Book of the Week, romance

Book of the Week: Four Nights with the Duke

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This week’s BotW is the new novel from Eloisa James – who is one of my favourite historical romance authors.  Four Nights with the Duke is book 8 in her Desperate Duchesses series.  My first Eloisa book was Desperate Duchesses 3 – Duchess by Night – which I stumbled across at the library back when I still lived in Essex (so 5+ years ago) and when she returned to the series to add a 7th book last year I was thrilled.  Although I’m still really annoyed that we only got a UK paperback release of books 1 – 4 – I had to buy 5 and 6 from the US to read them as they weren’t on Kindle at that point – and then the paperbacks started again with 7. And of course none of them match…

Romance paperbacks
The Historical Romance bookshelf – three difference sizes across the same author in some cases. Your basic nightmare.

Four Nights with the Duke is the second story in the second generation of the Duchesses –  which appears to be subtitled “Desperate Duchesses by the Numbers”.  Four Nights tells the story of Mia and Vander.  Mia needs to get married (no, not because of that) and the only person she can turn to is a man she swore that she would never marry (and he was there when she did the swearing).  Vander definitely doesn’t want to marry Mia – after all her father was his mother’s mistress and he’s still Very Angry* about that.  But Mia has a rather incriminating piece of paper that means that he’s going to have to do it, or lose everything.  So he offers her a deal – he’ll marry her, but he’ll only spend 4 nights a year with her (if you know what I mean) and she’s going to have to beg him for them…

Now that sort of set up is totally my sort of thing** – this is a plot device that totally floats my boat – the spouses at war/married because we had to trope is one of my favourites – right up there with fake engagements and you’ve been like a sibling to me until…x.  Not an accidental pregnancy in sight (yay!).  Add to that the fact that Mia has an alter ego as a romance novelist and I’m in historical romance heaven.  And Eloisa James is such a safe pair of hands.  There’s never an anachronism that I can spot, or a jarring word (except when I’ve got the American editions with the Wrong Spelling) or something that seems just too improbable – even for romance.

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I read this practically in one big gulp on Easter Sunday – pausing only (with less than 50 pages remaining) to go to the big family meal at my auntie’s in the evening – and if I could have put off leaving to finish it, I would have done.  The only problem with that is that I’ve now got to wait a year until there’s another one, and I think I’ve practically read the whole of the Eloisa James back catalogue now – as evidenced by the Kindle folder and the romance folder…

picture of kindle screen
The Kindle folder for Eloisa James books is three pages long

Having read some Historical Romance recently that I was less than crazy about – and a couple of books that weren’t as good as I was hoping they would be as well, I was really pleased that this totally lived up to the hype that I had given it in my head.  It’s not my favourite in the series (a toss up between a Duke of Her Own and Duchess by Night) but it’s still really, really good. If you’re not a historical romance reader – and want to see what the genre is all about, Eloisa James along with Julia Quinn and Sarah MacLean are the authors I recommend as starting points (they’re also the authors that keep hold of after I’ve read them – as you can tell from the romance shelf).

You can get your copy of Four Nights with the Duke from all the usual sources – it’s got a paperback release – so Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles are all stocking it – and you never know, it might even make it into WH Smiths and the supermarkets too.  And obviously, like me, you can buy it for Kindle or ebook.

And in the interests of full disclosure, I bought my copy of Four Nights – but I am in Eloisa’s fan outreach-y group on Facebook.  But I’m posting this because I loved the book – not because they told me to.

Eloisa James books
BONUS PICTURE: Another brilliant example of the difference between UK romance covers and US ones…

* Sorry, I was watching Pretty Woman over the weekend – and writing that sentence made me think of this quote: “I was very angry with him. It cost me ten thousand dollars in therapy to say that sentence: “I was very angry him.” I do it very well, don’t I? I’ll say it again: I was very angry with him. “Hello, my name is Mr. Lewis, I am very angry with my father.”  Although obviously Vander is angry with his mother and Mia’s Father, not his father.  But still.  It’s a good line.

** The Smart Bitches would call it my catnip.  I’m not sure whether I can pull off calling something my catnip.  I think I might be too British/dull/self conscious.

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: March 30 – April 5

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A good week of reading – some really good stuff in there – and the kindle backlog slightly reduced too.  I do love a long holiday weekend…

Read:

Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

The Julius House by Charlaine Harris

The Little Things by Jane Costello

Expecting the Earl’s Baby by Jessica Gilmore

The Parisian Christmas Bake Off by Jenny Oliver

The Harlot Countess by Joanna Shupe

In For a Penny by Rose Lerner

Four Nights with the Duke by Eloisa James

Started:

Mapp and Lucia by E F Benson

The Great Christmas Knit Off by Alexandra Brown

Still reading:

The Affair by Gill Paul

What Milo Saw by Virginia Macgregor

One book bought – the Julius House on Kindle – after I read Midnight Crossroad last week and felt the need for some Aurora.  But I valiantly resisted the urge to buy the next book.  And I went into The Works on Saturday and emerged EMPTY HANDED!  That’s practically superhuman willpower for me!

 

Chick lit, new releases, reviews

Easter Bonus review: Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery

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I know, I know, it’s Easter, and I’m reviewing a book with Summer in the title!  But Easter is often the start of the holiday season – and this is my first really beach-y read of the year.

Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery is the sequel to last year’s Little Beach Street Bakery (which was one of my Summer Reading suggestions last June).  As per, I’m reluctant to say too much about the plot – in case you haven’t read the first book – but we rejoin Polly and all the crew in Mount Polbearne, where there is a whole new set of challenges for them all to face.

When I read a book and love it, I almost always want more – I want to see how they get on after the happily ever after so to speak.  So I love a sequel – but I do get frustrated when their plot is basically breaking up the beloved couple and getting them back together again.  I’m a big fan of Jenny Colgan, and what I really like is that her sequels don’t do that to you.  There’s plenty of plot and lots of drama, but her couples are usually working their way through things together – as a unit.  Much more fun.

The supporting characters in this are also great – Polly’s friends are a hoot and there are a few new characters in this who work really well as well.  It made me laugh and it had me in tears, on a train OVER A PUFFIN for crying out loud* – so it must  be good.

My copy of Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery came from NetGalley – but I’ll be buying my own paperback – because I need it for my shelf of Jenny Colgan books.  And I need to lend it to my sister.  If you’re not on a book buying ban** you can get your copy from Amazon, Foyles, Waterstones (who are doing an extra 10% off for Easter) or on Kindle and if you’re going to an actual shop, I would expect it to be in all the supermarkets and WH Smiths at stations and airports too.

Have a Happy Easter – I find the best accompaniment to an Easter Egg is a good book!

*And had me googling “sponsor a puffin” when I got home.

** The Boy wasn’t happy when some more paperbacks turned up in the post the other day, so I’m not buying any more paperbacks until he’s got over it!

books, stats

March Stats

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On Good Reads to-reads shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 441

New books read this month: 32

Books from the Library Book pile: 1

Books from the to-read pile: 11

Ebooks read: 20

Most read author: tricky – I’m giving it to Charlaine Harris – because I read two complete books from here, and was more than half way through a third when we hit midnight last night (I also read 2 by Gail Carriger, R J Palacio and Jane Thynne)

Books read this year: 83

Books bought: 11 actual books and 3 ebooks

New Year’s Resolutions kept: 1 library book read, 1 non fiction (two if you count the Josh Sundquist) but I did buy the same number of actual books as I read, so the physical pile isn’t any shorter, and my NetGalley habit means the electronic one didn’t shrink as much as you’d hope either.  Maybe I should have given up buying books for Lent rather than chocolate, sweets, crisps, cake and biscuits.  Although knowing me that would just have resulted in a pre-ordering splurge on Shrove Tuesday and then a catch-up one on Easter Sunday!

Book of the Week, fiction, new releases, reviews, Uncategorized

Book of the Week: Midnight Crossroad

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I really struggled to pick a favourite book from last week.  Not because I didn’t like anything, but there wasn’t one book I really wanted to shout about – except my book club book – and that’s not out til next month, so I’ll tell you about that when you can actually buy it!

In the end, I have settled on Charlaine Harris’s Midnight Crossroad – which I got through NetGalley*.  It’s the first book in her new series (I think it’s pegged at three books) – and her first post-Sookie creation.  I’ve now read all of the Southern Vampire series, all of the Harper Connelly series, all of the Lily Bard series – and three of the Aurora Teagardens** so I guess you could say that I’m a fan.  I find her books really easy to read, her world building ticks my boxes and although each series clearly does have a formula, they are original enough that they don’t seem like the same book with new names if you know what I mean.

So Midnight Crossing is the convergence of the supernatural world of Sookie – and the worlds that we’ve seen in her other series – and to me it seems to try to root them all firmly in the same universe – which is something I’ve always wondered about.  There are some familiar faces from the previous series – and I’ve had trouble writing this without giving you spoilers.

The residents of Midnight might look normal (mostly), but they’re all hiding something.  Manfred has just moved to town and is about to discover that still waters really do run deep.  Ummmm.  And that’s about all I can say without giving too much away.  The story has multiple points of view, which can be a bit confusing at first, but it does work to establish the different characters and set up the town from the inside out as well as Manfred looking in.  But that’s not to say that by the end of the book you’ll know all the answers.

It’s not perfect, it’s not the best thing I’ve ever read – but it really is a nice way of passing an afternoon, especially if you’ve read the previous series.  It’s not the same genre really as the True Blood books – but it’s closer to them than any of her other series are.

As I said, my copy came from NetGalley – in advance of the UK paperback release on April 9 – you can pre-order that from Amazon or Foyles.  I can hear you pointing out the contradiction in not having my Book Club book as BotW because it’s not out yet – and then reviewing this which isn’t out for another week, and to that I offer you the Kindle link (and for the US readers, the amazon.com link because the paperback is already out there!) – although I’m sure the price will drop once the paperback comes out.  But you can get a sample now to see if you like it, while you can’t even get a sneak peak of my Book Club novel yet – it’s not out for three and a half weeks (or indeed the end of May in the US).  And it’s cruel to recommend something and make people wait that long!

* Having been reading the Dear Author palarva over the weekend, I’ve resolved to make sure I’m even more upfront about where my books come from – I already say on Goodreads if my copy was from NetGalley or similar, and I try to here, but I’m redoubling my efforts.  Transparency is key…

** I’ve bought book four after reading Midnight Crossing.  I suspect the second Omnibus is in my future…

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: March 23 – March 29

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Another fairly good week’s progress – despite a lot of real life stuff getting in the way so to speak.  Some really good books in there – some that were a little disappointing.  But hey, c’est la vie.

Read:

Pluto – A Wonder story by R J Palacio

Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey

Dream Cottage by Harriet J Kent

The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy by Julia Quinn

Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris

The Visitors by Sally Beauman

Started:

The Affair by Gill Paul

What Milo Saw by Virginia Macgregor

Still reading:

n/a

One book and one e-book bought this week – and a few requests on NetGalley too.  But overall not too bad.

Book of the Week, books, Children's books, Young Adult

Book of the Week: Wonder

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This week’s BotW is RJ Palacio’s Wonder.  It was hands down my favourite book of last week’s reading –  I was enjoying it so much I nearly took it to London when I went down for work at the weekend – even though it was a hardback library copy!  And the first thing I did when I got home on Sunday afternoon was to curl up on the sofa and finish it.

Wonder is the story of Auggie – born with a terrible facial abnormality and starting school for the first time after years of home schooling.  With multiple narrators, you see the world from his point of view and from those of the people around him as he tries to fit in and make friends and be “normal”.

If I could have read this in one sitting, I would have done (don’t you just hate it when real life gets in the way of reading?!), it’s that kind of book.  It really is one of those novels where you fall in love with the characters and the world and don’t want to leave it behind. And you can insert my usual comment about the state of my to-read pile meaning I don’t get to good stuff soon enough – because this has been on my to-read list since it was mentioned in an Emerald Street mailing soon after it came out.

I need to get my own copy – firstly because my library copy didn’t have “The Julian Chapter” in the end of it and secondly because I want to lend it to my sister and my mum.  And I want to read it again.  It’s that sort of book.  And don’t be put off by the fact that it’s a children’s/YA book if you don’t usually read that sort of thing.  It’s really worth it.

You can get your copy of Wonder from Amazon, Kindle, Foyles, Waterstones etc.  You won’t regret it.

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: March 16 – March 22

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A good week this week – and some really good books in there too.  I haven’t finished my book club book yet though, which is both naughty and concerning – as the discussion is rushing upon us…

Read:

The Winter Garden by Jane Thynne

The Princess Spy by Melanie Dickerson

The Sound of Music Story by Tom Santopietro

A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris

A Hellion in Her Bed by Sabrina Jeffries

The Evening Chorus by Helen Humphreys

Emily and Colin’s Wedding – Tears of Pearl prequel by Tasha Alexander

Wonder by RJ Palacio

Started:

The Visitors by Sally Beauman

Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey

Still reading:

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I bought one book – and my pre-ordered copy of Prudence also arrived.  I’m not allowed to read it until I’ve finished my book club book though!

Authors I love, Book of the Week, Fantasy, Series I love

Book of the Week: Timeless

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I had real trouble choosing the BotW this week – because I don’t like repeating – and Gail Carriger has a new book out  on Kindle TODAY and in paperback on Thursday (and my pre-order hasn’t dispatched yet – Amazon I’m watching you – you didn’t use to delay posting pre-orders to those of us who refuse to pay postage…) and if Prudence is half as good as her other stuff, it’s going to be a candidate for BotW as well.

But I’ve enjoyed Timeless and the whole Parasol Protectorate series so much, it would have been disingenuous not to pick it as a BotW – especially as it was the my favourite thing I read last week.  It’s my own fault for saving Timeless because I didn’t want Alexia’s story to be over.

Timeless by Gail Carriger
I don’t love this cover shot – although the costume is one from the book, I think the face is… odd!

Timeless is the fifth and final volume in the story of Alexia Tarabotti – a preturnatural in steam punk Victorian London.   And I can’t really say much more than that about the plot of Timeless because anything else would be Spoiling The Previous Four Books.   Ms Carriger was on my list of Discoveries of 2014 – and I said then that she was well on course to be on my automatic pre-order list if Timeless didn’t do something dreadful and disillusioning.  And it didn’t.  It’s not my favourite of the series, but it is still pretty darn fantastic and ties up a lot of the dangling threads from the previous books and then sets up a few new questions too.

Alexia is a fabulous creation – and the world that she lives in is equally brilliant.  Carriger has worked out how her world works and wears that very lightly – in fact she’s a big old tease.  She really doesn’t want to tell you her secrets – unlike some authors who can’t wait to dump all the rules of the world on you.  Even in this last book in the series we’re still discovering new things about Alexia’s abilities – and you get the feeling that Carriger has had this planned all along – none of it comes across as invented for this book.  Which either means she’s brilliant at long term plotting – or she’s really good at faking it.

I’ve read all the Finishing School books* that have been released so far – and I can’t wait to see how that pans out – because the world of 20 years before Alexia is very different.  And I’m so excited to read Prudence and see what happened next.

The Parasol Protectorate books
My soul is so outrage that the set doesn’t match I can’t shelve them like this

Gosh this review is gushy.  Sorry.  Now this is where I would usually put links to the book of the week so you can run away and buy it.  But if you haven’t read the other four books in the series first, you really won’t appreciate it – so go and buy Soulless from Amazon or Foyles or Waterstones or on Kindle and get started on Alexia’s story.  I’m off to re-read them.  And don’t tell me off if there’s some more Carriger on here soon…

* In fact Etiquette and Espionage was my first Carriger book – thank you NetGalley for throwing that one in my path – and after I read that and Curtsies and Conspiracies  and then started on The Parasol Protectorate.  NB in light of the Wrong Size issue in my Parasol set, I am reading Finishing School on Kindle – and waiting til the end of the series to buy myself a matching set.  What kind of crazy person am I?!

My Shelving solution
My Shelving Solution – but I cannot allow a repeat of this situation with the Finishing School books!
stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: March 9 – March 15

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Not as much read this week as last – I got a bit derailed by work and life in general.

Read:

Timeless by Gail Carriger

The Curious Case of the Werewolf That Wasn’t, the Mummy That Was, and the Cat in the Jar by Gail Carriger

We Should Hang Out Sometime by Josh Sundquist

The Courtesan Duchess by Joanna Shupe

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Itch by Simon Mayo

Started:

The Sound of Music Story by Tom Santopietro

A Hellion in Her Bed by Sabrina Jeffries

Still reading:

The Winter Garden by Jane Thynne

 

Oh dear – a bit of backsliding this week – thanks to a trip to The Works and the charity shop.  I’d been doing so well.