Still reading #Noirville entries this week and less of everything else. Still a nice week of reading though, even if I do have way too many books on the go at once as I try and finish off my #ReadHarder challenge. I suspect this week won’t be much better – because it’s Christmas party week.
Read:
Maybe This Christmas by Sarah Morgan
Paris for One by Jojo Moyes
Suddenly Last Summer by Sarah Morgan
Christmas in New York by Holly Greene
Romancing the Werewolf by Gail Carriger
Started:
Mr Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookshop by Robin Sloan
Meridian by Alice Walker
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
Runout Groove by Andrew Cartmel
French Poems of the Great War translated by Ian Higgins
A couple of Christmas ebooks bought or preordered, but really quite restrained.
As we get closer and closer to Christmas, it’s getting harder and harder for me to pick BotW’s that don’t infringe on my Christmas reading suggestion posts. Hence why this week’s choice is Rumer Godden’s China Court – a book which I still can’t make up my mind what I think about it, several days after I finished reading it.
Another train based photo…
China Court is the story of the homecoming of Tracy, who arrives back at her grandmother’s house the day after her grandma has died. Brought up in America, Tracy spent the favourite part of her childhood living at China Court and is worried about what her grandmother’s death may mean for the old house. But as well as being about Tracy’s return, the book is also the story of family who have lived in the house over the years and their trials and tribulations.
Regular readers will know that I love a good family saga, and that I love time slip novels, and this is a bit of both – a huge cast of characters and two timelines, one present, one past – although the past one moves through time rather than being the story of just one person in the past. And although it took me a while to get into it (as evidenced by the length of time it spent in the Week in Books posts), once I had got into it, I didn’t want to put it down* because I wanted to know what happened.
At the start, there is a family tree, but also a note from the author asking you to only look at it if you really have to because her aim is for the family and their relationships to unroll in their own time and for you to work it out for yourself. I mostly managed that, but I did have to have a few looks at the family tree when I was picking the book back up again after a few days break.
I haven’t read a lot of Rumer Godden’s books – and most of what I have read have been her children’s books. And as I said at the start, I still can’t work out what I thought. The ending isn’t as satisfying as I wanted it to be – even though all the ingredients seem to be there for it to work. I didn’t like a lot of the characters – or what they were doing – but I really liked Tracy and her story line. Even writing this hasn’t really helped me work out what I though of this and whether I liked it or not. I still don’t know if it’s going to go on to the bookshelf, or get lent to mum or sent straight to the charity shop. Puzzling.
Coming soon: Christmas reading recommendations. While you’re waiting, don’t forget the Christmas gift guides – Him, Her and Me are still here.
Happy Reading!
*but I did, because I had to go to work. And I didn’t like it *quite* enough to break my rules about not taking books that I have less than 100 pages left to read to work with me.**
** Because it’s a waste of bag space if it’s not going to last me all the way down and most of the way back.
So I may have slipped up a bit in the book buying stakes this week – but it’s nearly Christmas and there are offers. My main task in the next few weeks has got to be finishing off #ReadHarder2017 – I’ve really got to pull my finger out now…
Read:
The One that Got Away by Melissa Pimentel
Need You Now by Emma Douglas
China Court by Rumer Godden
The Finch that Stole Christmas by Donna Andrews
The Christmas Surprise by Jenny Colgan
Marling Hall by Angela Thirkell
Started:
Runout Groove by Andrew Cartmel
Paris for One by Jojo Moyes
French Poems of the Great War translated by Ian Higgins
Maybe This Christmas by Sarah Morgan
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
1 book and 3 ebooks bought – and 4 collectable Girl’s Own books, which count but sort of don’t!
A quickie and a bit of a cheat for this week’s BotW – I’ve been busy writing the Christmas gift posts and reading the books to put in them. I’ve written about Donna Andrews’ Meg Langslow series before, although it’s the first time I’ve made one Book of the Week – mostly because the point when I was glomming on the early series was before I started writing BotW posts the way that I do now.
Anyway, Gone Gull is the 21st book in the series and sees Meg and her family spending the summer at her grandmother’s newly established craft centre. Meg is teaching blacksmithing, her husband is teaching acting and helping look after the children, her grandfather is teaching ornithology and her dad is on hand two. But it looks like someone may be trying to sabotage the centre and then one of the teachers is found dead. Soon Meg is investigating and trying to work out who has it in for Biscuit Mountain.
One of the joys of this series is the crazy extended family and almost all the regular characters in the series are here – there’s not much of Meg’s mum or brother, but that’s fine because it’s nice to get to know Meg’s Grandmother Cordelia better. The problem for a lot of long running murder series is that often it seems like the detecting character is the harbinger of doom (aka don’t be friends with Jessica Fletcher or you’ll end up dead) but one of my favourite things about this series is the way that Andrews manages to find different locations to take her characters so that it doesn’t feel quite so dangerous in Meg’s home town! It was also really nice to see Meg back at her anvil – her blacksmith business was prominent in the early books in the series, but had faded into the background somewhat while the twins were little.
These books fall at the humorous end of the cozy crime spectrum – they’re not laugh a minute, but as the pun-based titles suggest there’s plenty of fun in these – with eccentric characters and strange set ups. I’m nearly up to date with the series now – I thought I was bang up to date, but the Christmas book (How the Finch stole Christmas) came out at the end of October, although I suspect it’ll take a while before I can justify buying it.
As always with posts about series, I think you’re best starting at the beginning – a Murder with Peacocks is the first one and although it’s out of print new, there are secondhand copies on Amazon and it’s under £4 on Kindle as I write this. But actually, these are stand alone – the thing you miss by not going back to the start is the building of the cast of characters and Meg’s relationship. As well as meeting her ever expanding extended family over the course of the books, Meg doesn’t hurry into marriage – or into having children – which makes for a really fun journey for her and for the reader. I think a reader could have fun wherever they start the series – so what ever you decide:
In case you missed it over the weekend – here are my first two Christmas book suggestion posts: Books for Him and Books for Her. The post with books that I want for Christmas is coming this week. Meanwhile it’s been a murderous week of reading!
Read:
Gone Gull by Donna Andrews
And Death Goes To… by Laura Bradford
The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
Hollywood Hang Ten by Eve Goldberg
Rivers of London: Cry Fox 1 by Ben Aaronovitch et al
New Romancer 3 by Peter Milligan and Brett Parson
Historically Dead by Greta McKennan
Started:
The Square and the Tower by Niall Ferguson
The One that Got Away by Melissa Pimentel
Still reading:
The Golden House by Salman Rushdie
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
China Court by Rumer Godden
Marling Hall by Angela Thirkell
Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
I bought quite a few books this week – but they were all presents, so they don’t count!
This may be one of the least surprising BotW picks ever, considering that the first book in the Custard Protocol series was a BotW, as were several of Gail Carriger’s other books (Sumage Solution, Manners and Mutiny and Timeless) and she was one of my discoveries of the year back when this blog was but a child. In fact, the only question you have may be: What took me so long to read Imprudence, given that it came out in July last year. Fear not. There are answers ahead.
Firstly though, the plot: Rue and her crew are back in London after the events of Prudence, which have landed her in a whole heap of hot water with the powers that be. On top of this, her best friend keeps getting engaged to unsuitable military types and there’s something going on at home. Rue’s vampire father is angry, her werewolf father is not himself, and her mother is being even more difficult than usual. What is going on? Finding out will take the Spotted Custard and her crew to Egypt and beyond
Now, part of the reason this has taken so long for me to read is that it was all boxed up with the to-read pile at the back end of last year, but the reason it was still waiting to be read at that point was a line in the blurb: “her werewolf father is crazy”. Having read Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series, I had a fair idea what was going on there, and I was worried about how it was going to resolve itself. I love and adore Rue’s Paw – Conall Maccon and although he has his stupid moments (to whit, his idiotic behaviour in Blameless) I was a bit worried about what might happen to him. And I had a few rocky moments early on in the book, which involved near tears and sniffling. But I got through it and I was ok. And that’s as much as I can say without it all being a big old spoiler. And while we’re talking about the Parasol Protectorate, I found myself wishing that I’d re-read Timeless before I read this, because a lot of the action is in Egypt and there’s a lot of references to the events of that book. It did all come back to me, but I think I would have been cooing with delight sooner if I’d done a reread first. And so of course now I need to go and do that reread to check if there were any references that I missed in Imprudence. There are old friends here – and some who are less friendly.
If I have a quibble, it’s that everything is wrapped up very quickly in the end – the main romantic through line and the adventure-quest one. I could have read another 50 pages of that resolving itself. But maybe that’s just me. And if you’re wondering what prompted me to read this now, it’s the fact that the latest novella that Carriger has written is set after this book, and I *really* want to read that and so needed to do things in order. Because I’m like that. And we all know that I’ll be pre-ordering the next in this series, Competence, just as soon as there’s a paperback preorder link. Because I’m like that too.
As always in posts like this, I’m going to remind you all that this is the second in this series, but really actually the seventh if you’re counting Parasol Protectorate (which as you may have guessed have a fair bit to do with this) and eleventh if you’re going chronologically and including the spin-off prequel Finishing School YA series. So don’t start with this one. If you’re impatience, go and read Prudence first, but really, what you want to do is start with Soulless and work your way through Alexia’s story before you come to Rue. And then do the Finishing school, because that is so much more fun once you start to work out who everyone is and how it all fits together. Just my two-penneth. They’re all available in Kindle and Kobo and Audible* and you should be able to order the paperbacks from any good bookshop. Like the Big Green Bookshop.
Happy Reading!
And for longtime readers: No, I still haven’t sorted out the size mismatch issue with my Parasol Protectorate books, I still don’t know the best way to shelve them, but at least I haven’t caved in and bought a second copy of Heartless! There’s still time…
*Although NB, the first audiobook pronounces Lord Akeldama’s name wrong. It’s Ak-el-dama not A-keel-duhma or however she says it. It’s fixed by book 2 and I can just about cope with it in book one, even if my brain does repeat it pronounced correctly after every time it’s used.
Still too many on the still-reading list, but I’m working on it. I’m also still working on my #Noirville entries. And regular readers may already have an idea as to what tomorrow’s BotW might be…
Read:
Clouds in my Coffee by Julie Mulhern
Imprudence by Gail Carriger
My Name is Markham by Jodi Taylor
The Perfect Storm by Jodi Taylor
Mystery in White by J Jefferson Farjeon
A Murder for the Books by Victoria Gilber
A Gentleman of Fortune by Anna Dean
Started:
Gone Gull by Donna Andrews
Still reading:
The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
The Golden House by Salman Rushdie
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
China Court by Rumer Godden
Marling Hall by Angela Thirkell
Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
Still no books bought. But I’m not getting ahead of myself and getting smug, no indeed, because that way lies complacency and book buying!
I officially have too many books on the go at once. Admittedly some of them are hardbacks and I’ve been staying away from home a lot, but some of them are books I’ve started and not got into and ended up leaving in favour of something else. So this week I’m going to try and do something about that – either finish some of them or give up and cull them. And I’ve still got more #Noirville entries to read too…
Read:
Holiday Wishes by Jill Shalvis
Altered to Death by Christina Freeburn
A Spy in the House by Y S Lee
The Deep End by Julie Mulhern
Paper Girls Vol 3 by Brian K Vaughan et al
The Very First Damned Thing by Jodi Taylor
The Great St Mary’s Day out by Jodi Taylor
Started:
Imprudence by Gail Carriger
Clouds in my Coffee by Julie Mulhern
Still reading:
The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
The Golden House by Salman Rushdie
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
China Court by Rumer Godden
Mystery in White by J Jefferson Farjeon
Marling Hall by Angela Thirkell
Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
No books bought at all – although 2 pre-orders did arrive on my Kindle.
Quite a short BotW post this week, for a multitude a real life reasons, so sorry about that. Any way, this week’s pick is the final (for now at least) Tales of the City books.
In case they’ve somehow passed you by, the nine Tales of the City Books tell the interconnected stories of the residents of a house in San Francisco, starting in the 1970s and going up until pretty much the present day. Written by Armistead Maupin, the books started off as a newspaper column in the San Francisco Chronicle. Most of the books are episodic and jump between the different characters’ points of view.
True to my no-spoilers policy, there’s not a lot about the plot of this that I can tell you, except that we rejoin the redoubtable Anna Madrigal, now in her 90s and some of her former tenants as she prepares for a road trip that will see her revisit her past and try to resolve some unfinished business. If you haven’t read the other books in the series, please don’t start here, go back to the start and read Tales of the City and follow them through. It’s taken me three years to do the whole series, and it’s been so worth it.
This isn’t my favourite of the nine, perhaps because I knew it was the last one and I didn’t want to say goodbye to the characters, but it’s still a wonderful trip with old friends, who you feel like you know inside out because you know them so well. A bittersweet end to the journey.
My copy of The Days of Anna Madrigal came from the library, but you should be able to find it in all good bookshops.
