Category: week in books

Book of the Week, historical, new releases

Book of the Week: Circus of Wonders

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So as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’m still not really in the headspace for books where I don’t know how they’re going to end. This of course is the main reason why I’ve mostly been reading romance and mystery for the duration of the pandemic – in the midst of all the global uncertainty, I need to know that it’s going to be ok at the end. This doesn’t seem to have got through to the part of my brain clicking request on NetGalley though, which is a bit of an issue to be honest. But I did manage to read this – and enjoy it – so here’s a change from the recent fiction picks and a bit of historical fiction.

Cover of Circus of Wonders

In Circus of Wonders we meet Nell. She’s always been different, because of the birthmarks that cover her skin. When Jasper Jupiter’s Circus of Wonders comes to her coastal village, she is kidnapped after her father sells her. Ripped away from her beloved brother and the seaside, at first Nell tries to escape. But soon she discovers the community of performers and meets Jasper’s younger brother Toby. Toby and Jasper were in Crimea together and the show is what they have always planned together, even before they were on the battlefield. But when the show gets to London, Nell is its star, but can Jasper cope with his “leopard girl” eclipsing him?

This is a really atmospheric book – mixing the world of Victorian circus performers and the horror of war, as well as looking at identity, difference and fame. I worry that this makes Circus of Wonders sound very worthy, but it’s actually a real page Turner as well as being very clever. And give the renewed interest in the period and the circus after The Greatest Showman it is perhaps and opportune time for something like this. Really very readable. I read Elizabeth Macneal’s first book, The Doll Factory on my birthday holiday at the start of last year* and I found it creepy and atmospheric but only really liked one strand of the story and wanted a more definite resolution. This one, I like Toby and Nell’s story and it does have a very definite ending so that’s a definite win here. If you’re after for something to read in the sun, this would be a good choice.

My copy of Circus of Wonders came from NetGalley, but it’s out now in hardback as well as Kindle and Kobo. I would expect the physical copies to be front and centre in the book shops – because it’s in the hardback top 10 at the moment. Side note: I had read two books in each of the fiction top tens in the Sunday Times this week – unfortunately this was slightly undermined by the fact that one of the books in each list was the same book – The Thursday Murder Club – which is in both hardback and paperback lists! For the completists, the other book that I had read in the paperback list is the wonderful The Vanishing Half. But at any rate, if you haven’t read the either the Richard Osman or the Brit Bennett (which are doing very different things), they’re now in paperback – ideal for your sunlounger.

Happy Reading!

*It seems like a lifetime ago, but that trip which seemed so extravagant at the time- to pay for sunshine in January – now seems like the smartest idea we ever have, as it was our only proper holiday last year and it was a proper sunshiney one.

Authors I love, books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: May 24 – May 30

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A varied week in reading last week – partly because of my quest to finish some stuff off before the end of the month, but also because I wasn’t very well for part of last week so the reading list reflects the sort of thing that my brain could cope with. But more generally, I’m realising that my brain is still not in a place for books where I don’t know that there is going to be a positive resolution at the end. I will expand more on this tomorrow – I promise! It’s also the end of the month today, so there’s plenty coming up this week: as well as the Book of the Week tomorrow, there will be the Mini Reviews and the Stats. A veritable bonanza.

Read:

His Bride for the Taking by Tessa Dare

The Marriage of Mary Russell by Laurie R King

Literary Landscapes edited by John Sutherland

Justice Hall by Laurie R King

Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer

Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren

The Lion in the Valley by Elizabeth Peters

The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins

Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth MacNeal*

Started:

Alexandria by Edmund Richardson*

The Game by Laurie R King

Deadly Decor by Karen Rose Smith

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid*

Still reading:

Frieda by Annabel Abbs

Love in the Blitz by Eileen Alexander*

A Theatre for Dreamers by Polly Samson

I’m still not counting, but I can confirm I did but a fair few books this week. It seemed like a bunch of books that appealed to me we’re on offer *and* I had got behind on my preordering. It was a real hardship… not!

Bonus photo: it’s peony season! And this is my vase full. Love them so much. So beautiful and they made me happy this week.

A vase full of Peonies in various shades of pink

An * next to a book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley

Book of the Week, historical, romance

Book of the Week: Wilde Child

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As I said yesterday, a busy week in real life last week and a lot of reoccurring authors on the list. But for today’s BotW pick I’m back into my romance happy place, with the latest book from an old favourite author of mine – Eloisa James.

A little bit of my historical romance reading origin story first: Eloisa James was one of the first current historical romance authors I read back when I discovered that there were modern authors doing takes on Georgette Heyer, back in my Southend days so circa 2009 – about a decade after I first read Georgette Heyer – I know. What took me so long? I don’t know – except I suppose that back when I was reading Georgette Heyer originally there wasn’t really a section of the UK market that was historical romance that wasn’t Mills and Boon – and that was what my granny read. Then – and I know exactly how it happened – I saw Julia Quinn’s What Happens in London in the window of Waterstones on Southend High Street and went to investigate. The Essex Library system was good – and I then requested and worked my way through every Julia Quinn they had and started to look for other similar authors. And it turned out there were a few authors who had made the jump across the Atlantic – and you just had to know what to look for in the cover art. My first Eloisa James was Duchess by Night – with a blindfolded lady in a corseted dress on the cover. And I ate up that series – or as much as it as was published in the UK. Which was not all of it – and at that point they weren’t available on Kindle – even if I had had one* so I started looking at the US editions, with their very, very different covers to the UK ones and started ordering them so I could get to Villiers’ story. And so what I’m saying here is that I have a long history with Eloisa James and I see her books as reliable comfort reads for me.

This is the sixth in the Wilde’s of Lindow Castle series, and the titular Wilde Child is Joan, who the Duke of Lindow has raised as his own despite the fact that her father is the Prussian count who his (now ex) wife had an affair with. This fact of her birth has made her some what scandalous – and she has done every thing in her power to scandalise the polite society who judge her for something she can’t help or change. Our hero is Viscount Greywick, who needs sensible scandal free wife but just can’t help trying to keep Joan out of trouble. The two of them strike a bargain – he’ll help her achieve her dream of acting on stage (incognito of course) and then she’ll settle down and marry a man of his choosing. We all know where this is going, without me even saying any more than that.

Now, this is not perfect. I like others of James’ books more. I think the relationship skips a stage – they go straight from antipathy to liking each other, without really properly explaining how. Yes, there are a lot of “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I can’t stop touching your hair” books out there – but there’s usually a big revelation moment where they work out that that it’s not actually hate, it’s repressed desire – and that doesn’t quite land here. I still think James’ earlier books are cleverer and funnier, but I read it this in under 24 hours and it made me smile – and having read all the other books in this series, I’m just a touch invested and I liked seeing the previous couples reappear. I am going to go on record that I have been holding out hope throughout the series that the at some point Horatius, the dead eldest son, is going to turn out not to be dead and reappear to close the series, not just because of The Drama but also because that would solve one of the ongoing problems of one of the couples – which makes a reappearance in this story (you’ll know what I mean if you’ve read North’s book). James has her first book out under her own name (Mary Bly) soon – which is a contemporary women’s fiction novel – so I’m hoping this isn’t it for Eloisa James – but it may well be.

My copy of Wilde Child came from the library, but it’s out now on Kindle and Kobo as well as in paperback – and these are often spotted in the supermarkets and book stores – at time of writing, Foyles have it in stock in six of their seven stores.

Happy Reading!

* I got my first Kindle in May 2012 before I went to Poland to work at EURO 2012 – because lord knows I wasn’t going to be able to take enough books to read with me for a month.

Authors I love, books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: May 17 – May 23

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Every week is a busy week at the moment it seems, but even amidst all the busy and the stress, reading is a constant for me. Yes, this week is mostly old favourite authors who I’ve told you about before. No I don’t feel guilty about that – although I do feel guilty that I’m making slower progress than I’d hoped down the NetGalley list, but sometimes when you’re tired and stressed, you just want to pick up something that you know will make you happy and not have to concentrate too hard on something new.

Read:

The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer

O Jerusalem by Laurie R King

Wrapped by Rebekah Weatherspoon

Wilde Child by Eloisa James

Lumberjanes Vol 18 by Shannon Watters et al

Elizabeth and Monty by Charles Castillo*

Her Big City Neighbour by Jackie Lau

Started:

Justice Hall by Laurie R King

A Theatre for Dreamers by Polly Samson

Still reading:

Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth MacNeal*

Frieda by Annabel Abbs

Love in the Blitz by Eileen Alexander*

Bonus photo: It has unlocked even more here now – and so I had my first evening out with friends this year last week, for the second semi final of Eurovision. There was prosecco, there was schnitzel, there were some terrible songs and some even worse performances and I loved every minute. Thus, it is this week’s bonus photo.

A glass of prosecco in front of a large screen showing Eurovision Semi final 2

An * next to a book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley

Book of the Week, LGTBQIA+, non-fiction

Book of the Week: Fabulosa!

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A few options under serious consideration from last week, but in the end I settled on Paul Baker’s Fabulosa! because it was really, really good and I’m not sure it will have come onto people’s radar. So this week’s BotW could be seen as the latest in a line that has already included Legendary Children and Diary of a Drag Queen – and also Art of Drag – which you can actually see in the background of my photo below.

In case you don’t already know, Polari is a language that was used mostly by gay men in the first half of the twentieth century. It had a brief moment in the limelight in the mid 1960s when it featured in Julian and Sandy sketches on the radio show Round the Horne, and then dropped away again. In Fabulosa! Paul Baker examines the language’s roots – in Cant, dancers’ slang and Lingua Franca – the reasons why it was spoken and the reasons for its decline. Baker is a linguistics professor and the foundations for the book are from of his PHD research – and interviews conducted with surviving speakers of Polari.

This is part linguistic study, part social history and really very enjoyable. There are a fair few word which crossed over into common usage from Polari – as well as the origins of a few of the words you may have encountered in Drag Race. One of the main roles for Polari was a means of communicating with a level of camouflage – but it’s hard to work out at this distance how successful that was. Baker is very frank that it was hard to find people who spoke it to interview, and there is very littl documentation about it and so it’s hard to work out how Polari was actually used – and whether it ever reached the level of a language rather than a variety, and whether people who didn’t speak Polari would have recognised it as something spoken by the gay community and been able to expose this and thus defeat the object.

IF you’re interested in language or social history – or both, this is well worth a look to discover a hidden part of the recent past. I bought my copy from Foyles – where the hardback is now out of stock but they do have the paperback, but it’s also available on Kindle and Kobo. You’ll probably need a reasonably large or specialist bookshop to be able to wander in and pick up a copy.

Happy reading!

And one last bonus – here are Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick reviving Julian and Sandy – on camera for a BBC programme in the late 1980s, shortly before Paddick’s death. Both this and the clip above are discussed in the book.

Authors I love, books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: May 10 – May 16

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Another incredibly busy week. And a fun set of books on the list too as I attempt to counteract the seriousness of the world situation with some lighter hearted reading. And of course the Amelia Peabody re-listen continues. I’ve got rather too many books on the go at the moment though, so a project for this week has to be to see to that a little I think.

Read:

Themes and Variations by David Sedaris

Dancers in Mourning by Margery Allingham

Let There Be Suspects by Emilie Richards

The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting by K J Charles

The Mummy Case by Elizabeth Peters

Fabulosa! by Paul Baker

The Case of the Canterfell Codicil by P J Fitzsimmons

Started:

Elizabeth and Monty by Charles Castillo*

O Jerusalem by Laurie R King

Still reading:

Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth MacNeal*

Frieda by Annabel Abbs

Love in the Blitz by Eileen Alexander*

Bonus photo: You know I watched the film of Sense and Sensibility this weekend, for the first time in years – maybe decades. And I had forgotten how good it is. I remain convinced though that Colonel Brandon deserved better and that so did Elinor, poor woman having to sort out her family and be sensible and strong while they all throw hysterics around her. Alan Rickman did so much with just the twitch of the face – what a loss. This is his dawning hope face!

An * next to a book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley

Book of the Week, romance

Book of the Week: Love at First

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I like writing about swoony romantic books, so although I really liked the new Duncan MacMaster – I mean a murder mystery set at a Fyre-esque festival is lot of fun and I’m sure I’ll write about it properly at some point, but I just loved Kate Clayborn’s Love at First, so my inner romantic won out. Again.

Nora loves her flat, and the building it’s in. She’s loved it since she was a kid and visited her Nona every summer. Now her Nona is gone but the community of her friends is still there and Nora has taken over looking after them. She moved across the country to Chicago to live in it, she’s got her remote working situation sorted and now she just needs to make sure the building’s new occupant doesn’t change the atmosphere. For Will, the flat is an unexpected inheritance from an uncle he didn’t know and didn’t want to. He can’t imagine living in it – so he just wants to deal with it and move on. Soon Will and Nora are low key feuding as she tries to gently sabotage his plans. But it’s more like frenemies than enemies because there’s just something between the two of them…

So this has a lovely prologue setting it up, and then a delightful romance with enemies to lovers and friends with benefits stuff going on. Will and Nora both have reasons why relationships are tricky territory for them and watching them find their way towards each other is lovely. I also adored the other residents of the building with their quirks and their fun and sparky relationships with each other. I really liked Clayborn’s previous book, Love Lettering – I mean it was a Book of the Week and one of my favourites of last year – but I think maybe I like this one even more!

I borrowed this from the library, but I suspect I’m going to be ordering myself the paperback so that I can lend it around – after all I own Love Lettering in paperback and on Kindle… At the moment it’s only available as an import paperback in the UK but when I asked Kate Clayborn on Twitter what was going on, she said she thinks it’s just transitioning to a new imprint. I hope that’s what’s happening – because I have two books of a three book series of hers and I really need the third at some point, so I’ll keep my eyes open and try to remember to update you all when it’s on Kindle and Kobo again.

Happy Reading!

Authors I love, books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: May 3 – May 9

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Lots of fun stuff in last week’s list. I think I’ve decided what’s going to be Book of the Week tomorrow, but it’s a close one. The weather here has been distintly mixed, which has enabled a fair amount of reading time too.

Read:

Drop the Mikes by Duncan MacMaster

April Lady by Georgette Heyer

Vera Kelly is not a Mystery by Rosalie Knecht

Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin

Love at First by Kate Clayborn

The Clue in the Clam by Kathi Daley

To Love and to Loathe by Martha Waters*

Started:

Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth MacNeal*

Frieda by Annabel Abbs

Love in the Blitz by Eileen Alexander*

Let There Be Suspects by Emilie Richards

Still reading:

Fabulosa! by Paul Baker

Bonus photo: Regulars around here will know that Elections weeks are always busy ones for me – and this week was no different, so here’s a picture of a polling station sign to represent that!

An * next to a book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley

Authors I love, books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: April 26 – May 2

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The end of another month has come – so all sorts of goodies coming up here to wrap up my reading from April. I’ve also managed to get myself in gear and have no long running books on the list for once. Loads of good stuff last week though, so I have a lot I want to tell you about once I get my act in gear!

Read:

Dying for Devil’s Food by Jenn McKinlay

The Curse of the Pharaohs by Elizabeth Peters

Runaways by Rainbow Rowell

The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer

The Devil Comes Courting by Courtney Milan**

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q Sutano*

Jill, Lone Guide by Ethel Talbot

Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny*

Wicked Enchantment by Wanda Coleman*

Started:

Fabulosa! by Paul Baker

Vera Kelly is not a Mystery by Rosalie Knecht

Still reading:

N/a

Bonus photo: This week’s bonus post is a rare horticultural success for me. This is our peace lily, which my mum says is now so big it needs splitting. This is a miracle as usually plants only last for a matter of weeks in my house. I currently have four plants alive – a record – and I attribute it all to the fact that I’m home all the time so remember to water them!

A happy and large peace lily

An * next to a book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley

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

Book of the Week: He’s Not My Boyfriend

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I said yesterday that I was having trouble picking and I did. There were a few options for today. But the Deanna Raybourn is the sixth in a series – and I’ve written about Veronica before. The Grand Sophy was a reread via audiobook and that book is the very definition of a problematic favourite. I’ve written about several Lumberjanes before (including the novelisations) as well. And when I came to write up my reading list I realised that although I’ve read eight of Jackie Lau’s books and novellas over the last year, I haven’t made one of them a BotW yet. So that made my mind up for me.

Cover of He's Not My Boyfriend

Iris Chin likes her independence. She’s a successful structural engineer and a bit of a party girl and life would be pretty much perfect if her family didn’t keep setting up up with men to try and get her married off. But her job and her home life collide when she discovers that Alex Kwong, the one night-stand she snuck out on the next morning, is the man she’s going to have to work with on a new project for work. On top of that she’s moved in with her nosy, meddling grandma and you’ve got a recipe for a disaster…

This makes for a really fun read. Alex and Iris are both convinced that they don’t want to be in relationships – Iris, because she thinks her parents and grandparents relationships weren’t successful, and Alex because his mum has died and left his family broken hearted and he doesn’t want to go through that pain again. But they have great chemistry together, and Iris introduces Alex to her family to help him with some of the female family he’s missing without his mum. Watch them work out their relationship is really good, but Iris’s grandmother nearly steels the show. She’s a 90-something ball of energy – who has learnt English since her husband died, taken a string of cookery courses to fill time and has started reading Harlequin romance novels. She’s brilliant, and I would read a whole series of her setting up her hapless relatives on blind dates!

So this is a couple of years old and the second in a series – I haven’t read the first, but the couple from that do pop up in this. The running theme in the Jackie Lau books that I’ve read are delicious food, meddling families and heroines who know what they want from life and aren’t afraid to go out and get it. So if that is your thing – and you don’t mind feeling hungry while reading, then definitely check this out. Her first book with Berkeley is out at in November and I’m really looking forward to reading it.

I bought my copy of He’s Not My Boyfriend on Kindle but it’s also available on Kobo – and it’s 99p on both of those at the moment. It’s also showing as available to order in paperback, but I can’t work out how easy it actually will be to get hold of.

Happy Reading!