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Recommendsday: The Early Birds

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Longtime readers will be well aware of my love for Laurie Graham.  Gone With the Windors is one of my all-time favourite books and while reading Paula Byrne’s biography of Kick Kennedy I’ve been reminded again how good her historical research is.  It’s been seven years since she wrote a contemporary novel, but the Early Birds is her first sequel and is actually a return to the group of women we first met in Future Homemakers of America, which came out more than 15 years ago.

Copy of The Early Birds by Laurie Graham
Here’s the airport edition – spotted at Luton on the way to Croatia the other week

For those who haven’t read the first book, the gang were brought together by a coincidence of geography in the 1950s.  Most of them were US airforce wives, posted to Suffolk along with their spouses.  One, Kath, was a local they met on a trip off-base.  That’s all you really need to know.  The Early Birds rejoins them in American in at the turn of the millennium when the ladies are in their 70s.  Peg is moving across the country to help with the care for her ex-spouse.  Old age is catching up with the gang, but their friendship and their sense of fun endures. Then 9/11 happens and the world changes and there are lots of new questions – not least was life as an air force wife worth it?

My favourites of Laurie Graham’s books tend to be the laugh out loud funny ones.  This is more a wry smile and the occasional giggle sort of book, but it is a wonderfully touching portrait of female friendships and camaraderie that has endured through time, distance and changing circumstances, forged in the shared terror of what could happen to your husband while he was flying a jet plane – and what would happen to you if the worst did happen.  They don’t all like each other all the time, they sometimes enjoy a bitch about each other, but when something bad happens to one of them, they’ll move heaven and earth to help.

There’s not much to smile about in Peg’s husband’s descent into Alzheimer’s, but those passages of the book do capture a lot of what I remember about my grandparents when the were suffering from dementia.  I was never as involved in their care the way that Peg is, but I remember the sadnesses and the frustrations of people forgetting who you are and the adaptations that you make to try and make more days “good” days.

I probably should have re-read Future Homemakers before I read this, and I’m probably going to go back and read it again now I’ve seen the girls dancing through their dotage. The world needs more books about strong women supporting each other.

You should be able to get a copy of The Early Birds from all the usual sources – like The Big Green Bookshop and the like – but you may need to order it.  IIt’s in hardback at the moment – but there’s a large format airport paperback as demonstrated in the photo!  And of course it’s also available on Kindle and Kobo.  Future Homemakers of America is also available on Kindle and Kobo – and new and second-hand copies can be found on Amazon (I think it may be out of print as it’s showing as out of stock everywhere else I search).

Happy Reading!

reviews, Uncategorized

Bonus Post: Escapist reading

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A bonus post from me, for you to enjoy this weekend as I recover from my nights.  I’m looking for escapist reading this week after a busy news week, so here are some suggestions for you as I try to read myself back into day time living.

Rosie’s Little Cafe on the Riviera by Jennifer Bohnet

I read this on holiday – it’s a sweet romance set in the French Riviera.  Rosie’s opening her dream cafe, but a Michelin starred chef is opening up a fancy hotel nearby.  She’d be mad, only she didn’t find him so attractive.  There’s also two friends – one recently widowed with a daughter and the other newly single – and you follow them all across the course of the first spring and summer season in business.  Perfect for a spring weekend, but t may make you want to move abroad though.

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

Immerse yourself in the world of Singpore’s super rich.  Rachel Chu has agreed to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend’s family.  But what she doesn’t know is that Nick is one of the island’s most eligible bachelors and that she doesn’t measure up to his family’s expectations for a potential wife.  There’s outrageous wealth, spoilt IT girls and culture clashes galore – not just Rachel’s ABC (American-born Chinese) background, but also the old money versus new money of Singapore’s old family’s and China’s new superrich.  It’s bonkers, it’s addictive and it’s perfect to escape from your normal life.

The Accidental Detective by Michael R N Jones

I read this modern Sherlock Holmes retelling on holiday.  Victor Locke is a beer-drinking genius, who’s banned from owning laptops or smart phones after getting caught hacking into something he shouldn’t have done.  Dr Jonathan Doyle is his court-appointed psychologist and the two of them race around Middlesbrough (of all places) solving crimes and outwitting shadowy government figures.  This is from my perennial favourites Fahrenheit press, so if you’ve read some of my other recommendations from them you’ll have an idea about the sort of tone we’re looking at.  Funny and escapist, read it with a drink in your hand like Victor would!

And if these three aren’t enough, try recent BotW’s Bet Me or the Roanoke Girls or one of my smart, funny romance recommendations as well.

Happy Reading!

Gift suggestions, Uncategorized

Give a Book for Christmas: 2016 edition

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It’s that time of year, Christmas present shopping has hit last minute panic mode is in it’s final throes and I’d like to remind you all that books and bookish related paraphernalia make great presents and are easily available without venturing into a department store.  The fractured elbow has slowed my progress somewhat – this should have been with you a week or more ago  – sorry.  But here are some suggestions from me.

Books for Him

My other half has just devoured the new Guy Martin book Worms to Catch in about 3 days (very fast for him).  I mentioned him last year, but he keeps turning out very readable books for the petrolhead in your life.  I don’t think you can go wrong with A Kim Jong-Il Production (a BotW pick a few months back) because as far as narrative non-fiction goes it’s just so bonkers it’s hard to believe it’s true.  I keep hearing Mary Roach recommended places – and they sound like they might be perfect books for men (although I’m still hoping one might end up in my stocking) Grunt  – all about how science and war and people collide – or Stiff – about what happens to human cadavers (as long as the recipient isn’t squeamish like me) seem to be the top picks.

For Fiction, I read The Murdstone Trilogy (actually just one book) by Mal Peet earlier this year – about a writer whose sensitive YA novels about troubled teens stop selling and who ends up writing fantasy – it’s a dark and funny look at fantasy tropes with some horror thrown in too.  If he’s read Lord of the Rings/Game of Thrones or the like there’s probably something here for him.For my last pick, I’m suggesting Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, another book that I haven’t read yet, but have heard great things about.   It’s set in the future where natural resources are scarce and people escape into immersive video games like OASIS.  Then one player stumbles upon the first clue to a series of Easter Eggs which could lead him to a fortune.  I have the audiobook of this waiting on my phone for just as soon as I finish The Romanovs by Simon Sebag Montefiore – which is good, but very, very gory and long – only 20 hours of that to go!

Books for Her

Lets start with the fiction.  It feels like a long time ago that I read Curtis Sittenfeld’s Eligible (April) but I’ve lent it on since then and had nothing but good feedback, so I’m going to recommend it again.  I can’t remember why it wasn’t BotW at the time (maybe because I was half expecting to be reviewing it for Novelicious) but it is definitely one of my favourite books of the year, and hands down my favourite Pride and Prejudice retelling.  I reviewed Lucy Dillon’s All I Ever Wanted over on Novelicious the other week, and that would also make a really good pick – it’s sort of Christmassy (it starts at Christmas) but it’s not all tinsel and mistletoe, it’s a great wintery read to give to someone who wants to spend Boxing Day (or longer) curled up on the sofa with a book in front of a roaring fire if you have one. Helen Ellis’s collection of short stories American Housewife (a previous Book of the Week) would also make a nice stocking filler if you have a woman with a dark sense of humour in your life (get a taste of what I mean here).

And now some non-fiction.  I’ve already mentioned The Best of Dear Coquette (which you should totally buy as a present for yourself at least!), but if you’re buying for someone who was a teenager in the mid 90s or later, As If! an oral history of the making of the movie Clueless might be perfect.  Clueless was one of the films that I watched on heavy rotation as a teenager (it came out just before I started secondary school so we had it on video at various slumber parties) and it still stands up today.  As If! is a fun look behind the scenes and a reminder of how different and big the film was at the time

Books for Children

For little children, I love Jon Klassen (I’ve mentioned this before) and this Christmas sees his third book about hats – We Found a Hat follows on from I Want My Hat Back and This Is Not My Hat which have been big hits among the children I buy for.

I really enjoyed the first two books in Katherine Woodfine’s Sinclair’s Mysteries and  both The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow and The Mystery of the Jewelled Moth should be fairly easy to get hold of if you’ve got a middle-grade (upper half of primary school) reader to buy for.  Robin Stevens’ Wells and Wong books got a mention last year, but the series has grown since then and I think it’s a great choice for a girl (or boy) who has done St Clares or Mallory Towers and some Famous Five/Five Find-outers and wants more.  They do contain death though

Other Bookish Gifts

In my post about presents for me last year, I said that I wanted a Literary Review subscription – I got one (thanks Little Sis!) and have just bought myself another two years worth.  I’ve enjoyed reading it, found books I want to read that I wouldn’t otherwise and used their reviews it to weed out books I don’t want to read/can wait to turn up in the secondhand shops.

I can’t believe how much I’ve talked about Fahrenheit Press already, but I’m going to do it again now – sorry! I bought myself their subscription earlier on this year – and it’s given me a string of Books of the Week and so much good stuff.  I’ve just renewed it for another year and if you have a crime reader in your life this might be just the gift for them.  2016 has had reissues of 90s crime series, new thrillers about all sorts of things, the Danny Bird series and James Bond and Stephanie Plum’s lovechild and more. They’re so good I feel like I’ve done nothing but talk about them all year.  And that’s before I write my Books of the Year post! Details here.

I got myself a Vanity Fair subscription this year which I’m still enjoying – and magazines are a gift that keeps giving through the year – I’ve bought Good Food, Gardener’s World and others at various points. Condé Nast keep emailing me to tell me that if I buy the wrong magazine for me giftee then I can change it for free too and so that’s practically a win win!

So there you have it, some gift suggestions from me. And if you need any more ideas, all my suggestions from last year still stand – gifts for him, her and kids. Coming next: What I want for Christmas…

cozy crime, detective, Uncategorized

The Second Annual Cozy Crime round-up

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If you remember my post about comfort reading, you’ll remember me saying that I one of the genres I turn to is cozy crime. And I’ve been reading an awful lot of them recently, so I have books (and series) to recommend.  There are definite trends in cozies, and so I’ve tried to provide some variety – and also go for new/newer series that you might not have come across before.  I have lots of old favourites too, but here are some new (or at least new-to-me) series to take a look at.

Max Tudor by GM Malliet

Copyof The Haunted Season by G M Malliet
This is the 5th Max Tudor – currently waiting on the to-read pile!

Max Tudor is a vicar – who was in the secret service before he was ordained – which is a nice touch which explains why the police might be willing to have him involved in their investigations (always a problem when your “detective” isn’t actually a police man). He’s unmarried – and the subject of matchmaking among his parishioners – and his eventual choice makes for some nice conflict of its own. I’ve read the first four books in the series (which are all named after seasons) and am keeping my eyes open for the next two.  These are fun, clever and witty – even if the author needs to remember that no Land Rover owner would ever call their vehicle a Rover!

Headlines in High Heels by LynDee Walker

I wanted to include some competence porn in here – because I do love a book where the main character is good at their job.  Reporters/journalists make great leads in cozy crime series – because they have an excuse for coming across bodies – or at least getting involved in solving mysteries in a way that say… cupcake bakers don’t.  But there are some pitfalls.  I’ve recently been infuriated by a reporter in a book not doing their basic fact checking (it did come back and bite them, but they shouldn’t/wouldn’t have done it and it shouldn’t be a plot device) and while Nichelle Clarke does have a slightly dodgy (for her job) relationship, for the most part she’s a conscientious reporter who does the job properly.  And the cases are interesting too.  It didn’t surprise me to find out that the author is a journalist…

Mainely Needlepoint by Lea Wait

I’ve read three (of the four) books in this series and they are well put together mysteries set in Maine.  At the start of the series, our heroine, Angie returns to her home town after ten years when her missing mother is finally found.  She soon ends up helping her grandmother with her needlework business and sets about trying to reintegrate in a town where she struggled as a child as she tries to work out what she wants in her life.  I like Angie, and while these books don’t have the humour in them that I prefer in my cozies, they are interesting and page turning mysteries, even if I do find the references to guns and concealed carry a little disturbing and off-putting as a Brit who is not used to guns being around in every day life!

Amory Ames by Ashley Weaver

Death Wears a Mask by Ashley Weaver
Another photo of a book taken on a train. I know. I’m so predictable!

I do love a good book set in the period between the wars – it’s my book sweet spot.  So many good series are tucked up in here – my beloved Lord Peter Wimsey, Albert Campion and the early Inspector Alleyns all written at the time and series like Phyrne Fisher, Daisy Dalrymple and the Lord Edward Corinth series.  And Ashley Weaver’s Amory Ames series has potential.  Amory is a wealthy young woman who has married a playboy and is regretting it.  Milo is handsome and charming – but, Amory fears, unreliable and possibly (probably) unfaithful. There are only three books in the series so far – and I’ve read two of them – but this has a complicated central relationship and a sparky heroine and the mysteries are well worked out.  I have high hopes for book three.

So there you are.  As you can see, I’ve read at least two books in all of these series, more in some cases, because cosy series can take a while to hit their stride…  And this feels like only the tip of my cozy crime reading iceberg – to get to this (slender) list of recommendations I’ve read a few turkeys as well! And if this not enough cozy crime for you, in a nice piece of serendipity, I did a similar post this time last year, and those recommendations still stand too!  And don’t forget previous BotW picks Death of a Nobody (and Death of a Diva), Earthly Delights and Murder on the Half Shell.

Happy reading – and apologies if this has got a little expensive for you…

Uncategorized

Book of the Week: Naked in Death

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A somewhat brief and atypical BotW this week as it was a bit of a strange week in reading – a holiday where I didn’t read as much as usual, and where a fair bit of what I read exasperated me.  I would have chosen Vienna Waltz by Teresa Grant, but it’s only a few weeks since I picked Beneath a Silent Moon which is the same series and which I enjoyed more – not least because I’m used to Malcolm and Suzanne being called Charles and Mélanie and it really confused me – for the backstory, see my previous post.

So by default almost, Naked in Death is the BotW.  I haven’t read a lot of Nora Roberts – although she writes these as J R Robb (authors writing under different names clearly a theme this week) – and many people on the various romance sites I frequent have raved about her and suggested her.  I read her latest romantic suspense last year (The Liar, which I reviewed for Novelicious) and quite enjoyed it, so I thought her long running detective-centric romantic suspense series might be a good choice as I’m not a huge straight contemporary romance reader.

And I quite enjoyed it – it certainly kept me turning the pages – right up until I finished it just as the plane arrived on the stand at Gatwick on the way home.  It’s a little too gritty for me and Roarke is a little too close to the controlling manipulative billionaire trope that I hate, but I was intrigued to see what happened next and who was responsible for the crime.  Eve gets points for being a strong woman who is good at her job (if you can discount sleeping with a suspect, which you kinda can, mostly, but the paragraph I wrote explaining why spoils the plot, although I’m sure you can work it out) and I quite liked the futuristic world she lives in – contrary to all my expectations when I realised it wasn’t set in the here and now.

But I’m not rushing out to glom on the rest of the series – if a few come my way, then I’m sure I’ll read them, but there’s enough really good stuff on the pile already (and waiting for me in bookshops!) that it can wait.  And I won’t be devastated if I don’t read them in order – or really at all.  So that’s why I say this is a bit of an unusual book of the week.  There was nothing I read that I wanted to rave about, and having written this, I’m not expecting you to rush out to by Naked in Death on the strength of my review.  But hey, I’ve been lucky to get this far without having a week like this.  If I could have got another book in to rave about I would have done – I tried, but the romance I was hoping was going to fix the problem turned out not to be the solution and I ran out of time.  Here’s hoping normal service will be resumed next week…

Book of the Week, Fantasy, new releases, reviews, Uncategorized

Book of the Week: Prudence

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This week’s BotW is Gail Carriger’s latest – Prudence – and you can’t say that I didn’t warn you that this might happen.  Because I did, even if it’s a few weeks later than I thought it might turn up here.  And that’s because I took an executive decision to save it for my holiday book – for our trip (to Vienna in the end) to mark a Significant Birthday for The Boy.  A holiday book should be a treat, preferably something that you know you’re not going to hate, and as it was already on the to-read pile, saving this meant I didn’t incur the wrath of The Boy for buying books again…

Gail Carriger's Prudence
I really like the purple and pink theme. And I’m not usually a pink person…

Anyway, Prudence is the first book in Carriger’s new series – the Custard Protocol.  Set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate and Finishing School books, there are some familiar faces, not least Prudence herself – last seen as a toddler in the Parasol Protectorate series. When Rue is given a dirigible, she names it The Spotted Custard and heads for India on a secret mission.  But the situation there is not as simple as she had been lead to believe (and that wasn’t that simple to start with) and before long she’s dealing with dissidents, kidnappings and a pack of Scottish werewolves and it will take all her metanatural skills to deal with it.

Now, I’ve read all (I think) of Carriger’s other series, but I don’t think it would spoil your enjoyment of the book if you haven’t read them* as Carriger has been very careful not to give away too many spoilers for the plots of her previous books.**  However, for those of us who have read the previous books, you get the delicious enjoyment of being better informed about the past than our heroine, and equally delightful anticipation of confrontations and revelations yet to come.

When I read Timeless, I spotted a few dangling threads left that I hoped were teasers of stuff yet to come – and I was on the right track.   Again, my spoiler policy makes it difficult to be more specific than that, but I really like the direction that this series looks to be heading in.  The only problem with having read Prudence in fact is that I now have to wait (probably) a year to find out what happens next in Imprudence – and it’s still more than six months until the final Finishing School book – Manners and Mutiny – where I finally get to find out how Sophronia’s world became Alexias.

You can buy Prudence from all the usual sources – like Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles and Kindle.  I’ve also spotted it in  my local library already – which I haven’t seen before – and is brilliant, because hopefully it’ll introduce more people to Gail Carriger and then they can fall in love with her world like I have.

* Although the Parasol Protectorate is the more relevant to this book if you want somewhere to start

** Although the identity of Rue’s parents is a bit of a spoiler for Souless, there’s no way to avoid that!

Book of the Week, fiction, new releases, reviews, Uncategorized

Book of the Week: Midnight Crossroad

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I really struggled to pick a favourite book from last week.  Not because I didn’t like anything, but there wasn’t one book I really wanted to shout about – except my book club book – and that’s not out til next month, so I’ll tell you about that when you can actually buy it!

In the end, I have settled on Charlaine Harris’s Midnight Crossroad – which I got through NetGalley*.  It’s the first book in her new series (I think it’s pegged at three books) – and her first post-Sookie creation.  I’ve now read all of the Southern Vampire series, all of the Harper Connelly series, all of the Lily Bard series – and three of the Aurora Teagardens** so I guess you could say that I’m a fan.  I find her books really easy to read, her world building ticks my boxes and although each series clearly does have a formula, they are original enough that they don’t seem like the same book with new names if you know what I mean.

So Midnight Crossing is the convergence of the supernatural world of Sookie – and the worlds that we’ve seen in her other series – and to me it seems to try to root them all firmly in the same universe – which is something I’ve always wondered about.  There are some familiar faces from the previous series – and I’ve had trouble writing this without giving you spoilers.

The residents of Midnight might look normal (mostly), but they’re all hiding something.  Manfred has just moved to town and is about to discover that still waters really do run deep.  Ummmm.  And that’s about all I can say without giving too much away.  The story has multiple points of view, which can be a bit confusing at first, but it does work to establish the different characters and set up the town from the inside out as well as Manfred looking in.  But that’s not to say that by the end of the book you’ll know all the answers.

It’s not perfect, it’s not the best thing I’ve ever read – but it really is a nice way of passing an afternoon, especially if you’ve read the previous series.  It’s not the same genre really as the True Blood books – but it’s closer to them than any of her other series are.

As I said, my copy came from NetGalley – in advance of the UK paperback release on April 9 – you can pre-order that from Amazon or Foyles.  I can hear you pointing out the contradiction in not having my Book Club book as BotW because it’s not out yet – and then reviewing this which isn’t out for another week, and to that I offer you the Kindle link (and for the US readers, the amazon.com link because the paperback is already out there!) – although I’m sure the price will drop once the paperback comes out.  But you can get a sample now to see if you like it, while you can’t even get a sneak peak of my Book Club novel yet – it’s not out for three and a half weeks (or indeed the end of May in the US).  And it’s cruel to recommend something and make people wait that long!

* Having been reading the Dear Author palarva over the weekend, I’ve resolved to make sure I’m even more upfront about where my books come from – I already say on Goodreads if my copy was from NetGalley or similar, and I try to here, but I’m redoubling my efforts.  Transparency is key…

** I’ve bought book four after reading Midnight Crossing.  I suspect the second Omnibus is in my future…

Book of the Week, books, fiction, reviews, Uncategorized

Book of the Week: Fin and Lady

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Welcome to a new feature for 2015 – a post on my favourite book of the previous week.  The inaugural Book of the Week is Cathleen Schine’s Fin and Lady – which I’ve had on my to-read list since it was recommended in the Emerald Street mailout in December 2013 (yes, that is the amount of lag the size of the to-read pile causes me).

Paperback copy of Fin and Lady
Not only is the book good – but the cover is pretty too!

Fin and Lady tells the story of Fin – who is orphaned at 11 and goes to live with his older half sister Lady.  Lady is glamorous and exotic and moves Fin from his grandparents’ farm in Connecticut to Greenwich Village – in 1964.  Through the book you see 1960s New York through Fin’s eyes – and watch as he looks after his sister as much as she looks after him.

Lady is a fascinating enigma through the book – she longs to be independent and free, but the late sixties hippy-commune-free love vibe doesn’t appeal to her.  She tells Fin she wants his help to pick a husband – but doesn’t like the advice he gives her.  I wasn’t dazzled by her the way that Fin was, but I still found her an interesting and engaging character – and I could totally see why 11-year-old Fin would have been absolutely bowled over by her.

I was fairly sure I knew what was going to happen, but I really enjoyed the journey to get there.  I would have liked to know more about what happened next to Fin, but the ending was still satisfying.  Fin and Lady made me laugh – and it made me teary-eyed. I also want to read more about New York in this period. I’ll definitely be keeping my eye open for more from Cathleen Schine.

books, stats, The pile, Uncategorized

New Year’s Resolutions

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The start of a new year is always a time for reflection and making promises you may not keep, so why should this book blog be any different?  So here we go – five resolutions I’m going to try and keep in 2015…

1. Get the to-read pile down – obviously this had to be on here as it’s the most important thing and the reason for this blog.  I need to control of the pile. How many times do I read a book that’s been on the shelf for months only to kick myself that I didn’t read it sooner? Lots. Get the pile down, and that won’t happen.

2. Fill in some gaps in the Classics – I’ve never read Wuthering Heights. Or Tess of the D’urbervilles. Or David Copperfield (or any Dickens other than Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol). I should do something about this this year.

3. Read a non-fiction book each month – I’m not always terribly good at reading the non-fiction books sitting on my shelves – fiction (particularly comedy and romance) is often more appealing – I need to be better at this in 2015 as some of the books that have been on the pile the longest are non-fiction ones.

4. Read a library book each month – I’m embarrassed at the number of times some of the library books in the bag have been renewed. And I do want to read them. But sometimes I get obsessed with the reduction of the pile and reading a library book seems like a “waste” if you know what I mean.

5. Don’t get obsessed with stats and books read and pages read – I am sometimes guilty of measuring my reading too much in volume and not enjoyment. Setting a goal for a year is good – but it does lead to a slight obsession with trying to beat what you did last year. This sometimes messes with what I pick off the to-read pile.  Reading is for fun – a pleasure in my life – not about how many books or pages.

So there you are. I’ve tried not to be to ambitious – as you see from number 5 targets sometimes cause me more problems than they are worth. Also I get unaccountably rebellious about having to read something – and bounce off to read something else. In light of these resolutions, I’m going to rejig the monthly stats post this year – so December (publishing tomorrow, a day late to allow for New Year’s resolutions on the proper day) will be the last one in the old format.  And I’ll keep you posted on how I get on obviously.

reviews, Uncategorized

2014 Highlights: What I’ve been reading

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The end of another jam packed year of reading has arrived – the December stats will be out tomorrow – with the final total for the year and all the usual gubbins and you’ve already had my Books of the Year, but it felt like there were a few more things that I needed to mention that didn’t fit into either of those posts.

I’ve had a look back over the years books, made a tally chart and tried to look for patterns.  It was tricky.

My most read author of the year was Charlaine Harris – I finished off the final couple of Sookie Stackhouse novels this year – read all of the Lily Bard series and started the Aurora Teagarden ones.  I find Charlaine Harris’s books very easy to read – particularly at times when I’m tired and can’t concentrate on the heavier stuff.  A lot of her books have been reissued off the back of True Blood being on TV – and have subsequently turned up in the discount book stores, charity shops and second hand retailers at very cheap prices – which accounts for her position as most read (although she was only a couple of books ahead of her nearest rivals for that title)  – because I wouldn’t describe her as one of my favourite authors.

The first book I finished in 2014 was Kerry Greenwood’s Murder and Mendelssohn – the latest book in the Phryne Fisher series – which were one of my discoveries of 2013 – I read all the books in the series in about six months flat (whilst reading other stuff at the same time).  This year I’ve read all them all over again (which doesn’t count towards my book total for the year) – and if anything I like them more than I did the first time.  They are perfect reading for nightshift train journeys – or for recovering from nights afterwards.

It seems apt that I started the year with a murder mystery – as they are very much a theme in this year’s reading.  I’ve read eleven of Ngaio Marsh’s Inspector Alleyn books this year – and ten Meg Langslow mysteries.  There’s some Josephine Tey, some George Gently and various other bits of series involving detection – like Tasha Alexander’s Lady Emily series and Catriona McPherson’s Dandy Gilver books.

I’ve also read half a dozen or so Carola Dunn books of various types and a similar number of M C Beaton’s books (in her various guises and from several different series) – some mysteries, some romances.  I have to say that I’ve tired of M C Beaton’s historicals – I find increasingly that they’re very formulaic and not very satisfying.

In 2014 I’ve also expanded my historical romance horizons.  I’ve been a fan of genre giants Eloisa James, Julia Quinn and Sarah MacLean for some years now – but in the last twelve months I’ve expanded my horizons a little with the help of Goodreads, recommendations from authors I like already and a few Facebook reading groups.  Some have been good, some haven’t been at all – but I’ve enjoyed seeing what else is out there and firming up my list of things that I don’t like in historical romances!

What I haven’t done this year is read enough non-fiction.  And I’m blaming my nightshifts for that – typically non-fiction requires more of my concentration than the fiction options waiting on the pile – so when I’m tired it tends to be the easier reads that get picked up.  I need to try and do something about this in 2015.

But the thing that stands out is how many good books I’ve read this year – either I’m getting better at picking books (and giving up on the rubbish ones) or there are a lot of seriously good books out there.  Less than 15 percent of my reading may have got five stars – but more than 100 books got four stars – and another 100 got three.  So the majority of the books that I’ve read, I’ve rated good or better.  Not bad going.

Here’s to a brilliant year of reading in 2015. Maybe it’ll be the year I get the to-read pile down and improve by award winning novel hit rate.  Here’s hoping!