Category: Recommendsday

Book of the Week, books, books on offer, new releases, romance

Book of the Week: The Seven Year Slip

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Back to summer romances this week – and for the second week in a row, it’s a new release!

In Ashley Piston’s last book, The Dead Romantics (also a BotW) she was doing a spin on a romance with a ghost. This time it’s a romance with a time travel-y element. What do I mean by that? Well, here’s the plot: Clementine is trying to get through the aftermath of the worst day of her life and try and rebuild in a way that means she can’t get hurt again. She’s living in her late aunt’s apartment and trying to keep her working life as a book publicist on track. But one day she comes home and finds a stranger in her kitchen. Her aunt warned her that the apartment was a pinch in time and it turns out he’s from seven years in the past. Ian is charming and he cooks and they get on really well – but how can they ever get around that time thing?

I read this in less than 24 hours and really enjoyed it. I have a few minor quibbles – putting them in the least spoiler-y way possible it basically boils down to: I’m not sure that Clementine and Iwan actually spent enough time together across the course of the book. If it’s a romance I needed more of them together, and if it’s more woman’s fiction I needed a better resolution to Clementine’s own life dilemma/crossroads. BUT this only started to bother me once the book was over and I started thinking about it to review it. While I was actually reading it I was completely swept along by it. So on that basis it’s a really enjoyable read – and makes sort-of-time-travel really work for me. I would happily have read another 100 pages if it meant my issues above got more closure. And I liked the little glimpses of some old friends from Dead Romantics too. Another one that is great for the beach/sun lounger.

I got my copy via NetGalley – but you can definitely get it in the shows because I saw it in Foyles:

And if you’re not going into a bookstore it’s also on Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!

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Recommendsday: June Quick Reviews

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As I said on Sunday, I’ve already written about so many books this month that I don’t have much left to tell you about. But I’ve managed to write a few sentences about a couple more books from the June pile for you!

Jean Tours a Hospital by Doreen Swinburne

I’m starting with something completely left field that I’m not expecting any of you will ever read. This was one of my purchases at Book Conference last summer and as the title suggests is a career book encouraging girls into nursing for a profession. It’s not a great work of literature, but it is a fascinating look at what nursing was like in the 1950s – lots of cleaning, nothing disposable, lots of people on bedrest and not a drop of blood insight on Jean’s tour! Of course nursing is for girls and doctoring is for boys and there is the usual suggestion that if you’re a good girl you might get to marry a doctor but there’s also some interesting (for the time) ideas from the Matron about nursing becoming a degree subject. Not a masterpiece, but fun half hour for what I paid for it!

Final Acts ed Martin Edwards

This is another collection of classic crime short stories all set in or around theatres. I know I mention the BLCC stuff a lot – but usually in the context of the novels (see last week’s BotW for example) because I find the short story collections can be a bit patchy. But this one is a good one, with some big names you’ll recognise including Dorothy L Sayers doing a not Wimsey story and Ngaio Marsh Alleyn short, and some smaller names you may have read full length novels from like Christianna Brand. I do like a theatre-set story (be it murder mysteries or romances) so maybe that biased me, but it’s in Kindle Unlimited at the moment so worth a look.

Piece of Cake by Mary Hollis Huddleston and Asher Fogle Paul*

This is a contemporary romance set in Nashville about a woman working at a struggling wedding magazine who has to work with a social media star on a video series that they hope will secure the magazine’s future. I read the previous book from these authors (borrowed it from the library) and liked the premise but thought that there was too much going on and that the romantic element was unsatisfying because all the options had issues. So I read this to see how the authors managed to redeem Claire – who was the villain of the piece in the last book. And the answer is: they didn’t really. And therein lies the problem. If you haven’t read the previous book, you spend a lot of the time wondering how bad she could really have been – and then when you find out what she did, I assume you lose any sympathy you have left for her – if you’ve managed to keep any with the “oh I’m so poor” thing, whilst living in a flat of her own and driving an expensive car. But, on the plus side – this has less plot elements and there is only one romantic option and he seems like an OK kind of guy – it’s just the heroine that’s the problem. So all in all, I think this is probably a sign that these authors are not for me. But it may work better for other people as these things often do and so I mention it anyway.

And that’s your lot. As I said on Monday, we have half year review posts coming, but a quick reminder of the Books of the Month from June: A Calamity of Mannerings, The True Love Experiment, Mrs Nash’s Ashes and Twice Around the Clock. And don’t forget there was also a new Summer Romance round up and Romances with heroes with kids too if you need a reminder of why I had so few options for this month’s quick reviews!

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Recommendsday: Romances with heroes with children

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Well after writing my post about great dads in literature and with last week’s BotW featuring a a divorced dad, I thought I’d make this week’s Recommendsday some more romances featuring heroes with kids. I did originally call this single dad romances – but single parent usually implies that they’re not getting any help from the other parent at all, and that’s not always the case on this list.

One of the reasons I widened the scope of this post was that I started thinking “which is the Tessa Dare book with the doll funerals, because that’s a great one” and then when I reminded myself of the plot of The Governess Game I remembered that Chase is their guardian not their dad. Anyway the heroine is the governess trying to tame the wild orphans and it’s got great dialogue, forced proximity, the aforementioned doll funerals and a great romantic ending.

If you want your dad with kids to come as part of a big, melodramatic historical romance that’s pretty Old School (but not rapey like the Old School romances tended to be) then try Kerrigan Byrne’s The Highlander, where you have Great Big Giant Super Strong Scottish Laird paired with an English governess with a secret. It’s not 100 percent my novel – because it’s so dramatic and quite violent, but I know that there are a lot of people who really, really love this series. Also in books that I didn’t love but that other people have is the book zero in Eloisa James’s Wilds of Lindow Castle series – My Last Duchess. It has a Cinderella-y runaway plot with a hero with eight kids and a heroine with one and a potential wicked stepmother. This was actually published after the first few books in the series, so if you’d read those you already knew the couple and maybe gave it a bit of a pass on some of the bits that I didn’t like -I can see lots and lots of 4 plus star reviews.

Lets finish with historical romances with another one of my favourites: To Sir Philip, With Love – from the Bridgerton series. This is Eloise’s story and I really, really love it. Eloise has been writing letters to the widower of her cousin for years and then when things in London get too much for herself she finds herself on her way to marry him. Except that neither of them are what the other expects. I’ve said before that I don’t know how they’re going to work this for the Netflix series, so we’ll see how they pull that off given the way they’ve been adjusting the timelines.

To contemporary romances now, and I’m starting with a novella – Melissa Blue’s Grumpy Jake. Yes, it was a book of the week, but that was two and a half years ago, so it’s allowed. Bailey is a teacher, Jake the Rake is the single dad who has dated most of the single members of staff and whose kid has just hit her class. It’s lots of fun. Then there’s Happy Singles Day by Anne Marie Walker. It’s a sweet, fluffy holiday romance with a widowed hero with a B&B he’s not running and the professional organiser who visits for an out of season holiday.

Also a previous BotW, there is Jill Shalvis’s Forever and a Day from her Lucky Harbor series. It’s a small town contemporary with an overworked single dad and a former career girl reassessing her future, then this might well scratch that itch. The Lucky Harbor books come in groups of three – and this is the last of its trio, so if you’ve read any of the other two you’ve had glimpses of this in those before you get to this happy ending. In Rachel Lynn Soloman’s Weather Girl, Russell has a 12 year old daughter, and one of the reasons why he’s hesitant about relationships is because he doesn’t want to disrupt her life any more. This isn’t however the centre of the plot – which is a fake relationship type thing to try and get another couple back together to help the hero and heroine’s careers.

And that’s your lot for today – happy Humpday!

books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: June Kindle Offers

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It’s the second Wednesday of the month, and that means Kindle offer time – and it’s actually quite a good crop this month, I mean I bought a few when I was writing this as well as spotting a lot of old friends!

One of my favourite reads of the year so far The Three Dahlias is 99p, I think because it’s just come out in paperback – and we’re not far away from the sequel arriving now either. Also arriving in the not too distant future is the new book from Ashley Poston – the last one Dead Romantics (a former BotW) is 99p too. I mentioned The Cazalet series only the other week when I was talking about World War Two set novels and this is your chance to read the series because the first one, The Light Years, is 99p. Fingers crossed that the others follow!

A couple of the buzzy recent (or recentish) romances are 99p as well – A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon and The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. My mileage with magic varies, so I’ve downloaded the samples of these, with the intention of trying to read them before the month is up. I may or may not succeed with that! The new Alexandria Bellefleur is 99p too – The Fiancée Farce – which is in a new series (I think) for her.

In the Taylor Jenkins Reid universe, Malibu Rising is 99p, I assume to coincide with Carrie Soto‘s arrival in paperback. Magpie Murders is 99p again (or maybe it’s still) because the TV series is about – if you haven’t read it, it really is very good and so is the sequel, and I really hope that we get another one. I read Great Circle earlier this year – I found it a bit of a slog until (at least) the half way point, but then it picked up, but as you know I often struggle with award nominated stuff, so if you’re better at that sort of thing than me, you may love it and 99p for 600+ pages is a bargain.

I read Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees well before I started this blog, but I keep meaning to reread it because it has just been adapted for the stage and had a run at Almeida theatre – which I suspect may go into the West End at some point. Dissolution, the first of the Matthew Shardlake novels is 99p – I keep meaning to read some more of these Tudor-set mysteries, I definitely have at least one on the Kindle…

In the Discworld, Guards! Guards! is £1.99 – I’ve been relistening to the City Watch series over the last few weeks because there is a new audiobook version with Jon Culshaw and it really is a treat. And obviously it has Errol in it. I’m nearly done with my relisten to all of the Peter Wimsey novels (and it’s been really good) and one of my favourites is the 99p offer this month – the seaside-set Have His Carcase, which is one of the ones with Harriet Vane. We’re still waiting for a date for series three of Bridgerton, but if you need a Julia Quinn fix, The Sum of All Kisses, from her Smythe-Smith series is 99p This one is a forced proximity, enemies to lovers romance. If you’re building your Georgette Heyer collection, Sprig Muslin is 99p and it’s one of the lesser spotted favourites – older heroine who has been left on the shelf but who has been secretly in love with someone for years. Another of my favourites, These Old Shades, is £1.52 but in the weird out of copyright editions and it’s sequel Devil’s Cub is £1.99 in a normal edition..

I bought a couple of books while writing this – the aforementioned Alexandria Bellefleur, plus Jane Ridley’s George V biography.

Happy reading everyone!

book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: May Quick reviews

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Only one new release in this month’s quick reviews after a couple of months of all new stuff. Which is interesting as I read a lot of new stuff last month, but I’ve already talked about most of the bits of it that I wanted to. Anyway, to the reviews

Summer Read by Jenn McKinlay**

Cover of Summer Reading set against a beachy background

I mentioned this on release day, and as you know I mostly read Jenn McKinlay’s cozy crimes, but the premise for this summer romance was very appealing – a return to a childhood home for the heroine who is at a bit of a crossroads in her professional life, and a newly arrived on the island hero who is searching for the keys to his family history. It’s sometimes a bit of a tough sell for a book to have a lead character who hates reading – after all we’re all readers because we’re reading it and so it can be hard to sympathise – but I think McKinlay does a good job of explaining Sam’s dyslexia and the issues that it causes for her. I’ll add that I’m not neuro-divergent – so I can’t speak to how accurate the depiction is, and obviously different people will have different experiences, but it all felt pretty plausible. I had a few minor quibbles – mostly around the fact that everything is very black and white and there’s a lot of jumping to conclusions going on at times in the romantic relationships. There’s also quite a lot of plot strands and that means even though the book is quite long, none of them really feel as completely explored as they could. But I enjoyed it and read it in two days so that says something too. I suspect it will work perfectly for people who are looking for something to read on their sun lounger – it’s a beachy summer read with a summery setting.

Proper English by KJ Charles

This is an Edwardian Murder mystery romance, set at a remote country house during a shooting party. Pat is a shooting champion, although she sometimes faces trouble from men who don’t like women being allowed to use guns. The party is at brother’s best friend’s house, where along with Jimmy’s family she meets Fenella – who deeply inconveniently is Jimmy’s new fiancée… I enjoyed it a lot and now need to read the other book that crosses over with this. I picked my paperback up in a second hand buying spree a couple of months back – a rare occasion when I’ve seen a physical copy of an early KJ Charles!

Strange Bedpersons by Jennifer Crusie

And finally for this month we have a Jennifer Crusie from the early 2000s. This is a fake relationship type set-up that sees Tess agree to pretend to be her ex’s fiancée for a business trip in order to help his career. In many ways this romance is quite of its time and I was never quite convinced that the hero and heroine belonged together (and even less so if it was a Democrat and Republican in our current political climate) but I do like filling in the gaps in author’s back catalogue and the snark and banter in this is great. This is a lot of fun to read if you don’t think about it too hard – and I read it in one sitting if that helps at all!

Anyway, that’s your lot, but just in case you missed them, the Books of the Week in May were Death of a Lady, To Love and Be Wise, Grave Expectations and Fake Dates and Mooncakes, and we’ve had Recommendsday posts on World War Two set novels, George III and (relatively) recent non-fiction.

Happy Reading!

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Recommendsday: World War Two-set novels

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After having such a lovely time reading Mrs Porter Calling last week, this week’s Recommendsday features some more World War Two-set books that will give you a similar feel. And I had to think long and hard about it – because so many books that sprang to mind at first were Great War books – and that’s a whole other post!

I’m going to start with Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet series, even though I’ve already written a Series I Love post about them. They start in the 1930s, so if you just want the war period you could just start at book two – The Light Years. I mean I don’t recommend it because you won’t get the full impact of it all but you could if you want to. The Emmy Lake books are first person and just follow Emmy and these have a much wider group they follow, but in terms of the mixture of warmth and tears, they are right up there.

Next up: Mary Wesley’s The Camomile Lawn. It has more sex than Emmy Lake, but if you want the Home Front, it has that – people trying to carry on in the most dangerous and uncertain times. It has that sense of normal rules being suspended because the world might be about to end and people doing things that they wouldn’t normally have done.

It’s set in 1946, but Jojo Moyes Ship of Brides is all about the wartime brides heading over to their unknown futures with the soldiers they have married. There are no massive surprises (or at least I don’t remember any big twists, but it’s been a decade!) but you really get to know the women on the boat and care about what happens to them.

If you want mysteries set in this period, may I please nudge you again at Maisie Dobbs. There are lots of bad series set inWW2 (no I won’t name them here) but once this series actually gets to the Second World War (at Book 13 – In This Grave Hour) it is one of the best.

It’s much older and the first section is much grimmer, but I want to give an extra mention to Nevil Shute’s A Town Like Alice. I’ve mentioned it before but you follow Jean from her life as an English woman living in Malaysia, through her capture by the Japanese and the death march she was put on to her post war new beginning thanks to an inheritance. I like the Alice section best because it is a strong woman paying something forward, but I know that that may be unusual. It is a little of its time, but I’ve loved it for so long I find it hard to be rational about it.

Happy Wednesday!

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Recommendsday: Non Fiction round up

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Rogues by Patrick Radden Keefe

Patrick Radden Keefe is best known (at the moment anyway) for his Empire of Pain, about the opioid epidemic in the US, but this brings together some of his best investigative essays for the New Yorker – covering gangsters, drug barons, terrorism and more including his essay on the late Anthony Bourdain. I sped through some of them (Bourdain, fake wine, Mark Burnett) but found others harder going but that was probably more about my interests and state of mind at the time than anything else. Worth a look if you want some narrative non fiction but not an entire book on the same subject.

The Plantagenets by Dan Jones

I listened to this on audiobook and although it’s long it’s a really well written and understandable look at the Plantagenets – their rise, influence and power. This is an era of English history that doesn’t really get taught at school (there’s often not a lot taught between the Norman conquest and the Tudors) but the Plantagenet dynasty also held extensive lands in France for long periods so even if you do know the basics of the English end of things there is plenty on that here too. I enjoyed it so much I went straight on to Jones’s book on the Wars of the Roses, which picks up where this leaves off.

The Mountbattens by Andrew Lownie

So I read this because as you may remember I read and really enjoyed reading Lownie’s Traitor King a couple of years ago – and it has the same readable writing style, but this is ultimately a less satisfying read. The characters are fascinating – and you’re probably not going to like them much for quite a lot of the time – and their relationship unconventional to say the least. But although this sets out all the controversies and the debates around Mountbatten’s public life and actions – although it drops one major revelation in *very* late – it doesn’t really come to any conclusions, which makes it ultimately more than a bit frustrating. But it is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment – so if you’re interested it’s much more affordable than books like this often are.

Happy Wednesday everyone

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Recommendsday: May Kindle Offers

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Slightly later than usual because I like to keep you all guessing, but here’s this month’s Kindle offers, as lovingly researched and selected by moi.

Cover of No Life for a Lady

Lets start with stuff I’ve talked about recently and Hannah Dolby’s No Life for a Lady is 99p at the moment – or free if you’re in Kindle Unlimited, which is a total bargain. If the Coronation wasn’t enough Royal content for you this month, A Three Dog Problem from the HM The Queen Investigates series is 99p, Stacy Halls‘ Mrs England is on offer again. Much less recently, but still recommended is Jasper Fforde’s A Constant Rabbit – also 99p as is V for Victory by Lissa Evans

There’s also an all time children’s classic on offer because the film comes out shortly – Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. I’ve been listening to Dan Jones on audiobook recently, and the next one I have cued up to listen to Power and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages is 99p at the moment. He’s a very good narrator if you get the audio book, but if you find it easier to do monster history books in written form, this is a bargain. Rachel Lynn Solomon has a new book out soon, but one of her older ones, The Ex Talk is 99p – I prefer Weather Girl but if you’re not a journalist, you may be able to ignore the massive ethics violation in this – I know lots of other people have loved it.

If you’re collecting series, the Pratchett offers this month are The Truth (one of my favourites), Eric and The Science of Discworld III; the Julia Quinn is What Happens in London which is not a Bridgerton book but was my first ever of hers; the Wimseys are Five Red Herrings (which I listened to just last week) and the first one, Whose Body at 99p and Unnatural Death at £1.69 although that does look like a weird edition. Talisman Ring is the only Georgette Heyer on offer at 99p, but there are a few at £1.99 including Devil’s Cub.

And finally, here’s the books I bought whilst writing this post section: The Secret Barrister’s Nothing But the Truth which is 99p to mark it’s paperback release; TJ Klune’s Under the Whispering Door which I’ve been wiating to come down in price for ages and I think must be because of the release of In the Lives of Puppets; Africa Is Not A Country by Diplo Faloyin; Circling Back to You by Julie Tieu and The Neighbor Favor by Kristina Forest.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

book round-ups, books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: George III

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Have you been watching Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story on Netflix this week? If you have, and fancy some more reading about the period, I have the recommendsday post for you. The tie-in book for the series came out yesterday

Let’s start with the history bit – the Queen Charlotte they’re talking about is the wife of George III, aka the one who went mad, prompting the Regency, beloved of historical romance novelists for around a century now. She was born in 1744 and married George III a year after he became King. They were married for 57 years, until her death in 1818, two years before he died.

On the non-fiction front, Lucy Worsley’s Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court will give you a window into the actual life of the court at Kensington Palace in the first reigns of the first two Georges – which finishes ever so slightly before Charlotte arrived in England, but it absolutely sets the scene for what happened next and paints a vivid picture of all the rivalries that simmered under the surface – or not so under the surface. If we’re looking at wider aristocratic society at the time, it’s along time since I read it, but Stella Tillyard’s Aristocrats looks at the lives of the Lennox sisters (who were descended from another one of Charles II’s illegitimate children in a nice throwback to my Coronation post the other day!) who were in and around the court during the reign of George III. Another of the big aristocratic figures of the era is Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (who in another throwback to the Coronation post was a Spencer) who was a socialite and political organiser with an unhappy marriage.

Meanwhile back to the royals themselves, George and Charlotte had 15 children, of whom thirteen survived into adulthood. Included in the children were George IV (the prince regent) and William IV, of whom there are a lot of biographies, but less has been written about the others. In Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III by Flora Fraser you can learn about the lives of the Charlotte, Augusta, Elizabeth, Mary, Sophia and Amelia but also about their parents and life at court. If you want to go a little bit later, Fraser also wrote a very good biography of Caroline of Brunswick, wife of the Prince Regent, who had a very tumultuous life to say the least.

Moving over to fiction and Laurie Graham’s A Humble Companion ties in neatly with the Flora Fraser – as Nellie is a companion to Princess Sophia. You follow their friendship from childhood from George III’s era all the way through to the early Victorian period. And of course, as mentioned earlier, the Regency part of George III’s reign has been popular with historical romance authors since Georgette Heyer started writing about it. But Heyer actually started writing her historical romances in the earlier period and these include some of my favourites – we’re talking The Maskeraders, These Old Shades and Devil’s Cub. Aside from those, The Desperate Duchesses series is set in the Georgian period (rather than the Regency) and so is Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series, which I’ve only read a couple of but I know they have a lot of fans the romance groups that I hang out in.

And finally I’m going to issue another warning at this point – don’t go expecting Queen Charlotte to figure in the Bridgerton book series the way she does in the streaming series.

Happy Wednesday everyone.

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: April Quick reviews

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Another month, and another set of quick reviews that are all new releases that I got from NetGalley. Check me out with reading things in a timely manner again. I’m surprised at myself. Anyway, it’s a variety pack too – with short stories, historical mystery and contemporary romance. Let’s get to it.

Games and Rituals by Katherine Heiny*

I mentioned this on release day, but I’ve finished reading it now and can say that if you want a thought provoking collection of short stories about love and the different forms that it takes, then this is for you. Some are a bit melancholy, many are funny, others will make you wish for more time with the characters. There are eleven stories here and I read it one a day to spread it out and that worked rather nicely.

The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear*

This standalone novel from Winspear is darker in some ways than her Maisie Dobbs series, and in others more straightforward. If you like the War Time bits of Maisie (whether the flashback bits or the 2nd World War era ones) then this may well be your Jam. Our lead character is Elinor who is trying to live quietly in the country but is haunted by the things she did as a special operative in both world wars. When a new family moves to her village she finds herself drawn back into violence as she tries to protect them. There are two strands to the narrative – the 1947 one and then a second one looking back at Elinor’s life and how she came to be the woman she is. I very much enjoyed it and although I had worked some of the bits and bobs out, it was a very satisfying read. I hope it’s the first in a series, although I’m not quite sure how you can create more plots around Elinor at this point. I’d definitely read them though!

If Only You by Chloe Liese*

My first book in this series – and I’ve been hearing a lot about them so I was excited to read it. Firstly – I really enjoyed the playlist that came with it, although as I’m not a Spotify premium subscriber I got it in a random order rather than in order with the chapters! So, to the actual book: I have slightly mixed opinions – I liked the idea of the plot and the family set up, but I found the writing style a little hard going. There is a lot of American style-therapy speak going on in the dialogue and that always winds me up the wrong way but also doesn’t sound like how any one I know talks! It also definitely feels more towards the new adult side of the contemporary romance genre than I was expecting – but maybe that’s because most of the sports romances that I have read recently are things like the Bromance Book club series which are definitely aimed at an older audience. I think this is more of a not my thing end of books rather than anything else – I suspect other people are going to eat this up with a spoon!

I know that last one is a little more negative than I normally am – but I wanted to throw it in because it’s been a weird month or so in romance reading. I’ve read some really, really good stuff but goodness me there’s been some that I’ve disliked. And actually the Chloe Liese falls somewhere in the middle of that spectrum – I like it more in retrospect compared to some of the stuff that’s been worse!

Anyway, the Books of the Week in April included three really good feel good romance or romance adjacent novels – Happy Place, Romantic Comedy and The Roughest Draft – and one really good rich people problems book – Pineapple Street – so I’ve really got nothing to complain about.

Happy Reading!