Category: Recommendsday

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Romances with Ghosts

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It s the day before Halloween and in Saturday’s post, I mentioned a bunch of this year’s new releases with a spooky or somewhat Halloween-related theme and of course the newest Jen DeLuca which features some ghostly goings on was BotW last week, so today for Recommensday I wanted to mention a few of the less new books that are also suitable for the season.

Lets start with a paranormal romance series: Darynda Jones’s Charley Davidson books. Charley is a part-time Private Investigator and also a grim reaper, oh and she’s got a thing going on with the son of Satan. It’s been seven years (!) since the first in this series was a Book of the Week pick, and I released while writing this that I haven’t got to the end of the series, so I should probably pick up another one or two and see how it goes. They are on the edge of too dark for me though, so your mileage may vary on that front.

Equally, if you like a paranormal series – I’ve written series posts for several of Charlaine Harris’s series which have varying degrees of romance. Obviously there is the Southern Vampire series – aka Sookie Stackhouse aka the source material for the TV series True Blood (too violent for me on TV, I only made it to the end of series 2, but absolutely fine as books) – but there’s also the Harper Connelly series, although that has less romance to it and then the Midnight, Texas series, which I haven’t written about yet, but reviewed a couple of them here when they were new.

Then there are the standalone romances – and all of these are books I’ve mentioned before (sorry, not sorry). First of all there’s Ashley Poston’s The Dead Romantics, which has a ghostwriter who goes home to her family’s funeral parlour because her father has died, only to have her editor turn up as a ghost at her door. Then there are a couple of newer ones as well – firstly this summer’s Love of my Afterlife by Kirsty Greenwood which has a heroine who gets a reprieve from death – but needs to find the love of her life or she’ll be permanently dead. This has now been optioned for a film by the same production company as It Ends With Us. And finally there’s Sarah Adler‘s Happy Medium which was a BotW back in May and has a fake psychic who spots a real ghost at the home of a sexy and sceptical farmer.

And that’s your lot for today – I hope you have a great Halloween if that’s something you celebrate, if it’s not, I hope you manage to avoid the trick or treaters and have a cozy night doing something else!

Happy Reading!

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Upcoming adaptations

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Autumn is new TV season, and the run up to Christmas (and THanksgiving in the US) is the big movie release season, so I thought this week I’d mention the books that are about to hit the screens of various sizes before the end of the year.

I’m starting with the one you’re most likely to have already seen a trailer for even before I put it here, and that’s Wicked. It’s based on the musical which is quite a long way away from Gregory Maguire’s novel, but as they’ve split it into two parts, it sounds like they have used more of the book material for the film – which makes sense because the second half of the musical is less obviously spectacular than the first and the most well known songs are in the first – including the iconic Defying Gravity which is the ending of the first half in the musical and has been so heavily featured in all the promotional material that it has to be in the first part!

Excitingly Interior Chinatown has a brand new trailer today – ahead of it’s release in the US in mid November. Charles Yu has adapted it himself from his novel, which is about an background character in a police procedural drama who longs to be the main character. It won a National Book award the year it came out and was nominated for a couple more prizes. I read it in 2020 and although it was not entirely my thing (as we know that’s not unusual for Award-winners) but I thought it was really clever, inventive and mind bending. It’s on the list of things I might be able to watch with Him Indoors. Or at least let him start watching it to see if I’ll be able to cope. I just need to get Disney+ again first!

Already out there in the US, but frustratingly still without a confirmed date in the UK is the Moonflower Murders. I did mention this the other week when I posted that there is going to be another book in the Atticus Pünd/Susan Ryeland series, but I don’t care, because I think these are so fun and clever and I’m looking forward to seeing how book two translates to the screen – I doubted Anthony Horowitz before the seeing the Magpie Murders and I’m not making that mistake again. I’m sort of expecting that this is going to be in the Christmas TV offerings, so I might still have two months to wait…

This one is a bit of a cheat on two fronts because it’s already out there *and* I haven’t read the book, but the trailer made me laugh so I’m going with it anywhere. I’ve read about half a dozen of Carl Hiassen’s books – but not Bad Monkey – and I am a little worried this is going to be a bit too violent for me on screen – the novels fall into the same sort of humours crime-thriller-adventure area as Stephanie Plum does, but with a lot more gore on the page. This one is on Apple TV+, which I hardly ever have, so it may be a while before I can set Him Indoors on it to check it for me.

And finally, this is the one that I have no clue how I would be able to watch as it’s a Hallmark Movie, but the book itself sounds intriguing: The Chicken Sisters. It’sabout two families feuding over whose restaurant serves the best fried chicken and two sisters who have ended up on opposite sites try to settle it by taking part in a TV cooking show. It’s at least partially set in Kansas too – so if I can get hold of a copy of that, it might help me with one of my harder to get states in the 50 states challenge…

Happy Reading!

books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: October Kindle Offers

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Oh it’s such a good month for offers. Honestly, I would say this post was expensive to write, except for the fact that everything was on offer so it was more quantity rather than cost… Anyway – to the books.

Lets start with the Halloween related special offers. Recent release Haunted Ever After by Jen DeLuca is 99p (which was one of my purchases!), as is Ali Hazelwood’s The Bride. There’s an Agatha Christie short short story collection called Autumn Chills as well as the Poirot mystery Hallowe’en Party and Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

I re-read Nora Ephron‘s Heartburn the other week, and her memoir of sorts I Feel Bad About My Neck is on offer this month – I read it years ago and enjoyed it. Also on offer that I read years ago is Anthony Quinn’s Curtain Call – which apparently is the basis for the new Ian McKellan movie The Critic – which I would never have guessed from the trailer!

Also in adaptations but this time in things I haven’t read is Firebrand by Elizabeth Freemantle, which was previously called Queen’s Gambit and was presumably retitled because of the Chess book and movie and is actually about Catherine Parr. Also in books I haven’t read there’s The Art of Catching Feelings by Alicia Thompson is also 99p – I’ve got her Love in the Time of Serial Killers on the Kindle and I really need to read that and see if I like it before I buy anything else of hers. In things I haven’t read and probably aren’t my thing, but that I know are really popular, there’s R F Kuang’s Babel for 99p, the latest Nora Roberts romantic suspense Mind Games, Alix E Harrow’s Starling House, Coleen Hoover’s Reminders of Him and Maybe Not, Sarah Adams’s The Match

On the murder mystery front, the latest Hawthorne and Horowitz Close to Death is 99p, as is the third Marlow Murder Club Mystery The Queen of Poisons, the first Canon Clement Murder Before Evensong, the first Cesare Aldo City of Vengence, third Shardlake book Sovereign (which I only read a few weeks ago), The Three Dahlias AND Seven Lively Suspects by Katy Watson, and the third Her Majesty the Queen Investigates Murder Most Royal is also 99p.

There’s also a pretty good selection of translated fiction on offer this month like Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Dallergut Dream Department Store and Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, some of which I’ve read, others that I haven’t. And there’s Katherine Heiny‘s Games and Rituals on offer too and Brit Bennett‘s The Mothers, as well as Tales of the City which is the first in Armistad Maupin‘s series that I have written about more than once. The discounted Terry Pratchetts this month are Wee Free Men at 99p and Witches Abroad for £1.99 and the Georgette Heyers are Devil’s Cub, Infamous Army, Beauvallet and Pistols for Two which are all £1.99 so will probably come around cheaper at some point if you’re not in a rush. With the Heyers and the Peter Wimseys (although there aren’t any Wimseys on a good deal this month), there are more and more going out of copyright and so very cheap editions continue to pop up, but I have no idea how good a quality product they are – my history with them is that they can be not great at all.

On the non fiction front, I’ve read other books by Mary S Lovell but not her Bess of Hardwick which is 99p. I have however read 99p deals Burnout by Emily Nagoski, Antonia Fraser’s Marie Antoinette (although it was a long time ago!), Jessica Mitford’s Hons and Rebels and Femina by Janina Ramirez which is £1.99.

In things I bought, there’s D is for Death by Harriet F Townson, which is the crime pen name of Harriet Evans, the Jen De Luca that I already mentioned (and started) and got samples of The Golden Spoon and a few others.

Happy Humpday everyone.

book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: September Quick Reviews

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Just a couple of books to tell you about today – September was very much a month of series reading and some/many/a selection of those will feature elsewhere!

Hitchcock’s Blondes by Laurence Leamer

Leamer’s previous book Capote’s Women was a Book of the Week right back at the start of the year (side note: the mini series based on that one still hasn’t appeared on TV here which is annoying) and this one tackles another group linked by a man. Alfred Hitchcock was a great director, but not necessarily a great person as this book will hammer home. I think I would have appreciated a bit more a clarity about why he picked the women that he did – no Doris Day here for example and she was definitely blonde – but it’s an interesting read and there’s some good Classic Hollywood insider info in here too.

The Red House Murder by A A Milne*

I filled in a gap in my crime-fiction history knowledge by reading this, the only mystery novel by the author of (among many other things) Winnie the Pooh. It’s a locked room-type mystery and it’s hard to tell at this distance – and having read so many similar plots – how revolutionary this might have seen at the time. That said, it’s a really good example of the genre, with the long lost brother of the host of a house party found shot through the head shortly after arriving from Australia. I figured out part of the solution, but not the hows and whys of it – and enjoyed reading how it had all been done. Worth reading if you’re a fan of classic mysteries.

Worrals goes East by W E Johns

This is the latest in an occasional series of reviews of genuinely terrible Girls Own (or Girls Own-adjacent) books. Worrals was the female version of Biggles, in a very literal sense, and gets up to all sorts of adventures as a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. The last one of these I read, you could probably have swapped Worrals and Frecks names for Biggles and Ginger and it would have still made sense (or as much sense as these make) and as that one was set in occupied France, there was just the usual anti Nazi stuff rather than actual racism. You know where I’m going with this don’t you? This one at least has a plot that could only be carried out by women, but that’s because it’s set in Syria and Iraq and, yeah. I suggest you don’t read it!

That’s your lot this month – happy Humpday!

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Cozy Autumn reads

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I don’t know about you, but there’s something about some books that means I just want to get them out to read them in the autumn. Curl up on the sofa with a blanket and re-read a favourite type things. So here we are today with some of the books that I think would make a great read at this time of year.

I would say there are two big themes in the autumn. One is back to school and the other is Halloween. Well the spooky books can wait til next month, but I have a boat load of school books on my shelves as you know, but most of them are for kids and are somewhat… classic. So I’m going to suggest Jenny Colgan’s Maggie Adair series – I’ve read the first two which were originally published under the pseudonym of Jane Beaton, and there are now two more. They’ve been blurbed as Mallory Towers but for Grown ups if that helps with the vibes. The first one is Class, then Rules, Lessons and most recently (earlier this year) Studies and they should be relatively easy to get hold of.

Autumn is also the perfect time to start a new to-you series. I often do a re-read of The Cazalets at this time of year, and given that I bought Casting Off in French the other week, I could try my luck at that if my brain is feeling in gear. But I think Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire books also make for good autumn reading. You don’t have to read them in order, but the earlier ones are better – my choices for good ones that feel autumnal include the first one High Rising, or Pomfret Towers or The Brandons. And there are also a couple of school-set ones if you want to continue the back to school vibes. And it’s also a pretty good time to start a Cozy Crime series – and goodness knows I’ve written about enough of them over the years, although some feel more autumnal than others – probably due to where they’re set. So for example Jenn McKinlay’s Cupcake Bakery series feel like more summery books to me because they’re set in sweltering hot Arizona, but her Library Lovers series definitely feels autumnal because it’s set in Connecticut and there’s often talk of stormy weather. I know. I’m weird.

If you want a more recent release, I think recent BotW The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club would be a good pick – because it’s about new starts and despite having been out of school for a while I always think of the new school year as a new start.

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

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Books set in Paris

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After my Parisian odyssey last month, I started thinking about books I’ve read that are set in the French capital, and here I am with a post as a result!

And we’re going to start with a classic, by which I mean The Three Musketeers. I wrote about the latest movie adaptations of Alexandre Dumas’s book earlier this year and I’ve read the first two of the three books featuring d’Artagnan and friends, and I have The Man in the Iron Mask on the shelf too. If you like swashbuckling, these are great – and although they are long there is plenty of plot and loads of action. And they’re cleverly fitted into actual French history so if you’ve studied any of that they’re fun on that front too. I also think it’s really hard to exist in the world without having seen some sort of musketeers adaptation so it’s got that familiarity going for it too. Also constantly referenced in pop culture is The Scarlet Pimpernel – and the actual book by Baroness Orczy is actually pretty good too. Set during the French Revolution is the story of daring rescues made by a man leading a double life. Sort of like Superman or Batman, except he’s rescuing aristocrats from the guillotine and he can’t fly. But he is a great swordsman so maybe that’s nearly a superpower?

The Scarlet Pimpernel leads me nicely on to the Secret History of the Pink Carnation, where a modern day history student who sets out to write her dissertation about the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian discovers another spy that the history books have missed – the Pink Carnation. I’ve written a whole series post about Lauren Willig’s dual timeline novels – so you should probably go and read that too!

It wouldn’t be in keeping with my love of mid twentieth century mystery novels if I didn’t mention Maigret. He’s a police detective in the homicide squad in Paris and they’re meant to be the second best selling detective series of all time – behind only Sherlock Holmes. I can’t claim to have read them all – because there are 70 plus novels in the series, but I have read a fair few in a mix of English and French. Penguin have reissued all of them in the last decade or so, which means they’re pretty easy to get hold of if you want them.

As well as detective novels, I also love a mid-twentieth century novel about women, and Elaine Dundy’s The Dud Avocado is the story of a young American woman in Paris in the late 1950s. Sally Jay Gorce is a 21-year-old college graduate who is living in Paris and trying to break into the film industry. And it goes about as well as you might expect. I’ve got a lovely Virago designer hardback edition but there are plenty of other less inexpensive ones if you want to read it.

And finally, Ernest Hemmingway spent a lot of time in Paris in the 1920s with the literary set there, and as well as his own books set there, there’s also The Paris Wife by Paula McLain about Hadley Richardson, who became Hemmingway’s first wife and was at the centre of all of that. It was a BotW here back in 2015 and it’s definitely worth a read.

Happy Humpday!

books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: September Kindle Offers

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Back once again to tempt you into opening your wallet/breaking your book purchasing rules, here I am with the Kindle post. t’s actually a really good month for offers – and given the positive orgy of book acquisition I’ve been on over the last few weeks, the very act of writing this was a little bit risky. How much more will I have spent by the end of this post? Who can tell, and you’ll have to read to the end to see if I’m prepared to admit to it…

Lets start with a book whose sample I loved so much that I bought the paperback straightaway – because the kindle edition was too expensive – because now that Kindle version is only 99p! Yes Summer Fridays is on offer, and it’s really good – although read my review for the caveats about why some romance readers may have an issue with it. Also a bargain and really good is last year’s Christina Lauren The True Love Experiment. I really enjoyed Kirsty Greenwood‘s The Love of My Afterlife when it came out a few months back, and it’s got loads of buzz and great reviews too – so it’s a total bargain for 99p at the moment. More expensive at £2.29 but worth mentioning because it’s also in Kindle Unlimited now is Annabel Monaghan’s latest book Summer Romance which was BotW just a couple of months ago. A little bit older, but still a BotW is Rachel Lynn Solomon’s Business or Pleasure.

Emily Henry’s Book Lovers, is 99p, as is one of the earlier Katie Ffordes Life Skills, which is one of her books that features canal boats (yes there are more than one of them). The fourth in Jenny Colgan’s Little Beach Street Bakery series Sunrise by the Sea is 99p at the moment. I’ve only read the first in the Lovelight Farms series, but I keep seeing them everywhere in the bookshops, so it’s only fair to mention that the final instalment Business Casual is 99p at the moment.

I’m a big fan of Curtis Sittenfeld as regular readers will know, and Rodham, her alternative story of what might have happened to Hillary if she hadn’t married Bill Clinton is 99p at the moment. I really like Barbara Pym and should probably mention her more often, so you should definitely take a look at Jane and Prudence which is 99p at the moment if you’re interested in witty British authors from the mid-twentieth century. Also in this category is Elizabeth Taylor – I bought one of hers that I haven’t read (yet) in Paris, but one of my favourites of hers is Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont – I have a lovely Virago Designer hardback copy, but you don’t have to have such a pretty one when the ebook is 99p! Another book that I should probably have mentioned more, and which has a spot on the downstairs bookshelf is Mary McCartney’s The Group – if you haven’t read her novel about a group of young female Vassar graduates in the 1920s, where have you been?

I’m slowly working my way through the Matthew Shardlake books when I get a chance, and the second one of them, Dark Fire is £1.49 at the moment. I’ve got the TV adaptation on my list of things to watch next time I get a Disney+ subscription (which may be sooner rather than later given the arrival of the latest series of Only Murders in the Building). Also in historical mysteries is Umberto Eco’s In The Name of the Rose which I have recommended more than once and is really worth reading – there’s also a recent TV adaptation of it to add to the movie (which has Sean Connery!).

This month’s Discworld is Jingo at £1.99 – it’s the fourth in the City Watch sub-series, and it’s a good one, as a new island appears in the sea between Ankh Morpork and Klatch and causes no end of trouble. The Georgette Heyer is The Nonesuch, which I actually listened to (again) last week on Kindle and always think is underrated. Summer Lightning, which is one of my favourite of P G Wodehouse’s Blandings series is on offer too

Frank and Red by Matt Coyne is on my Kindle waiting to be read, but it’s also 99p at the moment. And I read a lot of Jenn McKinlay’s cozy mysteries but her latest non-cosy Love at First Book is 99p at the moment. On the non-fiction front, still on the pile after I bought an airport paperback copy when we went on holiday but now out in actual paperback and on offer for £1.99 is David Mitchell’s Unruly.

What did I buy while writing this? Well Patrick Stewart’s memoir Making It So, Hema Sukumar’s Minor Disturbances at Grand Life Apartments which I’ve had my eye on for a while and is finally on offer and Nisha Sharma’s Marriage & Masti which is the third book in her series which started with Dating Dr Dil and is a Twelfth Night* retelling.

And that is surely enough books to tempt anyone – I hope you’re not leaving me to spend alone…

Happy Humpday everyone!

*my favourite Shakespeare play, forever and always.

book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: August Quick Reviews

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Another mixed bag of quick reviews this month – but fairly on brand for my August – something Girls Own, some modern crime and some classic crime!

The Swish of the Curtain by Pamela Brown

This is the story of seven children from three different families who band together to start a theatre company in an abandoned chapel in their home town. Across the course of the book they grow in confidence and reputation to the point where they enter an acting competition against other amateur groups in their town. Children’s books featuring the theatre world are among some of my favourites (the Drina series, Sadlers Wells series and of course Ballet Shoes) so I was excited to read this. And although it’s a bit slow to get going, and may be a bit too long (although it does cover a two year period so maybe the length is understandable) but actually once it got to the final phase of the children trying to prove to their parents that they should be allowed to pursue careers on the stage it was much better. Probably not one that I’ll read again, but I’m glad I read it.

Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmire*

What happens when a hard-bitten LA cop and a little old lady who solves murders in her small village collide? Well, a completely brain fuddling murder mystery that’s what – and I mean that in a good way. The Cracked Mirror of the title is a screenplay, which seems to have lead to several deaths, which the authorities think are suicides, but Johnny Hawke and Penny Coyne are not convinced and end up investigating their separate cases – which soon collide. And lots of other things are colliding in this too – it’s really hard to explain without giving too much away, but I did enjoy it, once I had time and brain space to concentrate on it so that I could follow what was going on. But it is definitely not a straight-down-the-line crime or mystery novel and I know the blurb says that, but I really cannot emphasise that enough.

Death and the Maiden by Gladys Mitchell

Given how much I enjoy the other Queens of Crime, every now and again I acquire some more Mrs Bradley books and try again in the hope that I just haven’t found the right one to unlock the series for me yet, and every time it’s the same problem. They’re just so hard going compared to the others. The TV version clearly seduced me!

Happy Humpday!

Book previews, previews, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Autumn new release preview

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Happy Wednesday everyone, and I’m taking the opportunity today to do a quick run through of some of the new books coming this autumn, as we’re about to hit the flood of books arriving in the shops in time for Christmas. The literary fiction headlines are the new novels from Sally Rooney, Elizabeth Strout, Olga Tokarczuk and Haruki Murakami, but we all know my tastes run slightly differently.

Lets start with the ones I’ve already got on the Kindle waiting for me, thanks to the joys of NetGalley. Firstly there’s the new book by Lissa Evans – A Small Bomb at Dimperley, which comes out next week, so I’m doing this just in time. This is set at the end of the Second World War, with a second son returning to his ancestral home – where he is now responsible for the whole kit and caboodle after the death of his older brother. Also waiting on the Kindle but not out until October is Miss Beeton’s Murder Agency by Josie Lloyd, a cosy crime which features a distant descendent of *the* Mrs Beeton who runs a household staff agency where one of her staff ends up dead over the festive period. This might be the first of the Christmas themed novels I’ll read this year – but it won’t be the only one…

And that’s because only a few months after the third instalment of the series, we have a fourth Three Dahlias book and as I mentioned in my post about the series, this next one is a Christmas one. I don’t have this on Netgalley so I will have to wait – or maybe put it on my Christmas list, but A Very Lively Midwinter Murder is out on November 5. Out the same day is The Author’s Guide to Murder by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White which appears to be a bit of a new direction for the trio – as the blurbs are promising a whodunnit with literary satire when a superstar author is found dead on a remote Scottish Island. I look forward to getting my hands on it.

A couple of memoirs to finish today – firstly Lisa Marie Presley’s, From Here to the Great Unknown, which has been completed after her death by her daughter Riley Keogh. I watched Priscilla on the plane to Manila, and I’ve watched most of Elvis (probably need to start again from the beginning at this point though) so I look forward to seeing where Lisa Marie’s story fits in on that spectrum given all the controversy about those two movies and the family splits they caused, not to mention all the fighting after Lisa Marie’s death early in 2023. That’s coming in early October. And then there’s Darren Hayes Unlovable (another one out on 5 November). You may remember Hayes as the lead singer of Savage Garden, and you may also remember that I went to see him in London the other year and was in floods of happy tears to hear all my favourite songs of his sounding amazing, more than 25 years on. Given that one of my favourite songs of his is the haunting Two Beds and a Coffee Machine, which is clearly about domestic violence, there’s obviously going to be some difficult stuff to read in here – even before you get to the attitudes of the music industry to his sexuality. But I’m looking forward to reading it – and to finding out more about what he was up to in his ten year hiatus – and what made him come back.

That’s your lot for today – I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about some of these in the next few months though. Happy Humpday everyone.

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Post Great War-set novels

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After writing about The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club yesterday, I got to thinking about other novels set just after World War One and that show the changing world that I could recommend – or in fact have mentioned previously.

I’m going to start out with a book that I hated. I know. I know. I’ll explain. It’s Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth. And I mention it because it’s a classic and it has all the context you need to understand what was going on during this period. It is Brittain’s memoir of the first 25 years of the twentieth century, and shows the impact of the Great War on young women through her real life story. Why did I hate it? Well I read it as part of my reading for my A Level War Literature module, for which I also read Robert Graves’s Goodbye to All That, Siegfried Sassoon’s Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man and its sequels, Susan Hill’s Strange Meeting and all three books in Susan Hill’s Regeneration trilogy. Now I may just have been war novel-ed out – and those other books all have characters in common (sometimes in need of decoding) so maybe that explains why I hated it, possibly if I went back now I might feel differently, but there are too many books that I’ve never read and that I don’t know that I hate (yet) for me to go back and revisit something I hated. The same applies logic applies to T E Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which I hated when I read it at uni a year or two later, and which I have never revisited – although I have tried watching the film again a couple of times because it is genuinely beautiful looking with great music. But no.

Ok, that over let’s move on. Obviously it’s not long since I wrote about the Maisie Dobbs series, but Maisie is another whose life trajectory is changed by the Great War – and many of the cases that she tackles can trace their roots to that conflict too. Another female detective, the delectable Phryne Fisher is also a veteran of ambulance driving during the war, an experience which informs her whole attitude to life as well as some of her cases, one of which involves a shell shocked soldier and another her time in Paris after the Armistice. And of course the first Peter Wimsey book came out in 1923 and the lingering impact of his war experiences are very present in the early books.

Away from the detectives, the Bright Young Things are one of the recurring themes of books set after the war. If you haven’t read it, Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies is a good place to start, and then you can moved on to other stuff, fortified by the knowledge that Waugh was there for the real thing. I’m going to be controversial, but I’ve read this more than I’ve read The Great Gatsby – which is the big classic of the era (and which you should also read if you haven’t already). Beatriz Williams also has several novels set in the 1920s – my favourite of them is probably Cocoa Beach. And her frequent collaborator Lauren Willig has The Other Daughter.

And I think that’s probably your lot for now, except to say that I have got some more stuff set in this period waiting on the shelf as well – like Kate Atkinson’s Shrines of Gaiety on the fiction front, but also lots of non-fiction about the era, so no doubt more anon!

Have a great Wednesday!