Category: Book of the Week

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!

Book of the Week, books, detective, mystery

Book of the Week: To Love and Be Wise

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Three weeks in a row with a crime pick it is not, but this week we’re back with classic crime and one of Josephine Tey’s Inspector Grant series.

At a party to collect a friend and take her out for dinner, Alan Grant meets a startlingly good looking American photographer. A few weeks later, he finds himself investigating that same photographer’s disappearance. Did he drown, commit suicide – or has someone killed him? I’m not going to say any more about the plot because is a really ingenious mystery and I don’t want to give anything else away, but it has got a really nice setting – a rural idyll that’s been invaded by a flock of artistic types – writers, actors, dancers and performers of various types – and is seething with potential rivalries that makes it a really good read.

This is the fourth the series, but as it’s been five years since I read any of the series and it didn’t give me any issues I don’t think it matters if you haven’t read any others or if you’re reading out of order. If you’re reading in order, this follows The Franchise Affair, which is also really good. There are six in the series and I’ve read half of them – and reading this has made me want to read the rest!

This was first published in 1950 and there are plenty of editions out there. Be warned if you’re buying on Kindle: they’re are two different versions – including a recent reissue – and if you click for the series it takes you to the new edition which has the link severed with the previous versions – which is why I discovered that I now own two copies of this when I came to take the picture for this post. Luckily the second copy was really quite cheap so I don’t feel too annoyed about it. But check your device before you buy. It’s on Kobo too, but it appears to be only the older version – so far at least.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, cozy crime, new releases

Book of the Week: Grave Expectations

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Another murder mystery pick this week – but after a forgotten classic last week, this week it’s a new release – and a debut at that.

Grave Expectations’s “detective” is Claire Hendricks – thirty something, a true crime fan and a medium. Yes really, a medium. She can see ghosts and one ghost in particular who follows her around – her best friend Sophie who has been haunting her since she was murdered when they were teenagers. Claire’s been booked as the entertainment at a family birthday party for one of her uni friends’ grandmothers. Except that at the party they find an unquiet ghost and set out to discover what happened with the two least unbearable members of the family to help them (neither of them are Claire’s uni mate) despite some scepticism.

I have written before about how I can never quite put my finger on what makes something with paranormal or supernatural elements work for for me and what doesn’t, but from the fact that I’ve picked this you’ve probably worked out that this one worked! I had a couple of issues with it, but they were minor ones. But basically this is a fun and funny cozy crime novel with a clever set up and a heroine with issues, and who I wished was a little bit less messy. But if this is the start of a series (and I hope it is) they’re minor quibbles that can be ironed out in the sequel.

This is Alice Bell’s debut and it’s already been picked by the Radio 2 book club, so hopefully it’ll be easy to get hold of – it’s a bargainous 99p on on Kindle as I write this, although it’s a bit more expensive on Kobo. My copy came from NetGalley – and I finished it just ahead of its release last week so I’ll be looking for it in the shops in the coming weeks.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, detective

Book of the Week: Murder of a Lady

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This week I’m back with a murder mystery – and another British Library Crime Classic – after a run of more than a month without one! This time it’s an impossible murder in the a Highlands by Anthony Wynne.

The murdered lady of the title is Mary Gregor, the sister of the laird of Duchlan, who is found stabbed to death locked in her bedroom of the family castle. Our amateur sleuth is Dr Eustace Hailey, who is in the grand tradition of the Golden Age mystery, and who happens to be staying nearby when the body is discovered. Despite being told that the victim was a kind and charitable woman, he soon uncovers evidence that suggests the reverse and that the situation at the castle was not a happy one. In fact even after her death, Mary Gregor still seems to loom over the building – and then more deaths happen.

This is definitely one of the more fantastical of the BLCC’s I’ve read, with a strong vein of highland superstition and mysticism. In fact there was a while when I was wondering is the solution was going to involve the supernatural so impossible did it seem for anyone to have carried out the crime. But it does stick to the rules of the detective club – although the solution is quite something, it is just about plausible.

I bought my copy at the Book Conference second hand sale, but this is also available on Kindle and Kobo and is actually pretty bargainous at £1.99 as I write this, although it should be noted that the ebook edition isn’t a BLCC one (there are some of these where the paperback and ebook rights appear to have got separated) so I can’t vouch for the quality of the ebook version. And if you want more impossible/locked room mysteries, I have a post for that too.

Happy Reading!