Category: stats

It’s been a difficult week.  If you read my BotW post last Tuesday, you’ll know that my mind’s not quite in the right space for critical reading at the moment, so this week’s diet has been big on lighter, funner books and re-reading old favourites rather than some of the more unknown quantities on the to-read pile.

Read:

The Necromancer by Jonathan L Howard

Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich

Conditional Love by Cathy Bramley

Death before Decag by Caroline Fardig

Full Tilt by Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes

The Dead in their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley

Started:

Masquerade by Hannah Fielding

The Life and Loves of a He-Devil by Graham Norton

Still reading:

Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver

Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jeffries

My other response to the events of last weekend has been to buy books.  Lots of books. Four second-hand online (because you need to hit that £10 free delivery limit) and then a whole bunch from my favourite publisher of classic school stories (the fabulous Girls Gone By) and a whole load more from two of my favourite book dealers.  And I’m not even sorry about it.

A really busy week at work – with lots of shifts and obviously lots of breaking news.  So I started the week well with some books I’m reviewing for Novelicious and then ground to a halt at the weekend.

Read:

Hush by Sara Marshall-Ball

Nightingales under the Mistletoe by Donna Douglas

An East End Christmas by Elizabeth Waite

A Pain in the Tuchis by Mark Reutlinger

Started:

The Necromancer by Jonathan L Howard

The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jeffries

Still reading:

Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver

Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

Not a lot of new books read this week – because I re-read the first three books in the Finishing School series before I read Manners and Mutiny (which came out on Tuesday)

Read:

Saints and Sailors by Pam Rhodes

Manners and Mutiny by Gail Carriger

Death by the Dozen by Jenn McKinlay

Circling the Sun by Paula McLain

Sabrina by Candice Ransom

Started:

Hush by Sara Marshall-Ball

Still reading:

Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver

Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

We stopped at an amazing second-hand book shop on our way home from a day out on Saturday – and despite only having 15 minutes in there before closing, I managed to find 4 books – although one of them was a physical copy of the first Daisy Dalrymple book, which I already have in ebook but wanted a real version of, so it sort of doesn’t count – right?!

Post-nightshift slump hit big time this week – no energy and no concentration topped off by a string of early shifts does not make for a lot of progress down the to-read pile, so I switched to kids horror and graphic novels for the Halloween weekend and things improved a little!

Read:

The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel

Tinsel and Terriers by Cressida McLaughlin

Love in a Nutshell by Janet Evanovich and Dorien Kelly

Lumberjanes: Beware the Kitten Holy by Noelle Stevenson

Shiverton Hall by Emerald Fennell

Nightmares! by Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller

Started:

Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

Saints and Sailors by Pam Rhodes

Still reading:

Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver

Circling the Sun by Paula McLain

One e-book and a graphic novel bought – which is better than last week, and quite restrained for me in a post-nightshift frame of mind – especially considering the hour I spent wandering Foyles on Monday evening!

Four nightshifts this week, so this week’s reading tends towards the light and fluffy, romantic and cozy crime because that’s all my frazzled brain can cope with at times like that.

Read:

The Duchess’s Tattoo by Daisy Goodwin

The Sound of Murder by Cindy Brown

Smoking Seventeen by Janet Evanovich

A Christmas Cracker by Trisha Ashley

Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie

Murder at the Brightwell by Ashley Weaver

Tied up in Tinsel by Ngaio Marsh

Started:

Circling the Sun by Paula McLain

Still reading:

Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver

And because of the nightshift effect, I bought a few books this week – the next Stephanie Plum (having reached the end of what I had in stock so to speak) and a few other books I’ve been after for a while that I found at a good price. Quelle surprise that my will power failed me!

A heady mix of classic crime, 1930s glamour (and despair) and romance, with a touch of melodrama and a dash of adventure thrown in.

Read:

A Clutch of Constables by Ngaio Marsh

The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay

It’s Got To be Perfect by Haley Hill

A Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams

Dispossession by Simon Grennan (based on the novel by Anthony Trollope)

When in Rome by Ngaio Marsh

School Ship Tobermory by Alexander McCall Smith

Started:

Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie

Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver

Still reading:

Still n/a!

I have controlled my urge to purchase nobly this week.  I was deeply tempted to buy some books at several books (not least when I was in The Works and feeling a bit blue). But I resisted.  Still with nightshifts coming this week, this self-restraint may not last!