Category: Recommendsday

books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Women’s History month

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Okay, this is an American thing, but there was also International Women’s Day this month. And yes, I know, I know. It’s nearly the end of March so this is super late but I’m sneaking this in under the wire because I can. And I’m going to work my way back in history, because for some reason that seems like the most logical thing to do!

Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan

This is really really good. A fascinating insight into the “normal” women behind the development of the Atomic Bomb. It’s the story of a pop up city built around a project so secret that you weren’t told what you were doing, and didn’t ask what other people were doing either. A few of the chemists put two and two together, but they were a handful out of tens of thousands. Really worth reading.

Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley

There are a lot of books about Jane Austen, but this is a well researched look at Jane Austen’s home life, framing it in the wider world of expectations for women in Georgian England, the restrictions on their lives and how they subverted that. When Lucy Worsley is at her best, her books are very readable and accessible. At other times, she is very dense and scholarly and it’s hard work. This is much more the latter than the former, or at least it was for me. I had thought that the readability was an experience thing, because her first book was very scholarly, but the next one – Courtiers – was incredibly easy and yet informative. I still have her Agatha Christie biograohy on my shelf – I wonder which Worlsey we will get there!

She Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England before Elizabeth by Helen Castor

And finally, lets go back to the Middle Ages, for a group biography of four women who ruled England (or tried to) between the Twelfth and the Fifteenth Century. If you’ve never come across Matilda, the daughter of Henry I and granddaughter of William the Conqueror, then you have a treat instore – especially as the period she was trying to claim the crown in is known as The Anarchy. The other women are Eleanor of Aquitaine (wife of two kings, and ruler of Aquitaine in her own right), Isabella of France (daughter of a French King and married to an English one) and Margaret of Anjou (who ruled on behalf of her mad husband and key figure in the Wars of the Roses). It’s really, really interesting – and looks at some parts of history that don’t really get taught in schools in the UK.

This time last year I did a post about Interesting Women – do go and check that out for some more reviews, including Hidden Figures, but I also wanted to flag The Radium Girls which was in a Recommendsday post a couple of years back, and Janina Ramirez’s Femina which was in a Recommendsday last year

Happy Reading!

books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Short Story Collections

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This Wednesday, I’m looking at short story collections as I’ve read a couple of them recently and it’s got me thinking. Obviously one of them was Scattered Showers, which has already featured as a BotW, but here are a few more for your consideration.

The Lady with the Gun Asks the Questions by Kerry Greenwood

Lets start with a collection of short stories from my favourite Australian detective – The Honourable Phryne Fisher. It only came out in the UK last year (although Australians got it sooner) so it’s even relatively recent. This collection has stories that slot in at various points during the series, including four new ones for this book. If you haven’t read the whole series, I don’t think any of them will spoil anything for you, but there are plenty of familiar faces here, including an origin story for one of her friendships. And my love of Phryne and her world is well known – it’s always a delight to get to spend any time with her.

Marple: Twelve New Mysteries by Various Authors*

This is another recent one which I’m including it because I liked *some* of the stories although it completely lost me with the last story – if you read it, you’ll probably understand why. This has new takes on Miss Marple, written by some of the biggest names in fiction at the moment including Kate Mosse, Elly Griffiths and Alyssa Cole. It does feel a little bit like Miss Marple plot bingo at times – and because they’re all done by different people there is not a lot of internal consistency. I was glad I read it – mostly because I’m a completist – and because it’s not written by Agatha Christie I’m able to ignore the bits that I didn’t like!

American Housewife by Helen Ellis

It’s been 7 years, so I think I’m allowed to mention this again now! This was my first encounter with Helen Ellis’s writing and I’ve been buying her stuff ever since. Each story peers behind the curtain of a seemingly normal American housewife and exposes the secrets behind. These are dark and darkly humorous short stories, that make for perfect bite-sized reading before bed. Its funny and quirky and you hope you never meet (or become) any of the women you meet in it!

Sweetest in the Gale by Olivia Dade

Just throwing a bit of romance in here to finish, because I can. Sweetest in the Gale has three short stories about three different couples, so you get three happy endings! There are also three different tropes – we’ve got a widowed teacher, an enemies to lovers and a marriage of convenience. They’re all set in Marysburg – which is where Tess from 40-Love is a teacher (when she’s not on holiday) as well as where Teach Me is set too. There are definite bittersweet elements to all three of them, but they are definitely romances.

Before I go, I should mention a couple of other short story collections that have been books of the week – Roxane Gay’s Difficult Women and Curtis Sittenfeld’s You Think It, I’ll Say It – and it’s only a few weeks to go before her new novel comes out, which is very exciting.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Novels about the Movies

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It was the Oscars at the weekend, so what better opportunity to mention some books with movie stars or the movie industry in them

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Everyone is talking about Daisy Jones and the Six at the moment because the adaptation is out* but Jenkins Reid’s first book in what she’s called the Mick Riva universe is about an elderly movie star who wants an up and coming journalism to write her life story. I have vivid memories of starting to read this on my phone in the immigration queue at Dulles airport, but I actually didn’t finish it until months later. Daisy is the book that really broke through – probably because Reese Witherspoon optioned it – but I think Evelyn is just as good – it was a Book of the Week when I did finish it. And if you know your old Hollywood, there is a lot of fun to be had in figuring out what inspired which bits of Evelyn’s story.

The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty

It’s sort of a stretch to include this because it is before Louise became famous, but I’ve gone with it because I enjoyed it when I read it a decade ago and it’s a bit different. If Evelyn Hugo is a reimagining of Hollywood history creating a new legendary star, The Chaperone falls into the real people-adjacent category. I’ve written whole posts about novelised real people, and this is sort of that, except that our real person isn’t the main character. It’s 1922 and Cora Carlisle is in charge of taking the teenaged Louise Brooks from Kansas to New York to study dance. Louise isn’t at all happy about having a woman old enough to be her mother chaperoning her on the trip and Cora has her own reasons for making the journey too. Set over about five weeks, this has prohibition New York, Louise Brooks before she was a film star and the rapid changes that were happening in society in the 1920s. I didn’t realise until I was writing this that it had been turned into a film – but it did come out in 2020 and we all know that there was a lot going on then and you couldn’t go to the cinemas so maybe that’s not a surprise, but I’ll have to look it up on the streaming services!

Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

Neely, Anne and Jennifer become best friends as young women in New York and across the course of the book climb to the top of the entertainment industry. But their lives are intertwined with the pills they take – the dolls of the title – and they cause more problems than they solve. This is a twentieth century classic – if you haven’t read it, you really should. My copy is a very pretty Virago Hardback, but as you can see the latest edition marks the book’s fiftieth anniversary, although we’re now closer to the sixtieth!

Of course there are loads of other books I could have included – I included Anthony Marra’s Mercury Pictures Presents in a Quick Reviews post a few months back, so it’s a bit soon to write another review of it, but that is set in the world of the studio system during and after the Second World War. Fear in the Sunlight in Nicola Upson’s Josephine Tey series is set around the production of a very real Hitchcock film in Portmeirion in 1936. Carrie Fisher used her own experiences in Hollywood to write Postcards from the Edge about a Hollywood star with a drug problem, and Angela Carter’s Wise Children also includes the twins’ experiences in the movie business

And as is traditional with these things, I have a bunch of stuff that would fit this still sitting on the to-read pile, like Blonde by Joyce Carole Oates (which Ana de Armas was nominated for in this years Oscars losing out to Michelle Yeoh), Their Finest Hour and a Half is about the only Lissa Evans novel (for adults) that I haven’t read – although I have seen the movie that it was turned into, which is just called Their Finest, and Laura Kalpakian’s The Great Pretenders, about the granddaughter of a movie mogul who strikes out on her own in the business, which I impulse bought in Foyles last summer.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

*and don’t this won’t be the last time I mention Daisy I’m sure!

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Recommendsday: March Kindle Offers

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Yes, I have once again gallantly trawled this month’s offers to find stuff that I’ve talked about – or am interested in that is a bargain this month. You’re welcome.

Let’s start with news that will possibly surprise no one, the tie-in edition of Daisy Jones and the Six is 99p this month. You all know I loved the book – and the other three in the related universe so if you haven’t read it yet, then do it now! Another recently adapted book (albeit one I haven’t read yet) also has a tie in edition on offer – Fleishman is in Trouble.

In buzzy books, Ali Hazelwood’s Love on the Brain is 99p. Also in the “TikTok made me buy it” group is Sarah Adams’s When in Rome, which I am tempted by but am holding off on buying because I have on of her other books on the to-read pile so I should really read that first! Mhairi McFarlane’s Mad About You is on offer too – I loved it when I read it last year, but it comes with a warning for emotional abuse/gaslighting in the heroine’s immediate past. Second First Impressions is 99p as well if you want a romance with a bit of a different setting – I do love meddling old people.

Cover of An Impossible Imposter

The new Veronica Speedwell is out next week – so the previous one An Impossible Imposter is £1.99 – you do need to read them in order for best effect though. This month’s discount Terry Pratchett is Pyramids for £1.99, which isn’t one of my favourites but I know that other people do love it. The cheap Peter Wimseys are the first two – Whose Body and Clouds of Witness – the latter of which sets up Charles Parker’s interest in Lady Mary. We still don’t have a date for the next series of Bridgerton, but this month’s cheap Julia Quinns are Just Like Heaven (from the Smyth Smith series) and The Lost Duke of Wyndham. Frederica is the 99p Georgette Heyer. The latest Agatha Raisin, Devil’s Delight, is 99p – it’s three years since M C Beaton died, but there are still new books coming out, with a co-author on the cover. I haven’t read any of the “with R W Green” books yet, but I’m sure I’ll get to it at some point – the very first book in the series, Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death, is also 99p as is the first Hamish MacBeth Death of a Gossip.

Back in the mists of time I wrote about The Rosie Project – if you’re looking for something a bit different from the last decade, that would do you quite well for 99p. There was meant to be an adaptation happening, but it hasn’t materialised yet… Not quite as long ago, I recommended Dial A for Aunties, which is 99p at the moment as well presumably because Jesse Sutano’s new novel is out imminently. If you’ve read Crazy Rich Asians, the final book in that trilogy, Rich People Problems, is on offer.

If you want some non fiction, Andrew Lownie’s Traitor King is £1.99 – I read this on holiday nearly 18 months ago and have since recommended it to lots of people. On my pile waiting to be read is Katja Hoyer’s Blood and Iron about the German Empire – which is 99p. Lucy Worsley’s Queen Victoria is also on my list to read – but I should probably get to her Agatha Christie biography first… Also in history books, The Radium Girls – which is one of a series of books I read a few years ago about women doing dangerous jobs (and sometimes not knowing they were dangerous) in the first half of the 20th century. Hannah Fry’s Hello World about the age of the machines and machine learning which I read a couple of years ago but seems even more relevant than ever with the appearance of ChatGPT and the other AIs. Also on offer is Helen O’Hara’s Women vs Hollywood which I read a couple of years ago and is a total bargain at 99p at time of writing

And finally – in stuff I bought while writing this post, we have Chanel Cleeton’s latest novel Our Last Days in Barcelona which is £1.99, Fiona Davis’s latest The Magnolia Palace – also £1.99 when I wrote this and David de Jong’s Nazi Billionaires which was £2.99. Positively restrained.

Happy Reading!

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Recommendsday: February Quick Reviews

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Another month is over so we have a fresh batch of quick reviews for your delectation, and for once it’s all non-fiction – which I didn’t really realise until I had finished writing the post, but I guess sort of gives it an extra theme. Go past Verity.

Going with the Boys by Judith Mackrell

Judith Mackrell’s group biography (which is called The Correspondents in some countries) took me ages to read mostly because I own it I hardcover (as you can see) and as you all know I don’t tote those around with me. But it’s also because the subject matter required me to be in the right frame of mind. The six extraordinary women of the subtitle are war reporters struggling for the right to cover conflicts in the first half of the 20th century. It’s fascinating and infuriating and sobering. Very much worth a read.

I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Se-hee

This is the English translation of a very successful South Korean memoir about the author’s therapy for depression. I read it in an afternoon but it gave me a lot to think about – not least that I didn’t think her therapist was very good, if the exchanges you see on the page are accurate! Anyway, there are some thoughts here about living with anxiety and self doubt and how it affects your perception of others and yourself.

Movie Star by Jessica Simpson

Just throwing an Amazon short story in here – because I read Jessica Simpson’s autobiography three years ago and if you’re interested in getting a taste of what her book is like, this will do that for you. My review of Open Book said that it’s very American and “There’s also a lot of god and a lot of evidence that Simpson has had some really awful men in her life – her dad is terrible and her boyfriend choices were also not great.” This has some of the terrible taste in men but a lot less of the god than the full length book does. I enjoyed it – and have enjoyed playing the guessing game as to who the movie star in question is! This is free if you’re in Kindle Unlimited too.

And that’s your lot. It’s a short month so the rest of this list is a bit shorter than usual. The books of the week were The Pot Thief who studied Pythagoras, The Soulmate Equation, Nora Goes of Script and Death of an Author. And there were recommendsday posts on novels with food and Swoony Romances.

Happy March everyone!

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Recommendsday: Novels with food

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So it was Pancake Day yesterday – aka Shrove Tuesday – and it’s Ash Wednesday today so it seemed like a good time to recommend some novels where food is a strong theme.

This post actually grew out of an idea to write a Recommendsday for books set in Lent, but I could only really come up with Joanne Harris’s Chocolat. If you’ve never read the book, it starts at the end of Carnival – just before the start of Lent – when Vianne and her daughter arrive in a small French town and open a chocolate shop, to the horror of the local priest, because Lent is the season for self denial. And it all goes from there. I’ve read it several times – and have the sequels too – and it would be a great read for this time of year. But that’s when I got stuck for books about Lent, so I picked up the food theme of the chocolate shop and ran with that instead!

Next up is an author I don’t think I have mentioned here before – Anthony Capella. And I think that’s probably because he hasn’t written anything under that name* for about a decade. But there are five really good mainly historical novels with food at the heart of them – one about ice cream, one about coffee and several set in Italy. If you’ve never come across him before, you should take a look – they’re all available in ebook, which is probably the easiest way to get hold of them.

If you want some slightly more recent fiction, there is Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler. I really liked the start of this, but then our heroine starts making some stupid decisions and lost me. But it was one of those “book of the summer” type picks in the US a few years back – so it’s one of those literary fiction type picks that work for other people better than they work for me if that makes sense.

Now obviously there are a lot of cozy crime novels with food. So many of them and they often/usually have actual recipes in them too even if the quantities are all in American measurements (so imprecise when it comes to baking, how does anything ever rise?). I’ve written about the Cupcake Bakery and the Maine Clambake mysteries, but there’s also Joanne Fluke’s long running Hannah Swenson series about a baker who keeps stumbling across murders and Wendy Tyson’s Greenhouse Mysteries feature a farm that has a farm-to-table restaurant and comes with recipes. I’ve been trying out a couple of new to me cozy series over the last few weeks, so watch this space for more suggestions there too.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

*He’s currently writing thrillers under a different name.

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Recommendsday: Swoon-y romances

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Lets continue the romance theme for Valentines week after Nora Goes Off Script yesterday with some romances that will sweep you off your feet!

Right, lets start off with some literal sweeping off someone’s feet -although as a tall woman, it’s something that’s probably never going to happen to me, unless it’s a giant and a fireman’s lift. Moving on… let me take this chance to reintroduce you to #DrRugbae from Talia Hibbert’s Take a Hint, Dani Brown who rescues our heroine from a fire drill and spawns a fake relationship for social media. Another book with a literal sweeping off the feet on the cover is Ali Hazelwood’s Love on the Brain, where our heroine gets her dream job only to find out that her arch-nemesis is the person in charge of the project.

Next up: epic grovelling, because some times that’s what you need – one half of the couple (it’s usually the hero!) has made a huge, mistake at some point and they’re going to have to do something pretty spectacular to make up for it. Sarah MacLean is the queen of this and my favourite of this oeuvre is Day of the Duchess which is the final book in the Scandal and Scoundrel series where we’ve hearing about the heroine’s issues with her estranged husband since the first book and it finally all gets sorted out – and the problems they have are the sort where you really wonder if a happy ending is possible. But it’s a romance so of course it is! And if you want a contemporary grovel, how about The Bromance Book Club – where our hero has missed a bunch of problems in his marriage and turns to romance novels to try and fix things. I have a minor quibble with part of the resolution to this, but it has a great hero and heroine pairing who have potentially insurmountable differences to a Happily Ever after.

Moving to some slow burn romances – can you count Pride and Prejudice as a slow burn? Because it really is – it doesn’t get much slower burn than Elizabeth’s journey from hating Darcy to loving him and then a happy ending, even if he’s at the love stage much earlier! Anyway, it’s just over two years since Kate Claybourn’s Love Lettering was a BotW (and the third time this year I’ve mentioned Claybourn, but shhhh) and this was one of my favourite of that year and it’s a really lovely journey with the heroine as she becomes friends and then more with this man who wants to know how she predicted that his marriage wouldn’t last. Then there’s In A New York Minute where the heroine and hero feature in a viral moment together and personality-wise they seem like complete opposites but they just keep running into each other.

And if these weren’t enough don’t forget, I’ve written a lot of other posts about romances over the years – whether it’s enemies to lovers (also good for a grovel), romances on ranches, secret identities, funny and smart romances, and royal romances, as well as romance series like Bridgerton, Desperate Duchesses, London Celebrities, London Highwaymen or Georgette Heyer.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

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Recommendsday: February Kindle offers

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Here we are with this month’s Kindle offers for your delectation – and there are a lot of them so lets get right to it.

Killers of a Certain Age

Deanna Raybourn’s Killers of a Certain Age is 99p this month, I’m not quite sure why as the paperback isn’t out until March, but take advantage while you can. I really enjoyed this tale of retired assassins on the run – and one of my besties is reading it at the moment and really enjoying it too (unless something has changed!). Jill Hornby’s Godmersham Park is 99p at the moment, Miss Austen was a book of the Week and I really enjoyed Godmersham Park, which is a sort of sequel – it’s definitely a continuation set in the same world. I mentioned Daphne Du Maurier in my post about books set in Devon and Cornwall – if you fancy a bit of Cornish Smuggling action, Frenchman’s Creek is 99p this month – it’s not my favourite, but I do love my beautiful Virago Designer Hardback copy!

Another recent BotW pick The Last Hero is 99p, but one of my all time favourite Terry Pratchetts, Going Postal, is £1.99. There are a lot of Georgette Heyers at £1.99 this month, including some of my favourites like Sylvester, These Old Shades, Devil’s Cub, Venetia and Frederica. It’s actually easier just to send you to the list than the original pages! On the Wimsey front, some of the series are now dropping out of copyright so there are a lot of quite cheap kindle books popping up, but I can’t vouch for their formatting and accuracy. Of the editions that match the Hodder and Stoughton paperbacks, The Nine Tailors is the 99p book this month – if you haven’t read it, it’s set in the Fenland, there are floods and church bells and bodies in the wrong grave and its really quite something.

If you were tempted by the Her Majesty the Queen Investigates books after my series review last year, the second book in the series is 99p at the moment – A Three Dog Problem is set around Buckingham Palace after a murder at the palace swimming pool (a real thing!). Very recent release Shipwrecked by Olivia Dade is 99p, as is In a New York Minute by Kate Spencer (which I talked about in my late summer reading post) and Miss Aldrige Regrets is on offer again.

We don’t have a date for series three of Bridgerton yet (please can it be soon Netflix, thank you), but the good news is that this month Romancing Mr Bridgerton aka the book the next series is based on is 99p – read it before the series. Interestingly Colin and Eloise’s story is actually the fourth in the series, not the third, but I do fully support the decision to skip book three (Benedict’s story) for now because it’s a Cinderella retelling and it’s a) not my favourite and b) doesn’t fit in with what they’ve been doing with the series. I am fascinated to see what they decide to do about it – and also about Eloise’s book which is number five, but now doesn’t fit in at all with the chronology they’ve created if she’s going to end up with the same person as she does in the books. And that’s all I can say without it being a spoiler!

Whistling through some other stuff – A Village in the Third Reich is £1.99 – you may remember I bought myself this and Travellers in the Third Reich when I was writing the Buy Me a Book for Christmas post last year! There are a couple of Mhairi McFarlane novels that are 99p – including You Had Me At Hello and Last Night. In other authors that I like, Christina Lauren’s Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating is 99p, and there are quite a few Trisha Ashley‘s for 99p including my all time favourite A Winter’s Tale, which is a Christmas novel but which I can read any time of year!

In stuff I purchased while writing this post, there is Nora Goes off Script, about a scriptwriter for a romance channel who turns her divorce into a screenplay and the “sexiest man alive” is cast as her ex-husband. In stuff I should have read but haven’t got around to (yet), Stephanie Gerber’s Caraval trilogy is 99p for the complete thing which is a total bargain. Likewise, in stuff I haven’t read yet, Jodi Taylor’s newest Time Police (that’s the spin off series from Chronicles of St Mary’s) novel About Time is 99p too. Also 99p is David Mitchell’s Utopia Avenue which I really keep meaning to get around to!

It’s a short month, so catch them while you can! Happy Reading!

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: January Quick Reviews

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Only two books this month, you’ll probably understand why when you see the stats tomorrow. There was nearly a third, but I fell asleep with 50 pages to go on Tuesday night and didn’t finish it before the end of the month and I do try not to cheat!

Death Spins the Wheel by George Bellairs

It’s been a while since I mentioned an Inspector Littlejohn mystery, as I’ve read nearly all of the ones that are easily available at the moment. But Death Spins the Wheel popped up and it’s a good one. Once again on the Isle of Man, it features an elderly lady who comes to the island to gamble at the casino and then turns up dead. There’s one strand of the plot that I’m wildly dubious about (if you know me and read it you’ll know what!) but I liked the actual resolution and the familiar characters. Maybe don’t start here, but if you’re reading them as they pop up on Kindle Unlimited then it’s definitely worth a look.

Vermeer to Eternity by Anthony Horowitz

Another author I’ve written about relatively frequently, but this is another KU read – this time a really quite satisfying short story with a really neat premise and two interesting characters. If you’ve read the Hawthorn novels, you’ll probably see some similarities to “Anthony” as seen in them, but that doesn’t make it any less fun.

And that’s it for stuff I haven’t already talked about in January – or at least it is unless you want repeats or rereads! I wonder if I’ll manage more than two in February?

Happy Reading!

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Books set in Devon and Cornwall

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Did I go on holiday last week? Yes. Did it inspire this post? Absolutely yes. You are very welcome.

Let’s start with the obvious: Daphne du Maurier. There are a whole host to pick from – but I’m going to go for Jamaica Inn because we drove past the turn for it and gosh blimey is the moorland there desolate and creepy – I don’t think I would be brave enough to read the book while staying anywhere near there!

Next up, previous BotW pick 1949’s The Feast – which I think is due for a rementiok because it’s so good. This isn’t creepy like the Du Maurier, but it is thrilling in a different way. Ignore any introduction your edition might have until after you have read it and meet the guests at the Pendizack Hotel in the run up to a fatal cliff collapse (and that’s not a spoiler because it opens after the collapse and then jumps back in time.

Still in Cornwall but written more recently we have Carola Dunn’s Cornish mysteries. As well as writing the Daisy Dalrymple series, Dunn also wrote four books featuring Eleanor Trewynn, a widow running a charity shop in a fictional coastal village in the 1960s. I’ve read three of the four and really enjoyed them. And this has reminded me to try and get hold of the final one!

Crossing the border into Devon, yesterday I wrote about a murder mystery tied to a fictional Golden Age crime series so I would be remiss not to include an actual Golden Age Crime novel as Agatha Christie set a lot of her novels in the county – as she lived there for many years (and her house is on my list of places to visit at some point). I’ve picked Sleeping Murder, because the theme of today is creepy and I’m still traumatised by the cover of the edition of Sleeping Murder my mum had when I was little which features a woman with a knitting needles stuck in her eye. You’re welcome.

I’ve only read a three of Ian Sansom’s County Guides novels but one of them is Death in Devon (book 2 of five) which sees the prolific author and professional know it all Stanton Morley and his assistant on a trip to the county where they end up solving a murder at a boys school. And finally I started with a creepy atmospheric book with moors and I’m going to finish with a book set on a different moor – Lorna Doone. Full disclosure: I’ve only ever read abridged children’s versions of this – and as it’s 800 pages long I’m not planning on changing that, but if you want a classic may be think about trying this story of star crossed lovers on as moor in the late 19th century.

Happy Wednesday everyone!