For today’s treat, I offer you the new attic staircase bookshelf. I said a few months ago that I was looking for one, and now I have it! This is a second hand oak bookcase, probably 1950s-ish and came from the vintage warehouse place. At the moment it’s a mix of Trisha Ashley, Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey, BritishLibraryCrimeClassics and cozy crime. But the aim is to have stuff on there that people sleeping in the spare room might want to read so that may yet change. And it means that I now have space downstairs to do a bit of rearranging. So watch this space…
I know. I’ve already written about Beverly Jenkins Blessings series more than once, but the latest book in the series came out here this week – after a gap of three and a half years so how could I not!
You can find my first post about the people of Henry Adams here, but the basic plot is that when she divorces her rich but cheating husband, Bernadine Brown uses part of her divorce settlement to buy a historically black town in Kansas on eBay. Over the course of the series you can see Henry Adams come back to life and flourish. There’s a regular cast of characters who cover multiple generations, there’s always a romantic element – although it’s not always the main focus – as well as whatever is happening in the town. It’s strongly influenced by faith – after her divorce Bernadine wants God to tell her what her purpose should be after being so fortunate as to get so much money – and buying the town is what she feels that he wants her to do. And the latest in the series is mostly focusing on Reverend Paula and the new guy in town.
I realise I’ve got this far without really talking about the narrative structure – which is that it moves around from character to character looking at the different strands of the story. Its a bit like Tales of the City – although Blessings isn’t written to be read in episodes and the overarching plot is more connected together than TotC tends to be.
Anyway, A Christmas to Remember came out this week, I had it pre-ordered and had finished it within two days despite all my efforts at moderation (and it would have been less except that I had to work and also had theatre tickets). Last week I mentioned Sweet Mercies and if you’ve read that or Small Miracles, the first book about the Sisters of St Philomena, this has lots of similar vibes – although those have less romance than these do and maybe a bit more God. Or at least a different way of dealing with God. And the narrative moves around in a similar way.
Ms Bev writes brilliant historical romances as well – I’ve written about a couple of them – so there’s plenty to go at in her back catalogue if you read one of these and like it.
I just wanted to mention that the third in Ashley Herring Blake’s Bright Falls series of F/f romances has come out this week. I read the first two back to back earlier this year and have been waiting for this one to finish off the set. Iris has been a secondary character in the other two and I’m really looking forward to seeing what her happy ending looks like. This is very much a trilogy (or at least I think it is) so do try and read the others first for maximum effect. And I promise I will report back when I’ve read it.
This week’s Recommendsay is another in my occasional series of recommendations based on romance tropes. Well sort of. I’m not sure that reality shows are actually a full on trope, but I’ve read a bunch of them now so I’m claiming it. What most of them have in common is that the hero or heroine is falling in love with someone that they shouldn’t – in the ones on dating shows they’re usually falling for a producer rather than one of the contestants. But I’m not sure what that counts as as a trope – falling for the wrong person maybe? Or forbidden love? Anyway, to the books
I’m starting with the book that sparked the idea for this post – The Love Rematch by Kay Marie*, which came out last week and is currently in Kindle Unlimited. Emily finds herself as the lead on a TV dating show (think the Bachelorette) after her mum goes on breakfast TV begging America to find her daughter a boyfriend. It’s not until she gets to the show that she finds out that one of the producers is Jake, the boy who broke her heart when he left her without a word just as they had finished high school. She’s determined to get revenge on him by showing him how happy she can be without him (and launching her jewellery brand by wearing it on the show) and he’s trying to get a promotion. But it’s a romance novel so of course they’re not as over each other as they think they are. I really enjoyed this – although it took a bit of a surprising turn at the end, which I think needed more time to work out, and the epilogue wasn’t really an epilogue – more of a final chapter just set a year later. But I read it in a couple of days once I really got into it and it was fun. And obviously made me want to write this post!
In One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London, Bea also finds herself as the lead in a dating show, this time not because her mum volunteered her, but because she wrote a blog complaining about the lack of body diversity in dating shows. When i wrote about this three years (!) ago, I said not to go into it expecting at traditional romance, because it’s more complicated than that – for all that it has a happily ever after. But I’m still including it here becuase I think if you read it you would like the Kay Marie, and vice versa.
Not set on a dating show, but on a show that’s basically Bake Off lightly disguised, Rosaline Palmer takes the Cakeby Alexis Hall (yes I know, I wrote about Hall’s new book last week, but sue me, this fits!) has a single mum breaking away from parental expectations to compete on a TV cooking contest and finding herself in a love triangle (sort of) with two of the other contestants. This isn’t as straight forward a romance as some of Hall’s other contemporary romances, but you do get a happily ever after even if you’re left guessing who it’s going to be with for a while.
It’s only a few months since The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren was BotW so I can’t really justify writing about it in massive detail again here, but trust me when I say that it also fits this prompt – and is probably the closest to The Love Rematch and also more successful in execution than that is. And an honourable mention to Battle Royal by Lucy Parker, which isn’t actually set on a reality show, but that is where the hero an heroine first crossed swords.
Bit of a marginal choice this week, but I thought I’d do something different and throw in a rare Royal Romance read that’s also a Christmassy one – even if we’re not past Halloween yet!
Dani Martinez is a professor hoping for tenure. She’s also hoping her ex-husband will sign the divorce papers and has sworn off love completely. Trouble is, she’s about to be an attendant at a royal wedding and this involves some contact with the playboy duke the bride dumped for Dani’s friend. Max has issues of his own: his parents are awful, he’s finished his studies and doesn’t have a job, and now his engagement has been broken off, his parents are trying to find a replacement fiancée for him, stat. Dani and Max become unlikely friends, but it can never turn into anything more – can it?
This was absolutely delightful until about the 80 percent mark at which point it just didn’t quite stick the landing. I’m not quite sure what went wrong – whether it was too much to do in not enough time, if I just didn’t like the way Jenny Holiday decided to resolve the conflict/tension in the relationship or if it was a combination of the two but after an absolutely cracking unlikely friends, vanquishing the evil ex, rebuilding sibling relationships ride, it just didn’t quite end as well as I wanted it too. But it’s still pretty good – and better than a lot of the other romances I’ve tried lately, many of which haven’t even made it on to the list because I didn’t get further than 50 pages before I gave them up in a rage. And not always in a Sunday afternoon funk either!
This one is on offer on Kindle and Kobo at the moment, and it’s the second book in a trilogy of related romances which are also on offer. Enjoy!
I don’t know what happens to me on a Sunday at the moment where I lose the ability to pick a new book and stick to it. It’s a real puzzle to me, but it seems to happen every week at the moment. Still identifying a pattern of behaviour is the first step to breaking it right? Still I had a good week – with a lovely trip to Old Friends and then two nights in Essex. This week has a few nights in London and I might go and see another show. So we’ll see what that does to the list next Monday!
Bonus photo: Christmas is coming – the fancy advent calendars are startingto appear! Thiswasin thewindow of Liberty on Tuesday – it’s their famous (well depending on whether you follow makeup/skincare bloggers a fewyearsback or not) beauty one. Every year I think about treating myself and then remember the amount of lotions and potions I have kicking around that I need to clear out and give myself a stern shake.
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
Do you remember how excited I got only a few weeks ago about the romance section at Waterstones Piccadilly? Well I went in this week to try and find the new Alexis Hall in the wild and guess what… it had gone! They’ve reorganised it all already and now it’s smaller (I think) and at the back. The whole of that front section is now Crime and Thriller. I have no words but I do have a few pictures.
I say it’s smaller but I’m not actually sure, it just felt more cramped. The photo above is the main section and then on the left there is a Pride section – which is a mix of fiction and non fiction LGTBQIA+ books – including some Alexis Hall but not the one I was looking for!
Then the main romance bit is to the right. I don’t think it was properly set up – there were still gaps all over place on shelves elsewhere on the floor and trolleys of books too as you can see in the picture below.
I only had about ten minutes to wander around – so I couldn’t properly dig into what had gone awol, but I thought I should probably do an update as I’d been so excited about the old configuration…
Just a quick post today to mark the fact that Sweet Mercies, the sequel to recent BotW Small Miracles, is out today. It’s a Christmas book and I’ve started it, but not finished it yet because of that whole reading mojo slightly awol thing that I mentioned on Monday. I will get there though and it is on track to be my first Christmas novel of the season!
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!
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.
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 Fridaynight.
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
