Category: week in books

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: April 20 – April 26

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A better week than the previous one – in terms of my mindset at any rate. Some interesting stuff read – some of which you’ll be hearing more of, most of which fits into my current lockdown reading trends. If you missed it on Friday, check out my comfort reads post with some nice escapist reading suggestions for you.

Read:

Death Came Softly by E R C Lorac

Settling Scores by Various authors, intro: Martin Edwards

Dead Famous by Greg Jenner

Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

Mooncakes by Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker

A Second Chance Road Trip for Christmas by Jackie Lau

The Better Half by Sharon Moaelm*

Started:

False Value by Ben Aaronovitch

Still reading:

She-Merchants, Buchaneers and Gentlewomen by Katie Hickman

Logging Off by Nick Spalding*

The Fall of the House of Byron by Emily Brand*

The Cuckoos of Batch Magna by Peter Maughan

I think I bought a couple of ebooks. But I’m still not counting, because whatever gets you through right?

Bonus photo: I spent most of the weekend in the sunshine in the hammock in the back garden. It was lovely. Warm and sunny and away from the sound of Him Indoors playing Red Dead Redemption 2…

An * next to a book title indicates that it came from NetGalley.

Book of the Week, romance

Book of the Week: A Cowboy to Remember

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As I said yesterday, it was a tough week for me last week, with all the changes in the world getting to me a bit. And I struggled to find my usual relaxation from reading, but there were some bright spots, And after a run of murder mystery picks, today I’m back with a contemporary romance choice.

Evie Buchanan is on the edge of something big. After winning a TV-cooking show, she’s snagged a hosting gig and she’s killing it. But when a fall down some stairs at a party nearly *literally* kills her, she’s left with a case of amnesia that she really needs to hide from her bosses and her fans. Her assistant gets in contact with the only “family” Evie has left – cowboys who run a ranch in California. Evie doesn’t remember them at all –  but when they arrive at the hospital to visit, one of them is the guy she’s been having dreams about since her accident. Zach hasn’t seen Evie since she left the ranch when he refused to admit that there were feelings between them. His family have always been desperate to pair them off together, but is he ready to admit that they might be perfect for each other? And what will happen if Evie gets her memory back and remembers how it ended the first time?

So, tell me again that I don’t like amnesia as a plot line (or cowboy stories), because this is so good and just goes to show in the right hands anything can make a great romance*. I’ve read a couple of Rebekah Weatherspoon’s other books (including Xeni which I wrote about after my birthday trip back in the times when we could still go away on holiday) and this has all the relatable characters and interesting plot that the others do, but with less on the page bedtime action. The chemistry between the leads is still as good, and it is in no way closed door – but it’s not as blush inducing as Xeni was. I was a bit concerned about how Zach and Evie’s relationship could be resolved if (well when) her memory came back because there seemed to be a couple of unresolvable things there – as I was concerned that one or other of them would have to become less (or give up their dreams) to make it work but actually, it was really cleverly worked out and fit in with both characters.

This is great fun and made great escapist reading at these difficult times. Your mileage may vary, but a ranch in California is sufficiently different to my every day life that I wasn’t constantly worrying about social distancing or viruses the way I am everytime I try and read something set in the contemporary UK at the moment! It’s also the first in a series – because luckily for us, Zach has brothers (and one of them is a pro-sports player, so they may not all be cowboy romances). The next one is out in the autumn and I’m hoping it’s about Jesse, but there’s no blurb for it on Goodreads yet.

My copy of A Cowboy to Remember came from the library, but it’s available now in Kindle and Kobo or as a mass market paperback. The delivery time claims to be quite short, bu I suspect you might be waiting a while for that physical copy because of it being a US release and you know: the ‘rona.

Happy Reading – and stay safe.

 

 

 

*but I’m not prepared to read a lot of Secret Baby or pregnesia romances to try and prove this though.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: April 13 – April 19

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I’m going to be honest – I really struggled with everything last week. I’ve lost track of how long this has been going on for, what day of the week it is and everything is blurring into a mass of same-ness. My concentration was a bit shot and it was easier to watch Drag Race than it was to read anything – and I found that really hard to deal with because reading is usually my escape and go-to fix for when I’m feeling blue. Fingers crossed things improve a bit this week.

Read:

A Dangerous Engagement by Ashley Weaver

Anna K by Jenny Lee*

Death in Room Five by George Bellairs

A Cowboy to Remember by Rebekah Weatherspoon

The Papers of A J Wentworth BA by H F Ellis

He Dies and Makes No Sign by Molly Thynne

Started:

Dead Famous by Greg Jenner

Death Came Softly by E R C Lorac

Settling Scores by Various Authors

Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

The Cuckoos of Batch Magna by Peter Maughan

Still reading:

She-Merchants, Buchaneers and Gentlewomen by Katie Hickman

Logging Off by Nick Spalding*

The Fall of the House of Byron by Emily Brand*

The Better Half by Sharon Moaelm*

Bonus photo: My week has been very boring – just around the house and all the bits of London I’ve already sent you pictures of, so here’s something a different. Not my upcycling, but my parents – painting a bench my great-grandfather made in the 1950s. Why did I pick this? Well it felt like something productive, but also because this bench featured highly in pretend games I used to play with my friends when we were little – and these were heavily influenced by what we were reading. So this featured as various things in games about boarding schools, ballet dancers, the Faraway Tree and more. We think it played a petrol pump at one point – although I have no clue what we were playing at that point!

An * next to a book title indicates that it came from NetGalley.

Book of the Week, detective, Forgotten books, new releases

Book of the Week: Murder to Music

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Another week in lockdown done. If only we knew when it would end so we could count down instead of up. I should have been in China last week, visiting little sis, so my mood was a bit low generally. I read a lot of familiar authors to cheer myself up, and so consequently the BotW options were somewhat limited as I talked about George Bellairs last week and I have other plans for some of the other books. I do like to make life difficult for myself. However, another good murder mystery cropped up – with a plot that really appealed to me. This is another re-release of a forgotten book from the mid-twentieth century – and it’s not out until Thursday, but as that’s only two days away, I’m sure you’ll let me off.

Detective Inspector Simon Hudson was at the concert to watch his girlfriend sing in the Metropolitana Choir, but when the conductor drops dead as the performance finished, he ends up in charge of a murder inquiry. Delia has told him about the tensions among the committee members, when he drove her to the committee meetings, but which one of them was angry enough at the conductor to turn a grudge into murder?

This is a clever and twisty murder mystery originally written in the late 1950s, with a setting that really appealed to me. I’m definitely not a singer and I’m not a great musician either, but I did play clarinet at school and in concert bands through my 20s. If I could have got my schedule in order (stupid shift working) I would probably be in a band now – although the band scene in my town is very competitive because the county has a really strong schools music service, so there might not be one that would have me that I want to be in! Anyway, the musical setting really appealed to me – I’ve even played at the Festival Hall where the murder takes place – and I could certainly believe in the egos and hot tempers in the choir.

I don’t think you have to be a musician to enjoy this though – I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that the resolution doesn’t require any particular knowledge of music. And committees are a fairly regular feature of murder mysteries because of their potential to be a sea of seething rivalries. The plot has plenty of twists and turns and kept me guessing pretty much right until the end as the layers were revealed. I hadn’t read anything by Margaret Newman before, but would happily read more after this if they’re all as much fun as this one.

My copy of Murder to Music came from NetGalley, but it comes out on April 16th in Kindle. I can’t see it in any other format, unless you’re prepared to pay £50 for the only copy on Abebooks as I write this…

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: April 6 – April 12

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I  hope everyone has had a good Easter.  In case you missed them last week – check out my posts about The Cazalet saga and Conjure Women.  Another week of the new normal, and another week where I’ve been finding it easiest to read authors and series that I already know and like. Which of course poses some problems for book of the week picks. I do make like hard for myself sometimes, don’t I?

Read:

The Case of the Famished Parson by George Bellairs

Corpses in Enderby by George Bellairs

A Match Made for Thanksgiving by Jackie Lau

Shirley Flight: Air Hostess in Spain by Trudi Arlen

Murder to Music by Margaret Newman

The Bystander Effect by Catherine Sanderson

The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healy*

Murder at the Folly by Beth Byers

Unflappable by Susie Gilbert*

Started:

Logging Off by Nick Spalding*

The Fall of the House of Byron by Emily Brand*

The Better Half by Sharon Moaelm*

Still reading:

Anna K by Jenny Lee*

She-Merchants, Buchaneers and Gentlewomen by Katie Hickman

A Dangerous Engagement by Ashley Weaver

I probably bought some ebooks, but at this point time is blurring together and I have no idea whether it was this week or last week…

Bonus photo: Easter lilies blooming right on time in my very sunny garden on Saturday.

An * next to a book title indicates that it came from NetGalley.

Book of the Week, crime, Forgotten books

Book of the Week: Case of a Demented Spiv

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A short BotW post today, and another week, another crime pick… I just can’t help myself. Crime is also most of what I’ve been reading in the last week.

It’s pouring with rain when a spiv bursts into a pub to say that there is a dead man in a local factory. The body in question is that of one of the administrators at the factory and Inspector Littlejohn is called in from Scotland Yard to investigate when the local detective fails to make headway. What Littlejohn discovers in the small town is a tangle of divided loyalties and dark secrets.

I’m on a run of forgotten detective novels and this one is a good one. The town is cleverly drawn, with economical but incisive portraits of its residents. The mystery is well set out and even if the finale gets a little overblown, you sort of forgive it for the swashbuckling flare it shows. This is my second George Bellairs – I read Death Stops the Frolic at the start of March and I liked that a lot. My only quibble with that was that I wasn’t sure if the resolution of that one was a clever twist or a bit of a cheat.  This is equally clever, but with a solution that feels fairer to the reader and detective that I prefer – which is probably unsurprising given that this is the 14th in a long series featuring Littlejohn and I think that Death stops the Frolic was the only story featuring Superintendent Nankivell.

My copy came via the publisher’s mailing list, but it’s available now for free if you’re in Kindle Unlimited or to buy on Kindle. I can’t find it on Kobo – but they do have other books in the series available.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: March 30 – April 5

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Well the world doesn’t seem to have got any weirder than it already was in the last week. I mean we’re still staying home unless we really have to go out and being socially distant when we do, so I’m still reading a lot of books with resolutions. I’ve got a bonus post coming up on Wednesday as I’m on the Conjure Women blog tour – and I’m planning a special something for the Easter weekend too. Stay safe everyone.

Read:

Death Between the Pages by Beth Byers

Playing House by Ruby Lang

Murder and the Heir by Beth Byers

Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein

Chasing Cassandra by Lisa Kleypas

Kennington House Murder by Beth Byers

Have Your Cake by Elise K Ackers*

Conjure Women by Afia Atakora*

The Case of the Demented Spiv by George Bellairs

Started:

A Dangerous Engagement by Ashley Weaver

Murder at the Folly by Beth Byers

The Case of the Famished Parson by George Bellairs

Still reading:

Anna K by Jenny Lee*

The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healy*

Unflappable by Susie Gilbert*

She-Merchants, Buchaneers and Gentlewomen by Katie Hickman

I’m still not counting my book purchases – because I’m doing whatever I need to to cheer myself up, and if that’s buying a book, it’s buying a book.

Bonus photo: Another socially distanced weekend on the sofa. This is now my standard weekend view.

My knees, covered in a blanket, on the sofa with a kindle

An * next to a book title indicates that it came from NetGalley.

Book of the Week, LGTBQIA+, non-fiction

Book of the Week: Legendary Children

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So, anyone else watching the latest series of Drag Race? I could bore you for hours about my latest obsession. And in fact some of my work colleagues have had to put up with me going on at them as I binge my way through the entire back catalogue (sorry guys). So now I’m going to tell you all about Legendary Children – don’t worry, it’s not boring!

So Fabulous Children: The First Decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life does exactly what it says on the tin – it uses Drag Race – and RuPaul as a framing device to examine queer culture over the last one hundred years. Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez are a married couple who run Tom + Lorenzo – which looks at celebrities, fashion and pop culture and they bring their breadth of knowledge to walk you through the lives and struggles of LGBTQI+ people that have got us to a point where a show about Drag Queens competing for a crown has won a bunch of Emmys. It doesn’t shy away from some of the controversies the show (or Ru) has seen, but to be honest, the show is the way in to the wider issues. This is not a history of what happened on Drag Race and if you come to it expecting that, well you should have read the subtitle better. Insert your own Reading is Fundamental joke here, it’ll be better than anything I come up with.

I learnt so much from this book. The authors say they want you to be googling as you go along while you’re reading this – and boy was I. I look forward to seeing what Google ads serves up to me after this – because my search history is a riot. And I had to go googling some stuff beyond the people, because this is a book written for a queer audience, not the those of us who need explanatory commas (which by the way, is exactly as is should be). Fascinating, clever and touching – and you’ll watch Drag Race with new eyes afterwards. And the first episode I watched afterwards had a actual Tom of Finland mention and I felt so in the know you wouldn’t believe it.

I’m off to worry about whether the ‘Rona will be over in time for me to still get to see BenDeLaCreme in London this summer. You got Dela megamix video because it’s (mostly) safe for work. Tom of Finland is… not. Legendary Children is out now in paperback, Kindle and Kobo and as an audiobook  (read by Tom and Lorenzo!).

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: March 23 – March 29

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Another very weird week. I hope you and all of your loved ones are doing ok, being kind to each other and yourselves and most of all STAYING AT HOME. I continue to be a key worker and make my trips in to the newsroom every few days, and every time it seems to have got quieter – which is exactly what should be happening so keep it up everyone.

Now you may notice a bit of a theme with the list this week – and I blame kindle unlimited for making it so that I could just go straight through a series with no guilt about spending money. Anyway I’m still mostly in the mood for romances and mysteries, but I’m trying to mix a bit of literary fiction in there too.

Read:

Legendary Children by Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez

Open Book by Jessica Simpson

Death by the Book by Beth Byers

Left-Handed Death by Richard Hull

Death Witnessed by Beth Byers

Death by Blackmail by Beth Byers

Death Misconstrued by Beth Byers

The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa

Deathly Ever After by Beth Byers

Death in the Mirror by Beth Byers

A Merry Little Death by Beth Byers

Started:

Conjure Women by Afia Atakora*

Death Between the Pages by Beth Byers

Still reading:

Anna K by Jenny Lee*

The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healy*

Unflappable by Susie Gilbert*

She-Merchants, Buchaneers and Gentlewomen by Katie Hickman

A fair few books acquired, more borrowed from the library, very little from the to-read pile read. But it still feels like normal rules are suspended, so I’m being nice to myself about it.

Bonus photo: my mother has reached the tidying out forgotten cupboard stage, so here’s a picture of me and my grandma in a pedalo that she sent me.

An * next to a book title indicates that it came from NetGalley.

Book of the Week, detective

Book of the Week: Murder by Matchlight

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The world keeps changing – and as the uncertain times continue, I’m still all about resolutions. And as I mentioned briefly last week; along with romances, murder mysteries give you resolutions and at the moment I really need it to turn out alright in the end. Murder by Matchlight was my second E R C Lorac in about a week and I liked it as much as I liked the first – and I nearly wrote about Murder in the Mill Race last week, but I was trying to mix it up a little bit from the stream of mysteries, so today you get two reviews in one.  A quick note: I started writing this ahead of time, and we’ve now moved into a lockdown situation in the UK – where bookshops are shut and people should not be going outside unless absolutely necessary. I’m making an adjustment to how I link out to books – I’m providing ebook links where available, and telling you what the likelihood that your local indie would be able to source it if they’re still open. Please support small booksellers where you can.

Copy of Murder by Matchlight

Murder by Matchlight is set in 1945, when Bruce Mallaig witnesses a murder while walking after the blackout in Regents Park. He is sitting on a bench when he sees two men acting suspiciously on a footbridge – and then one of them is murdered. His only glimpse of the killer as a flash of a ghastly face by matchlight just before the crime. CID detective Inspector MacDonald is called in to investigate and needs to try and work out how the murderer managed to appear and disappear in silence.

It is not often in a murder mystery when there is actually a witness to the killing who sees the murderer – Agatha Christie’s The 4.50 from Paddington is one and beyond that I’m struggling. There are more where there are witnesses to the actual death – but not many who see the murderer. This is clever and atmospheric, with a really interesting cast of characters and suspects. I was reading this early last week though and the wartime setting – including air raids and it was ever so nearly tense for me – even though we were pre-lockdown at that point.  It was still the best thing I read last week – but the tension is worth bearing in mind if you’re feeling anxious at the moment.

But if you are feeling anxious, I can thoroughly recommend Murder in the Mill-Race – also by Lorac, which I read the previous week and got beaten to Book of the Week by Love Hard, in part because of my recent reliance on British Library Crime Classics. This also features MacDonald – now a chief inspector – but is set in Devon. Raymond Ferrens and his wife have moved to a picturesque hilltop village where he is taking over as the local doctor. At first it seems perfect – but as is often the case they soon find out that there are currents and tensions below the surface. Most of them an be traced  back to the influence of Sister Monica, who runs the local children’s home. Although almost no-one will say a word against her, a few months after their arrival, she’s found dead in the mill-race. MacDonald is called in to try and find out what happens – but finds a wall of silence from the close knit villagers. This has all the best bits of Murder by Matchlight – but seems less applicable to current life so may be more enjoyable for the anxious. I certainly really liked it.

It seems there are a lot of books featuring Inspector MacDonald, these two are numbers 26 and 37 in the series. There are a few of them available – but it’s a bit of a lottery – they’re across several different publishers and some have been retitled – Goodreads tells me that Murder in the Mill-Race was originally Speak Justly of the Dead. I will be looking for more. Murder by Matchlight is available on Kindle for £2.99 and also in paperback. The same applies to Murder in the Mill-Race – which is currently £2.99 on Kindle, but this one is included in Kindle Unlimited if that’s something you’re a a part of. They don’t seem to be available on Kobo. British Library Crime Classics are stocked by a lot of booksellers and this one seems to be still in print – Heffers had lots of Murder by when I bought this – so if your local indie is taking phone orders, then they may be able to help you. I’ve also just picked up Death Came Softly from the series for 99p – I’ll try and keep you posted on what I think.

Keep reading – and please stay safe.