Category: week in books

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: April 13 – April 19

veritywilde

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

veritywilde

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

veritywilde

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

veritywilde

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

veritywilde

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

veritywilde

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

veritywilde

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

veritywilde

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.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: March 16 – March 22

veritywilde

So the week started ok, and then everything in the world changed. Again. I’m exhausted and a bit anxious and I’m sure you all are too.  I’m still working on that bonus content that I mentioned last week, but my reading mojo is quite hard to find at the moment (you’ll notice I’ve started a lot and not finished much of it because I can’t keep my focus) and I’ve already talked about a lot of the stuff I really love – and at some length. Please stay safe everyone, follow your government’s advice for where ever you are and remember that it’s not just about you, it’s about the other people that you could make ill too.

Read:

In Prior’s Wood by G M Malliet

Secrets on the Shore by Katherine Woodfine

Murder by Matchlight by E C R Lorac

Almost Just Friends by Jill Shalvis

Undercover Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams*

Started:

Legendary Children by Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez

Unflappable by Susie Gilbert*

Open Book by Jessica Simpson

She-Merchants, Buchaneers and Gentlewomen by Katie Hickman

Still reading:

Anna K by Jenny Lee*

The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healy*

I bought a bunch of books and I’m not sorry about it. And a preorder or two showed up as well. In fact at these difficult times I’m not sure I’m even going to keep count.

Bonus photo: I class as a key worker (I was as surprised as you are) and I was working this weekend, so I had my hostel room booked as usual because the Sunday trains are unreliable and don’t start very early. I was a bit apprehensive about still staying because it’s usually shared rooms. Not any more – YHA has moved to one booking one room – so I had a choice of six beds, and it really brought home to me how everything is changing – I’ve been using various YHA hostels around London for at least 9 years and I’ve never had a dorm to myself. My brain could just not compute.

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

Book of the Week, new releases, romance

Book of the Week: Love Hard

veritywilde

Back with a romance pick this week – and a book that was new last week to boot. I’m coping with the current world situation by reading a lot of romance and mystery (because it all turns out alright in the end) and this really did what I needed a book to do last week.

Cover of Love Hard

Love Hard is the third Singh’s Hard Play series – about a set of brothers in New Zealand’s professional rugby world. Rugby star Jacob Essera is known for his calm on the field and his ability to read the game like it’s chess. Off the pitch he’s a devoted single dad to his six year old daughter Esme, who’s mum – his childhood sweetheart Callie – died when Esme was a baby.  Juliet and Callie were friends at school. Jacob and Callie, not so much – she was just his girlfriend’s bad girl friend and he was her friend’s boring boyfriend. These days she’s all grown up and is building a sucessful business career. her only problem is her ex-husband – a pro-cricketer and tabloid magnet who seems determined to keep her name in the gossip columns.  When the two of them end up working together on an ad campaign, an uneasy truce turns into friendship and sparks start flying. But will they be able to find their way to a happy ending?

Well, duh, of course they will, because this is a romance. I loved the characters, I loved the world and I loved the way that Jake takes care of his daughter. I loved the way that Jake and Callie’s relationship built and the way Callie approached being part of their family.  I’m all about strong families in books – be they blood families or found families and this really delivered on that. On the sport front, I’m a casual rugby watcher -when-its-on-and-a-big-match rather than a proper fan, and I had to do a bit of googling because some of the positions have different names in NZ, but it’s not a big issue.  If not familiar with rugby at all, you’ll either be a googler or you won’t mind and will just go with the flow (a bit like I do with hockey or basketball romances!).  If you’re a fan, you’ll know what the positions are obviously, but I’m not knowledgeable enough to tell you how good the passages about action are – but they’re not a big part of the plot anyway – it’s more about knowing what Jacob’s status is in the sports and celebrity world.

Nalini Singh is fairly prolific in romance terms, but this was my first of hers – mostly because I don’t really read a lot of paranormal or urban fantasy romance and that is where she primarily writes – but I do like sports romances (as I have discovered recently). I’ll be keeping my eye out for the previous two books in the series – and watching out for the final brother’s book.  My copy came from NetGalley, but Love Hard is available now in Kindle and Kobo, as well as in paperback although I suspect that won’t be in the shops in the UK at least.

Happy Reading!