Category: Recommendsday

Adventure, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Adventure capers

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Continuing the adventure caper theme of the last ten days or so, for this week’s recommendsday I’ve got some books for you if you want some excitement that’s not necessarily murder mystery – although to be fair there are some deaths involved in most of these. And I’ve stuck fairly strictly to stuff sent in contemporary times – and without any fantasy or paranormal elements.

Something Wilder by Christina Lauren

This technically a romance but it’s also an adventure story so it totally belongs in this post. Lily’s father was a famous treasure hunter – always looking for a big find. But when he died he left her with nothing but debts and his own hand drawn treasure maps. She’s turned those maps into a business – taking tourists on fake treasure hunts through canyons in Utah as she tries to raise enough money to buy her family ranch back. Then one tour the man who broke her heart and his friends turn up and the tour goes horribly wrong and Lily starts to wonder if the treasure her dad was searching for was real after all. Lily and Leo will have to work together if they’re going to fix the wrongs of the past. I really enjoyed this – it’s quite different from Christina Lauren’s usual romances as it has Actual Life or Death Peril, and in some ways I was more interested in the treasure hunt side of it than the romance!

Skin Tight by Carl Hiaasen

Hiaasen writes darkly humorous adventure romps – I’ve read a few and every time I read one I think I should read more of them. Skinny Dip is the first in a series, and sees a former State investigator trying to work out who is trying to kill him after an intruder breaks into his house with a gun. His former career means he has a long list of enemies to narrow down as he tries to stay alive to enjoy his retirement. If you want to get a flavour of the sort of black comedy we’re dealing with: he kills the burglar using a stuffed fish. I saw someone describe his work as “if Florida man was a book” which is sort of fair, but sort of not. This was actually a Book of the Week back in 2018 – so i’m allowed to recommend it again now – and another of Hiaasen’s books, Basket Case, was a BotW last year too.

If you haven’t read the Da Vinci Code, that definitely counts as an adventure more than anything else I think – it feels very chase-y. I read the Da Vinci Code not long after it first came out and then read another non-Robert Langdon Dan Brown before reading Angels and Demons – and with Angels and Demons I was able to pick out the culprit straight away and I’m not sure I’ve finished another one since, although I have tried – so your mileage may vary but I do know people who have loved them all.

And of course there are a couple series that I’ve written about that fit into this too: Vicky Bliss (and Amelia Peabody although obviously that’s historical adventure and so doesn’t belong here!) and the Vinyl Detective probably counts too.

Happy Wednesday

books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: October Kindle Offers

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It’s officially autumn according to Amazon – and they’ve got a bunch of Kindle offers to celebrate. So here we go again with another batch of Kindle offers to test your will power and tempt you into a bit of impulse purchasing!

Lets start with some recent releases: I read Set on You by Amy Lea back in May when it came out – as I said in the quick review post at the time: I had a couple of quibbles with the start where the heroine and hero are both being annoying to each other, but mostly it’s fun, flirty romance and definitely worth 99p! Even newer is last week’s Book of the Week, Ashley Poston’s The Dead Romantics, which (as I mentioned in that post) and even newer still is yesterday’s Book of the Week, Deanna Raybourn’s Killers of a Certain Age which are both 99p. Previous BotW Nina de Grammont’s The Christie Affair is still 99p – the paperback is out now so I think that’s why.

Cover of The Christie Affair

Other previously mentioned books that are 99p are Mrs England by Stacey Halls about a nanny who takes a job at a creepy house in Yorkshire – I wrote about this in Mini Reviews last June. Going further back, Libby Page’s The Lido was a summer holiday read four (!) years ago and is also a bargainous 99p. Even longer agin, Nick Spalding’s Bricking It was a BotW in 2015 and is £1 (or free if you’re a Kindle Unlimited member). One of Trisha Ashley’s Christmas books is on offer for 99p too – A Christmas Cracker was a BotW in 2015 as well. Going back even further, Lucy Dillon’s A Hundred Pieces of Me is 99p – I read it when it first came out in 2014 in the early days of the blog and before the BotW posts started and enjoyed it so much it made my favourite books of the year post.

In books that I probably should have written about before now, Daphne Du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn is 99p – I have a lovely Virago hardback of this and it’s creepy and atmospheric and really good (and they still have that hardback on Amazon as well if you want a really pretty book). Three of the four Harper Connelly series are on offer this month – but annoyingly not the first one. I’ve written about other series and books by Charlaine Harris, but not this one (yet) – if you’ve read other Harris series, you’ll spot some crossovers. There’s a new edition of Christina Jones’s Going the Distance – which is one of her Milton St John series – I wrote an Authors I Love post about Jones back in 2016 and if you haven’t checked out her books you should – they’re exactly the sort of romantic comedies I wish there were more of (or at least were easier to identify) these days.

In books I haven’t read, but by authors I have read, there is Reputation by Lex Croucher – I’ve read Infamous (the sequel) and that has a queer Bridgerton vibe going on – the write ups for this one say it’s “Bridgerton meets Fleabag or Bad Education”. Then there is Casey McQuiston (of Red, White and Royal Blue)’s book One Last Stop which is a rom com about a subway crush – except that the girl that August has a crush on is displaced from the 1970s. The first in T J Klune’s YA series The Extraordinaries is 99p this month – which is a proper bargain considering what the rest of his books are. In non-fiction – because I can’t do a post without some non-fiction – Dan Jones’s Power and Thrones is 99p. It’s a history of the Middle Ages – I read his book about the Templars and it was really, really good. I have his book about King John on the pile – and he has a historical fiction book (his first novel) out now too.

This month’s 99p Terry Pratchetts are Only You Can Save the World – which is the first in the Johnny Maxwell series for kids and The Long War from the Long Earth series with Thief of Time from Discworld at £1.99. Also for the series collectors, this month’s J D Robb is Conspiracy in Death, number eight (of 56!) in the series. And Busman’s Honeymoon, the last Peter Wimsey novel (and the fourth of the Harriet and Peter ones) is 99p too. Which is excellent. Also in classic crime, Daughter of Time – aka the Josephine Tey about Richard III is 99p.

In books I own, but haven’t read yet, Charlie Homberg’s Paper Magician series is all on offer – and in KU too. As regular readers will know, I’m in the process of reading Great Circle – but the ebook is £1.99 today if you want to try and finish it before me! And finally, in books I impulse bought while writing this post, we have Heidi Stephens’ Never Gonna Happen which is 99p. Heidi writes The Guardian’s live blogs for Strictly Come Dancing and Eurovision and I’m excited to read a rom com by her – this is her second book and there is a third coming out at the end of November.

And that’s probably about enough. There are a few books on offer that I have on the kindle but haven’t read yet, but as we’ve now at about two dozen books, I should probably stop.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: September Quick Reviews

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As previously mentioned September was a very strange month, with a somewhat truncated reading list, so I don’t have a lot to talk about this month at all. After all I skipped a whole bunch of Books of the Weeks for various reasons. And so there are only two quick reviews for you today – sorry about that.

Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

When Bee gets her dream job working at NASA, her celebrations are cut short when she discovers that the co-lead on her project is Levi, her grad school arch-nemesis. When she arrives in Houston, her equipment is missing and the other staff are ignoring her, but maybe Levi might be on her side after all? I read this in The Week of Shingles and although I didn’t love it the way that I loved The Love Hypothesis, it was still exactly the book that I needed to read at the time. I’m a little fed up of Teeny Tiny heroines and Great Big Heroes – but that may be because I am 5’10” and no one is ever picking me up and carrying me around! I will never be tired of competency porn though, and Bee (and Levi) are very, very good at their jobs. I was expecting one strand of the plot to be A Bigger Thing in the resolution, but actually the whole of the end wrapped up very quickly – but it was very satisfying.

Bats in the Belfry by E C R Lorac

I’ve recommended a few E C R Lorac books now – and this is another good one. For some reason I don’t have a photo of the British Library Crime Classic edition that I read, so you’ll have to make do with this Crime Club cover that the kindle edition has. Anyway this is the story of the mysterious disappearance of Bruce Attleton. Bruce had a dazzling start to his literary career but has fizzled ever since. He’s been receiving threatening phone calls and then when he’s suddenly called away to Paris he seems to vanish completely – until his suitcase is discovered in an artists studio in Notting Hill. Inspector MacDonald is the man in charge of figuring out what has happened. It’s clever and intricate and worth sticking with – also it appears I’ve read three of these that are next to each other in the series – this comes immediately after These Names Make Clues, which comes after Post After Post Mortem.

That’s it. I said there were only two. I don’t even have a lot of links for the month either, so rather than depress myself further at how badly September went, let’s end it here.

Happy Wednesday everyone.

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Fake Relationships

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For recommendsday this week, I have for you a selection of fake relationship romance novels. Which I’ll have you know was a bit of a challenge, because I love a fake relationship book when it works and that means they often end up being BotWs. More of those at the end…

Cotillion by Georgette Heyer

I’m going to start with one of my lesser mentioned Georgette Heyers. Cotillion was actually one of the very first I read of hers and writing this has made me think that I need to go back and read it again. Kitty’s Uncle Matthew says he will leave his fortune to her – if she marries one of his great-nephews. Two of them promptly propose to her – but not Jack who is the one she likes best. So Kitty asks Freddy to pretend to be engaged to her for a month – partly to make Jack jealous. Of course complications ensue and it all goes from there. This is at the witty and comic end of the Heyer oevre (think Frederica or Arabella) rather than one of the big emotion romances.

Well Matched by Jen DeLuca

I mentioned this in the quick reviews back in February, but I’m going to give it another quick shout out here: the third in DeLuca’s Ren Faire series is about April who agrees to pretend to be her friend Mitch’s girlfriend at an event with his family which starts a chain of events that threatens to derail her long held plan for what she will do when her daughter leaves for college..

If I Never Met You by Mhairi MacFarlane

Another one I’ve mentioned before – but this time two years ago (I actually read this at the start of our last holiday before the pandemic when we had no idea what was about to happen!). Laurie’s boyfriend has just broken up with her but because she still has to work with him everyday it’s all the office can talk about, Jamie needs a girlfriend to impress his new boss. The two of them come up with a plan to pretend to be a couple to solve both of their problems. This comes with a slight warning that the heroine’s break up at the start is very bleak, but the fauxmance between Laurie and Jamie is really good and well done and the resolution works out really neatly.

And now, fake relationship books that have been Books of the Week (an inexhaustive list): Boyfriend Material, Roomies, the Love Hypothesis, Take a Hint, Dani Brown, Kiss Quotient, The Unhoneymooners,

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Country House-set books

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For today’s recommendsday I have a selection of country house-set books of various kinds for your entertainment.

Summer Lightning by P G Wodehouse

I’m going to start with a comedic classic. Summer Lightning is the fourth of the Blandings books but I think it’s my favourite. It has all the ingredients you want: Lord Emsworth and his prize pig, Lady Constance trying to manage him, a pair of lovers and the Honorable Galahad writing his memoirs and setting the town in a stir. Oh, and the Efficient Baxter. You don’t need to have read the others in the series, and you should be able to get hold of it nice and easily.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

It’s not often that I recommend a classic is it? And now I’ve given you two in one post. If you haven’t ever read Waugh’s tale of Charles Ryder’s entanglements with the Flyte family, then you really should – even if you start off only doing it because it gets referenced (whether you know it or not) in other things! It’s not my favourite of Waugh’s – but I have returned to it a a few times now, not least because I have the audiobook which is read in wonderfully soothing tones by Jeremy Irons – who starred in the famous TV adaptation.

Death in Fancy Dress by Anthony Gilbert

The Secret Service are trying to catch a blackmailer. There’s a been an increase in the number of suicides that seemed initially unconnected, but where on investigation the dead person had all the appearance of being a blackmail victim. Tony is a young lawyer who finds himself entangles in the mystery when the unpopular Sir Ralph is young dead the night after failing to appear at a house party being held at the house of a young woman who has just tried to break of her engagement to another man so she can marry Ralph – seeming under duress. Who killed him – and who is the blackmailer? This is an interesting mystery, with a clever premise but is not always the clearest in its writing with a set of male characters who could feel a little interchangable. Or maybe that was just me! I still enjoyed it though – and when I read it it was in Kindle Unlimited too.

To be honest I’ve written about scads of books set in country houses – you could also add The Austen Playbook, the Cazalet series, several of the Roderick Alleyns – notably A Man Lay Dead and Death and the Dancing Footman – as well as a whole bunch of Georgette Heyers like The Unknown Ajax or the gothic My Cousin Kate.

Happy reading!

book round-ups, books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: September Kindle Offers

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Another month, another batch of Kindle offers for you all to enjoy.

Let’s start with one I’ve recommended already this year: A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle is 99p – I suspect to coincide with that paperback release which I mentioned the other day in Books in the Wild. In things I read, but longer ago, there is The Ex Hex by Rachel Hawkins, Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld and former Book of the Week V for Victory by Lissa Evans – although as that’s the third of three connected novels, you’ll get the most out of it if you read the others first. Recommended even longer ago is Rosie Effect by Graeme Simision – which has reminded me that I need to read the final book in that trilogy too!

There are a couple of other recent releases too – I’ve read Infamous by Lex Croucher*, which is billed as Bridgerton’s rowdy little sister – but I haven’t got to Ten Years by Pernille Hughes yet, although it is waiting on my kindle. Also waiting on my kindle is The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson which came out last year originally.

In old favourites, there’s one of my very favourite Katie Fforde books at 99p this month Stately Pursuits must be nearly 20 years old now, but a lot of the tropes you’ll find in it are still among my favourites: a grumpy brooding hero, something that needs saving (in this case a big old house) and a heroine who just throws herself into tackling any problem in her path.

In series I love, Tales from the Folly by Ben Aaronovitch – the short story collection that ties in to Rivers of London is 99p this month, and I don’t remember seeing it this cheap before. In other series with books on offer, MC Beaton Death of a Bore in the Hamish Macbeth series is 99p. I’ve only read a few JD Robbs, but I know they’re hugely popular and the series is really long – so always good to pick them up on offer. This month it’s Judgement in Death, the 11th in the series

Some of the Georgette Heyer novels now seem to be dropping out of copyright and appearing in random editions (or at least I think that’s what they are) but in terms of the editions that I know are proper and well formatted etc, this month it’s Spanish Bride on offer for 99p. This is one of the less traditional Heyers – it’s got all the battle description that I find the least interesting bit of Infamous Army and is based on a true story. Spoiler: The marriage happens very early. The £1.99 Heyers are the aforementioned Infamous Army, Pistols for Two (the short stories collection), my beloved Devil’s Cub and another slightly more obscure one – Beauvallet.

And finally in non fiction, Andrew Lownie’s The Mountbattens is 99p – I haven’t read this yet, but I very much enjoyed his book Traitor King this time last year. And Burnout by Emily Nagoski is also on offer. I read this before the pandemic, but I think the help and advice it offers is needed more now than ever.

Hopefully there’s something here for you somewhere. Have a good Wednesday.

book round-ups, Recommendsday

August Quick reviews

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There’s definitely not as much to write about this month – because I’ve already written about so many books that I read in August! Still I have scared up three books to tell you about today so, yay me.

Quick Curtain by Alan Melville

I talked about a bunch of theatre-set books of various types in August – and here’s another which was part of my haul from the conference book sales. Alan Melville’s murder mystery is another that sees an actor murdered on stage in front of an audience. Where it differs from the Ngaio Marsh novels with a similar premise is the satirical slant it takes on the detecting. On that front it’s closer to Nancy Spain’s Cinderella Goes to the Morgue, although this does care about solving the crime! A very nice way to spend an afternoon.

Femina by Janina Ramirez*

This is a fascinating look at the Middle Ages via the lives of writings and artifacts left behind by some of the women who lived through the period. Some of the names were people I had heard of, but I knew very little about any of them except for Margery Kempe. This is easy to read, but incredibly well researched and has plenty of pictures of the artifacts being talked about. It also has a huge bibliography at the back if you want to go and read more about any of the women. Well worth a look, even if you don’t usually do books on the Middle Ages. I mentioned this on publication day and it’s taken me a while to finish – but that’s because my brain has been fried and I only had the concentration for small bursts. Luckily it’s broken down into nice bite-sized sections!

Knit to Kill by Anne Canadeo

This is more of a lesson in doing more research than a review, because I picked this up on Kindle Unlimited thinking it was a first in series – because it says it is in the title but when I started reading it it really confused me because it didn’t read like introducing a new set of characters. So off to Goodreads I went where I discovered it was actually the first since a change of publishers – and actually the ninth book about this set of characters. Then things made more sense. Remind me to research the KU stuff the same way I do the rest of the books in future!

And in case you’ve forgotten, here’s all the other books I talked about in August: Piglettes, A Time to Dance, Thank you for Listening, Husband Material, A Twist of the Knife, the Sadler’s Wells Series, Swallows and Amazons series, London Celebrities series, Amory Ames series, books set in theatres, late summer romances and Actor Memoirs.

Happy Wednesday!

book round-ups, memoirs, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Actor Memoirs

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This Recommendsday post has been a long time in the making, but actually really fits in with the theme of this month in a way – I’ve written about the theatre and careers on the stage a fair bit – but also featured a children’s film starring one of the actors in it!

Forever Young by Hayley Mills

So lets start with that one – Hayley Mills is the star of my favourite version of The Parent Trap, but was also the biggest child star of her day. She was born into an acting family – her father was Sir John Mills, her Mother Mary Hayley Bell and her sister Juliet is also an actress. She won a Bafta for her first film role and was signed by Disney. This book takes you through her childhood career and what happened when she grew up. It’s got plenty of Old Hollywood and British Acting Royalty detail in it as well as all the sorts of thing you want to know about being a child star and what sort of effect it has on you. It doesn’t talk a lot about her life after the mid-1970s, but given that most people are probably reading this because they’ve watched her juvenile performances, and by that point she’s all grown up and married, that’s probably a reasonably wise decision unless the book was going to be much longer. The good news is that I came out of the end still liking her, although some of the decisions she made in her early adulthood were not the best!

Home Work by Julie Andrews

From the star of one of my favourite childhood films to the star of two of them! This is the second memoir that Julie Andrews has written – and the first of them, Home, finishes just before she becomes a major star. So as the Sound of Music and Mary Poppins are among my favourite movies, I was looking forward to reading this to see what the experience of making them was like for her. And that is in there – but just not in as much detail as I was expecting. Andrews and her co-writer, her daughter Emma, rattle through 30 years of her career and personal life at breakneck speed and without ever really letting you in on what Andrews was thinking or feeling. She’s been in psychoanalysis since the 1960s, so you would assume that she has more insight into what was going on than she is telling you, but she’s definitely keeping you at an arms length and preserving that Old School Hollywood aloofness that some old school stars like her have cultivated since the early days of their career. Now whether some of her reluctance to talk about what must have been the very real difficulties of her second husband’s prescription drug dependence are because she was writing this not long after his death (or even before) and she doesn’t have the perspective yet, I don’t know. But for all that the details of making Mary Poppins and SoM are satisfying (in as much of them as you get, and I’m not sure there’s masses here I didn’t already know) the lack of everything else holds this back.

I Was Better Last Night by Harvey Fierstein

Most of us probably first saw Harvey Fierstein in Mrs Doubtfire – or heard his voice in Mulan, but Fierstein is something of a Broadway legend – he wrote the play Torch Song Trilogy, the book for the musical version of La Cage aux Folles and won a Tony as the original Broadway Edna in Hairspray. His memoir follows him through growing up in 1950s Brooklyn through all those big moments and achievements. It’s a long and hard journey – with addiction and loss along side spectacular highs but as well as being a personal story, it also shows the development and evolution of New York theatre in the last third of the twentieth century and the changing face of gay culture.

Mean Baby by Selma Blair

At the other end of the spectrum to Julie Andrews is Selma Blair’s memoir. Blair doesn’t hold anything back – her drinking from an incredibly young age, her fraught relationship with her mum, her self destructive behaviour – it’s all here along along with the professional successes you already know about, or at least that you know about if you’re my age – Legally Blonde, Cruel Intentions, Hellboy – and her activism after her diagnosis with MS three years ago. It’s a story of resilience through adversity and proof that no matter how someone’s life might look like on the outside – movie roles, front row seats at fashion shows – you never know what is going on in secret and the struggles that are going on behind the scenes.

And that’s your lot for this post. I do have several more actor memoirs sitting on the pending self, so there may well be a follow up at some point, but who knows when that might be given my current track record!

Happy Humpday everyone!

book round-ups, fiction, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: (Late) Summer Holiday Reading

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Yes, this is very late now, but it’s a bank holiday weekend coming in the UK this week and last week I had three nights away from home so I *finally* pulled my finger out and read the rest of the books that I had been thinking about for this post. I know – I started writing this in late June, but I got distracted by the rereads and exciting new series. And some of the books I was going to put into this ended up in other posts, or as books of the week (Acting Up I’m looking at you) I am such a mood reader. I don’t even know why I try to make lists and plans of what to read when. And yes, this is all romance or romantic comedy or adjacent genres, but that is what I like to read on a sun lounger. Sue me. As usual, if it has an * next to the title if came from NetGalley, otherwise I paid for it with my very own money. And you’ll be glad to know I’ve already started on the Christmas reading post. Maybe I’ll get that one done on time…

Beach House Summer by Sarah Morgan*

Sarah Morgan‘s summer novel this year follows the ex-wife of a TV chef in the immediate aftermath of his death in a car crash. Stay with me, I know that sounds like it might be miserable, but don’t worry. To return to the plot: Joanna’s marriage to Cliff was dysfunctional to say the least and carried out in the glare of the media spotlight. So when she finds out that there was a young woman in the car when it crashed and that the woman is pregnant, Joanna knows she has to help her. The two women head to Joanna’s house in the town that she grew up in to hide from the paparazzi. Joanna hasn’t been there since she ran away with Cliff in the aftermath of a breakup with her high school boyfriend and she’s soon going to have to face the past and the community she left behind. Ashley needs space to plan her and the baby’s future – but there are still a few secrets to come out… This is a delightful sun lounger read, if you can just get past the death-y bit at the start, which I did – but that’s why it was on the list for a couple of weeks! It’s basically a small town, second chance romance with relatively low peril.

The Friendship Pact by Jill Shalvis

On to another regular author of mine and Jill Shalvis’s summer ‘22 book is a second chance romance for two characters who have been damaged by their childhoods. Tae spent her childhood worrying about money and about her mum’s attempts to find a man to make them a family. Riggs’ dad was an alcoholic who liked to hit his kids. But the two of them were friends in high school – until they weren’t. Now Riggs is back in town to visit his brother and his company providing adventures for athletes with disabilities and wounded veterans. Tae’s events planning company is organising their summer programmes. The two of them reconnect, but there are obstacles to a happy ending for them. I read it in 24 hours and was nearly late back from my lunch break because I was enjoying it so much. There’s a testimonial for you!

In a New York Minute by Kate Spencer*

Franny Doyle is already having a bad day before her dress catches in the subway door: she’s just been made redundant. But now her dress is ripped but even worse – the whole subway can see her bum and her knickers. luckily fellow passenger Hayes lends her his jacket to save her blushes. That would be the end of it – except someone has posted what happened to their Insta stories and now they’re viral sensations – #SubwayQTs. Their new found fame (notoriety?!) means they end up seeing each other again, and again, and again: but is there more there than just a hashtag? This has a buttoned up and awkward hero who comes off as aloof and a creative heroine with a tight knit group of friends. If I hadn’t had to do actual things, I could probably have read this in one giant sitting – it’s light and fluffy and endearing.

Donut Fall In Love by Jackie Lau

And finally, this isn’t a summer new release (it came out in October last year!), but I’m giving it a quick shout out because it feels like it would be a fun read if you were on a sun lounger. This has a Hollywood star and a normal person pairing (which I like – see Olivia Dade!) and it’s also got a bakery and a baking show. What’s not to love.

detective, mystery, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Books set in Theatres

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As you know, it was Book Conference over the weekend, so it seemed like this week’s Recommendsday should be related to Girl’s Own in some way. We had a post about mysteries set in boarding schools not that long ago, so today I’m doing books set in theatres – not all mysteries, not all Girls Own!

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

I am going to start with a Girl’s Own book though – because Noel Streatfeild wrote a lot of books with heroines who were involved in the theatre. Ballet Shoes is the most famous though, and has one of the great eccentrics of the genre too in Great Uncle Matthew – or Gum – who is a fossil collector who turns traveller after he is injured and starts collecting babies instead (don’t worry, it makes more sense in the book). When he goes missing while travelling and the money starts to run out, Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil (but mostly Pauline because she’s the oldest) use their acting and dancing skills to earn some extra money. It’s charming, it’s got great details about the backstage life of children in the theatre and all the secondary characters are wonderful too. And it’s still in print nearly 90 years after it was first published.

Cinderella Goes to the Morgue by Nancy Spain

This follows on quite nicely from Ballet Shoes, as it’s a satirical murder mystery that features exactly the sort of show that the Fossil girls star in as juveniles. In Cinderella Goes to the Morgue Spain’s regular heroines, Miriam and Natasha, are taking part in a pantomime in a fictional town in the provinces; with a local mayor who seems to be more involved in the theatre than in running the town. There are murders, but as with Nancy Spain’s other mysteries, it’s more about the absurdity than it is about solving the crime.

The Zig Zag Girl by Elly Griffiths

When a young woman is found brutally murdered in Brighton in 1950, there is something about the crime which reminds Detective Inspector Stephens of a magic trick. He seems the help of the trick’s inventor, the magician Max Mephisto, who he also happens to have served with in a secretive unit in the war. This is the first in the series which sees Edgar and Max investigating various crimes, some with a theatrical link, some while Max is juggling a job in the theatre. They’re not precisely cozy historicals, but they’re not exactly radically gruesome either – think Agatha Christie at her darkest. I’ve read the first three in the series, but there are three more now – with another out in the autumn.

Wise Children by Angela Carter

This has featured in a Recommendsday before, but it was five years ago so it’s well outside the statute of limitations! Nora and Dora Chance are the illegitimate twin daughters of a pillar of the theatrical establishment. They’re about to turn 75 – on the same day that their father is 100. Oer the course of the novel Dora tells the story of their lives before they head to the televised party that’s being thrown for their father. It’s got a huge cast of characters that might take you a while to get your head around and add to that the fact that it’s a magical realist sort of thing too. It was turned into a play a few years ago – which was shown on TV during the Covid Times (it might have been at Christmas, but all time merged into one back then) and I can confirm that the play was as mindbending and strange as the book is.

Maskerade by Terry Pratchett

I couldn’t resist adding this in – even though I’ve written plenty about Terry Pratchett’s books before. Maskerade is Terry’s take on Phantom of the Opera, except with witches and it’s just glorious. Agnes Nitt is a Lancre girl in the big city – singing the leading parts from the back row of the chorus while a prettier soprano mouths along. But when the Ankh Morpork Opera Theatre Ghost starts killing people, Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax head for the big city to try and keep her alive. Just writing that has made me want to read it again!

And let’s finish with some other theatre-y books that I’ve written about before – Acting Up and the other books in Adele Buck’s series are all theatre-set romances. And you could probably count Circus of Wonders and The Night Circus under this heading (if you squint a bit!). There’s also a whole string of Inspector Alleyn books that are set in the theatre – including the final one, The Light Thickens, but also earlier in the series Vintage Murder, Enter a Murderer and Opening Night and several others that feature actors or actresses but aren’t actually doing the killing in a theatre- including one of my favourites Final Curtain. For kids there’s also a theatre set entry in the Wells and Wong mystery series – Death in the Spotlight which has plenty of nods to the Alleyns if you’ve read them. And of course there’s the previously mentioned Girl’s Own ballet series – Sadlers Wells and Drina.

Happy Wednesday!