Category: week in books

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: April 17 – April 23

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An interesting week – with a mixed bag of books all around.

Read:

No Charm Intended by Mollie Cox Bryan

After Hello by Mhairi McFarlane

Regency Fire by Bridget Barton

Dandy Gilver and the Reek of Herrings by Catriona McPherson

The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin

Maskerade by Terry Pratchett

Started:

The May Queen by Helen Irene Young

Still reading:

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Siracusa by Delia Ephron

Big City Heat by David Burnsworth

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards

Two print books and two ebooks bought.  Not too bad

Book of the Week, literary fiction, women's fiction

Book of the Week: Difficult Women

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This week’s BotW is Roxane Gay’s short story collection Difficult Women.  I’ve been reading this as my bedtime book for a few weeks (which is where short story collections often end up in my house!) and have really enjoyed reading.

Difficult Women by Roxane Gay
My copy of Difficult Women

Difficult Women is a collection of stories about very different women, all of whom might be termed “difficult”.  The term “difficult women” conjures images of angry or confrontational women, but that’s not necessarily who these women are.  These are women who don’t fit into neat categories.  They’re women who have had bad experiences.  There’s abuse, violence and infidelity and a whole host of trigger warnings here, but no two women are the same.  There’s poverty and privilege, there are single women, married women, violent women and women who are in fish out of water situations and there’s some sci fi too.

Some of the stories are sad.  But somehow this is not a sad book.   It’s thought provoking and clever and really beautifully written.  There were women that  liked, women I didn’t like and women who had life experiences a million miles from mine but there was always something in the story to make you feel empathy with the women, no matter how terribly they were behaving.

The last short story collection I raved about on here was American Housewife (I think) which is totally different to this, but both reminded me that when done well short story collections can be as satisfying as 500 page novels. I’ve been following Roxane Gay on Twitter for ages and have heard people raving about her but until now I’d only read odd stories in isolation or her essays.  I know I’ll be going out and finding more of her writing after reading this.

You can get hold of Difficult Women from Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles and on Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: April 10 – April 16

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Not as much read as I wanted this week – it all got a little bit busy.  If you’re still looking for something to read this Bank Holiday Monday, check out my Easter reading recommendations.

Read:

A Night of No Return by Sarah Morgan

The Apple Orchard by Veronica Henry

Masquerade by Victoria Vale

Death of a Dumb Bunny by Melanie Jackson

Dandy Gilver and a Most Misleading Habit by Catriona McPherson

Difficult Women by Roxane Gay

Started:

The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards

Still reading:

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Siracusa by Delia Ephron

Big City Heat by David Burnsworth

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

There were some really good deals for the bank holiday weekend (see earlier post) so I ended up buying two ebooks.

Book of the Week, cozy crime, new releases

Book of the Week: Treasure in Paradise

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As you may have gathered from yesterday’s Week in Books post and Saturday’s bonus post, I was on nights last week, which means a steady diet of romance and crime novels through the week.  And so it will probably be no surprise that this week’s BotW is a crime novel and, like last week’s pick Southern Fried, it’s from Henery Press who really do do a good line in this sort of novel.

Cover of Treasure in Paradise by Kathi Daley
I think the cover has it sorted: pirates, parrots, treasure and a corpse!

Treasure in Paradise is the seventh book in Kathi Daley’s Tj Jenson series.  This installment see’s high school teacher Tj and her young half-sisters decamp to the Gull Island to help a family friend with renovations at his holiday resort after the friend is taken ill.  But when they arrive at his house, they discover a body in the attic.  The corpse turns out to be a local treasure hunter, who had grown obsessed with a local legend that there was pirate treasure hidden nearby.  Soon Tj is trying to hunt down the killer herself, after the local deputy rules the death an accident. And it turns out there are lots of secrets hidden on Gull Island as well as a developer sniffing around the resort to boot.

This exactly suited my mood last week.  It’s fast-paced and easy to read with a cast of engaging characters.  Tj is her siblings’ guardian after their mother died in an accident and there is an extended family which works really well to provide interest and subplots beyond the main mystery.  I’d read one book in this series before – the first one – and jumping back in at book seven wasn’t a problem – the characters have moved on in their lives since the first book but no so much that I couldn’t follow.  And the holiday (vacation) location works really nicely as well – Tj is away from home, but not out of her comfort zone because she’s visited the island before and because her family owns a resort as well.

I’ll be looking out for more books in the series – new ones and the ones that I’ve missed.  You can get Treasure in Paradise in paperback or Kindle from Amazon, or you can go back and start from the beginning with Pumpkins in Paradise.  At time of writing the cheapest in the series is Bikinis in Paradise – which I may have just treated myself to for 99p!

Happy reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: April 3 – April 9

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A busy week of nightshifts – and then sleeping them off.  So not as much read as I was hoping, but there was some good stuff in there.

Read:

Somebody’s Baby by Donna Alward

The Whole Art of Detection by Lynsday Faye

Treasure in Paradise by Kathi Daley

The Best of Adam Sharp by Graeme Simsion

Beyond Shame by Kit Rocha

The Rising of the Larks by Cris Johnson

Started:

Big City Heat by David Burnsworth

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Still reading:

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Difficult Women by Roxane Gay

Siracusa by Delia Ephron

But on the brightside, I didn’t buy any books – which is *really* unusual for nightshifts.  Really unusual.  I had to check twice to make sure I hadn’t succumbed to the urge to buy books in the early hours.  But I didn’t.  I really didn’t!

 

American imports, Book of the Week, new releases

Book of the Week: Southern Fried

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It was actually a really tough choice picking this weeks BotW partly because I didn’t read as much last week and partly because none of what I read was an absolute stand out for me.  So in the end, I’ve settled on Tonya Kappes’ Southern Fried – a cozy crime mystery that comes out today, which has its issues, but overall was the book I had the most to say about of last week’s reading!

The cover of Southern Fried
I like the cover – simple but actually relevant to the story.

This is the second in the Kenni Lowry series – about the sheriff of small town in Kentucky who is assisted on the job by the ghost of her grandfather (no, don’t walk away, it’s not quite as nutty as it seems) who was also the town’s sheriff.  Kenni loves her job, but her mother isn’t best pleased about her daughter’s vocation – and neither are some of the townspeople as the local crime rate starts to rise.  In Southern Fried, Kenni is investigating the death of a man found dead in the greenhouse of his former (as it turns out) employer in the run up to a cook off that they were both taking part in.   In working out what happened, Kenni gets tangled up in family feuds and local intrigue just as election season is starting to get underway.  As the danger mounts, Kenni, her dog Duke and her new (and handsome) deputy Finn must work out what’s going on before the rising death toll scuttles Kenni’s chances at holding on to her dream job before the voting even starts.

There’s a lot that I liked about this – I love the southern setting, the mystery is fast-paced and twisty with a potential slow burn romance running alongside.  However as a Brit, I struggle to get my head around the idea of elected sheriffs and the hyper-local police forces and at times Kenni doesn’t help with this.  In the first book in the series I found her spacey and not entirely convincing on police procedure (especially for a police academy graduate) but she seems much more competent in this one, which helped me cope with the fact that she’s taking advice from a ghost!  Regular readers will know that I have a strange releationship with the supernatural and parnormal in books*, but in the main this works for me.  There were still a couple of points where I raised my eyebrows at Kenni’s actions – an amateur detective can get away with a lot more than a sheriff can – but the book moves quick enough that you only notice this when you stop to think!

This book also made me muse on the role of the knowledgeable background character in cozy crimes.  Kenni being the sheriff is a double-edged sword – it means that she has the right to be investigating crimes (and indeed is likely to come across them) in a way that many of the sleuths in cozies don’t, but it also rules out an important source of information and means that at times the sleuth can come across as not being very good at her job.  there’s a couple of points in this where Finn the deputy seems like he knows what he’s doing more than Kenni does.  But this is only book two in the series and is a big step on from book one so there is lots of potential for development and improvement as the series goes on.

My copy came from NetGalley, but you can buy Southern Fried on Kindle or in paperback from Amazon from today.

Happy Reading.

* As in sometimes it works for me and sometimes it doesn’t but I can never work out in advance what I’m going to like and what I’m going to hate!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: March 27 – April 2

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A more normal/typical week this week – back at work, rushed off my feet and exhausted (I know, so soon after my holiday) so everything was fairly easy on my brain.  And the dreaded nightshifts have started (fingers crossed I’m asleep when this publishes or I won’t be worth knowing at work tonight), so I don’t see this situation changing at all in the next seven days.

Read:

House at the Corner by Enid Blyton

Southern Fried by Tonya Kappes

The Six Bad Boys by Enid Blyton

The Decorator Who Knew Too Much by Diane Vallere

American Gods: Shadows 1 by Neil Gaiman, Scott Hampton et al

Royal Flush by Rhys Bowen

Started:

Siracusa by Delia Ephron

Still reading:

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Difficult Women by Roxane Gay

Beyond Shame by Kit Rocha

The Whole Art of Detection by Lynsday Faye

On the brightside, I didn’t buy anything.  Check me.

Book of the Week, fiction

Book of the Week: The Roanoke Girls

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As you may have noticed, I read a lot of books on my holiday.  But actually this week’s BotW was an easy choice because Him Indoors read The Roanoke Girls after me and really enjoyed it too – and he doesn’t read anywhere near as many books as me and our tastes don’t always coincide.

The Roanoke Girls
My very pretty ARC of The Roanoke Girls – which has all sorts of nice touches to it

Lane Roanoke goes to live with her grandparents and her cousin Allegra after her mother’s suicide.  They live on a large estate in Kansas and are top of the town hierarchy.  But Lane only spends one summer there. 11 years later, Lane returns to the estate after Allegra goes missing.  Roanoke girls have a history – they either run away or they die.  Which has happened to Allegra and what is the dark secret that threatens the Roanoke girls?

I can’t say any more than that about the plot – because it will spoil it.  This has been billed as a provocative thriller – and I’d agree.  It’s dark and shocking and won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.  But I was absolutely and totally engrossed and gripped.  I couldn’t stop turning the pages, even if on occasion it was from between my fingers with horror.  The Roanokes are by turns fascinating and horrifying and it is a great book to read on the beach.  In fact, it’s a great beach book – because if you read it on the sunlounger it will help chase the darkness away.  Although rural Kansas is fairly hot and steamy, so that might not work.

I’m still thinking and digesting it a week on – but I think it might be my go to summer holiday book recommendation.  For people who can cope with the darkness…

I lucked into an advance copy, but the Roanoke Girls is out now in hardback from Amazon, Foyles and Waterstones and on Kindle and Kobo.  The paperback is preorderable – but it’s not out until September, which might be too late for your holidays.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: March 20 – March 26

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I’ve been on holiday – I wonder if you can tell.  And yes, I did do things other than reading – we drove the whole way around Fuerteventura and I walked along a lot of beaches!

Read:

The Roanoake Girls by Amy Engle

The Accidental Detective by Michael RN Jones

Sam Keddie: An Introduction by Paddy Magrane

See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng

The Duke by Kerrigan Byrne

One Wild Night by Melissa Cutler

Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions by Mario Giordano

Last Night with the Duke by Amelia Grey

Cream Buns and Crime by Robin Stevens

My One True Highlander by Suzanne Enoch

Tightening the Threads by Lea Waite

Forever Geek by Holly Smale

Rosie’s Little Café on the Riviera by Jennifer Bohnet

Double Up by Gretchen Archer

Shock and Awe by Simon Reynolds

Duels and Deception by Cindy Anstey

Started:

The Whole Art of Detection by Lynsday Faye

Still reading:

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Difficult Women by Roxane Gay

I bought on ebook – as a kindle daily deal – but that was it. Not bad.

American imports, Book of the Week, romance

Book of the Week: Bet Me

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This week’s BotW is another entry in the list of books that Verity really should have read sooner: Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie. I have heard this book recommended so many times by so many people – not just as being a great book, but as being a great entry way into romance.  And they’re all right.

Bet Me is the story of Min and Cal. Min is an actuary with a nightmare mother, and who looks at life through a veil of statistics. Cal has a reputation as a love ’em and leave ’em type and has his own parental problems.  Min gets dumped by her boyfriend, 3 weeks before her sister’s wedding and then hears Cal accept a bet to try and pull her. She needs a date, but isn’t going to put up with any of Cal’s smooth-talking ways. Cal thinks she’s the most uptight, closed-off woman he’s ever met. But when they’re together sparks fly no matter how much they try and ignore it.  And then there’s the matter of that bet…

This is the book version of one of those great 1990s romantic comedies, except without any double standards, etc. Min is fun and feisty and not prepared to put up with people being mean to her or acting like idiots towards her. She knows what she wants and she’s out looking for it, albeit not in the right places or the right way. Cal is realistic about what he’s prepared to offer a relationship, even if he doesn’t realise the reality of what he’s doing. The two of them together are a snarky, bantery duo that you’re rooting for from the start. There are a couple of great subplots in here to help with the drama and tension and it’s all such great fun.  And to put the icing on the cake, both Min and Cal have great friends, who are on their side and in their corner no matter what, which is particularly great in Min’s case, because in so many books the heroine’s friends have ulterior motives or are just window dressing. Min’s gang are properly fleshed out, real people who are looking out for their friend.  It’s just brilliant.

Yes. I should have read this sooner. Yes, I’m way behind the curve. But it doesn’t matter, because this is a great book and mor people need to read it. So I’m happy to admit that I should have listened to Sarah from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and read it the first time she mentioned it on the podcast and not wait till I’ve heard it mentioned dozens of times – not just by her but by the Book Riot girls too and by bookish friends too.  I know. I say this every time. But don’t be stupid like me, go and read Bet Me now. And go and read it even if you’ve read his thinking “but I don’t read romance” because this isn’t what you’re thinking of.  It’s much, much more. 10 years ago, it would have been given a cartoon cover in bubble gum pink and called chick lit.  And I mean that in a good way, because I miss those days of funny, clever romances and I’m always looking for books that scratch that itch. 

You can get Bet Me on Kindle or iBooks. 

Happy Reading!