Category: week in books

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: January 22 – January 28

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Well.  What a week.  I started coming down with a bug on Sunday night and was ill all week.    I can’t remember the last time that I felt so ill.  And I was thanking my lucky stars that I had last week’s posts already written I can tell you.  Yuck.  Anyway, once I had started to get my concentration back, I stuck to mostly children’s books and mysteries because that was all my brain could handle.  It was only on Friday night that I started to venture into anything else. Not. Fun. At. All.  Four of the books on this list were finished at the weekend once I was up and about a bit more – which just tells you how ill I was earlier in the week – despite being stuck at home with nothing to do and nowhere to go I wasn’t reading anything!

Read:

The Leader of the Lower School by Angela Brazil

Dandy Gilver and a Spot of Toil and Trouble by Catriona McPherson

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

When the Stars Come out by Laura Trentham

The Riviera Set by Mary S Lovell

A House Full of Daughters by Juliet Nicholson

Started:

The Unfinished Palazzo by Judith Mackrell

Duke of Pleasure by Elizabeth Hoyt

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

Of course the other side of being ill, is that I didn’t buy anything either.  So that’s a bright side I suppose!

Adventure, Authors I love, Book of the Week, historical, mystery, new releases

Book of the Week: A Treacherous Curse

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So it was my birthday last week and I treated myself to a few books, one of which was Deanna Raybourn’s latest book A Treacherous Curse. Regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of Ms Raybourn’s work – from Lady Julia, through her standalone books to this latest series so this BotW pick will be no surprise to you.

Cover of A Treacherous Curse by Deanna Raybourn

A Treacherous Curse is the third book in the Veronica Speedwell series and sees Veronica and Stoker investing an Egyptian-themed mystery. Stoker’s former expedition partner has disappeared along with a valuable artefact and Stoker is one of the prime suspects. Veronica is determined to clear his name and the two of them are drawn into a web of intrigue that includes an ill-fated excavation in the Valley of the Kings, an Egyptian god appearing on the streets of London and a disgruntled teenage girl.

Now as you know, I try not to give spoilers in my reviews and that means it’s quite hard to say anything more than that about this without giving away major plot points from the first two books in the series.  But this has interesting developments on the various ongoing plot points that are enough to leave you impatient for book four – which must be a year away given that this one has only just come out and is obviously a major disadvantage of reading a book as soon as it comes out!

There’s unresolved sexual tension galore, wise cracks, peril and moths. I also really like the Eypgtian connection in this – it tapped into some of the things that I love about the Amelia Peabody books.  And if you like Elizabeth Peters’s series and you’re not already reading Veronica’s adventures, then you should be.  But maybe start from the first book (A Curious Beginning) or you’ll get some serious plot spoilers from this.

I haven’t seen these in the supermarkets, but they are usually in the bigger bookshops and I’m sure Big Green Bookshop would be able to order a copy in for you. I bought my copy on Kindle but it’s available on Kobo too although the Kobo version was slightly more expensive at the time I wrote this.  There’s also a really good (and completely spoiler free) interview with Deanna Raybourn on this week’s Smart Bitches, Trashy Books podcast if you want to know more about the book (and the series) before you take the plunge.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: January 15 – January 21

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It was my birthday early in the week so we went away for a few days of relaxation. Which means plenty of reading, even before I tackled the comic/graphic novel backlog once we were home.

Read:

The Obsession by Lilliane Lee

Stiff by Mary Roach

Someone Like You by Susan Mallery

A Treacherous Curse by Deanna Raybourn

The Bittersweet Bride by Vanessa Riley

Black as He’s Painted by Ngaio Marsh

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

Should’ve Been You by Nicole McLaughlin

Cry Fox Vols 2 & 3 by Ben Aaronovitch et al

New Romancer Vol 4 by Peter Milligan

Bitch Planet Triple Feature Vols 4 & 5 by Matt Fraction, Marc Deschamps et al

The Mitford Murders by Jessica Fellowes

Started:

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

The Riviera Set by Mary S Lovell

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks

I may have treated myself to a book or two for my birthday. Nothing excessive, but Deanna Raybourn had a new book out and a couple of my favourite authors had books on sale. Oh and I went into a charity shop or two while we were away. I think the total was 3 ebooks and 2 actual books.

American imports, Authors I love, Book of the Week, romance

Book of the Week: A Scot in the Dark

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A day late, because of my birthday special post, but I’m sure you don’t mind waiting. I read a lot of cozy crime ARCs last week but in the end the choice for BotW was easy: Sarah MacLean’s A Scot in the Dark.

This is the second in MacLean’s Scandal and Scoundrel series and tells the story of Lily, who is facing public ruin after posing for a portrait that she thought was going to be private, and Alec, a Scotsman who has already inherited a title he didn’t want and wasn’t expecting and now discovers that he has a ward and that she’s caused a scandal.

Now, regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of Sarah MacLean’s books and although this isn’t my favourite of hers (still a tie between Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake and Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover I think) it was still my favourite thing that I read last week by far.  I really like what MacLean is doing in this series by turning modern day celebrity scandals into historical romances and this is a really good one. As modern technology and social networks continue to take over our lives we’re seeing more and more cases of revenge porn – and this is the nineteenth century equivalent. Lily has been betrayed by someone she thought loved her, but who was actually using her for his own ends. She’s devastated at the betrayal but she’s not defeated by it. Alec is a fixer – he wants to solve the problem and make it better – but that’s no easier to do then than it is now. He’s also stubborn and has some baggage of his own. All of this makes for a really readable twist on traditional historical romance tropes.

I found a lot of this totally compelling and it’s all very readable. I’ve been trying to work out all week why I didn’t love it, love it, and the closest that I can get is that I just didn’t always know enough about what was going on in Alec’s head and in his history – but it’s still comfortably the best historical romance that I’ve read recently.

I’m a book behind in this series – the final one Day of the Duchess is already out – but I have a very strong negative reaction to the UK covers for these and so I have to wait for a Kindle offer or bribe someone going to the US to buy me the American version and also it got packed into the boxes of stuff. Fingers crossed I get my hands on Day of the Duchess soon. These are always harder to find if you are in the UK: your best bet is to order online or try a big bookshop with a romance section. Of course if you’re in the US it should be much easier and I’m very jealous!

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: January 8 – January 14

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A bit of a bitty week of reading, but some interesting stuff in there. I’m trying to do better with getting to my NetGalley Books on time so that’s a fair few of this week’s books too.

Read:

A Scot in the Dark by Sarah MacLean

The Linking Rings by John Gaspard

The Phantom of Oz by Cindy Brown

A Fourth Form Friendship by Angela Brazil

A Week to be Wild by JC Harroway

The Spiritual Poems of Rumi by Rumi

Started:

The Riviera Set by Mary S Lovell

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks

Stiff by Mary Roach

The Mitford Murders by Jessica Fellowes

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

A couple of ebooks bought, but no actual books, so that’s progress in a way!

Authors I love, Book of the Week, women's fiction

Book of the Week: Lost and Found Sisters

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Welcome to the first BotW post of 2018.  It feels like ages since I wrote one of these – ad it has been nearly a month –  but I hope you’ve enjoyed all the bonus posts over the festive period.  Anyway,  normal service now being resumed and I’m back to talk about my favourite book that I read last week.  And in keeping with my current obsessions, it’s a Jill Shalvis book.

Paperback copy of Lost and Found Sisters
I was aiming for artistic with this picture. Not sure if it came off!

Quinn is finally starting to get her life back on track after her sister was killed in a car accident.  The two were best friends as well as sisters and after losing Beth, Quinn has lost herself as well.  A sous-chef in a cool restaurant in LA, she’s got a family friend and ex-boyfriend who is desparate to marry her.  But something still feels wrong in her life – something is missing, beyond the fat that she’s missing her sister.  Then an unexpected inheritance throws what she knows about herself up in the air all over again and she heads up the coast to the small town of Wildstone to try and rediscover who she is.  Once she gets there she discovers an even more earthshattering secret that brings with it the chance of a new life.  But is it the life that she wanted?

Lost and Found Sisters is billed as Shalvis’s first “women’s fiction novel” (as opposed to a straight up contemporary romance) and I sort of agree with that.  There is a romance here, and it’s fairly central, but actually the main theme of the book is Quinn’s voyage of discovery.  When I was writing about Sarah Morgan’s Moonlight over Manhattan I said that one of the things that I liked about it was that the heroine fixed herself and found love as a side effect of that and I think this is the next step on from that.  Quinn is more broken than Harriet was and there’s more to her story than just getting over something – she finds out something completely new about herself that reshapes her whole idea of who she is and that takes a lot of adjustment.  The Quinn you see at the end of the book is a very different person to the one at the start, with a whole new set of priorities and responsibilities.

However, Lost and Found Sisters wasn’t as different from Shalvis’s other novels as I was expecting from the women’s fiction label, so I think that if you only read romance, you will still enjoy this – there is a romance here as well and it’s a very nice one, with sections of the book written from the hero’s point of view (he has stuff he’s working out too) – so don’t be put off.  This isn’t the miserable, super-worthy stuff that you might be imagining.  I picked this up from the bookshop on a whim on Sunday morning and polished it off that day – it is a summer-set book but it was a lovely way to spend a couple of train journeys in the miserable January weather.

Lost and Found Sisters came out in June – I found my copy in The Works, but it may also still be in the other bookshops.  Amazon have it in paperback and on Kindle, and it’s also available on Kobo too.  If you don’t read summer books in winter, I suggest you add it to your watch list and see if it drops in price as we get towards the nicer weather  (or when the sequel comes out!).

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: January 1 – January 7

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New Year, new books and still a few stragglers from last year (which I’m working on it).

Read:

A Wedding at Two Love Lane by Kieran Kramer

The Crown Prince’s Bride by Donna Alward

Second Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones

Christmas in Cornwall by Laura Briggs

Lost and Found Sisters by Jill Shalvis

Started:

A Scot in the Dark by Sarah MacLean

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

Three books bought on the sly on Sunday morning – one of which I read immediately.  Lovely stuff.  Start as I mean to go on…

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: December 25 – December 31

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Here is the final WiB of 2017 – ending neatly at the end of the year precisely.  And everything that I finished this week was to try and finish ReadHarder – and it worked!  As it’s the end of the year, I’ve rationalised the ongoing books – and given up on the Rushdie – I wasn’t enjoying it and I’ve got lots of other things I’d rather read in 2018.

Read:

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

Meridian by Alice Walker

French Poems of the Great War translated by Ian Higgins

Revolutionary Ride by Lois Pryce

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

Started:

Second Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones

Still reading:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

I was so busy trying to finish ReadHarder that I only bought one book – in the Waterstone’s sale and no ebooks.  Not too bad really.

 

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: December 18 – December 24

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Yeah.  This is a day late, but you had a nice bonus post yesterday, so I don’t feel too sorry for you.  And as it’s been another one of those weeks – all reading plans derailed by the need to catch up on Christmas preparations – you weren’t really missing out on much anyway!

Read:

Christmas at the Grange by T E Kinsey

A River in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters

Started:

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

Still reading:

The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

French Poems of the Great War translated by Ian Higgins

Meridian by Alice Walker

A couple of books bought – but I blame the stress of Christmas!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: December 11 – December 17

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The less said about this week the better.  Let’s just move on and get to Christmas and hope things get better.

Read:

Maigret’s Christmas by Georges Simenon

Mr Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookshop by Robin Sloan

Schoolgirl Jen at the Abbey by Elsie J Oxenham

Runout Groove by Andrew Cartmel

Started:

Christmas at the Grange by T E Kinsey

Still reading:

The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson

French Poems of the Great War translated by Ian Higgins

Meridian by Alice Walker

One ebook bought.  Admirable restraint shown in the face of stress and temptation.  This may not last