ebook and one preorder.

Bonus photo: I do love a good stat milestone, even if I am still annoyed that I missed a day 900 days ago…

*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

Books in the Wild: Autumn releases

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As I mentioned on Thursday, we’ve hit the start of the Christmas book season, so I’ve been around Big Foyles (aka the Charing Cross Road branch) to take a look at the first batch of offerings.

I’m going to call this the celebrity memoir selection, even if they’re not all celeb memoirs! Anyway as well as the Patrick Stewart, we have another from Miriam Margoyles, plus Nick Frost, Timothy West, Kerry Washington, Joan Collins and Doon Mackichan. I may have flicked through the picture sections of several of these!

More celebrity memoirs or memoir adjacent books – Bernie Taupin is doing the talk shows this week promoting his, which was a surprise to me. I read Dylan Jones book about the New Romantics, so I’m sort of tempted by the Velvet Underground book, but realistically I know it would take me years to get to it!

Next up: Serious Non Fiction. the Helen Fry is the only one I might be interested in, so I include it just to prove it exists!

I’m including this one because it has the V E Schwab in the wild – it’s very, very chunky!

And finally in Foyles, have the Tech bro books (with added Rory Stewart). I’ve been trying to read not one but two articles about the Michael Lewis book, so really must try and finish them this weekend to see if I need to add it to my Christmas list, or maybe wait until Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial is over!

One last treat: On the way back to where I was staying, I went past the Tottenham Court Road Waterstones, and though they’re the same owners, it useful to see what they’re putting in the window of a smaller store – as a hint about what you might be able to pick up in the smaller shops – or even at the airport! Lots of the same suspects here but with the addition of David Mitchell’s history book, a bit of Peter Kay and Paris Fury. I did see the Michael Palin in Foyles (and I saw him in person the other day too, presumably on his way to do an interview on the press tour) it’s just not in my pictures!

Have a great Saturday everyone.

bingeable series, books, series

Mystery series: Mrs Pargeter

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This week I’m taking a look at Simon Brett’s Mrs Pargeter books as the ninth in the series is out this week. I read the new one a few weeks ago (thank you NetGalley!) and then went back and filled in all the others in the series that I hadn’t read already.

Mrs Melita Pargeter is a widow in her sixties, left in comfortable circumstances by her late husband who was engaged in business, although she never really enquired although he did leave her a very handy black book of contacts for his many friends and colleagues. Across the course of the series she makes generous use of this black book to help her solve the various mysteries that come her way – from a death in a private seaside hotel (definitely not a boarding house) to stolen paintings that need returning.

I’ve written about Brett’s Charles Paris series before, and this has the same sly sense of humour but with quite a different set of characters and vibe. Where Charles is borderline alcoholic (you could definitely debate the borderline depending on where in the series you are) and often stumbles across the right culprit in the process of trying to unmask a different one, Mrs Pargeter is shrewd and clever and plots very carefully. She’s also usually working at slightly parallel purposes to the police as her methods and ends do not necessarily fit in with what is legal!

The series is definitely best read in order – so you meet her regular friends but also because they’ve been written across about thirty years so time gets a little blurry and a few details have adapted or adjusted somewhat over the years! I think you would notice that more if you read them back to back, but I’ve jumped around a bit in the series and I’m fairly forgiving on that front if the books are fun – and these are fun. If you like Richard Osman, these wouldn’t be a bad bet to take a look at – although they are more straightforwardly funny than the Thursday Murder Club is.

The latest in the series is Mrs Pargeter’s Patio where our heroine’s morning coffee on her patio is disturbed when a paving slab break and exposes a skull underneath. Rather than bother the police immediately she sends for a couple of Mr P’s old associates to make sure that there are no nasty surprises in the investigation. And so the fun begins, and it is a lot of fun.

The first eight books in the series are available in an omnibus edition in Kindle Unlimited or to buy for just 99p – which is pretty good for more than 1500 pages of fun! And the latest is available in Kindle and Kobo although I’m going to go right out and say that the price is bonkers because they are not massively long books.

Have a great weekend everyone.