detective, reviews

Book of the Week: Silent Nights

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This week’s BotW sees normal service well and true resumed with Silent Nights – a book of Golden Age detective short stories set at or around Christmas.  This is one of the British Crime Library’s reissues – I’ve read quite a few now and have discovered some really good authors that I was previously unaware of and who help me with my cravings for “proper” classic crime.

As well as familiar names like Dorothy L Sayers and Arthur Conan Doyle and lesser known but still in print authors like Margery Allingham, there are others I hadn’t heard of before and who I’ll now try and investigate.  Some of them have had long out of print titles recently republished in the same series, some of them are even more obscure than that.

There’s also a really good variety of types of mystery.  The Conan Doyle is a Sherlock Holmes, complete with leaps of deduction unfathomable to the normal person, The Sayers is a Wimsey locked room-esque short story about a missing necklace.  There’s also really quite creepy suspense in the form of Ethel Lina White’s Waxworks, a story based around a chess problem, another which leaves you to work out who was arrested (with an explanation at the back of the book) and a poisoning with a really nasty old man.

I enjoyed all of the stories in Silent Nights.  The weak point for me was the chess-based story, but that was because chess isn’t really my game.  I also really appreciated the biographical notes about each of the authors at the start of the stories – complete with information about other notable titles.

If you’re looking for some Christmas reading, this might be a nice, bite-sized place to start, and equally it would make a nice present for any fan of classic crime – particularly those who haven’t ventured much beyond the obvious suspects.  It’s also not violent or graphic so might work for the cozy-crime lover in your life too.  Talking of Christmas present ideas, I have many more to share with you – and they’ll be posted very soon as I know this is prime Christmas shopping time!

My copy of Silent Nights came from NetGalley*, but you can the very pretty paperback from Amazon or I’ve seen it on the speciality Christmas displays in several Waterstones stores as well as Foyles in Charing Cross Road – so it may have made it into your local bookshop too.  And the Kindle version is a bargain £2.99 at time of writing, so you could treat yourself to a bit of festive sleuthing without having too big an impact on your Christmas Present Buying Fund!  Several of the other British Library Crime Classics are a similar price, I can recommend Mavis Doriel Hay – Her festive story Santa Klaus Murder as well as Murder Underground and Death on the Cherwell are all under £3 at the moment – as well as books by J Jefferson Farjeon and Christopher Sprigg.**

 

* And as usual, I only feature books here that I genuinely like – I’ve read 25 books from NetGalley in the last quarter, but only a few of those have made it to a review on here (although they all get reviewed over on Goodreads).

** Back on full disclosure again – I bought Murder Underground and Death of the Cherwell for myself, but have read various Farjeons and Sprigg’s Death of an Airman via NetGalley over the last year.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: November 30 – December 6

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Back on track this week!  I finished a few books that I’d been reading for a while, and then started on the e-book and physical to-read pile.

Read:

Masquerade by Hannah Fielding

Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver

After You by Jojo Moyes

Silent Nights: Christmas Mysteries edited by Martin Edwards

Hot Toy by Jennifer Crusie

From Bad to Wurst by Maddy Hunter

His Majesty’s Hope by Susan Elia MacNeal

Started:

As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust by Alan Bradley

Still reading:

Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

I have been very restrained and not bought anything at all this week.  I’m not sure that it will last though.  I’ve been trying to put any books that I want on my Christmas list, but I think I’m running out of people who buy me presents who might get them for me!

 

books, stats

November Stats

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On Good Reads to-reads shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 421

New books read this month: 22*

Books from the Library Book pile: 0

Books from the to-read pile: 13

Ebooks read: 5

Most read author: Janet Evanovich and Cathy Bramley level on 2 all

Books read this year: 332

Books bought: 6 books (which have arrived, and orders in with a few more dealers), 3 ebooks

Backsliding on everything – as you might expect if you’ve been reading the last few weeks.  Too many books bought, lots of re-reading rather than new reading and as far as the New Year’s Resolutions no library books, although I did read a nonfiction book.

*Includes some short stories/novellas (1 this month)

Authors I love, Book of the Week, Children's books, Series I love

Book of the Week: Shocks for the Chalet School

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An unusual choice for BotW this week – Shocks for the Chalet School was one of my post-Paris purchases from Girls Gone By and it turned out to be that rarest of things – a Chalet School book that I hadn’t read.  I know. Who knew.  And this also gives me hope that there may be more!

  
Shocks for the Chalet School is the book where Emerence Hope bursts onto the scene.  Now I think that the reason why I thought that I had read this is partly because her early antics are talked about so much in the later books, and partly because it takes place at the same time as Chalet School in the Oberland.

For those of you who are not Chalet afficionados (and I appreciate that early/mid 20th century boarding stories may not be your speciality) a quick recap on where we stand at this point in the series: It’s after the war and the school is on St Briavels Island after the problem with the drains at Plas Howell. The new term means a whole new team of prefects – as the finishing branch is just starting in Switzerland and many of the Sixth formers have left to go there. Mary-Lou is still a Middle-schooler, Jo and her family are in Canada with Madge and her family and the book opens with news of the arrival of Jo’s Second Twins and a letter from former teacher Miss Stewart (now married) apologising for having unwittingly unleashed Emerence on the school.

With me so far?  Really all you need to know is that a (very) naughty new girl is arriving at an established boarding school, where an inexperienced team of prefects will have to try and deal with her.  Who knew it was that simple to explain!

I’ve mentioned my abiding love of the Chalet School before on this blog, and reading one for the first time reminds me how much.  Yes, they are dated – and in the Girls Gone By reprints you get the original unabridged text complete with smoking teachers and problematic racial sterotypes. They are of their time.  The plots are some times repetitive; Elinor M Brent-Dyer has favourites and doesn’t know how to make lists (or do continuity in some cases); there’s an unbelievably high number of dead parents and “kill or cure” operations; there are huge families, religious messages and you would never try and bring children up like this today.  But with an appropriately sceptical eye and a tongue in cheek where necessary, they are joyful.  No one gets bullied, very few problems are completely unsolvable, no one is homesick (for long at least), Joey (the series’ main heroine) can sing people out of comas and if you’re a good girl, you’ll get to marry a doctor and live happily ever after, popping out babies in a Chalet near the school!

  
Basically a new (to me) Chalet School book was exactly what I needed to bring me out of my World Events-based slump.  And I got an unabridged copy of Rivals for the Chalet School a couple of days later too so got to read the missing bits in that as well.

If you’re not already a boarding school fan, then these probably aren’t for you – so may I instead recommend Cathy Bramley’s Wickham Hall serialisation – the final part of which came out last week. 

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: November 23 – November 29

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I think I’m pretty much back to normal now – although I still have a few books that I’m still reading, this is more because I had a two day course away from home this week and didn’t really get much reading done!

Read:

The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jeffries

Shocks for the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent-Dyer

Wickham Hall: Part Four – White Christmas by Cathy Bramley

The Life and Loves of a He-Devil by Graham Norton

Going, Going, Ganache by Jenn McKinlay

Started:

n/a

Still reading:

Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver

Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

Masquerade by Hannah Fielding

And I managed to restrain the book-buying tendencies after last week’s splurge, so that’s progress too.  Onwards and upwards!

Book of the Week, reviews

Book of the Week: Not Quite Normal Service

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Hello!  After last week’s fog of misery and gloom, you’ll be pleased to hear I’m in a slightly better place in my head.  I’m not quite back to normal yet, so this is still not your normal BotW post.  Instead, here’s a brief snapshot of what I read last week.

So, there was a double dose of Janet Evanovich – Steph Plum 18 and Full Tilt, one of her romantic suspenses with Charlotte Hughes.  The Plum was quite a good one – not my favourite, but not quite as strangely magic-inflected as 17 so I was happy.  I’m still not sure what I make of the Full series – they’re not as fun as the other Evanovich series, but I get the feeling that if I just happened across them and they were an author that wasn’t Janet Evanovich I’d feel more enthusiastic about them!

I also finished The Necromancer by Jonathan L Howard last week.  This had been popping up in my recommendations lists all over the place and I mostly liked it.  I thought it had a slump at about two thirds of the way through – where I started to lose faith in the outcome, but it recovered and I was enjoying it again at the end.  I’m not sure if I’ll be reading the follow-ups though.  But that might be because it is quite dark, and I was in a dark place last week so it may not have been ideal reading matter for me!

Then there was Death before Decaf by Caroline Fardig, which NetGalley pitched to me as “if you love Janet Evanovich, then you’ll like this” – and while it didn’t quite live up to that billing (heroine a little too stupid to live, love triangle feeling a bit forced) I can see where the comparison was coming from.  A perfectly fine way to spend a few hours though.

Cathy Bramley’s latest, Conditional Love, brightened my mood a lot in the middle of the week – it’s this month’s Novelicious Book Club book – you can read my thoughts here and we’re chatting on Twitter tonight at 8pm.

My last book of the week was a Flavia de Luce – and I’m still not sure what I think of this series – Flavia drives me bonker sometimes, and the plots are a bit bonkers, but this one was really good fun.

So there you are.  I can string my thoughts together enough to give you mini-reviews, but that’s about it.  I’m getting there though.  Next week, dear reader, next week!

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: November 16 – November 22

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It’s been a difficult week.  If you read my BotW post last Tuesday, you’ll know that my mind’s not quite in the right space for critical reading at the moment, so this week’s diet has been big on lighter, funner books and re-reading old favourites rather than some of the more unknown quantities on the to-read pile.

Read:

The Necromancer by Jonathan L Howard

Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich

Conditional Love by Cathy Bramley

Death before Decag by Caroline Fardig

Full Tilt by Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes

The Dead in their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley

 

Started:

Masquerade by Hannah Fielding

The Life and Loves of a He-Devil by Graham Norton

Still reading:

Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver

Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jeffries

My other response to the events of last weekend has been to buy books.  Lots of books. Four second-hand online (because you need to hit that £10 free delivery limit) and then a whole bunch from my favourite publisher of classic school stories (the fabulous Girls Gone By) and a whole load more from two of my favourite book dealers.  And I’m not even sorry about it.

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: Special Edition

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There is no Book of the Week this week. I’m sorry.  I spent the start of last week reading a string of books that I’m reviewing for Novelicious – and I don’t review/recommend those here before my reviews have gone up there, although I do put them in my list of books that I’ve read. It’s a courtesy thing.  I’d planned to use read some books from my to-read pile at the end of the week, from which I was hoping a BotW would emerge.  And then Friday happened.

As many of you will know, my “proper” job is as a journalist – and I was on shift on Friday, Saturday and Sunday as the terrible news came out of Paris.  And after that, not only was I exhausted and sad, but my brain just couldn’t cope.  I didn’t feel like sitting down and reading new books and thinking critical and analytical thoughts about them.

I know there’s been a lot of talk about Paris getting more attention than other attacks, and I’d like to say that my feelings aren’t because it’s Paris where this has happened rather than somewhere outside Europe.  It’s because this has been a year where there have been more dreadful images and video than any other year that I’ve been working in news.  I’d list them all, but I’d be sure to leave something out and that would defeat the point of what I’m trying to say.

I’ve seen dead bodies around the world, people cut down by gunfire, bombs and natural disasters.  There’s been video of people killed on camera, of dead children, of wreckage smashed on mountainsides and deserts, of grieving families, of funerals. And all that’s without the videos from so-called Islamic State (or whatever you wish to call them) of the killings of hostages which, thankfully, I haven’t seen – because my employer put safeguards in place so that only a few people in the whole organisation had to watch them.  And of course I haven’t gone looking for them – once you’ve watched someone be killed – for real – on camera, you don’t want to ever see it again.

So  there you are.  I could have cheated, and recommended something that was the only new book that I’d read that wasn’t for Novelicious, or a book that I started on Sunday and finished this morning.  But both of those solutions felt disingenuous and wrong.

Books are my coping mechanism for life.  When I’m stressed, tired, fed-up or upset I turn to the worlds inside their pages for comfort.  And that’s what I’m still doing. I’m getting out my old favourites, worlds where bad things only happen to bad people, where everything turns out all right in the end.  So if there is a Book of the Week this week, make it one of your own old favourites.  One you turn to when you need solace.  Personally, I’m back in the world of boarding school stories and romance.  Normal service will be resumed soon. I hope.

Buffy: Does it ever get easy?

Giles: You mean life?

Buffy: Yeah, does it get easy?

Giles: What do you want me to say?

Buffy: Lie to me.

Giles: Yes. It’s terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true. The bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies and… everybody lives happily ever after.

Buffy: Liar.

 

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: November 9 – November 15

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A really busy week at work – with lots of shifts and obviously lots of breaking news.  So I started the week well with some books I’m reviewing for Novelicious and then ground to a halt at the weekend.

Read:

Hush by Sara Marshall-Ball

Nightingales under the Mistletoe by Donna Douglas

An East End Christmas by Elizabeth Waite

A Pain in the Tuchis by Mark Reutlinger

Started:

The Necromancer by Jonathan L Howard

The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jeffries

Still reading:

Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver

Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

 

Authors I love, Book of the Week, Fantasy

Book of the Week: Manners and Mutiny

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Apologies for the late arrival of this week’s BotW post – I’d somehow convinced myself that I’d already written this piece because all I seem to have done this week is think about the end of the Finishing School series.  But no, clearly I dreamt it.  Anyhow, it’ll be no surprise to anyone who’s been following my social media in the last week that the BotW is Manners and Mutiny – the last book in the Gail Carriger’s Young Adult Finishing School series.

My Kindle tells you all you need to know about last week’s reading matter!

In book four, we find Sophronia back at school on board Madame Geraldine’s floating dirigible, but with a somewhat denuded gang.  No-one’s listening to her warnings about the Picklemen and she’s still not really sure where her future lies.  When danger threatens the ship and life as she knows it, she has to put all her training to the test as we what happened to make Sophronia’s world of mechanicals turn into the society we know from the Parasol Protectorate.

And that’s about all that I can say, without giving away big old spoilers. And even that last sentence is a bit of a spoiler, but I think Carriger readers have all been waiting since Etiquette and Espionage to see what on earth happened to turn one world into the other!  Or if you’re like me and E&E was your first Gail Carriger book and the gateway to the rest, to explain the moment at the start of Soulless where you were all “Huh?  Where did the mechanical servants go?”

So, it’s no secret that I’m a big Carriger convert, having basically read everything she’s written over the past year (see 2014 Discoveries post, my BotW posts on Timeless and Prudence and E&E’s mention in my YA Roundup) – and I was worried that this wouldn’t live up to the hype that I had set up in my head.  So many questions needed answering and it seemed like a bit of a mammoth task for one book to deal with.  I went so far as to re-read all three of the previous books at the start of last week so that I had everything fresh in my mind for the last book – and I can’t say that I spotted anything that wasn’t addressed or tied up (with a bow).  And it’s still a good read.  It doesn’t feel like a tying up the loose ends book.  It feels like Ms Carriger had a plan at the start of the series, and has executed it masterfully – leaving a trail of breadcrumbs through the books for us to follow so that in this last one it all slots together and clicks into place. And as you do this, you smack your head and wonder how you missed the clues.  So clever.

But I have to say that this is not the place to start your Carriger experience.  Do yourself a favour and start with the first book in the series.  Or if you’re not technically a Young Adult, start with Soulless and read them first and then come to Finishing School and see how clever it all is.  I’m so sad Finishing School is over, but it was a deeply satisfying series and never felt like it was going on too long.  If I hadn’t just finished listening to Soulless on audiobook, I’d be going straight on to read that again. As it is I’m halfway through the recording of Changeless, so I’m still in Carriger-land.  And I can’t wait for Imprudence.

Get your copy of Manners and Mutiny (if you’ve already read the others) in paperback or on Kindle.  Or start with Etiquette and Espionage – paperback or Kindle.  The complete-ist in me really wants to buy myself the paperback copies of all of them so that I can put them on the shelf next to the others, but as I’ve already bought two Carriger audio-books and the e-books of Soulless and Changeless this week (so I can read whenever I want…) I’m valiantly resisting for now.  Lets see how long that resolution lasts…