Verity Reads Books (lots of them)

Time Travel Novels

January 16, 2016January 3, 2016 veritywilde

I think I have a problem with time travel romances. I love time-slip novels – like Lauren Willig’s Pink Carnation series – which have two parallel narratives set in different times. I love straight historicals. But I can’t think of a time travel romance – or even time travelling novel that I loved – unless you’re including Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (a couple of hours on the Time turner doesn’t count in my book) or the Thursday Next Series (which is more dimension jumping than time travel). And after reading a time-traveller the other week, I started to wonder why.

Fundamentally, I think that I find it very hard to believe there’ll be a happy outcome – and that’s what you want in romances – because one is either going to have to go back to their own time and be miserable, or one is going to have to stay where they are, and I never believe that that will continue to be happy past the last page. After all, one member of the duo is living out of their time – either with a massive amount of knowledge about the future and the advances there are or with a massive gap in their knowledge of the modern world – and on top of that, everyone they ever knew/loved is either dead or not yet born and thus they’ll never see them again. I text my sister daily, and speak to my mum at least twice a week – and can’t imagine voluntarily chosing to put myself out of contact with them permenantly – and leave them wondering what has happened to me.

And that’s before you get to the fact that I’ve watched a lot of Scifi and fantasy TV over the years – from Star Trek to Crime Traveller and most of the variants in between – and have had it drilled into me that when you’re messing around in the past it’s very easy to change the timeline of the future and destroy the world. And most books just ignore The Implications and don’t mention it or skim over it somehow.

Am I over thinking this? Probably. But that’s the kind of person I am. I once spent 20 minutes crying on my Grandma’s lap because I’d just realised that Kaiser Wilhelm was Queen Victoria’s grandson – and wouldn’t she have been so upset if she’d realised he’d started a war against his grandma’s country. Yes. I was a strange 8 year old. But that gives you a clue as to how my mind works.

So in the spirit of the New Year, does anyone have any really good time travel recommendations for me? Books that I won’t buy and then ignore in favour of everything else ever because I’m convinced I’m going to hate them? Because I got a copy of the first Outlander 18 months ago because everyone else was raving about it – and I still haven’t read it. I took it on holiday with us back in 2014 as one of my paperbacks – and The Boy started reading it instead of me (he never takes enough books with him, but that’s another story) and he didn’t finish it either. It sat under our coffee table for another year after that.

Go on. Change my life. I dare you.

Book of the Week, books, historical, Thriller

Book of the Week: The Hourglass Factory

January 12, 2016January 12, 2016 veritywilde

So, a difficult choice for BotW this week – I finished the latest Laurie Graham last week and really enjoyed it – but I also read Lucy Ribchester’s Hourglass Factory and enjoyed that too. So in the end, I’ve picked The Hourglass Factory for BotW and decided to do an Authors I Love post on Laurie G instead, which’ll be coming up in a few weeks. So more for you to read. Bonus.

In The Hourglass Factory, tom-boy reporter Frankie George is trying to make waves in Fleet Street, but all she’s getting are the women’s interest stories an the gossip columns. When she gets assigned to write a profile of trapeze-artist-turned-suffragette Ebony Diamond she gets short shrift. But then Ebony disappears and Frankie finds herself drawn into a world of corsets, circuses, tricks and suffragettes. Where has Ebony gone? What is going on with the suffragettes? And will anyone listen to Frankie if she finds out?

This has been sitting on my shelf for aaaaaages (what’s new) and I kept meaning to read it. Then I saw it recommended by another blogger (Agi’s onmybookshelf) as one of her books of the year of 2015 – alongside several other books that I had read and liked and it gave me the push that I needed.

I really enjoyed this. I haven’t studied the women’s suffrage movement in Britain in much depth – apart from as part of my history GCSE – so I knew the basics, but I don’t think you’d have too much trouble if you knew even less. Lucy Ribchester paints a vivid picture of 1912. Post-Edwardian London springs to life – all dark corners, imminent peril, seedy clubs, variety acts, cuthroats, suffragettes and jails. Some passages were tough going – early 20th century jails were not nice places to get stuck in – but it was totally worth it. This is quite a long read (500 pages) but it is pacy, exciting and thrilling – you don’t notice the pages going by. So good. And another cautionary tale about letting books sit on the shelf.

Get your copy from Amazon, Waterstones or Foyles, from Audible, or on Kindle, ebook or Kobo. You’re welcome. And thank you Agi for giving me the kick to read it.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: January 4 – January 10

January 11, 2016January 10, 2016 veritywilde

Not a huge list this week – but The Hourglass Factory is 500 pages long – and it’s worth it. Busy week at work too and quick trains both ways several days (often on the way home in rush hour too) reducing the reading time.

Read:

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

The Night in Question by Laurie Graham

The Hourglass Factory by Lucy Ribchester

The Chalet School and Rosalie by Elinor M Brent Dyer

The Chase by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg

Started:

My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick

The Edge of the Fall by Kate Williams

Queen Lucia by E F Benson

Still reading:

Princes at War by Deborah Cadbury

One short story pre-ordered – but I don’t think I’ve actually bought a book so far this year (the Deanna Raybourn spree was before New Year). I’m sure that will change though…

Authors I love, Series I love

Series I love: The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

January 9, 2016January 9, 2016 veritywilde

As promised, here is my love letter to the wonderousness that is Lauren Willig’s Pink Carnation series. As a History and French Grad, who wrote my dissertation on the effect of the French Revolution on the nobility of the Touraine* I have a real affinity (if not always affection – see the footnote) for this period of history. Add into that the fact that I love time-slip novels (you know, books with two connected narratives in two different periods), romances, thrillers and humour, and there’s pretty much everything that I like in these novels that you can managed to combine in the same book.

Pink Cnarnation books — My Pink Carnation book collection (there are more on the kindle) in Book Central

To set the scene: American Eloise Kelly is history grad student working towards her PhD. At the start of the first book, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, she has arrived in England to research her dissertation – which is on British spies. She knows all about the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian, but soon stumbles on a document that everyone has missed – one which contains the identity of the Pink Carnation – the most elusive and influential British spy of them all. The books follow Eloise’s research as she uncovers nests of spies – on both sides – starting in 1803 and going all the way through til 1807. The stories take in not just France and England, but Ireland, India and Portugal. There are governesses, spy schools, double agents, triple agents, free agents, soldiers, privateers, ladies seminaries, exploding Christmas puddings, root vegetables, amateur theatricals, not so amateur theatricals, illegitimate children, drug smuggling, jewel theft, good poetry,very bad poetry and much, much more.

And then there’s romance, all types of romance: friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, employer/employee, (slightly) later in life romance, the list continues. In fact I think the only one that is missing is accidentally/secretly pregnant – and that’s my least favourite trope, I’m good with that. Although Eloise is always the modern day strand, the focus of the nineteenth century story changes each book – with the Pink Carnation hovering in the background until you reach the final book. So if you don’t like one heroine, the one in the next book will be someone different (although you’ll probably have met her before).

Pink Carnation book covers — My distinctly non-matching collection (hardback, US & UK paperbacks) is hard to photograph neatly!

I’ve loved this series. I borrowed the first book from the library, and, as is traditional, it sat in the library book bag for some time. Then I read it and liked it, then the next and the next. As the series has gone on, I’ve loved them more and more. The early books got solid threes on Goodreads then it moved to fours, then fives.**

I don’t actually own the whole series at the current moment – the earlier books were published in the UK and I picked them up at the library or on Kindle. Then they stopped and I started picking up the US editions because it was cheaper than the kindle editions (and we all know I love proper books). So now I’ve read all of them, I want to go back and read again from the beginning and see if I can spot any clues more in the earlier books to what happens in the later ones – and I know they’re there, because I’ve read interviews with Lauren Willig where she says her subconcious puts bits in that she only realises later are key to later events! But as I don’t own hard copies of them all (as you can see from the pictures) I can’t at the moment, so I suspect there’s some purchasing in my future!

Pink Carnation books in a pile — I tried to make a funky pile. It was harder than I expected. I’m not cut out for photography.

You can start your Pink Carnation journey with the first book on Kindle, Kobo or ePub, from Amazon or Waterstones or it may even still be in your local library. Foyles don’t have the first book – but they do have some of the later ones as well as Ms Willig’s standalone books. Go! Enjoy! If you start this weekend you could be in Portugal in a few weeks…

* Using primary sources, spending weeks of the sunniest part of my year in France holed up in the departmental archive in Tours because I hadn’t got my act together to do the research earlier, and then discovering when I got home that really I could do with yet more information, not that I really knew where I would have found it or what to do with it if I had it. I still see my 2:1 as something of a miracle!

** It’s at times like these that I think I must either have been a really harsh grader back in the day, or I’ve got soft in my old age, or I’m reading more really good books. In 2012, when I read the first Pink Carnation book I only gave out 7 five star ratings out of 205 books read (3 percent). In 2015 43 from 368 – or 10 percent. This bears investigation. I smell a future post…

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: Bleakly Hall

January 5, 2016January 5, 2016 veritywilde

Welcome to the first Book of the Week post of 2016! I really enjoyed writing these last year – and find that having to pick a favourite book each week really helps to focus the mind – not just about what I like and don’t like about books, but also about what I chose to read from the pile. It doesn’t stop the bingeing on one author, but it does mean I try to add some variety in – after all a BotW from the same author each week would get very dull very quickly. And speaking of binge-reading, there’ll be a post coming up at the weekend about the Pink Carnation series – which is one of the reasons why one of the three Lauren Willigs I read last week isn’t occupying this spot now!

So, Bleakly Hall. This has been on the pile for over 2 years (!) – and had been on my radar for some time before that. I think it’s another that was mentioned in the Emerald Street book section (where I’ve found several really interesting books) which I then added to my Amazon pile to wait for the price to come down (although in the end it came from Waterstones who must’ve been doing a deal judging by the prices) which is what happens to a lot of books. Anyway, you all know about the state of my to-read pile and the less said about it the better.

Bleakly Hall is a hydroprathic spa, populated by a cast of misfits and damaged people after the Great War. New nurse Monty has taken a job there because she has a score to settle with Captain Foxley. The Captain is there because he served with one of the two brothers who own it. The other brother came back from the war minus his legs and now has a matrimonial problem on his hands. Ada worked with Monty during the war – and misses the purpose and status it gave her. The residents are elderly, thin on the ground and not conducive to a health bank balance for the owners. And then there’s the ominous noises from the pipes…

I read a lot of books set in and around the First World War as part of my A-Level English literature and the period has continued to fascinate me in the intervening years (no, I’m not telling you how many years) and so this book was right up my street. I’m particularly fascinated with the aftermath of the war* and how it affected people so I found the characters in this fascinating. And they are a bit of a microcosm of post-war society – people want nothing to have changed, people for whom everything has changed, others for whom everything has changed, but in a different way and then those who would quite like the war back in some ways.

This is quite black in places – there are moments that will make you laugh and then there are moments of horror. The spa is damp and run down and there’s comedy in the treatments and quackery provided and then there are the flashbacks to Belgium and the carnage of the trenches. The two are nicely balanced – and sometimes you realise you are still chuckling over the latest antics at the spa but you’re in the trenches and really shouldn’t be laughing.

I enjoyed (if you can call it that) Bleakly Hall – and got a lot out of it. If you’ve read the usual Great War suspects – like Goodbye to All that, Regeneration, Testament of Youth etc – then this might be a good place to go next. It’s available on Kindle, at Amazon (where there are some good second-hand prices), Waterstones and Foyles.

* It’s one of the aspects of Lord Peter Wimsey‘s character that I find really interesting, as is Daisy’s search for a career and a new future after the war and the changes it brought in Carola Dunn’s early Daisy Dalrymple books.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: December 28 – January 3

January 4, 2016January 4, 2016 veritywilde

You may notice a theme in this week’s reading. Yes I went all out for the end of the Pink Carnation series and read another Lauren Willig I had on the kindle as well. And then while writing about Deanna Raybourn in my 2015 Obsessions post I found that a the book sale gods were smiling on me, and I could reading the rest of the Lady Julia Books safe in the knowledge that I wouldn’t get left on a cliff hanger! I’m still trying to ration myself on the new Laurie Graham – by which I mean only letting myself read a bit more every few days to try and stop myself from bingeing. So far it’s working.

Read:

The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla by Lauren Willig

The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig

Whisper of Jasmine by Deanna Raybourn

The Lure of the Moonflower by Lauren Willig

The Dark Enquiry by Deanna Raybourn

Bleakly Hall by Elaine di Rollo

Started:

n/a

Still reading:

The Night in Question by Laurie Graham

Princes at War by Deborah Cadbury

Oh dear. Massive Deanna Raybourn spending spree in the Kindle sale (as mentioned in my 2015 Obsessions post), then there was the only Hellions of Halsted Hall book I haven’t read on offer for 99p. How could I resist.

fiction, reviews

My Favourite Books of 2015

January 2, 2016January 2, 2016 veritywilde

It’s that time again, where I look back at what I’ve read in 2015 and try to pick out some highlights. It’s been a tough task as I’ve read a lot of books and so many of them have been really very excellent. As many of them have already featured here as Books of the Week, I’ve linked back to that review where relevant – and added my thoughts about why this has made the list rather than reviewing afresh. I’ve also tried not to repeat myself too much with things that I’ve recommended recently – a lot of my other favourites from the year – that would have featured here too can be found in my Christmas gift idea posts – particularly in Books for Her.

Wonder by RJ Palacio

I loved this when I read it back in March – and it has stayed with me. Auggie’s story is touching, funny and a little bit heartbreaking. I’ve recommended it several times and had nothing but positive responses. Reading the also excellent One at the end of 2015 reminded me how much I enjoyed Wonder and how many really good YA books there are out there, that also teach grown-ups a thing or two too. If you haven’t already read it, it’s in Amazon’s 3 for £10 promotion again.

Prudence by Gail Carriger

Ms Carriger’s fabulous steampunk world was one of my discoveries of 2014, and in 2015 I was thrilled anew by the start of her new series – Prudence. An unconventional heroine, a dirigible painted to look like a ladybird, India, werewolves, other were-creatures and much more. I’m working my way through the Parasol Protectorate (the preceding series) audiobooks at the moment, but I know I’ll get to Prudence too. And the last Finishing School book was pretty spiffing too.

The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett

From the start of a series to the end of an era. It wouldn’t be a round-up of my favourite books of the year without the final Terry Pratchett novel and the end of Tiffany Aching’s story. I’ve already written at length about my thoughts about the late Sir Terry and this was a Book of the Week as well. I want to read it again – but my copy is currently with my sister – who was next in line after my father. I am listening to the audiobook as well, but it makes me cry in public so it’s slow progress! I’ve been watching the repeats of Sky’s adaptations of Colour of Magic and Going Postal over Christmas (and crying over Sir T’s cameos) and I’ve still got everything cross we get some more Discworld on TV.

First Class Murder by Robin Stevens

My thoughts on boarding school books and murder mysteries are well known. And Robin Stevens’ series continues to combine all the best bits of both. There were two released this year – but I think First Class Murder is my favourite – because who wouldn’t love Murder on the Orient Express meets Mallory Towers/St Clares. Hazel and Daisy get taken on a train trip by Hazel’s father and get entangled in another death. They’re desperate to help solve it, but Mr Wong is not at all keen on the idea. What more could you want.

Stealing the Show by Christina Jones

And my final pick is this fabulous romantic comedy set in and around the world of a travelling fair. This is one of Christina Jones’s older books but has recently been re-released in ebook form. I loved the setting – and was totally fascinated by it. Jones’s father was a circus clown and she writes brilliantly about the itinerant lifestyle of a travelling show folk. The romance is star-crossed and and fraught with complications and with a deeply satisfying conclusion. And it explained a fair bit about where the fun-fair that pops up in in a lot of the later books comes from!

So there you are. Five of my favourite books of 2015. I can’t wait to start making new favourites in 2015. Please share your favourites from last year in the comments – I’m always looking for recommendations (despite the size of the pile) and I’ve found people in real life are often hesitant to suggest books for me – perhaps because of how many I read they’re worried I’ll have read them already. So rather than trust the Goodreads and Amazon algorithms for what to read next, I’d love to hear from you – after all if you keep coming here to see what I’ve written, you may well have the same sort of tastes as me!

books, stats

December Stats

January 1, 2016January 1, 2016 veritywilde

On Good Reads to-reads shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 425

New books read this month: 36*

Books from the Library Book pile: 1

Books from the to-read pile: 13

Ebooks read: 21

Most read author: I’m giving it to Lauren Willig – because I’ve read 2 of her novels and half of a third – as opposed to Debbie Macomber’s 2 books or Julia Williams’s one book and 3 (very) short stories.

Books read this year: 368

Books bought: 15 – all ebooks except 1

Loads of reading done this month – thank you week of tonsillitis – and I managed to resist the urge to buy books until the post-Christmas ebook sales kicked in. As far as the New Year’s Resolutions a library books and a non-fiction started – but not finished.

And thus the year comes to an end. I’ll be doing a more considered look at my reading stats over the last year in a few days – in the meantime, check out my post on my 2015 Obsessions!

*Includes some short stories/novellas (10 this month)

Authors I love, books, cozy crime, historical, Series I love

My Big Obsessions of 2015

December 31, 2015December 31, 2015 veritywilde

As you may have noticed, I am a total binge reader when I discover an author I like and promptly buy up their back catalogue (or borrow it from the library) to fulfill my desperate craving for another fix. This does not help the state of the to-read pile or my bank balance and can make me look a little unhinged. So here – for your amusement – are my big obsessions of 2015 and a few examples of the ridiculous lengths I’ve gone to…

Janet Evanovich

Can it really be true that I only read my first Janet Evanovich novel in April? Goodreads assures me that it is so and thus it must be. Since my first taste (Wicked Business), I’ve read 18 Stephanie Plums – and all four between the numbers fill-ins, the other two Wicked books, two Full books, two Fox and O’Hares and a standalone romance. So that’s 30 Janet Evanovich novels in less than nine months. This is why people think I’ve got a bit of a book problem.

Deanna Raybourn

I read Silent in the Grave back in January – and since then I’ve read three more of the Lady Julia series – with a fourth waiting for me on the shelf. And the only reason that that has been waiting is because the price of the next one has been so expensive. And ditto her standalone novels. But in a piece of glorious serendipity, they’re all on offer on Amazon Kindle at the moment – so last night I spent just under £20 on 8 (!) books and novellas – buying up the rest of Lady Julia, the first Veronica Speedwell and two standalones and their prequel novellas. Now that is what I call obsession…

Historical Romance

My love of historical romance has continued this year. In fact it’s turned into more of a quest – to find more authors who write my favourite sort of smart, witty, sexy romance novels. Because this is the problem with being a binge reader. You find someone that you like, you binge on their back catalogue and then you have to start following their publishing schedule like everyone else does – so you might have to wait a year before you can get another fix from them. So you need another author to read. In 2015 I’ve read some really good, some really bad and a lot of in between. Among the good were Sabrina Jeffries, Kerrigan Byrne, Johanna Shupe and Courtney Milan. I’m not going to mention the bad! There’s loads more I want to read – listening to the DBSA podcast each week will do that to you – but the prices of those sort of American-published romances are often really quite high over here – and fall into the same buying rules as the cozy crimes. So often I play roulette with NetGalley – requesting new releases there and hoping I like them. Sometimes it pays off – the aforementioned Byrne and Shupe for example – and sometimes it doesn’t…

Cozy Crime

I’ve always had a soft spot for the “lighter” end of the crime market, but I’ve really been rattling through various cozy murder mysteries this year. I’m still reading Donna Andrews (three of them this year) – but now I’m closer to the end of the series the books have got more expensive to buy and I have rules about what I’ll spend on a book that will only take me a couple of hours to read. So as a consequence my net has spread wider. Jenn McKinlay’s become firm favourite and there’s a bunch of other series I’ve dipped into too (again thanks to NetGalley) – to varying success. I feel more coming on in 2016.

Historical Crime

This is often the meeting of two of my other obsessions – Cozy crime and Historical romance. The Daisy Dalrymple and Phryne Fisher series were two of my discoveries of 2014 – and now I’ve read all of them, I’ve been searching for more – and not just those set in the 1920s and 1930s. That’s how I discovered Deanna Raybourn and started that obsession. But as well as Lady Julia, there’s Tasha Alexander’s Lady Emily and James Runcie’s Sidney Chambers. And then there’s the ones which are more crime-y and less romance – like Catriona McPherson’s Dandy Gilver, Carola Dunn’s Eleanor Trewynn. And no romance at all – like Flavia de Luce (because she’s a child!). So many good books.

So there you are. My five big obsessions of the year. Of course some would argue that books in general are my biggest obsession of them all. And they’d be right. There’s nothing like sitting down with a book and being transported to another world to make life seem better. You can live so many different lives and visit so many different places by reading a book. And then there’s the friends that you can make – real people I mean – because of books and the book community. The ones that you chat to on Twitter, the ones you meet at author events and who turn into proper friends and everything in between. Long may my book obsession continue.

Happy 2016 everyone – and thank you for reading my bookish wafflings. I hope you’ve enjoyed them – and I’m sure that there’s more where they came from.

American imports, Book of the Week, new releases, reviews, romance

Book of the Week: Anything For You

December 29, 2015December 29, 2015 veritywilde

This week’s BotW is Kristan Higgins’ latest romance Anything For You – which in a stroke of serendipity is out today! For those of you who are all Christmas’d out, this would make a great break from the festivities. It has a winery, some star-crossed lovers and a whole lot of fun.

Anything For You tells the story of Connor and Jessica. They’ve been hooking up in secret for years and now Connor wants to take it public – and make it official. But Jessica thinks things are fine as they are – and she has her brother to look after, her brother who really doesn’t like Connor. So with Connor down on one knee and telling her it’s all or nothing, how sure is Jessica that marriage isn’t for her?

This is such a good read. Jessica and Connor have such a tangled backstory – which is explained really well in a series of flashback-type sequences in the aftermath of the proposal. They are both really complicated, well thought out characters. Connor has quite a privileged background (I mean he’s not a billionaire or a billionaire’s son, but there’s some money there) but a difficult relationship with his parents. Jessica has dragged herself up from a trailerpark whilst bringing up her little brother in the process – she’s got trust issues, abandonment issues and a bit of an inferiority complex. Watching them work out their problems is a really engrossing read.

And they are proper problems that need a proper resolution. I’ve read a lot of romances where the obstacles keeping the hero and heroine apart aren’t really obstacles – or are easily resolved. But these two have something real and tangible to work out. And the resolution is really well worked out – it doesn’t involve one of them suddenly doing an abrupt character change or an about face. They work out their problems and grow and mature to a solution.

And if that sounds too serious – don’t worry! There’s plenty of humour here too – Connor has a fabulously funny relationship with his twin sister Colleen (aka Dog Face) and the two of them have some great sparky exchanges. And Con and Jess have their moments too. Add to that a very stabbable events planner and some meddling friends and the angsty bits are well balanced out.

This was my first Kristan Higgins – but I’ve already found another one in the Kindle backlog pile so that may well have jumped its way closer to the top. My copy came via NetGalley, but you can get yourself a copy from Amazon or Amazon.com – although it doesn’t seem to be available on Kindle in the UK or the US at the moment.

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