Category: Book of the Week

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: The Formula

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As I said yesterday, in a rare turn of events, I read all of the physical books I took on holiday with me, and this was one of them – an airport sized paperback version in case you can’t tell from the photo.

This is a potted history of how Formula One came to its current moment – massively popular and finally breaking America for the first time, in part thanks to the Netflix series Drive to Survive. This takes you through the many evolutions of the sport, to explain how the sport evolved into the sport-entertainment behemoth that it is today. The authors are journalists from the Wall Street Journal – who have previously broken down (in book form) the global success of the English Premier League. This is not a history of who won what and when – it’s a look at the evolution of the sport, the key characters and moments and particularly the business of F1.

Now regular readers will know that I’m a big motorsports fan, and Formula One is the series that I’ve been watching the longest* and I know a fair bit about it because I live with a massive petrol head who has been a subscriber to F1 Racing/GP Racing for about 20 years. I’ve watched with interest over the last few years the changes that have happened in the sport since Bernie Ecclestone was deposed from his throne as puppet master in Chief and new fans have arrived in the sport – including my own sister, who despite growing up in the same household as me, has never previously been interested in the sport – and still doesn’t watch the races, she just watches Drive to Survive when it comes out.

And this is a book aimed at fans like my sister (although maybe not my sister, because she’s heard me tell some of these stories before!), who are new to the sport and want to understand a bit more of the history and the personalities. I didn’t learn a lot that I didn’t already know, but I wasn’t expecting to – and it was all put together incredibly well and in a really readable way. I was interested in what stayed in and what got left out – I’m not sure Graham Hill got a mention, and neither really did the trend of the driver pool becoming ever more dominated by sons of previous drivers.

But that’s not what this book is here to do – it’s going to talk you through how the sport started, how Bernie Ecclestone took control of it and made himself a billionaire, the geniuses who have designed the cars that changed the sport – and how it all came together at the perfect moment when the series of Drive to Survive covering the 2019 season hit Netflix just before Covid hit and the world shut down. It briefly touches on the way fears that some people have about the Netflix-isation of the sport, but doesn’t go into the realms of speculation about what might happen next – for which I am thankful!

Him Indoors hasn’t read it yet – and I await his verdict when he does, because he knows the history more than I do and will undoubtedly spot some errors – but the only glaring one I spotted was late on when they described the famously Finnish Valtteri Bottas as Estonian – which given how his most famous Drive to Survive moment is probably the one where he’s naked in a Sauna (and he’s posted another Sauna videos on Instagram just three days ago as I write this) and he’s the latest in a long line of Finnish F1 drivers (many of them quirky) and Estonia to my knowledge has never had an F1 driver is a bit of a howler, but I’ll forgive them (as long as they fix it in the paperback!)

My copy came from the airport bookshop, but it’s out now in hardback if you’re not at the airport – my hometown Waterstones has click and collect copies available so you should find it pretty easily – as well as on Kindle and Kobo.

*I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the three things I watched on TV with my dad when I was little were Formula One, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Worzel Gummidge. How many episodes of Worzel we actually watched I don’t know, but it stuck in my head. The other two, we watched a lot.

Book of the Week, new releases

Book of the Week: Summer Romance

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Last week was a bumper week of new romance releases, and Annabel Monaghan’s new book was one of them. And this choice may not be a surprise to those of you who study the reading lists each Monday.

Ali’s mum died two years ago, a year later her husband left her and she’s been trying to keep her head above water ever since juggling her kids and her career as a professional organiser. But the first time she put proper clothes (ie not joggers and a baggy t shirt) on in months to take the dog to the dog park she meets a man who she is fairly sure is flirting with her. And the more she gets to know Ethan, the more she likes him. But he’s only in town for the summer, so it’s just a summer romance – isn’t it?

As you may remember, I really loved Nora Goes off Script – but I didn’t like Monaghan’s follow up last year the same way. This however was a lovely return to what I wanted. It’s pretty low stakes and low conflict between the romantic leads, but there is plenty of stuff to work through for the heroine to get her happy ending. And I was rooting for her the whole time. My only real complaint is that I wanted more comeuppance for Ali’s ex husband for being so horrid and dismissive of her. But she’s definitely the winner in the end – and she does it for herself too, not because Ethan makes it happens for her – which is my biggest gripe with the Legally Blonde musical vs the film and I can rant at you about that all day if you set me going!

I had a copy of Summer Romance pre-ordered (although I also got approved for it on NetGalley on release day!) and it’s out now on Kindle and Kobo for your summer enjoyment.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: The Reunion

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As I said yesterday, it was a busy week last week, but I did have time to finish The Reunion – which I started before the Lagos trip, but couldn’t take with me because I was too far through to make it worth it. And given how much I enjoyed it, it was an obvious choice for today’s pick.

Liv is an actress working in LA. As a teenager, she was star of a wildly popular TV show – Girl on the Verge – and she spent a lot of her teenage years having to live up to and in the shadow of her character on the show. Now it’s twenty years since the show’s premiere and a streaming service is getting the original cast back together for a reunion episode. The fans are excited to see some unfinished business from the original finale resolved, but for Liv, it’s about seeing Ransom Joel again. He was her character’s love interest on the show – and her best friend and confidante in real life. But as the show ended he told her he needed space from her and left her reeling. Once they’re back on set together, they fall back into their old habits – but can this time have a different ending?

If you watched any of the WB shows back in the day, you’ll understand what this is trying to evoke – and there have been enough old tv shows getting reunions like this since the advent of the streaming services that it all feels pretty plausible. I was a teenager in the heyday of these sorts of series so I was a total sucker for the premise of this, but The Reunion has the worrying words “a novel” on the front – which can sometimes mean “we’ve written a blurb that suggests it’s a romance novel, but don’t get your hopes up for a happy ending” so I was slightly apprehensive going into this. But I think in this case, “a novel” is warning you more that this is about Liv and how she grows and develops as much as it is about her relationship with Ransom. There is not a lot of tension in their relationship – and when there was an issue, I had the culprit pegged pretty fast. But I still enjoyed it – I’m at a place at the moment where I don’t really want high angst and drama in my reading, so a meander through the life of an actress and a reunion of a show that reminded me a lot of the sort of thing that I used to watch was pretty perfect for me at the moment.

This looks like Kayla Olsen’s first book in this sort of area – I see some dystopian future type stuff on her good reads page, but nothing else giving these sorts of vibes – so I hope she does more because this was a really nice way to spend a few hours. My copy of The Reunion came from Foyles (in store, although they claim to have no click and collect copies at the moment), but it’s also on Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, historical, new releases

Book of the Week: You Should Be So Lucky

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This was the other book that came out the week before last – and so they’ve both now been BotW picks. So that’s two new books in a row, two romances in a row – although this one is set in the past – and two books I’ve been looking forward to that haven’t let me down!

It’s 1960 and baseball player Eddie O’Leary is having the worst time of his life: after being trading to the New York Robin, his swing has vanished and he doesn’t know how to get it back. On top of that all his teammates hate him after comments he made on TV after finding out he was being trading live on air. Mark Bailey is an arts writer, except that recently he hasn’t been writing much at all. So when he’s assigned to ghost write a weekly column for the city’s most notorious baseballer, he is distinctly unenthusiastic. But when he meets Eddie he finds someone who might be as lonely as he is and there’s a definite pull between them. But it’s 1960 and Eddie is a professional sportsman, and Mark doesn’t want to be anyone’s secret (again) so nothing can happen right?

This is in the same world as Sebastian’s earlier book We Could Be So Good which was also a BotW pick here. That was set at the same newspaper that Mark works at – and you’ll see some familiar faces here if you’ve read that book too. This is a grumpy-sunshine type story and is very, very slow burn for some very valid reasons for the characters, but it’s very satisfying watching these two figure out their stuff and get their acts together. I read it across two evenings – and would have read it faster if I didn’t have to do actual work.

My copy was on Kindle, but it’s also on Kobo and in paperback.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, new releases

Book of the Week: Happy Medium

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Oh I’m cheating. You know it, I know it and I don’t really care. I finished this on Monday but I read more than half of it last week and it was one of those preorders that dropped onto the kindle so a review is timeline and yah boo sucks I’m doing this!

Gretchen Acorn is a fake medium, except she’d like to think she’s an ethical fake medium – because she tries to leave her clients in a better state than she found them, even if she is being paid for her services. When one of her wealthiest clients asks her to go and help her bridge partner by stopping the hauntings that are stopping him from selling his goat farm, she expects to be working with an OAP. But what she gets is Charlie – handsome, young and absolutely convinced that she’s a fraud. Which of course she is, except that as she’s leaving the farm she meets her very first real ghost, who it turns out has been causing havoc at the open houses to protect Charlie from a curse. Now all Gretchen has to do is convince Charlie not to sell – but how can she win over someone who had her pegged as a fake at first sight?

As regular readers will know, I have a somewhat chequered relationship with books that feature the paranormal or supernatural – in that I can never really work out which ones I’m going to like and what it is that I do like in them. But Mrs Nash’s Ashes was one of my favourite books of last year and I reminded myself how much I had enjoyed The Dead Romantics and put on my preorder despite my issues above. And I’m so glad that I did. This is funny and charming and, yes, quirky but not so quirky it made my teeth itch and its also funny and has enough darkness in it to counter act a possible overload of sweetness (goat farmer! Medium! Con artist! Ghost!).

It’s got some dementia in it, so if you’re dealing with that in your life at the moment approach with care, and Gretchen spends a lot of the book keeping everyone at arms length for reasons that absolutely make sense – and at times it was so touching it brought some tears to my eyes. But I came out the end with a big smile on my face – and convinced that Gretchen and Charlie were perfect for each other, which is quite a feat based on their first meeting!

My copy was a Kindle edition, but it’s also on Kobo and in paperback. Mrs Nash’s Ashes was in all the shops last year, so I’m expecting this to be too.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: Mona of the Manor

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I wonder how many of you predicted that this would be today’s choice when you saw the list yesterday? Yes, it is breaking a rule because it’s the tenth in a series, but I think you absolutely can read this one standalone, although obviously you’ll get more out of it if you’ve read the others.

It’s the 1990s and we’re in the English countryside. Yes, this is filling in a gap in the series and we’re finally going to find out what Mona got up to in Britain after she inherited a stately home from her husband. Of course it’s all a little more complicated than that, but that’s the bare bones of how she ended up running a hotel – of sorts – in order to keep the bills paid and avoid having to sell up. At the start of the novel, while Mona and her adopted son are looking forward to a visit from the San Francisco contingent, they welcome a couple from the US and it all gets a little complicated and they have to sort it all out before Michael arrives.

Not going to lie, reading this was a treat that I had been saving myself and I just couldn’t wait any longer. I love this world and I love Maupin’s writing, and it was lovely to go back in time and get some more of them in their younger glory. And there are some nice nods in this to earlier books – and some bits of 90s culture that Maupin would have had to disguise or fictionalise at the time (if he’d known about them) but can now just put in there. This isn’t as interwoven with the events of the time as the original few books were – but that’s only to be expected when they’re no longer being written contemporaneously with the events themselves. If you like the series, I don’t think this will disappoint. If you’ve never read them before then it’s not a bad place to jump in – but you could always just start at the beginning and slot this in in its chronological spot in the series.

You should be able to get this in any good bookshop – I think they’ve even put the paperbacks out in new editions to match this one, which is nice but also annoying because now my set matches even less. I’ll cope though I’m sure! And of course it’s on kindle and kobo too

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: The Darkest Sin

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I said yesterday I didn’t know what I was going to write about today, but it all became clear to me while I was trying to get to sleep last night, even if this is slightly rule breaking.

It’s rule breaking because The Darkest Sin is not the first book in the series – but I didn’t realise that when I bought it and I haven’t read the first in the series. I picked this off the shelf to take on holiday because it is set in Florence and we were going to Tuscany so it seemed fitting – and it was really good.

Cesare Aldo is an investigator at one of the criminal courts in Florence, a city full of factions, alliances and secrets. When he is sent to a convent to investigate reports of night-time intruders, he finds rivalries and secrets – and that’s even before the body of a naked man is found inside the convent. Alongside this, a constable of the same court finds the body of a missing colleague, that was pulled from the river near his childhood home. who would have dared kill a court officers – and if Carlo Strocchi can find out, it could secure him the promotion he yearns for. But Florence is dangerous and treacherous and the answers could prove a bigger problem than the mysteries.

Having not read the prior book in the series, I don’t know how much of the backstory in this had already been revealed in that – and what would have been a twist to a reader already familiar with Aldo. But going in blind, this was a twisty and page turning thriller with clever, well-drawn characters – not just in the main characters but in the supporting roles too. Sixteenth Century Florence is also a character in this – you can hear it and smell it and sense the danger lurking all around.

As I said yesterday, it was a doing and seeing sort of holiday not a lazing around one – so I was still finishing this on the plane home, and I was actually annoyed when the plane landed sooner than I expected and I had to leave it unfinished for a few hours while we made our way home. I’ll definitely be looking for more of these – I want to find out what the first book told you and see what happens next!

You can get The Darkest Sin on Kindle and Kobo and in paperback. There are three books in the series available now – with a fourth coming in the autumn.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, new releases

Book of the Week: How to End a Love Story

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I said yesterday that I didn’t know what I was going to write about today, and it took a lot of thinking about because there wasn’t a lot of options on the life without breaking some of my own rules, but when it comes down to it, I had the most to say about this one, because I have Thoughts. Lots of thoughts!

Helen is a successful young adult author whose trilogy is about to be turned into a TV series. She’s negotiated herself a place in the writers room, but it turns out that also in the room is Grant. Grant went to high school with Helen and they are bound together by a “tragic accident” – that’s the blurb’s choice of words, not mine. But as they work together, sparks start to fly between them and maybe they might be the key to each others future?

I said on Thursday when I wrote about this for release week that I wasn’t sure if Helen and Grant’s shared past was some thing that they would – or should- be able to get past, and I absolutely stand by that. If the event in their past was almost anything else, I think it would be ok, but this specific issue felt unfixable. And I’ll put the issue at the bottom if you really want the spoiler. Now that aside, it’s a great read – Grant is a charismatic leading man who stays charming without veering into insufferable. It’s also fun watching Helen find her feet in Los Angeles and build a life for herself. They are a good couple in every way, except for that one thing. And other people’s views on that may vary.

This is Yulin Kuang’s debut and there is lots about it that I did like, so I will be looking out for whatever she writes next, as well as those Emily Henry adaptations that she is working on.

My copy of How to End a Love Story came from Netgalley but it’s available now on Kindle, Kobo and as an actual book.

Happy Reading!

The tragic past is that Helen’s sister killed herself by stepping in front of Grant’s car.

Book of the Week, cozy crime, new releases

Book of the Week: The Potting Shed Murder

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I’m going for a new murder mystery novel this week – new as in not out until Thursday, so for once I’m ahead of the game. Mark your calendars, it’s not an April fool (that was yesterday!) and it may not happen again this year!

Daphne sends her family have left London behind and moved to Norfolk. Their new home is a a historic farmhouse in a seemingly idyllic village that even has a name to match – Pudding Corner. But when the primary school headteacher is found dead, Daphne realises that all is not what it seems. Daphne gets even more involved when one of her new friends is implicated – but Mr Papplewick was a on the verge of retirement after a career spent in the village – could some one from his past want him dead, or is it one of the other parents at the school?

I really enjoyed the setting and the characters, but I will say that I had the murderer pegged pretty early on, but I read a lot of murder mysteries and this is a debut. It sounds like they’re setting up for a series. So as I liked the premise so much, I will definitely comeback for more if more is offered to me. This is written by Paula Sutton, aka Instagram‘s Hill House Vintage and as well as the murder mystery this also has dollops of her vintage style. This has blurb comparisons to Richard Osman and Richard Coles and I think that’s pretty fair, but also some of the American cozies themed around hobbies and handicrafts.

My copy came from NetGalley, but is out on Thursday so you have a few days left to preorder a physical copy, kindle or kobo edition. As it’s not out yet and it’s a debut novel I V have no idea how easy it will be to get in the shops, but I will keep an eye out for it.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: When Grumpy Met Sunshine

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A big old stack of reading last week because: holiday, so a few things to chose from, but this was easily my favourite – although I have one reservation if you read on!

As the title suggests, this is a grumpy-sunshine romance, where the sunny half of the couple is ghost writer Mabel and the grumpy is her latest subject, former footballer Alfie who has been persuaded to write his memoirs. Except that he doesn’t want to reveal anything about himself and he doesn’t do emotions. So Mabel’s job isn’t going to be easy, but she tries and they start snarking and squabbling as they try to get something down on paper. And then they’re spotted together in public and the press decides that Mabel and Alfie are a couple. And of course the first rule of ghost writing is that no one can know that you’re a ghost writer so they pretend to be in a relationship. Except that there is a lot of chemistry going on and Mabel is in very real danger of catching feelings for Alfie. But he couldn’t really be interested in a girl like her, could he?

And therein lies my problem with this book. Because it is absolutely clear that Alfie really does have feelings for Mabel and he has them from quite early on, and she is just the most obvious person that was ever oblivious not to see it. And obviously that’s how she has to be for the plot to work, and Charlotte Stein does make a good attempt at trying to give a reason why Mabel might not think he’s into her and it does make his grand gesture at the end very grand but still. For a smart woman, Mabel is very stupid when it comes to noticing how into her Alfie is. But the banter was so fun and it was so funny I forgave it because it really was a lot of fun. And it is also really quite steamy during the fake relationship portion of it – I had to put it down while I was on the plane home because I was worried the person next to me was going to read it over my shoulder and then I would have died of embarrassment!

This is the first Charlotte Stein novel that I’ve read – and from what I can see it’s her first novel in this sort of area – she’s written a couple of dozen romances before but the rest of her back catalogue seem to be in the ménage/erotica end of the genre which is not really what I read, so I will be keeping an eye out for what she writes next if there is going to be more like this!

I’ve seen When Grumpy Met Sunshine in the shops all over the place – and of course it’s on Kindle and Kobo too.

Happy Reading!