Category: Book of the Week

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: Come as You Are

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It’s a new month – welcome to August everyone, and I’m back with another romance pick for this week’s BotW – and this time it’s one with an older hero and heroine and it made a really nice change after a run of early 20s heroines who read as really quite immature.

So our heroine is 46 year old Ashley, a divorced mum of a college aged daughter who is trying to keep her family’s ski hill going after the death of her father. When her mum springs the idea of employing men from the local sober living home for the season to help cut costs, she’s initially against the plan. But she goes with it and soon Madigan and his charges are moving into some of the staff cabins. Like the men who live in his home, Madigan is a recovering addict who has spent some time in jail. He went off the rails when he was guitarist in a grunge band and even spiraled even further after the band broke up. But he’s spent the last decade trying to help other people rebuild their lives the way that he has. The two are instantly attracted to each other – but they both have some issues to work through: Ashley has a cheating ex-husband who is trying to buy her mountain, and Madigan has walled himself off from relationships to concentrate on the men that he’s helping. Over the course of the skiing season they have to figure out what they have – and what they’re prepared to do keep it going.

This is the first book from Jess K Hardy that I’ve read and I really enjoyed it. I had some frustrations with Ashley’s mum and there were a few times when I just wanted Ashley and Madigan to have a proper conversation, but the romance is well put together, it’s steamier than I expected it to be and I’m enjoying seeing more older pairings in romance. If you read Cathy Yardley’s Role Playing after I recommended that this time last month, then I think you’ll enjoy this one. Obviously the outdoor life on the skiing hill is very different to the online world in that Aiden and Maggie meet in, but there are definite similarities. It’s also blurbed by Kate Claybourn – who I’ve written about here a fair few times too, so if you like her stuff, then also maybe check this out.

This one is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment, which means it’s exclusive to Amazon in ebook at the moment. Amazon claims there’s a paperback version too, but I haven’t seen it in any of the shops so I suspect e-book is going to be the way to read it. It also reckons it’s the first in a series, so I’m looking forward to seeing who might feature in a sequel.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, fiction

Book of the Week: Acts of Violet

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Yes, today’s pick is the book that I stayed up late to finish on Sunday night. I have a lot of thoughts about it, not all of which I can mention here because: spoilers but it still makes it the book I want to talk about the most from last week’s reading!

It’s nearly ten years since magician Violet Volk disappeared – in the middle of her comeback show. In the intervening decade, her fans haven’t forgotten her – even if her sister Sasha wishes they would. Now with the anniversary approaching there is a fresh burst of publicity – including a hashtag where people are posting pictures of supposed sightings and a podcaster who keeps asking Sasha for an interview. Meanwhile Sasha’s daughter Quinn is doing some digging of her own around the aunt that she idolises and risks finding out some things her mother would rather stay hidden. And then there’s the fact that Sasha has started sleepwalking again. Told from Sasha’s point of view but also through transcripts of the podcast, emails and articles, you follow the run up to and aftermath of the tenth anniversary.

I have a lot of thoughts about this book – and I’m going to have to lend it to someone to read it as well so I can talk about it with them because I can’t say everything that I want to here. But the fact that I couldn’t go to sleep last night until I found out how it all ended says a lot about how engrossing it is. Margarita Montimore keeps you guessing about what was really going on with Violet and Sasha and their relationship and like the magic tricks that Violet was famous for you don’t quite know where it’s all going or who to trust. I’m going to front up and say that I didn’t love the ending, but I don’t quite know what I think would have been better!

Anyway despite that, I’m really glad that I spotted this in Foyles the other week and I don’t begrudge having paid more money than I usually do on a paperback on it – because I enjoyed reading it and I don’t think I would have come across it if it weren’t for that copy misplaced in the romance section. At least I assume it was misplaced – it’s not a romance, but I can see why the cover and format might have confused someone into shelving it there!

It’s also available on Kindle, Kobo (and on Kobo at time of writing it costs even more than my paperback did!) and audiobook which comes complete with multiple narrators to fit the different sections of the book – I had a listen to the sample and it sounds really good. I suspect you’ll need a fairly big bookshop to get a paperback copy – mine is a large format international edition and you don’t see a lot of those around usually.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: The Neighbor Favor

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Is this the third week in a row that I’ve picked a romance set in the world of publishing or writing for my Book of the Week? Why yes. Clearly it’s as much of a theme in the genre at the moment as the ones where one half of the couple is famous. And of course Business or Pleasure had both!

Anyway, Kristina Forest’s The Neighbor Favor (yes it did bug me they didn’t change the spelling to the British English one!) has You’ve Got Mail vibes but manages to be a bit less catfish-y than a lot of those set ups feel these days. Lily’s sisters are successful over achievers. She’s stuck in an entry level publishing job in a genre that makes her miserable and with a boss that’s even worse. One night, a bit drunk, she emails the author of a little known fantasy novel, and to her surprise he writes back. This begins an email back and forth between Lily and Strick, who is a travel journalist and moving around all over the world. But then, suddenly, he ghosts her and she’s devastated. A few months later Lily is living in her sister’s apartment and meets a cute new neighbour, Nick. She doesn’t know it but Nick is Strick. Nick does figure it out pretty quickly though and tries to be the best friend he can to her – because he can’t be her boyfriend for: Romance Novel Reasons including but not limited to the fact she doesn’t know he’s her former penpal. And that’s as much as I’m going to tell you.

As you can tell from that, there’s enormous potential for this to go very wrong in the execution. But actually Forest pretty much pulls it off. Yes, I had a few minor quibbles, but it’s fairly minor compared to the throw-it-across-the-room-into-a-fire rage that some of the other books trying to do this have given me. Lily is an interesting character with her own share of issues, and Nick is an interestingly flawed hero. And of course it has plenty of bookish moments as well with Lily working in publishing and Nick being an author. Obviously, I’ve now read a bunch of similarly themed books and although I think if you forced me to chose one as my favourite it would probably be Business or Pleasure, this is still very good. And this is Forests’s adult debut so hopefully the start of more to come.

I picked the Neighbor Favor up for 99p on Kindle back in May, I think after seeing someone recommend it in the summer romance suggestions. It’s currently £2.99 on Kindle and Kobo and Amazon reckons there is a paperback, but I think it’s the US version imported because I haven’t seen it in the stores anywhere (yet at least).

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, books on offer, new releases, romance

Book of the Week: The Seven Year Slip

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Back to summer romances this week – and for the second week in a row, it’s a new release!

In Ashley Piston’s last book, The Dead Romantics (also a BotW) she was doing a spin on a romance with a ghost. This time it’s a romance with a time travel-y element. What do I mean by that? Well, here’s the plot: Clementine is trying to get through the aftermath of the worst day of her life and try and rebuild in a way that means she can’t get hurt again. She’s living in her late aunt’s apartment and trying to keep her working life as a book publicist on track. But one day she comes home and finds a stranger in her kitchen. Her aunt warned her that the apartment was a pinch in time and it turns out he’s from seven years in the past. Ian is charming and he cooks and they get on really well – but how can they ever get around that time thing?

I read this in less than 24 hours and really enjoyed it. I have a few minor quibbles – putting them in the least spoiler-y way possible it basically boils down to: I’m not sure that Clementine and Iwan actually spent enough time together across the course of the book. If it’s a romance I needed more of them together, and if it’s more woman’s fiction I needed a better resolution to Clementine’s own life dilemma/crossroads. BUT this only started to bother me once the book was over and I started thinking about it to review it. While I was actually reading it I was completely swept along by it. So on that basis it’s a really enjoyable read – and makes sort-of-time-travel really work for me. I would happily have read another 100 pages if it meant my issues above got more closure. And I liked the little glimpses of some old friends from Dead Romantics too. Another one that is great for the beach/sun lounger.

I got my copy via NetGalley – but you can definitely get it in the shows because I saw it in Foyles:

And if you’re not going into a bookstore it’s also on Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, new releases, romance

Book of the Week: Business or Pleasure

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The summer release romance theme continues after last week’s Recommendsday with today’s BotW – the new novel from Rachel Lynn Soloman which is actually out this very day in the UK.

As ever, lets start with the plot. Chandler is a ghostwriter and after a disappointing experience at a signing for a book that she has ghosted for an influencer, she ends up having a one night stand with a hot guy she meets in the bookshop cafe. Sadly the sex is not as hot as the man and she chalks it up to experience and forget it as fast as possible. She moves on to her next gig – ghost writing the memoir of Finn Walsh – one of the stars of a cult classic teen werewolf show. It should be a step up for her – except that it turns out that Finn is her awful one night stand. Obviously Chandler’s determined to keep it all very professional but when Finn finds out that their night wasn’t as mind blowing for her as he thought it was, she agrees to help him out. As they write the book together they realise that they get on really well – but Finn is famous and Chandler is not, so is there any chance of a future for them?

Oh yes. This is a Sex Lessons but definitely no feelings/emotions book and I was absolutely here for it, because of course I am. Most of the book takes place as Chandler accompanies Finn on the fan convention circuit so there’s also a fair bit of forced proximity going on with this too, which again is something I love (see also Mrs Nash’s Ashes). This is another of The Summer of Famous Heroes but I really liked the Finn is terrible in bed twist to this one. And of course this does mean that the steam level in this books is H-I-G-H because of course what would be the point of doing this closed door. And having read Rachel Lynn Solomon’s other books I would say this is steamier than they are – which is not a problem for me, but I mention it for those who like their romances slightly more closed door. But I guess if you see a plot that is basically Sex Lessons for Reasons you should be expecting a fair bit of bedroom action.

And alongside all of that, Chandler herself is figuring out what she wants from life – with a bit of help from Finn. Before her one night stand with Finn, she was rejected as a romantic prospect by a friend that she’s had a crush on for years and she’s also very scarred from being laid off from her journalism job – which is what led her to ghost-writing in the first place. So along with the romance you also get to watch her figure out what she really wants and to build up the courage to go for it. And I do like it when the heroine has more going on than just a romance – and when thinks work out for her not because of the romance. And I hope that makes sense and isn’t too much of a spoiler. I did rewrite this whole paragraph because the first attempt gave too much away!

Anyway, I got my copy of Business or Pleasure via NetGalley, but it is out today on Kindle and Kobo and out on Thursday in paperback. I’m not entirely sure how easy it will be to get hold of – I don’t remember seeing Weather Girl or The Ex Talk that often in stores, but I think I have seen it in the Big Foyles and maybe also in Waterstones Gower Street. I will report back…

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, new releases, romance

Book of the Week: Mrs Nash’s Ashes

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My excellent summer of romances continues with another new(ish) release for this week’s pick – and I am rapidly working my way through all the books on the romance tables in the shops. Which has been quite fun and is also fairly unusual!

Anyway, Mrs Nash’s Ashes is Sarah Adler’s debut novel and features a former child actress trying to make a trip to Florida to reunite her elderly best friend’s ashes with her lost love. But when the planes are cancelled and Millie finds herself sharing a car with a former course mate of her ex. Hollis doesn’t believe in love that lasts forever and Millie is a born romantic, looking to reassure herself after a break up so how will these opposites get on when forced to share a car and a twelve hundred mile road trip? Hint: this is a romance!

There seems to have been a trend for romances this year where one half of the couple is famous – or formerly famous – and some of them have been good and some have… not. Obviously as this is a BotW post this is one of the good ones. I read this in basically one sitting at the weekend and enjoyed it no end. It has opposites attract, forced proximity and a cynical hero that gets won over by a sunshine-y but unapologetically weird heroine.

I suspect that some will find Millie a little Manic Pixie, but she made sense to me, and it also makes sense that anyone who was in the spotlight as a kid might be a little different. But because you see everything from Millie’s point of view, I (as a reader) understood what she was doing and was fine with it all. And that also means that Hollis is a big old enigma to you as well as to Millie and that worked really well too. And although I’ve read a lot of the celebrity adjacent romances this summer, I haven’t read many road trips so that was a nice change too. Basically, if you’re looking for something to read on your summer holiday, this would be a great choice. I’m looking forward to seeing what Sarah Adler does next.

I bought my copy of Mrs Nash’s Ashes in Foyles and I’ve seen it in some of the other bookshops already too, so I think it will be fairly easy to get hold of. And of course it’s on Kindle and Kobo too.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, new releases, romantic comedy

Book of the Week: The True Love Experiment

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I said yesterday that I hadn’t decided what I was writing about today, and this did take a bit of thinking about. Luckily I came up with a really good plan that means I can write about more than one of them, and today you get the new Christina Lauren which I absolutely devoured on Sunday.

As I said in my post on release day, The True Love Experiment features Fizzy, the best friend from The Soulmate Equation. Fizzy is a romance author suffering from writers block. Her fans are clamouring for her next book, but she’s just realised she’s never been really in love and now she can’t get past a meet cute in anything she writes. Connor Prince wants to make documentaries, but the small production company she works for has just pivoted to reality TV (there’s more money in it) and now he needs to produce a TV dating show or look for another job, which will probably mean moving away from his daughter. He decides Fizzy should be the heroine of his series after a chance encounter, she decides she’s going to teach everyone who looks down on romance novels and reality TV a lesson. Only trouble is, how can she fall for any of the heroes on the show, if she can’t stop thinking about the show’s producer?

Oh boy. This is so good. So good. I ate it up in one giant sitting, not even putting it down to eat my pizza for dinner. Fizzy and Connor are an absolute delight. There is snark and witty banter, there is just having sex to get it out of their systems (such a fun trope) and seemingly no way that these two can end up together without it being a professional disaster for one or both of them. And it’s just such a nice world to spend time in – awful parents aside; all the characters are a delight and it’s lovely to see River and Jess again along with lovely Juno and Connor’s adorable daughter Stevie. There’s boyband concerts and romance in jokes and I was so happy with how it turned out but sad that it was over too. Just lovely

So that’s pretty much an unqualified rave from me, which is why I’m bending some rules and recommending a Christina Lauren book again so soon after The Soulmate Equation. And I should say that this summer is shaping up as a good one in the romance stakes. I’ve read a few duffers, but the new books from Elissa Sussman, Annabel Monaghan and Curtis Sittenfeld have lived up to expectations and I have high hopes for the Ali Hazelwood too. And then there’s the Cathy Yardley I read last week – of which more in the not too distant future, I promise.

The True Love Experiment is out now in paperback, and I’ve seen it in bookshops of varying sizes although not in a supermarket yet, but I’m hopeful. And of course it’s in Kindle and Kobo too.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, new releases, Young Adult

Book of the Week: A Calamity of Mannerings

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A recent release for today’s pick – Joanna Nadin’s Calamity of Mannerings came out at the start of May so I’m only slightly behind times. I’ll take the small wins where I can, they happen so rarely. Well compared to how behind I am on so much anyway!

So the plot: Panth’s father has died – leaving only a gaggle daughters. This means the family have to move out of their home, into the dower house with their grandmother and slide further down into even more gentile poverty than they were already in. And it’s 1924, so the options for gently born young women are somewhat limited when it comes to earning money, and as a second daughter with an unmarried older sister there’s not a lot of opportunity for doing a social season and snagging a husband. But despite all that what Panth is really hoping for is a bit of romance and if at all possible, a taste of the high life that she’s seen in the pages of Tatler. So when their cousin lets their old house out to a dashing American Bright Young Thing of the male variety, it looks like her fortunes may be changing…

Now as you all know, I love books set in the 1920s and this is a lovely coming of age story about a young woman trying to figure out what she wants and what her place is in the world in difficult circumstances. The blurb for this says it’s for fans of I Capture the Castle and Bridgerton and I think that’s fairly fair – it’s a bit more adult and more modern that I Capture, but substantially less sexy than Bridgerton. It’s also witty and funny and if you’re an adult reading this you can spot some of the other books that it’s nodding to. I could see a few things coming a mile off, but I find it hard to guess what an actual teenager would guess. Whatever is the case on that front this is bundles of fun, and a charming world to spend time in.

My copy came via NetGalley but it’s out now in Kindle, but I can’t find it on Kobo (yet) and should be available in paperback too, although I haven’t managed to scout a YA department in a bookstore yet to try and spot it – I hadn’t read it when I was in Waterstones last week or I would have then.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, LGTBQIA+, new releases, Young Adult

Book of the Week: Fake Dates and Mooncakes

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It was a bit of a week of rhyming titles last week – one in YA and one in cozy crime, so it’s probably fitting that I chose one of them for the Book of the Week today. And in the end I’ve gone for the Young Adult romance – partly because the cozy crime isn’t out until next month and also because the cozy is the tenth in a series and I can’t break those rules two weeks in a row. But mostly because Sher Lee’s novel came out last week, it was a lot of fun and it made me really hungry!

Cover of Fake Dates and Mooncakes by Sher Lee

To the plot: Dylan spends his spare time helping in his aunt’s Singaporean Chinese takeout, Theo lives in a mansion and drives a Ferrari. Their first meeting is less than optimal but when Theo turns up at the restaurant sparks fly. And soon Dylan is pretending to be Theo’s boyfriend at a family wedding. But Theo’s family is nothing like Dylan’s and neither is the life he leads. Dylan isn’t sure whether he can fit in in Theo’s wealthy, gala-attending life – or if it’s even worth trying.

This is a sweet YA romance with two heroes with completely different lives. The blurb describes it as Heartstopper meets Crazy Rich Asians and I think that’s not a bad one as far as it goes but it’s not quite as exact as that might sound. Yes Theo is Rich and Dylan is not – so that’s Crazy Rich Asians-esque, but you actually spend a lot of the time in Dylan’s world rather than Theo’s – which is not very CRA. As far as Heartsopper goes, yes it has got two young queer protagonists, but it isn’t mostly set in or around school and there’s not really any story line around coming out here the way that there is in Heartstopper. So basically, stop smashing vaguely similar books together as comparators please publishing.

We all know that I love a fake dating story – so that was great and I loved Dylan’s tight knit family too. It’s got some Insta Love going on here – and your mileage may vary with that. I’m not entirely sure that Theo ever really stands up for himself against his family properly and the solutions to the problems the duo face are a little easy in the end – but then it’s a YA and that’s how it goes. But the romance is lovely and all the food that is written about sounds delicious and it all made me hungry. It’s a really nice way to spend a few hours, and if you’re anything like me, it’ll have you off googling the various bits of the food you’ve never tried before.

My copy of Fake Dates and Mooncakes came from NetGalley, but it’s out now in Kindle and Kobo, and Amazon say they have the paperback in stock too, but I’m not sure how much I believe them given my recent late arriving pre-orders. I’ll take a look for it in a big bookstore YA department next time I go into one – which may or may not be this week!

Happy Reading everyone.

Book of the Week, non-fiction

Book of the Week: Reach for the Stars

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A non-fiction pick today, just to make a change…

I was very much buying pop music through a lot of this era, so it was fascinating to read the story behind the music, as told by (most of) the people who were there. The majority of this book takes the form of quotes from the people involved – with comments and context from the author inserted where necessary. Michael Cragg is a music writer, who works (or has worked) for a lot of major UK publications – so if he hasn’t interviewed the people specifically for this book, he has interviews that he’s done with them in the past that he can draw on. So you have four of the five Spice Girls (you can guess which one isn’t in this) and members from pretty much every band that is mentioned.

As someone who was a young person at the time that a lot of this was happening, I found it really interesting to read about what was going on behind the scenes and the press coverage and see how that affected my perception of the various bands and band members involved. And of course the other thing that’s really fascinating is how the spotlight of fame affected the people in the bands. Many of them were very young when they joined the bands – and you get to see an array of different ways that fame – or being in a band can mess your life up. But in the early stages of this period, a lot of it was going on behind closed doors – as the book hurtles towards the mid 00s, you see the arrival of TV talent shows and people learning how to be in a band whilst on camera and making their mistakes in public.

As you may remember – I went to an event for this book where Michael Cragg interviewed Nicola Roberts from Girls Aloud – and it was absolutely fascinating (and sort of horrifying) to hear her talking about her own experiences, now she has the benefit of distance (and I suspect some counselling/therapy) to analyse what was going on and how it affected her. She also talked about how the era of the adverts in the stage, open auditions and TV talent shows provided a gateway for people without connections in the industry to get their big breaks – even if they didn’t have the advice and support that they needed to navigate the world that they found themselves in – and that the pendulum has now swung the other way and that music is the poorer for it.

This is really good – but it’s a big old book – so it took me a while to read just because you can’t heft a 500 page hardback around with you. It is however broken up into nice chapters so you can pick it up and put it down as you need to. But if you have an e-reader, it might be worth considering buying it on that for ease of reading! It is available on Kindle and Kobo although the prices reflect the fact that it’s currently a hardback release – the paperback is due out in October, in time for Christmas.

Happy Reading!