Category: week in books

Authors I love, Book of the Week, Chick lit, reviews

Book of the Week: The Day We Disappeared

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So this week’s BotW is Lucy Robinson’s latest – The Day We Disappeared.  And this is likely to be quite a short post because I’m terrified of saying too much about this.  You may remember Lucy Robinson from previous posts – about The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me which was one of my books of the year in 2014.

The Day We Disappeared tells the stories of Annie and Kate.  Annie has a secret and it’s caused her a lot of problems – but now there’s someone who wants to fix her.  Kate is running away and she’s not going to tell you why – because that would defeat the object the reinvention that she’s trying to pull off.  And there are undercurrents.  Lots of undercurrents – of different types – and there are complications.

And that’s all I dare say.  Which isn’t much more than the back of the book says.  But that’s because to tell you more would Give Too Much Away and Ruin It All.  And Lucy Robinson’s clearly worked really hard in writing this not to do that and I don’t want to spoil it.  Because this book blew me away – in a really good way.  As you can tell, I loved Unfinished Symphony, and I think I like this more – even if there isn’t a side-kick as funny as Barry.  This is a bit different though.  The last book had me in tears – of both types, whereas this one had me holding my breath and totally gripped.  I did laugh and I nearly cried, but there’s so much suspense and tension in this as well that wasn’t in the last one.

It did take me a while to read this – but that’s mostly because I was worried about ending up in tears in public again.  Crying on the train is so embarrassing. To be honest, my only problem with this book is that the cover does not match the rest of Lucy Robinson’s books – which is more about my issues with matching books than anything else.  And I read this on my e-reader. So it’s not really a problem at all until I buy a paperback version for completeness…

My copy came from NetGalley* (yes, I know, I’m behind again) but you can get yours from all over the place – like Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles, Kindle (for a bargain £1.79 at time of writing), Kobo and hopefully the supermarkets too.  It’d be a great book to take on holiday,** as long as you don’t have any pressing plans to do anything other than reading it because you’ll be glued to your sun lounger!

*With the usual provisos – honest review, only write about stuff on here I do genuinely love etc.

** Yes I know, I promised a holiday reads post.  It is coming. It really is. I’ve even started working out what I’m going to include.  But there are a few more books that I need to read before I can be sure I’ve covered all bases.

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: July 6 – July 12

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A better week of reading – although there’s a fair few novellas in there.  I’ve had a blast reading stuff this week though and having reorganised the to-read bookshelf I’m feeling reinvigorated in my quest to get the backlog down…

Read:

The Wedding Reject Table by Angela Britnell

How to Manage your Slaves by Marcus Sidonius Falx by Jerry Toner

Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich

Wellies and Westies by Cressida McLaughlin

Sunshine and Spaniels by Cressida McLaughlin

The Great Allotment Proposal by Jenny Oliver

One Summer Night at the Ritz by Jenny Oliver

The Day We Disappeared by Lucy Robinson

Started:

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

Still reading:

The Weightless World by Marcus Trevelyan

A bit naughty on the purchase front – 4 novellas and two ebooks – and I preordered the new Harper Lee book because I couldn’t restrain myself.  I’m seriously debating just returning it after reading the early reviews.  I don’t think I can bear it.

Book of the Week, new releases, Young Adult

Book of the Week: Fire Colour One

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This week’s BotW is Jenny Valentine’s Fire Colour One.  I do try to mix my choices up a bit – although when I go on a massive reading jag of one author that doesn’t help – so here’s some new YA fiction.  I got my copy via NetGalley and raced through it in two train journeys.

Iris likes lighting fires.  She doesn’t like her mum – or her mum’s boyfriend.  She’s lost touch with her best (and only) friend Thurston. Then the dad that she hasn’t seen for years gets in contact to say he’s dying.  Her mum is delighted – she wants Ernest’s art collection to fund her lifestyle. Iris is angry.  But her dad has things he wants to tell her.

Now, it took me a while to warm to Iris.  She’s a bit difficult to like at first, but then you see what she’s dealing with.  And she’s dealing with a lot.  Her mum sees her as an inconvenience and really isn’t on her side.  Her mum’s partner is the most narcissistic guy I’ve come across in a book this year.  Iris can control the fires.  She can’t control her life, or stop her dad from dying (and she’s not sure she wants to either).

Death is such a theme in YA literature at the moment, that I was worried that this book was going to leave me miserable and upset*, but I got to the last page with a tear in my eye and a smile on my face.  Then I went back and read the last chapter all over again.  I can’t really say much more about why the end worked for me, without giving it away and that would really spoil the book, but it’s clever.  Really clever.  And I’m desperate to know what Iris does next.

So, I didn’t read a lot last week, but I’m still thinking about this one – and I’m wondering if there are any teenagers in my life that I can buy it for (I’m not sure there are).  I know that I’ll go back and read it again too, which is unusual for me and YA fiction that’s not boarding school stories.  I’ve added Jenny Valentine’s other books to my to-read list too

Fire Colour One came out last week – get your paperback from Amazon, Foyles, Waterstones or on Kindle or Kobo.

 

* A la the 3am Fault in Our Stars crying jag.

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: June 29 – July 5

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Home improvement works have disrupted my reading schedule this week!  Lots of packing up and cleaning to do and no time for books, but I’m sure the new windows will be worth it when they’re done.

Read:

The Chateau on the Lake by Charlotte Betts

Mr Rosenblum’s List by Natasha Solomons

The Rhyme of the Magpie by Marty Wingate

Fire Colour One by Jenny Valentine

Started:

How to Manage your Slaves by Marcus Sidonius Falx by Jerry Toner

The Weightless World by Marcus Trevelyan

Still reading:

The Day We Disappeared by Lucy Robinson

A little bit of backsliding on the purchase front this week – three books – after prices dropped on a couple of things I’ve been hankering after. But I did have a bit of a cull of the physical pile as I was packing everything away for the window fitters so the pile has actually shrunk really!

Book of the Week, detective, Fantasy, reviews

Book of the Week: Rivers of London

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So, last week was a holiday week and I read a fair few books (some of which will feature in a holiday reads post in the near future) but my favourite book of the week was Ben Aaronvitch’s Rivers of London.  This appeared on my radar as an if you like then you might like recommendation from someone/somewhere and I laid in a copy and saved it for one of my paperbacks for the holiday and it was so, so good.

I love the cover illustration, but I’m not sure it actually reflects the sort of book this is

Peter Grant is a newly non-probationary police constable in the Met.  He’s just been assigned to the unit which does the paperwork so everyone else doesn’t have to, when he tries to take a witness statement from a ghost after a particularly unusual murder in Covent Garden.  Then Chief Inspector Nightingale turns up and he’s suddenly an apprentice wizard.  And that’s where the fun begins.

This book is a total mash-up of some of my favourite things – it’s a police procedural (but not too thrillery chillery) with a strong fantasy element (magic! ghosts! spirits!), which knows exactly how its world works and isn’t going to dump it all on you at once, with a cast of intriguing and complex characters and a load of humour too.  So Urban Fantasy Crime Comedy. Maybe.  Anyway, it’s fabulous and I need to read the next one, not least because there are still some fairly important questions unresolved about the characters and the wider world.

You should be able to get a  copy of Rivers of London at any good bookshop – I checked a mid-sized WH Smith in a local supermarket shopping centre* and they had two copies and 3 other books from the series.  If you have poor impulse control (like me) the kindle edition is just £1.99 at time of writing. Or you can buy actual copies from Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles and the like.

* The sort of shopping centre that is based around a giant supermarket.  Like you get in France, but less classy as this particularly shopping centre was on the front page of the Daily Mail website the other week as the Tesco shoppers went a bit nuts over reduced price meat.

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: June 22 – June 28

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This week I was on holiday – as in out of the country, on a beach sunning myself – for six days – so I had plenty  of time to do some reading – although we did do some sightseeing too, so it wasn’t entirely a reading-on-a-sunlounger kind of holiday.  It does mean that you’ll be getting a holiday reading suggestion post in the next little while too!

Read:

Three Times the Scandal by Madelynne Ellis

The Mangle Street Murders by M R C Kasasian

Murder at Beechwood by Alyssa Maxwell

The Vintage Guide to Love and Romance by Kirsty Greenwood

The Norma Gene by M E Roufa

The Art of Sinning by Sabrina Jeffries

The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett

The Doris Day Vintage Film Club by Fiona Harper

The Rivers of London by Ben Aaronvitch

False Scent by Ngaio Marsh

Started:

The Day We Disappeared by Lucy Robinson

The Rhyme of the Magpie by Marty Wingate

Still reading:

Mr Rosenblum’s List by Natasha Solomons (which I started last week and accidentally left off the list in my pre-holiday excitement)

The Chateau on the Lake by Charlotte Betts

No books bought!

Book of the Week, Chick lit, romance

Book of the Week: Stealing the Show

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This week’s BotW is Christina Jones’s Stealing the Show.  Now Jones is a long time favourite author of mine – back since I discovered Heaven Sent via the Melissa Nathan Prize (god how I still miss Melissa Nathan.  I bought everything she wrote.  I cried in Tescos when I read that she’d died).

Stealing the Show is an early CJ book – and if you’ve been reading the later  books in the series, this one is the origin of the Memory Lane Fair that crops up in so many.  It’s a look at the life of travelling show people – and it’s a great love story.  I absolutely gobbled it up.  It’s maybe not as funny as some of her later books, but it’s dealing with more serious issues than they are – there’s domestic abuse tangled up in this as well as inheritance and family pressures.

But don’t let me make that sound like it’s a weighty tome that’ll drag you down.  It’s totally not.  It’s so much fun.  If you haven’t read any Christina Jones before, this really might be a good place to start – even if Heaven Sent is still my favourite.

Accent Press have been republishing some of the harder to find Christina Jones novels as ebooks – so this is easier to get hold of than ever. Go read some of her books – you won’t regret it. 

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: June 15 – June 21

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Not a bad week of reading really – and a nice mix of genres too.  Exciting times.  Even if Chateau on the Lake is still Awol…

Read:

Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich

Full House by Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughe

Stealing the Show by Christina Jones

Spelled by Betsy Schow

The Comforters by Muriel Spark

Soulless the Manga III by Gail Carriger and REM

Singing in the Shrouds by Ngaio Marsh

Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich

Started:

Three Times the Scandal by Madelynne Ellis

The Mangle Street Murders by M R C Kasasian

Still reading:

The Chateau on the Lake by Charlotte Betts

No books bought!

Book of the Week, detective

Book of the Week: Death at the Opera

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This week’s BotW  Death at the Opera and also is a bit of a compare and contrast.  I read of Gladys Mitchell’s Mrs Bradley Mysteries last week – this one I loved and the other I could barely get through.  As I didn’t read a huge amount last week – and two of them were books I’m reviewing for Novelicious (which I can’t preempt here) – I’ve made Death at the Opera my book of the week.  Death at the Opera ticks a lot of my boxes – it’s a murder mystery set in a girls school – but Mrs Bradley is a bit different to a lot of the Golden Age Sleuths.  She’s going to track down whodunnit, but she’s not necessarily going to hand them over to the authorities when she does.  And that’s what makes her interesting – she wants to know, but often without having a yearning for justice for the victim – she’s more detached and curious than some of the other dectectives of the time.

Death at the Opera is fulled with interesting and intriguing characters, some of whom have very modern attitudes, and a twisty turny plot that I didn’t work out until right at the end.  I absolutely zipped through it and went straight on to another Mrs Bradley from the to-read pile (I picked up three from the charity shop a couple of months back) – and what a contrast that was.  I really struggled with Come Away, Death.  I didn’t like the characters or the setting and I found it really difficult to get into.  I finished it, but only just – and only because I liked the Death at the Opera so much I was hoping it would improve.  But I guess when a series is so long running there’s bound to be a few duds.  Hey ho.

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: June 8 – June 14

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This week’s big question: Where has my copy of Chateau on the Lake gone?  I can’t find it anywhere.  Also, not a very productive week reading wise.  Bad Verity.  On the bright side, I managed to control my urges and only started a Janet Evanovich book late on Sunday night.  So, points to me!

Read:

Fetch Nurse Connie by Jean Fullerton

Death at the Opera by Gladys Mitchell

The Saffron Trail by Rosanna Ley

Off With His Head by Ngaio Marsh

Come Away Death by Gladys Mitchell

Started:

Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich

Still reading:

The Chateau on the Lake by Charlotte Betts

Only one book bought this week – a Christina Jones that I haven’t read from a charity shop.  So it doesn’t really count does it?!