It’s a bank holiday weekend in the UK, so for my Friday post I thought I would recommend a series that you could binge on over the three day weekend!
Barbara Ross’s Maine Clambake series focus on a small seaside community in Maine. Your detective is Julia Snowden, recently returned to her home town of Busman’s Harbor to try and save her family’s Clambake business. The family business is run on an island off the town and several of the mysteries are based there, others are in the town and wider surrounding area. Alongside the mysteries Julia finds out more about her family and the community and starts to build her life in the town.
There are nine books in the series with a tenth coming in the summer.
I’m making reasonable progress on the 50 states challenge this year, but there are some states that are always harder to tick off than others – so if you’ve read a good book set somewhere out of the ordinary in the USA – particularly if it’s mid western ones, then I want to know! There must be some more cozy crime series and romances that aren’t set on the coasts or in Texas surely…
Inspired by the latest Veronica Speedwell, today’s Recommendsday is books featuring lost heirs. They’re a staple of the mystery and romance genres, which as you know are two of my favourites, so I’m splitting the recommendations up and I’ve still had to restrain myself!
And this week we’re starting with mystery novels – where lost heir plots tend to revolve around whether a mysterious or reappeared person is who they say they are or if they are a fake. It’s a think that actually happened in history – Perkin Warbeck for example – but I’m mystery novels it’s usually an inheritance rather than a crown that the possible pretender is about to come into. It’s not a plot you can really do in the age of DNA, or at least it requires some creativity. So let’s start with a Golden Age Classic – Josephine Tey’s Brat Farrar. In it a man called Brat Farrar appears and claims to be Patrick Ashby, the eldest son of the Ashby family who disappeared when he was 13 and thought to have drowned. He knows Patrick’s mannerisms and the story of his early life and it seems like he may pull it off, until secrets start to emerge…
Sweet Danger is my favourite of all the Albert Campion books (I think), and I listen to the audiobook or read it at least once a the year. In it Albert is trying to find the lost heir to a tiny Balkan principality and meets the family who claim they’re the rightful heirs. There’s also a ruthless crime Lord, witchcraft and the start of a romantic strand in the series – which I promise is not the main reason I like it! It’s actually a really good adventure caper as well as a mystery – and there’s no actual murder. You could also probably make a case that Agatha Christie’s Nemesis is a lost heir book in a way as well – as the mystery that Miss Marple is trying to solve is whether a a deceased millionaire’s son murdered a young woman or not – the son in question having disappeared.
Most historical mystery series will do a lost heir – or variation thereon at some point. In thePhryne Fisherseries it happens fairly early on in the series – within the first half dozen in fact – and as the blurb is a little bit cryptic about it I shall be too, but you can probably work it out. The Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series has one relatively early on too – Justice Hall – the sixth in the series but really to appreciate it you need to have read the previous book O Jerusalem too, and they work really well back to back. In the Daisy Dalrymple books it happens much later in the series – Heirs of the Body is the 21st mystery (out of 23) and the whole plot revolves around finding which of four options is the heir to the viscountcy in Daisy’s family.
I’m fairly sure there are more of them that I’ve forgotten about – I’ve been mulling it over before I fall asleep at night and I’m fairly sure I haven’t remembered all the options I came up with, but that’s always the way with things that come to you as you drop off to sleep! But as I said, I have another post planned, and even if it’s meant to be all romances, I can always throw a mystery in if I remember something amazing…
Back with contemporary romance this week, because it’s only been two months since Death Goes on Skis was BotW so I can’t do Nancy Spain again yet, but don’t worry I will find a way to talk about Poison for Teacher, and this Christina Lauren is a good one too!
The heroine of Roomies is Holland, a MFA graduate who finds herself somewhat adrift after her muse deserts her. Instead of writing she’s working for her uncle, who has written the latest Broadway smash, and has a huge crush on a guitarist she’s heard busking in the subway. When Holland helps Calvin to get his big break, it turns out that his student visa is long expired and his chance to shine may be out of reach after all. So Holland offers to marry him, and so begins their attempt to keep him in New York and fool The Powers That Be that theirs is a genuine relationship. But as they live together in Holland’s apartment and find out more about each other, who is actually fooling who and is this relationship turning real?
Marriages of convenience are one of my favourite historical romance tropes, but you don’t get a lot of them in contemporary romance, so when you find one it’s a real treat. This is a bit slow to get started – I think because Holland’s infatuation with Calvin before she knew him made me a little uncomfortable, but once it does click it’s a lot of fun. There is a good group of supporting characters – Holland’s uncles are lovely and her boss is awful – and watching Holland figure out who she is and what she wants is a good counterpart to the romance. Christina Lauren’s books can sometimes be too cringe or have leading character that are too unprofessional for me to deal with, but Roomies manages to stick on the right side of that – just. It all wraps up a little quickly, and I wanted a little bit more closure on a few things, but all in all it was a lovely way to spend an afternoon.
My copy of Roomies came from the library, but it’s out now and you can get it on Kindle and Kobo and the paperback looks like it may be relatively easy to get hold of.
Another busy week but this time a longer list, although a lot of them are rereads. I am slowly working my way through the non-fiction portion of the still reading list, but this week I mostly got distracted by rereading the Phryne Fisher series, for reasons that may become obvious in the near future. I’m carrying on with the Ngaio Marsh audiobook odyssy – currently working my way through the theatre related ones, not quite sure why I grabbed at those at the moment. I need to have a bit of a run at the NetGalley list though – fingers crossed this week is the week when I make some progress on that.
I mean, it was a book first, but in this case it’s the TV adaptation I’m talking about!
So this is ITV’s four part adaptation of Graham Norton’s debut novel. I have to admit that I started but never finished the book, and I don’t know where it’s gone – but I really enjoyed the TV version of this murder mystery, which is just a little bit unexpected and out of the ordinary.
The plot is this: when a body is discovered Siri building work, local police officer PJ has his first murder to solve. The victim turns out to be a long lost local legend – who disappeared the day of his wedding. Introverted and seen as an outsider by the village, PJ discovers hidden secrets as he tries to solve the crime and this is what finally forms a connection with the community.
Everyone in this has a messy life. There are alcoholics, secret affairs, unhappy marriages, busybodies, secret eaters and more. And at times it’s really quite bleak. But for all that there was something totally watchable about it – and I put that down to Conleth Hill’s performance as PJ Collins. Even when he’s doing something he really shouldn’t, you’re still rooting for him and you’re desperate for him to solve the murder and be happy. As the episodes go on, you discover hidden depths to him and the scenes with Mrs Meany (Brenda Fricker) are brilliant. It doesn’t feel like a traditional murder mystery when you’re watching it – whether that’s because you know a lot more than PJ does or because of the way it’s been directed by Kathy Burke, I don’t know. But it felt different and fresh and touching.
As I said at the top, I haven’t read the book – and as I already have way too many books I’m not sure I’ll be going back for it, but if a copy happens into my hands, I’d be interested to see how much of the tone is carried over from the book and how much is from the adaptation.
Anyway, if you’re interested, it’s up on the ITV hub if you’re in the UK, and I think it’s somewhere on Virgin if you’re in Ireland. I have no idea about the rest of the world though – sorry!
This is another corner that is prime for reorganisation because it’s a bit fragmented and could be split up. You can see the edge of the fancy Pratchetts here – with my very old copy of Sourcery – and next along from that are the Virago hardbacks which will soon need more space because of those IWD sale purchases that I haven’t read yet. And so when it does this is likely to be where the space comes from.
I’m trying to get a corner of Hollywood and acting books and memoirs together and you can see the start of that here with the Antony Sher, Anne Helen Petersen, Helen O’Hara and Trumbo. I have more actor memoirs waiting to be read (or in the process of being read in the case of the Harvey Fierstein) so this will need some more space. Where that space comes from I don’t know. The bottom shelf of this bookcase (along from the fancy hardback pile) is a bit of a mishmash of non series Girls Own books, not all of which I’m sure I want to keep, so it may be that I relocate them to somewhere else, maybe sell some of them and use that space to make it the hardback collection – with the fiction ones from the other week and the non fictions. Of course then you have the issue around separating authors where I have mixed hardbacks and paperbacks but we can cross that bridge when we come to it.
Anyway, also on this shelf are the Kate Andersen Browers – which I’ve mentioned before in various posts – and I’m fairly sure I also have The Residence somewhere, so I probably need to check on that and keep them all together. My suspicion is that one of them got loaned out at some point and they got split up in that shuffle. Taking of books on loan, this is where my copy of Tom and Lorenzo’s Legendary Children should be (who did I lend that to? I must track it down!) and that’s why Fabulousa is here. The History of Drag is on the shelf below with the Art/coffee table books so it’s similar proximity if not together-together. The Anne de Courcy is the one that seems to not belong here – but again that’s here because Chanel’s Riviera used to be here before it got loaned out – and while it was gone the space got used up and that got filed under the fancy hardback shelf.
Loaning books out and then using their shelf space for other things is a common problem here – currently sitting in front of this cabinet are Vanderbilt and Dead Famous which have just returned from my parents and which should been in this bookcase, if only there was room for them…
We’re in binge reading territory this Friday, because it’s that time of year where people are starting to think about what to read on the sunlounger – and what is better than a series to binge read. And to be fair, basically anything Simon Brett writes is totally bingeable. They’re fun and moreish and won’t make your head explode.
This is a cozy crime series with a sense of humour and at its centre are Jude and Carole, next door neighbours in the seaside town of Fetherings who just keep stumbling across bodies. The two women are unlikely friends – Jude is bohemian and free spirited. Carole is not and more to the fact, Carole doesn’t really know how to be friends with anyone, so as well as trying to solve the mystery the reader has the fun of watching the two of them – Carole desperate to ask questions about her new friend but never quite managing it and Jude, who knows Carole is desperate to know more about her but not volunteering anything unless asked. It’s a hoot.
I’ve written about another Simon Brett series here before, the Charles Paris books, which are great – but written across a large span of time and so if you do binge them then you’ll notice that we’ve gone from the 70s to the now and Charles has not really aged! Fetherings doesn’t have that problem!
There are 20 books in the series – with a 21st due out in the summer. I’ve only read 9 so far, but I have a few more ready to read when I’ve got the NetGalley pile a bit more under control and finished rereading Sookie Stackhouse. Yes I know, I’m easily distracted. Too many books, not enough time – my perennial problem. Still it’s nearly hammock season – so that will help won’t it! Anyway the first one – so probably the best place to start – is The Body on the Beach. In fact the first two are in Kindle Unlimited at time of writing, so if you’re a subscriber to that you can have a read for free.
Serious question, because when it comes to books my will power is not great. I can recognise that I have a lot of books and probably don’t need any more at the moment, but there are always shiny new releases out there to tempt me and I can’t always resist. I have systems to try and help, but…
Firstly there’s good reads – which I use to keep track of what I’ve read and what I want to read, but also to search and check whether I’ve read an author before and what I thought. I read a lot of books and as romances go in tropes it’s easy to forget what I’ve read and by who – which is aiming to try and stop myself getting sucked in by a seductive cover or blurb. Because that absolutely used to happen – especially if you’re borrowing books from the library and taking them back or don’t have the book on the shelf any more (fairly common for me if I didn’t like something that much).
Then I have a maximum price that I’m prepared to pay for different types of books that’s meant to stop my just buying books that take my fancy. Then I have a series of lists to keep track of books: so that I can keep track of the prices when they drop – especially because Amazon’s preorder price guarantee doesn’t apply to kindle books and I do try and preorder where I can. Then there’s one for books that might go into Kindle Unlimited at some point and then there’s another for possible present ideas for me when Christmas or my birthday come around – which tends to have the nonfiction hardbacks on it.
Does it help? Well I like to thinks so – but I’m not prepared to stop doing it to see if things get worse!
After Friday’s Series I Love post about The Chronicles of St Marys, this week’s Recommendsday is on Time travel-y books – so called because it is a little bit more of a if you like x then try y post, as there are not a lot of directly similar books out there!
I’m going to start with time travel-y caper comedies and I have two for you. Firstly there’s To Say Nothing Of the Dog by Connie Willis. This was a book of the week five (!) years ago and back then I mentioned that you should read it if you like the Chronicles of St Marys – so I’m delighted to see that past me and present me are so consistent! This features a time traveller called Ned with a bad case of Time Lag (like jet lag but with time) who is sent to the nineteenth century to recover from the demands of an American Benefactor, but can’t remember what the job is that he was sent to do there. As an added bonus there’s stacks of Golden Age Crime references – my Goodreads review sums it up as: Time travel + history + humour + Peter Wimsey references galore = right up Verity’s street.
Then there’s the Thursday Next seriesby Jasper Fforde. They’ve had a Series I love post before, but it was nearly two years ago, so it’s just about within the rules. Thursday’s not so much travelling through time as travelling through literature, but as she’s trying to stop people from changing literature, it’s a similar sort of feel to St Marys in a way. And it’s very, very funny. Although the fact that the Victorian-era Crimean War hasn’t ended in Thursday’s alternate reality 1986 feels a bit different in 2022 than it did when I first read then in 2013! Another one to start at the beginning – which is The Eyre Affair.
Moving on to less comedy, and less time travel-y but still moving through time is How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. Our hero in this, Tom, has lived for an insanely long amount of time – we see him at various points in history from Elizabethan era Britain to Jazz Age Paris to his currently life as a history teacher in modern day London. The most important thing is that he can’t fall in love. Except of course he does. I read this 5 years ago and really enjoyed it – writing this has made me think that I should go for a reread – or maybe read the other Matt Haig book I have sitting on the tbr shelf.
Now is the point where I should mention Terry Pratchett. You’re aware of my love for him, but actually Thief of Time is one of the Discworld books that it’s been ages since I read, which is nice because writing this post has started me on a reread. Or rather listen because I’ve gone for the audiobook this time. Anyway this one has Death, Death’s granddaughter Susan, the History Monks, an attempt to build the world’s most accurate clock which will actually cause the end of the world and more. Enjoy!
I’m going to finish with some children’s stuff – because there’s loads of time travel or messing with time in kids books. Firstly Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce, which features a little boy who hears the clock strike thirteen one night while he’s staying at his aunt and uncles. When he gets up to see what’s happening he discovers that the back door now leads to the garden as it was in the 1880s – and it all goes from there. Then there’s A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle – which is is an adventure story about children looking for their parents that happens to involve other planets and alien-y beings – I liked it, but I know some people have issues with this in the same way that they have issues with the Narnia books if you know what I mean. And then not so much time travel as ghosts is the Green Knowe series by Lucy M Boston, which are about an old house that the same family has lived in for centuries and the different people who have lived there who appear to the present day children of the house as spirits. I’ve not explained that very well, but I loved the first one in the series particularly when I was a kid. I reread that first one a few years ago and it still held up – I have them all on the shelf downstairs, I really should get around to rereading them all…
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 