Back next week – I hope!
The Week in Books: September 5 – September 11
I mean if you don’t know what happened in the UK this week, then I sort of envy your ability to avoid the news. It’s been a long, strange week. And no surprise that you can probably tell that in this post.
Read:
Stirring Up Love by Chandra Blumberg*
A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie
The Holiday Trap by Roan Parrish*
There’s Something About Merry by Codi Hall*
Started:
Make It Sweet by Kristen Callihan
Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn
Still reading:
Godemersham Park by Gill Hornby*
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Another Time, Another Place by Jodi Taylor
Going With the Boys by Judith Mackrell
Mercury Pictures Presents by Anthony Marra*
Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Inverts by Crystal Jeans
A couple of preorders arrived – on the kindle and on the doorstep, but I think that’s it. But my brain is a little frazzled right now.
Bonus photo: Sunday evening calm in the park.
An * next to a book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
Normal service has been suspended…
and I think you can probably guess why.
Out today!
It’s Deanna Raybourn’s new contemporary adventure thriller and it’s on my kindle waiting to be read. How exciting.
August Quick reviews
There’s definitely not as much to write about this month – because I’ve already written about so many books that I read in August! Still I have scared up three books to tell you about today so, yay me.
Quick Curtain by Alan Melville
I talked about a bunch of theatre-set books of various types in August – and here’s another which was part of my haul from the conference book sales. Alan Melville’s murder mystery is another that sees an actor murdered on stage in front of an audience. Where it differs from the Ngaio Marsh novels with a similar premise is the satirical slant it takes on the detecting. On that front it’s closer to Nancy Spain’s Cinderella Goes to the Morgue, although this does care about solving the crime! A very nice way to spend an afternoon.
Femina by Janina Ramirez*
This is a fascinating look at the Middle Ages via the lives of writings and artifacts left behind by some of the women who lived through the period. Some of the names were people I had heard of, but I knew very little about any of them except for Margery Kempe. This is easy to read, but incredibly well researched and has plenty of pictures of the artifacts being talked about. It also has a huge bibliography at the back if you want to go and read more about any of the women. Well worth a look, even if you don’t usually do books on the Middle Ages. I mentioned this on publication day and it’s taken me a while to finish – but that’s because my brain has been fried and I only had the concentration for small bursts. Luckily it’s broken down into nice bite-sized sections!
Knit to Kill by Anne Canadeo
This is more of a lesson in doing more research than a review, because I picked this up on Kindle Unlimited thinking it was a first in series – because it says it is in the title but when I started reading it it really confused me because it didn’t read like introducing a new set of characters. So off to Goodreads I went where I discovered it was actually the first since a change of publishers – and actually the ninth book about this set of characters. Then things made more sense. Remind me to research the KU stuff the same way I do the rest of the books in future!
And in case you’ve forgotten, here’s all the other books I talked about in August: Piglettes, A Time to Dance, Thank you for Listening, Husband Material, A Twist of the Knife, the Sadler’s Wells Series, Swallows and Amazons series, London Celebrities series, Amory Ames series, books set in theatres, late summer romances and Actor Memoirs.
Happy Wednesday!
Book of the Week: Til Death Do Us Part
There were a few options for this post this week, but in the end I’ve settled on a really good locked room mystery, because those are so satisfying when done right – and this is really done right!
Dick Markham is in love (again). The object of the crime writer’s affection is Lesley Grant, a new arrival in his village. But when she accidentally shoots and injures a fortune teller at the village fete, he is told a story about her that is very different from the one that she tells about herself. Cast into confusion, he is asked to take part in a scheme to expose her as a serial poisoner – only for the person accusing her to be found murdered in exactly the way that he was told Lesley kills her victims: in an impossible locked room set up. Then Gideon Fell arrives on the scene to try and untangle the mystery.
It’s been a while since I read a locked room mystery, and this one is so clever. It is the first Gideon Fell mystery that I have read – although I read another of John Dickson Carr’s novels earlier in the year, and gave another Fell lined up already. But I can see why this one in particular has such an impressive reputation. It’s really pacy and makes you feel completely off balance as a reader because it twists and turns around so much you’re never really sure what you think – or what you’re meant to think. And I can’t really say any more about it than that because it gives too much away – even writing the plot summary was tricky! Anyway, give it a look for yourself.
My copy of Til Death Do Us Part came via my Kindle Unlimited subscription, but it’s a British Library Crime Classic, so when it cycles out of KU it should be available on all the major ebook platforms. And of course you can buy it in paperback direct from the British Library Bookshop online.
Happy Reading!
The Week in Books: August 29 – September 4
Another busy week. It started with the end of a nightshift on Bank Holiday Monday morning and then had two nights away from home. I can confirm that the nightshift affected my brain power and concentration as it always does, so it took until the end of the week to make some progress on the long runners. But I have made progress. I’m also trying to pace myself with the new Taylor Jenkins Reid and try and make it last. We’ll see how long that resolution lasts, although it is helped by the fact that I own it in hardback and not on Kindle!
Read:
This Side of Murder by Anna Lee Huber
Femina by Janina Ramirez*
Knit to Kill by Anne Canadeo
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
The Queer Principles of Kit Webb by Cat Sebastian
The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian
Death in Soho by Emily Organ
Til Death do is Part by John Dickson Carr
Started:
Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Stirring Up Love by Chandra Blumberg*
The Inverts by Crystal Jeans
Still reading:
Godemersham Park by Gill Hornby*
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Another Time, Another Place by Jodi Taylor
Going With the Boys by Judith Mackrell
Mercury Pictures Presents by Anthony Marra*
One book bought, one preorder arrived. Still controlling myself admirably after Bristol…
Bonus photo: I’m still very cross about the one day I missed 500 odd days ago, because who knows how long the streak would be otherwise given that the weekly streak is over four years… when did they start gathering this data anyway? I’ve had a kindle a decade now and I think I’ve probably used it every week of that decade…
An * next to a book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
Back to school…
If you’re heading back to school this week after the summer holiday – whether you’re a teacher or a student, I hope this week goes well for you – or as well as these things can and that this school year is better than the last one.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 