Not a lot of new books read this week – because I re-read the first three books in the Finishing School series before I read Manners and Mutiny (which came out on Tuesday)
Read:
Saints and Sailors by Pam Rhodes
Manners and Mutiny by Gail Carriger
Death by the Dozen by Jenn McKinlay
Circling the Sun by Paula McLain
Sabrina by Candice Ransom
Started:
Hush by Sara Marshall-Ball
Still reading:
Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver
Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray
We stopped at an amazing second-hand book shop on our way home from a day out on Saturday – and despite only having 15 minutes in there before closing, I managed to find 4 books – although one of them was a physical copy of the first Daisy Dalrymple book, which I already have in ebook but wanted a real version of, so it sort of doesn’t count – right?!
This week’s BotW is a rare (ish) non-fiction choice – Lily Koppel’s The Astronaut Wives Club. I’m not sure how I first came across this – but it had been sitting on my to-buy list for ages waiting for me to find an excuse to buy it – and the nightshifts came around…
The book is about the wives of the first several cohorts of US Astronauts – who they were, how their lives were changed when their husbands were picked and the consequences for them as their husbands went off into space.
This is quite a light read – it reads very much like a string of anecdotes tied together and because there are so many women you don’t get a lot of detail on any of them. But it is a fascinating glimpse inside the space bubble – I’m sure I’m not alone in that my knowledge of space exploration is fairly limited (the basic facts plus a viewing or two of Apollo 13 and a few documentaries) and I’m not massively interested in science. This book was perfect for me – it’s always the people that I’m interested in particularly the women who had to smile in front of the world’s media as they watched their partners blast into the unknown.
Lily Koppel has done her research and has spoken to some of the women and come up with a very readable book telling the stories of a group of women who managed to support each other whilst competing with each other and never wanting to show weakness. Well worth a read – if only to realise exactly how famous these men were and what a fishbowl their wives had to live in.
Post-nightshift slump hit big time this week – no energy and no concentration topped off by a string of early shifts does not make for a lot of progress down the to-read pile, so I switched to kids horror and graphic novels for the Halloween weekend and things improved a little!
Read:
The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel
Tinsel and Terriers by Cressida McLaughlin
Love in a Nutshell by Janet Evanovich and Dorien Kelly
Lumberjanes: Beware the Kitten Holy by Noelle Stevenson
Shiverton Hall by Emerald Fennell
Nightmares! by Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller
Started:
Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray
Saints and Sailors by Pam Rhodes
Still reading:
Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver
Circling the Sun by Paula McLain
One e-book and a graphic novel bought – which is better than last week, and quite restrained for me in a post-nightshift frame of mind – especially considering the hour I spent wandering Foyles on Monday evening!
On Good Reads to-reads shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 420
New books read this month: 30*
Books from the Library Book pile: 1
Books from the to-read pile: 11
Ebooks read: 15
Most read author: Janet Evanovich (again – what can I say, I’m a predictable so-and-so)
Books read this year: 309*
Books bought: 5 books and 2 ebooks
I was going so well on the reading this month – and then the post nightshift slump hit me and I didn’t have time/the concentration/the inclination to read that much and it slipped away a little. Backsliding on the purchasing front this month too – I blame nightshifts! As far as New Year’s Resolutions go – fair progress – 1 library book and a nonfiction book.
*Includes some short stories/novellas (2 this month)
It will be absolutely no surprise to you regular readers that this week’s BotW is Trisha Ashley’s latest – A Christmas Cracker. You can see my previous musings on her work here, here and briefly here. I’m not usually a Christmas book in October kind of person (although I seem to have read a few of them already this year) but I’m always read to make an exception for Trisha. Her books are totally my catnip. Warm and humourous, with heroines on journeys and a variety of different types of heros. Her heroines have usually made had problems in their love lives before – whether through picking Bad Men or through mistakes and misunderstandings. I always think of them as second chance romances (as in slightly older people, and not their first love affair), but I know that the “proper” definition of that trope is the “we met when we were young but it didn’t work out, but now we’re trying again” type of story, although Trisha has written a couple of those and they’re really very good.
Why can I never get a good photo of a book with foil lettering on the cover?The heroine of A Christmas Cracker is Tabby. She’s ended up doing prison time for a crime she didn’t commit, her fiance has dumped her and given her cat away, one of her friends lied about her in court and her life is generally in tatters. Then she gets a second chance from Mercy. She’s been working in Africa for years, but has retired and come back to try and rescue the family cracker business, which is floundering. She thinks that Tabby could be the breath of fresh air that it needs to save it from the chop. But Mercy’s nephew Randall think’s Tabby is a con-woman and out for what she can get – he’s got his own plans for Marwood’s Christmas Crackers and he’s watching her like a hawk…
I’m hoping that you’ve read that and thought – “Gosh that sounds generally delightful and festive too” – and it really is (if you didn’t, I’m sorry – I haven’t done it justice). Tabby is a wonderful and relatable heroine. I was initially sceptical about a lead character who starts off the book in the clink, but I shouldn’t have doubted Trisha – it’s a masterstroke. Trisha Ashley’s books have a long history of giving us quirky/fun older/elderly lady characters too (Great Aunt’s Hebe and Ottie in A Winter’s Tale, Mad Aunt Debo in Creature Comforts, I could go on) and Mercy is another great addition to the list – she’s a bundle of energy in light-up trainers who sees the best in everyone and will give hospitality to anyone.
Honestly, I can’t say enough good things about A Christmas Cracker – I got an e-copy via NetGalley – but I went out at the weekend to buy myself an actual copy as well. And not just because I have all her other books in paperback (and most of them in ebook as well) and I have a thing about sets and completion, but because I wanted to read it again, in a proper book, so I can pick out my favourite scenes so I know where they are in the book so I can go back and read them again.
If you only read one Christmas book this year (or before December at any rate) make this it. It should be everywhere – Tesco were selling it for a very special price of £2 at the weekend (so cheap that I almost wanted to go and buy it somewhere else in case it meant the author royalties would be smaller) and I’d expect it to be all over the place in the other supermarkets and bookshops. If I’ve sold it to you as being so good that you can’t wait to go to a shop (and you wouldn’t be wrong), the Kindle and Kobo editions are £2.99 at time of writing. Prices aren’t quite as special for the paperback at the online retailers, but here are the Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles links just in case.
Four nightshifts this week, so this week’s reading tends towards the light and fluffy, romantic and cozy crime because that’s all my frazzled brain can cope with at times like that.
Read:
The Duchess’s Tattoo by Daisy Goodwin
The Sound of Murder by Cindy Brown
Smoking Seventeen by Janet Evanovich
A Christmas Cracker by Trisha Ashley
Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie
Murder at the Brightwell by Ashley Weaver
Tied up in Tinsel by Ngaio Marsh
Started:
Circling the Sun by Paula McLain
Still reading:
Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver
And because of the nightshift effect, I bought a few books this week – the next Stephanie Plum (having reached the end of what I had in stock so to speak) and a few other books I’ve been after for a while that I found at a good price. Quelle surprise that my will power failed me!
A fairly easy choice for BotW this week – Beatriz Williams’ A Hundred Summers was my favourite read last week – although Alexander McCall Smith’s children’s book School Ship Tobermory is great fun too (I’ve already posted my copy to Eldest Niece because I think she’ll love it). And it’s nice to feature a new (to me) author for BotW too.
I started reading A Hundred Summers on the train to work and was glued to the sofa when I got home!
A Hundred Summers tells the story of Lily Dane, who has returned to her family’s summer house in Rhode Island. Also back in Seaview in summer 1938 is her childhood friend Budgie and her new husband – and Lily’s former fiancé – Nick. As the summer unrolls, Lily falls back in with glamourous Budgie and the truth about how she and Nick betrayed Lily starts to emerge as a storm barrels towards them.
Regular readers will know that I love stories set in the early 20th century – and more specifically between the two world wars. And I love time slip books. And while a narrative which jumps between 1932 and 1938 isn’t quite as big a gap as some, and it features the same characters in both, it still ticks all my boxes for that too. There’s something about the interwar period – in the UK, the US or Europe – that just really works for me and Beatriz Williams has created a fabulous and believable world with a dark secrets at its heart.
I was fascinated by Lily’s story. She’s an interesting character – smart and independent in someways, but quite naive and unworldy in others. For a while I thought I had it all figured out – then the book surprised me again and I really do like it when that happens. Reading as many books as I do it can become quite easy to be a bit cynical and jaded and to spot how a plot is going to unfold before it happens, and it’s always nice when your expectations are challenged.
I’ve been wanting to read Beatriz Williams’ books for a while – several US authors that I like have recommended her at various points and she’s writing a book with Lauren Willig (who I love as you know) – but it’s been hard to get hold of them over here for a reasonable price. I think that has changed with A Hundred Summers – this got a wide release and was in the supermarkets over the summer if I recall correctly. It certainly made it to the point where Amazon were offering it for practically half price – which usually means it’s in the supermarkets’ 2 for £7 promotions. I’m certainly hoping that I’ll be able to get hold of more of her books now – and the samples at the back of A Hundred Summers certainly hint at that.
Get your copy from Amazon, Kindle, Waterstones, Foyles and Kobo (at time of writing Amazon not only the best price for paperback by a little way, but it was included in its 3 for £10 deal in case you need any further encouragement to buy books…). I’m off to hunt for her back catalogue and to put some pre-orders…
A heady mix of classic crime, 1930s glamour (and despair) and romance, with a touch of melodrama and a dash of adventure thrown in.
Read:
A Clutch of Constables by Ngaio Marsh
The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay
It’s Got To be Perfect by Haley Hill
A Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams
Dispossession by Simon Grennan (based on the novel by Anthony Trollope)
When in Rome by Ngaio Marsh
School Ship Tobermory by Alexander McCall Smith
Started:
Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie
Master of Shadows by Neil Oliver
Still reading:
Still n/a!
I have controlled my urge to purchase nobly this week. I was deeply tempted to buy some books at several books (not least when I was in The Works and feeling a bit blue). But I resisted. Still with nightshifts coming this week, this self-restraint may not last!
Back into proper historical romance territory with this week’s BotW. I read a couple of good books last week – but you’ve already heard enough about my love of Janet Evanovich and Lauren Willig and Kerrigan Byrne’s The Highwayman bucked the trend of not-so-good historicals that I’ve had recently.
Farah and Dougan are best friends at the orphanage in the 1850s. They handfast – but then A Bad Thing happens and they are parted. Jump forward 20ish years and Farah is working as a clerk at Scotland Yard when Ruthless Villain Dorien Blackmore is brought in for questioning. She’s promptly kidnapped so he can keep her safe from Forces Which Threaten Her. But will he capture her heart?
The Highwayman (which doesn’t actually have a lot of actual highwaying in the actual narrative, so don’t go expecting the Masqueraders in Victorian times people) hits a whole lot of my catnip including – without giving too much away – tortured hero! Smart heroine! Marriage of convenience*! It also has a side order of some of my peeves – comedy Scottish accents, kilts, lairds, handfasting – but it is good enough and different enough that I didn’t care. It wasn’t perfect – even if you don’t have my dislike of the Highlander trope in general there were some language choices that didn’t work – but it rattled along quickly and there was so much happening that you didn’t notice too much. I had a few things pegged fairly early on, but it Didn’t Matter.
As I said at the top, I’ve had a run of not great historical romances recently and this was a breath of fresh air – the Victorian setting made a change (and meant that we didn’t get too far into my least favourite bits about Scottish heros/stories) and Farah is a smart sensible woman who lives up to the billing. Yes its quite dark. Yes the hero is a Bad Boy who has done stuff that Can’t Be Fixed, but it is not at all miserable. As you can probably tell from all the Capital Letters its a bit melodramatic – in a good way. I really enjoyed The Highwayman and will be looking out for the next in the Victorian Rebels series.
Get your copy from Amazon or on Kindle but don’t expect to find it in the supermarket – its not that sort of romance!
*It’s in the blurb on Goodreads I’m allowed to mention it
A more steady, but still productive week. There were somethings that I really liked, and some that I didn’t – and there were a couple of research howlers too. Hey ho, it happens.
Read:
The Last Chance Christmas Ball by Mary-Jo Putney et al
Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich
The Passion of the Purple Plumeria by Lauren Willig
Unmasking of a Lady by Sophie Dash
The Highwayman by Kerrigan Byrne
Good Earl Gone Bad by Manda Collins
The Love Match by M C Beaton
Started:
A Clutch of Constables by Ngaio Marsh
Still reading:
Still n/a!
I didn’t buy anything! My first week back at my normal job and I resisted the urge to purchase books – even though I really wanted to buy the last in the Pink Carnation series to have it ready. The pile it is decreasing!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 