Category: books

books, stats

July Stats

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Books read this month: 30*

New books: 21

Re-reads: 7 (all audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 11

NetGalley books read: 7

Kindle Unlimited read: 3

Ebooks: 2

Audiobooks: 7

Non-fiction books: 0

Favourite book this month: Really hard to chose – either Seven Year Slip or Business or Pleasure

Most read author: if you don’t count the Georgette Heyers in the audiobook re-reads, then it’s Kate Carlisle – with the latest Fixer-Upper mystery and one of her Bibliophile mysteries

Books bought: 11 ebooks, 10 books and two pre-orders arriving. Oops

Books read in 2023: 221

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 699

I need to do better on the non-fiction front, but apart from that, I’m doing ok on the variety front but perhaps not so much on the purchasing one…

Bonus picture: the Albert Memorial after the Proms the other night. What a sunset. And so much gold leaf…

*includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – including 1 this month

books

Series Redux: Meg Langslow

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The latest book in the series is out this week – the brilliantly titled Birder, She Wrote so considering I did a complete reread of the series finishing earlier this great, how could I not point you at my series post for Donna Andrews’ brilliant Meg Langslow series today? Exactly. It would be criminal. Nb The Good, The Bad and the Emu may still be the best title.

Happy Friday everyone!

books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: July Quick Reviews

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The Bodyguard by Katherine Centre

I’d been waiting a while for this one to come out in the UK so I was excited to read it – it’s another famous person and normal person type romance, this time the hero is a film star and the heroine is a personal protection agent aka a bodyguard. She’s hired to protect him from a potential stalker and finds herself in Texas after he goes back to his family ranch to see his sick mum. I wasn’t quite sure what Jack saw in Hannah – and vice versa, but I’ve had that issue with a couple of books recently – so it may be that I’ve just been spoilt by so many really good romances. Anyway, I know that lots of other people have loved this and I liked it enough that I’m still going to be looking out for Center’s latest book, which also just came out here!

My Turn to Make Tea by Monica Dickens

This follows the trials and tribulations of a junior reporter at a local paper in the late 19040s and early 1950s. Poppy’s main issue is not her inexperience but her gender. Her colleagues in the office don’t really think women belong in the newsroom, and her landlady views her with suspicion as well. This is based on Monica Dicken’s own experiences at a provincial newspaper and it has some really witty moments and it is interesting to see how life has changed but – probably because it’s semi autobiographical – not a lot actually happens in terms of an overarching plot. Nice but not spectacular.

You with a View by Jessica Joyce*

This is a new release from this month – and while I didn’t love it, I’m giving it a quick mention because I know that road trip romances are really popular and although I’ve read better ones recently (Mrs Nash’s Ashes for example) if they’re your favourite trope, you’ll probably want to read this. Our heroine is Noelle who has recently lost her grandmother, who she was very close to. In her gran’s paperwork she finds some letters that suggest her grandma had a love affair before her grandfather. Noelle sets out to find out what happened by posting a video including a photo of her gran and the mystery man on Tiktok. And it turns out the man is Paul – still around and who offers to take her on the roadtrip he and her grandma had planned to take together as their honeymoon. Only trouble is Paul wants his grandson to come too – and that grandson turns out to be Noelle’s high school nemesis. I loved this as a premise – but didn’t love the execution. I don’t think there was enough insight into the heroine to understand her properly and their super competitive relationship didn’t feel like a great basis for something long term. But I know that competitive relationships are something that don’t really work for me very well – see also pranking as a love language – but are something that other people really love.

And that’s your lot from me this month. It’s been a very publishing-set books heavy month – with three Books of the Week being romances set in the industry (The Seven Year Slip, Business or Pleasure and The Neighbor Favor) plus a recommendsday. The other BotWs were Acts of Violet and Come as You Are, and I also finally wrote that Marriages of Convenience post I’ve been threatening for actual years!

Happy Humpday everyone.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: July 24 – July 30

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Finally I have got a book off the long running list finished! I was aiming for two, but I’ll take one. Not a bad week in reading all in actually – there are a couple on here that you’ll be hearing about at various points in the future – this week and beyond! I’ve got an incredibly busy week coming at me this week so we’ll see what that does to the list – but it’s also the end of July so there’ll be the stats and quick reviews so you’re all covered here.

Read:

The Empire by Michael Ball*

The Quiet Gentleman by Georgette Heyer

Come As You Are by Jess K Hardy

The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer

The Boyfriend Candidate by Ashley Winstead*

The Dating Plan by Sara Desai

Ruined by Sarah Vaughn et al*

Started:

Chopping Spree by Diane Mott Davidson*

Still reading:

The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes by Kate Strasdin*

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

The Other Side of Mrs Wood by Lucy Barker*

The Crane Wife by C J Hauser*

A couple of ebooks bought and one paperback. The ebooks were beacsue I was catching up on samples that I’d got because they were on offer and I was worried the offers would end at the end of the month. And the paperback was an impulse purchase when buying something else

Bonus photo: another Morph model – this time near Liverpool Street.

*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

Best not new books of 2023 so far

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So I’ve already talked about my favourite new releases of the first half 2023, so today I’m talking about my favourite books that I’ve read in the first six months of the year that aren’t fresh releases. And like the new releases post, this is a fairly easy one to write – because so many of them have been Books of the Week.

There are some similarities to the new books list – we’ve got a romance that features a famous person and a normal person in Nora Goes Off Script by Annabelle Monaghan and one with a fake relationship in The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren.

We’ve got some murder mysteries – The Three Dahlias by Katy Watson and Catering to Nobody by Diane Mott Davison which is the first of the Goldy Schultz series which is one of the two cozy series that I’ve discovered and binged this year, the other being Kate Carlisle’s Fixer Upper mysteries, which I’ve already read all of mostly because I bought the first nine as a job lot second hand and pre-ordered the tenth, whereas the Goldies are older and harder to get hold of.

And finally there’s a Girls Own book – The Cricket Term by Antonia Forest, which I just adored and wish I’d read at the right age back in the day because I would have really loved it, and it probably would have turned me on to the Peter Wimsey series earlier than I otherwise discovered them.

I’ve got such a huge pile of books to read before the end of the year I look forward to seeing what else makes it onto this list by the end of the year.

Have a great Saturday everyone.

books, romance, series, Series I love

Series I Love: The Rules of Scoundrels

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And after finally doing that post about some of my favourite Marriage of Convenience romances this week, it’s time to do a series I love that has a marriage of convenience in it’s opening novel!

So the Rules of Scandal series features four aristocrats who have been caught in a scandal and find themselves in the London underworld running a gaming hell. In each book one of them finds love and reclaims their rightful place in society. Or at least the place that they would like to be in anyway! A Rogue by Any Other Name is a marriage of convenience by a hero trying to claim his inheritance, One Good Earl Deserves a Lover has a nearly engaged heroine looking for a taste of the scandalous side of London before she settles down, No Good Duke Goes Unpunished has a hero who is suspected of murdering a woman on the eve of their wedding whose victim reappears alive and Never Judge a Lady by her Cover has a hero who is determined to uncover the secrets at the heart of the gaming hell.

I read these in order as they came out and it has one of the most gasp-worthy reveals at the end of the third book that I have come across in the genre – so surprising that I went back and reread the previous books to check that I hadn’t missed something and that it really was as clever as I thought it was! And I’ve tried not to give too much away in this review – even though if you read the blurb for the last book it gives it away! So don’t do that if you don’t want to be spoiled.

These are fairly old now – but they are available on Kindle, which they weren’t when I first started buying them I don’t think – or at I wouldn’t have started acquiring them in the US mass market format! And yes, it does annoy me that my set doesn’t match. And no I’m not 100 percent sure why because the UK format one isn’t signed so I didn’t get it at one of Sarah’s yea parties – and although the final one is I think it was the first one I ordered from Word. Anyway if you need a good romance series to binge this summer, these would be a good option.

Have a great weekend!

Book of the Week, books, fiction

Book of the Week: Acts of Violet

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Yes, today’s pick is the book that I stayed up late to finish on Sunday night. I have a lot of thoughts about it, not all of which I can mention here because: spoilers but it still makes it the book I want to talk about the most from last week’s reading!

It’s nearly ten years since magician Violet Volk disappeared – in the middle of her comeback show. In the intervening decade, her fans haven’t forgotten her – even if her sister Sasha wishes they would. Now with the anniversary approaching there is a fresh burst of publicity – including a hashtag where people are posting pictures of supposed sightings and a podcaster who keeps asking Sasha for an interview. Meanwhile Sasha’s daughter Quinn is doing some digging of her own around the aunt that she idolises and risks finding out some things her mother would rather stay hidden. And then there’s the fact that Sasha has started sleepwalking again. Told from Sasha’s point of view but also through transcripts of the podcast, emails and articles, you follow the run up to and aftermath of the tenth anniversary.

I have a lot of thoughts about this book – and I’m going to have to lend it to someone to read it as well so I can talk about it with them because I can’t say everything that I want to here. But the fact that I couldn’t go to sleep last night until I found out how it all ended says a lot about how engrossing it is. Margarita Montimore keeps you guessing about what was really going on with Violet and Sasha and their relationship and like the magic tricks that Violet was famous for you don’t quite know where it’s all going or who to trust. I’m going to front up and say that I didn’t love the ending, but I don’t quite know what I think would have been better!

Anyway despite that, I’m really glad that I spotted this in Foyles the other week and I don’t begrudge having paid more money than I usually do on a paperback on it – because I enjoyed reading it and I don’t think I would have come across it if it weren’t for that copy misplaced in the romance section. At least I assume it was misplaced – it’s not a romance, but I can see why the cover and format might have confused someone into shelving it there!

It’s also available on Kindle, Kobo (and on Kobo at time of writing it costs even more than my paperback did!) and audiobook which comes complete with multiple narrators to fit the different sections of the book – I had a listen to the sample and it sounds really good. I suspect you’ll need a fairly big bookshop to get a paperback copy – mine is a large format international edition and you don’t see a lot of those around usually.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: July 17 – July 23

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Did I stay awake way later than I should have on Sunday night to finish a book? Absolutely I did. Do I regret it? Well yes and no: I’m glad I finished the book, I wish I had had more sleep but I wouldn’t go back and change it! For the rest of it, it was a reasonable week – a couple of books I really liked and then some I didn’t. Anyway, I’m about to hit a few really busy weeks – I’ve got a couple of nights out this week coming and work is very busy too so we’ll see what that does to the lists.

Read:

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer

Take the Honey and Run by Jennie Marts*

The Hollywood Jinx by Sariah Wilson*

For Batter or Worse by Jenn McKinlay

A Very Lively Murder by Katy Watson

Acts of Violet by Margarita Montimore

Started:

The Dating Plan by Sara Desai

Still reading:

The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes by Kate Strasdin*

The Empire by Michael Ball*

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

The Other Side of Mrs Wood by Lucy Barker*

The Crane Wife by C J Hauser*

Whisper it quietly, but I did not buy any books. I know. I’m as astonished as you are. I did however receive an order from Words and Kisses that I put in a week or two back so it doesn’t feel like I didn’t buy anything!

Bonus photo: the alpacas that I pass on the train every day. They’re my favourite part of the commute and I have tried repeatedly to get a good picture of them and this is the best I have managed!

*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

Beat the To-Read pile 2023: mid-year update

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To be honest, I’m not sure that the actual physical pile looks any smaller than it did, but in terms of trying to read at least 80 physical books this year, I’m ahead of target for once. The colours are for the type of book they are – green shades are crime/mystery/detective books of various types, pinks are romances (I feel like I may have coloured Great Circle the wrong colour, or at least it looks wrong in the photo!) and bright blue is Girls Own. So you can see that the theme of the stuff from the pile of the year so far is crime. Lots of cozy crime, a bit of historical crime, and some romances speckled in with it. Fingers crossed I can keep the momentum going through the summer.