Category: Book of the Week

Book of the Week, books, Forgotten books

Book of the Week: Guard Your Daughters

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Today’s pick is part of the bounty from that Persephone trip I mentioned on Saturday. And I’m quite pleased with my choice!

Guard Your Daughters is the story of a family of five sisters – four of whom are still living at home, whilst the oldest has recently married. It’s the early 1950s and their mother stops the girls from going to school, or making friends – and if she can from leaving the house at all. Their father is a mystery writer and devoted to his wife and to keeping her from being made ill by goings on around d her. Told by Morgan, the middle sister, in some ways it’s a light and fluffy book as you follow the day to day lives of the girls. But under that there is a darker secret.

I remember my mum saying to me once that as a parent it is your job to bring your children up so that they can go out into the world and live independently without you. On that front, Morgan’s parents appear to have failed big style. The elder girls had a governess, but she left some time before the start of the novel and the youngest sister, Theresa, is going without a proper education and is busy trying to make sure no one forces her out of the world that she’s made for herself. And the elder girls seem to being kept in the sort of splendid isolation that a strict Victorian father might have come up with – encouraged to work on accomplishments – despite the fact that the world has changed. How did eldest sister Pandora manage to escape in marriage? Well read it and you’ll find out.

Interestingly Persephone have included a selection of reader reactions to the end of the book – because this is a bit of a polarising one. I can’t say that I liked many of the characters but I was fascinated to see what was actually going on in the household. I’ve seen some people compare it to I Capture the Castle and I don’t think that’s necessarily wrong, although this is darker than I remember that being. Anyway, I read it in less than a day and it gave me lots of thoughts, so I recommend it!

My copy came from Persephone in Bath – you can order direct from them or you may be able to find it (or order it) in larger bookstores

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, new releases

Book of the Week: The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club

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A historical fiction pick today, and one that has taken me a while to read on account of my brain’s refusal to concentrate on long books when I’m tired and my uncertainty on how things were going to turn out and my current need for closure and happy endings!

It’s 1919, the war is over and the world is starting to return to normal. Except that normal seems to mean that all the gains that women have made during the war are being rolled back and having had a taste of independence the world is now trying to relegate them back to domesticity. Helen Simonson’s new novel focuses on three characters trying to figure out what their place is in the post-war world. Constance had taken over the management of an estate, but is now losing her job and her home to make way for returning men. After nursing the mother of her employer through influenza, she is sent with her to the seaside, where she meets Poppy and her group of lady motorcycle riders, and Poppy’s brother Harris, an injured wartime pilot who is still coming to terms with his new reality. And then there is Klaus, German by birth but a naturalised British citizen, who has got a job as a waiter again, but is finding that he has to keep a low profile on account of his name and accent.

This is a smart and thought-provoking novel set at an interesting time that is ripe for fiction. It’s also a coming of age story, but there is a deal of darkness to balance the tea dances and parties. The interwar period is one that I love reading about – but I haven’t read a lot of fiction set exclusively at the start of that period, and it gave me plenty to think about as well.

My copy came from NetGalley, but it’s out now and available on Kindle, Kobo and in hardback.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, Children's books, Forgotten books

Book of the Week: Film Stars at Riverlea

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It’s only right that the week after Book Conference, my book of the Week pick is a bonkers Girls Own boarding school story. So buckle up, this has got a lot of plot to get though…

I was going to say that I don’t know where to start on the plot, but I do: the start, because this opens on a twin arriving at Riverlea having run away from the boarding school she was attending after the parents decided they would be better apart from each other. And it only gets wilder from there. It’s got (not in order and not exhaustive) film stars, vindictive PE teachers, hidden talents, missing treasure, salvation through cricket, missing heirs, near drowning and a shipwreck. And those last are not at the same time. And it’s only just over 200 pages long.

Now I normally like my school stories a little saner – if by saner we mean the realistic (in comparison) boarding school in the Alps where you might get lost up a mountain that Elinor M Brent Dyer offers. But sometimes you just need something crazy. This was a great way to spend an evening and I thank my friend for letting me read it first.

I can’t even tell you where to get this – it’s long out of print and I’ve never seen it before – but I’m also not expecting many of you to want to read it because it’s niche. So niche. But also hilarious.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, Forgotten books

Book of the Week: Sergeant Cluff Stands Firm

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Yes this is something of a cheat, because I finished this on Monday, but it would have been Sunday night if I hadn’t been so very tired after book conference. So here we are, and let’s hope now that I’m not scuppering myself for next week’s pick!

When an Amy Snowden marries a much younger man, her neighbours are outraged. When she then apparently kills herself a few months later, her husband then disappears. The coroner rules it suicide, but Sergeant Caleb Cluff isn’t convinced. He knows the area and Amy and thinks someone is getting away with murder. So he sets out to find out the truth about what happened to Amy, despite the disapproval of his colleagues.

This was originally published in 1960, but like the Lorac the other week it is another that is really good at conjuring the location and the people and is very atmospheric. It’s also quite creepy – as a reader you’re not in a lot of doubt about whether it was a murder at the start but it builds and builds. Yes there are some slightly dubious attitudes here, but it does all make sense within itself. This is the first in a series and I will look out for more.

This is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment, so if you don’t read on kindle you may have to buy the paperback or wait for it to cycle out of that for it to pop up on Kobo.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: Do Me a Favour

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Oh you’re so unsurprised by this I know. I can’t keep myself. I tried to pace myself with this one but in the end, I just finished it. On Sunday evening and here we are!

As I said in last week – this is the story of Willa and Hudson. Willa is a widow and she has just moved to an island in the Pacific north west where she has inherited a house from her great aunt. Her parents want her to get a “proper” job, but she wants to try and rebuild her career as a cookery book ghost writer. Her comeback assignment is for a viral social media star who is more famous for the fact he cooks topless than his actual recipes. But no matter, she is determined. Hudson is her new neighbour. He lives on his parents’ farm, along with one, sometimes two of his grown up children. He’s a handyman and she has a house that needs work. Soon they are spending lots of time together, more than is technically necessary and it’s clear there’s something between them.

In case you haven’t worked it out, this is another romance from Cathy Yardley featuring an older hero and heroine. Both are in their 40s, both have got baggage and like Role Playing a lot of what is going on here is two mature adults figuring out that they’re into each other and then working out if that’s a thing that can work in their lives long term. There is no big external conflict here – and no real conflict between them really – so despite the sadness in Willa’s backstory (and it’s not a passing reference to her late husband, it’s a big part of her) this is actually quite low stress. You want them to get together, they want them to be together; they’ve just got a few things to work through.

So it’s a really comforting read as well as being romantic. And I also loved the setting – in real life I could not cope with living on an island, but in a book: totally. A lovely way to spend a few hours.

Anyway, I had my copy of Do Me A Favour preordered, it’s currently £1.99 to buy on Kindle but it’s also in Kindle Unlimited and also an Amazon imprint in paperback.

Happy Reading.

Book of the Week, books, mystery

Book of the Week: The Theft of the Iron Dogs

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As I said yesterday, a busy week in life and also a fairly busy week in reading. And I’m back with a British Library Crime classic pick today, because this is really good – and also has a beautiful cover.

It’s just after the war and Inspector MacDonald is hunting for a coupon racketeer who has gone missing in London, reported missing by his fiancée. In Lancashire Giles Hoggett, a book dealer turned cow farmer, has found something strange and potentially sinister in his fishing cottage. His wife is sceptical but he writes to a Scotland Yard detective who solved another case locally not that long before. Soon MacDonald is visiting for the weekend and it seems that his coupon case may be connected to the missing items at the cottage.

I really like E C R Lorac. Almost every time I read one her books it’s up there for Book of the Week – and it was a surprise to me that it’s been a year since I picked one. She is so good at writing about Lancashire and the communities there, and this really evokes the tight-knit community in the countryside as well as the immediate aftermath of the war. As the granddaughter of farming families (on both sides!) I really love the way she writes about people who know their land, the rhythms of the seasons and that you have to respect nature. Oh and the mystery is pretty good too!

The Theft of the Iron Dogs is available as a paperback in the British Library Crime Classics range and it is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment, which means it’s not on Kobo right now, but as I’ve said before the BLCC titles rotate in and out of that still be back on Kobo at some point.

Happy Reading!

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

Book of the Week: The Unforgettable Loretta, Darling

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It’s Tuesday again and as I promised last week, I’m back with a Book of the Week pick – and we’re back in old Hollywood for Katherine Blake’s The Unforgettable Loretta, Darling.

It’s the early 1950s and the titular Loretta is a Brit abroad, escaping from her past in Lancashire by reinventing herself in Hollywood, not as an actress but behind the scenes in the make-up department. She’s new to Hollywood and its machinations, but she’s a fast learner and she has got some weapons of her own as she fights her way through the studio system in the hunt for success.

It’s quite hard to describe what actually happens in this, or give it a genre. It’s historical fiction, but there’s a dash of mystery in there and it’s witty too. But there’s also some sexual violence that I need to warn you about because I know that’s a hard no for some people. I love a book that features Golden Age and studio system Hollywood and this has plenty of that – with faded starlets, up and coming ingenues and plenty of awful men. If you liked The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo this has some similar vibes – but with a darker edge.

This is a relatively new release – it came out in the UK last month, but in the US last week. I haven’t seen it in the shops yet, but it may be that I’ve been looking in the wrong places because of that genre thing I mentioned – or simply that I haven’t been in a big enough bookshop. My copy came from NetGalley but you can also get it on Kindle or Kobo and on Audible.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, new releases

Book of the Week: Welcome to Glorious Tuga

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For the second week in a row, I’m writing about a book that I finished on Monday. But it was one of two books I finished on Monday, so that gives a bit of a sense of how close to the end I was, and how hopping around my reading was last week. It’s also out this very day in the US (it came out here last month) so it’s also relatively well timed. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

Tuga is a remote island in the South Atlantic, only accessible by boat at certain times of year. On the last boat in this season are Charlotte Walker, on her way to study the island’s tortoises, and Dan Zekri, on his was home to take over from his uncle as the island’s chief medical officer. What follows is a year in the life of the key characters on the island – full of ups and downs and a huge learning experience for Charlotte.

I really enjoyed this – it’s gentler than I expected but also all the characters felt very well rounded and fully formed, not just Charlotte and Dan. And this is also the first in a trilogy, which I only realised after I finished it and is good news because I wanted more! I’m trying to think of comparison books – but struggling a lot. It may yet come to me, but everything I’ve thought of so far had a lot of “it’s like one thing that this book does, but not like any of the rest of it” so I don’t think they work! And it’s so new that the Good Reads suggestions are still other new releases which doesn’t help either!

I mentioned Welcome to Glorious Tuga in my Summer of Not Sequels post and as I predicted in that I have already seen it about a lot this summer – at the airports and in the bookshops. My copy came from NetGalley, but you can buy it now in all the usual formats like Kindle and Kobo as well.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scandal

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Yes, yes, I finished this on Monday, but I finished it on the train to work, before 8am and Goodreads still thinks that’s Sunday so it’s all fine right? Not cheating at all.

Anyway, Major Rufus D’Aunstey is the new Earl of Oxney and owner of a remote and ancient Manor House in the vicinity of Romney Marsh. He’s already been through a months long battle in the court with his uncle about his inheritance, and now Luke Doomsday, the son of a local smuggling clan has turned up with another claim against the title. But Luke is also a secretary, and Rufus needs a secretary to help him untangle the mess that his predecessor left behind him. Soon the two of them are allies, except Luke has a reason he wanted to come to the manor and it wasn’t to do with being a secretary and it’s all about to get a bit complicated.

This is the second in K J Charles’s Doomsday books set in the same area and with the same smuggling family on the one side, but some years later and a different family on the other side. You don’t need to have read the first one, although it may enhance the experience, this is standalone. This has got smugglers and terrible relatives and a happy ending after a certain amount of adventure. I also really like the setting – The Unknown Ajax is one of my favourite Georgette Heyers and this has a lot of the smuggling themes from that plus the tension between a military hero and the people who have turned to smuggling to get by but dialled up to 11 and with more normal people. All in all it’s a really satisfying read.

As you can see, I have a physical copy and I’ve spotted it in a number of the larger bookshops, so you should be able to get hold if it if you want a paperback, or of course you can get it on Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!

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.