books, Chick lit, Classics, cozy crime, Thriller

Scottish-set books

veritywilde

In honour of the referendum today (I’m very excited as I’m working on the coverage overnight – but think of my poor partner having to put up with my moodiness afterwards) I thought I’d put together some of my favourite Scottish set books.

We’ll start with a classic of its genre – The 39 Steps – which you can get for Free on your Kindle. If you haven’t read this adventure caper – where Richard Hannay attempts to escape spies – you really should.  It’s a bit like an Indiana Jones film but a book, set pre-World War One and in Scotland rather than than somewhere more exotic.  Definitely worth a look – and the play version in London is a hoot (if not at all the same feel!).

Moving on to cozy crime and M C Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth series.  There are 30 novels about the perpetually single-but-romantic-yet-indecisive policeman and his flock in the village of Loch Dubh.  You don’t need to start at the beginning with Death of a Gossip (although it helps with keeping track of Hamish’s romantic entanglements) and they’re all fun (if increasingly formulaic) detective capers as murders crop up in lazy Hamish’s vicinity.

Falling in love with a Highlander (or being thrown together with one) is a popular theme historical romance.  It is, however, one that I struggle with.  I don’t know why, but they give me the giggles and the internal cringes if you know what I mean.  The men tend to be particularly thick headed and the women a bit shrill and irritating.  But then I haven’t read that many of them – I’m sure there are many excellent examples (leave your suggestions in the comments!) – as even reading the blurbs for some of them makes me embarrassed to read historical fiction.  So I’m offering you one recommendation – Julia Quinn’s When He Was Wicked – which to my memory includes no kilts, caber tossing or haggis, just a Scottish earl, who is in love with his cousin’s widow.  This was one of the very earliest of Quinn’s books that I read, and it is still one of my favourites.  A good blend of old school romance in the style of Georgette Heyer and the sexy bits that you never got from her!

And for a modern Scottish set romance, I give you Katie Fforde’s Highland Fling – about Virtual Assistant Jenny Porter who goes on a business trip to assess a failing Highland textile mill after a fight with her boyfriend.  Jenny manages to get thoroughly wrapped up in the village life – as her personal life gets more and more complicated.  A lovely read for a cold night in front of the fire – and yes, I know it’s not winter yet, but it’s definitely coat weather at the station at 4.15 in the morning now, so I’m including it!

It wouldn’t be a list from me if I didn’t get a bit of Lord Peter Wimsey into it, so I have to mention Five Red Herrings – which is the novel between Strong Poison and Have His Carcase and sees Peter on holiday to Scotland (one suspects to escape after the stress of the Vane case) and stumbles across a murder.  Its a complicated tale, involving artists and train timetables amongst many things – and if you’ve read Busman’s Honeymoon (I think, it’s a Harriet novel anyway) the source of the quote about “a murderer eating two breakfasts to lend verisimilitude to an otherwise unconvincing narrative.”

So there you are – some Scottish themed reading to add to your list.  On my list of Scottish-set books to read are: Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series (the first is Cross Stitch) which several friends have recommended and has just been turned into a TV series and Alexander McCall Smith’s 44 Scotland Street.

Chick lit, fiction, new releases, Uncategorized

Review: The Honeymoon Hotel

veritywilde

Today’s review is Hester Browne’s latest book The Honeymoon Hotel – which was out last week in the UK and I’m reviewing today because NetGalley was showing the US release date and I didn’t realise…

I’ll start by saying that Hester Browne creates the sort of characters and lives that I love.  I adored Melissa/Honey from the Little Lady Agency* and Evie from Vintage Girl (or Swept Off Her Feet depending on when you bought it) is a hoot.  Browne also creates worlds that I wish I could be a part of – a bit posh, filled with glamour and balls and parties but in a subtle, achievable way – you can believe that you too could be part of a world like that with a bit of luck and hard work (and better networking skills).

The Honeymoon Hotel is the story of Rosie, who at the start of the novel is unceremoniously left at the altar**, and her life as an events coordinator (mostly weddings) at a posh, glamorous, retro-in-a-Golden-Age-of-Hollywood way hotel in London.  She’s angling for a promotion, but her plans are thrown off track by the arrival of the owner’s son Joe to learn the business…

I *really* enjoyed The Honeymoon Hotel – once again, Browne has created a world that you believe in and characters that you buy into – I was rooting for Rosie all the way through and wanted it to turn out “right” for her.  I’m quite a shy person in real life and not good with crowds of strange people, but I found myself thinking “Oooh.  Hotel events planning, that sounds like so much fun” as I read about Rosie’s job at the hotel.  I loved the supporting characters as well, and although he gave me the pip at first, as I got to know him I really liked Joe.  I would liked to have find out more about his dad Lawrence (and what he was up to when he kept disappearing) and I wanted a little bit more comeuppance for one character who shall remain nameless in the interests of avoiding spoilers.

If you haven’t read any of Hester Browne’s books before, this might be an ideal place to start – a quirky and interesting set up, an engaging central character and a cast of characters that all seem perfectly real and plausible.  I could have read about them for twice as long – and could happily have coped with another chapter or an epilogue of what happened next.

My copy of The Honeymoon Hotel came from Netgalley in return for an honest review – although I’ll probably buy myself a copy of the paperback so that I can put it on an actual shelf next to her other books! You can buy Honeymoon Hotel from all the usual suspects like Foyles, Waterstones, on Kindle, if you’re in the US on Amazon.com or in a new twist, you can buy it through my page on My Independent Book Shop so a portion of the sale goes to an independent book shop near me – and where you can also buy other books that I’ve reviewed recently.  I’m hoping that Honeymoon Hotel will be widely available in the supermarkets as well and that it will do really well.

 

* It’s a measure of how much I love Hester Browne’s characters, voice and world that I’m still coming back despite my disappointment with the third Little Lady book.  Although I will say that the first book appeared at a time when I wanted a boyfriend who didn’t make me sleep in a tent for holidays or sneer at my theatre habits and in consequence I possibly over-identified and over-invested in the central relationship, and so the third book pushed me into a rant on the scale of certain elements of the True Blood fans at the end of that series.

**The regulars amongst you will notice that this is my second book in a week featuring a hotel with a worker who was jilted. You wait ages for a book about a hotel and then… etc

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: September 8 – September 14

veritywilde

Lots of stuff started, not as much stuff finished this week – mostly because I was at the theatre four evenings! I felt like a bit of a gadabout – but it was fabulous.

Read:

Shakespeare’s Trollop by Charlaine Harris

Shakespeare’s Counsellor by Charlaine Harris

Bad Bridesmaid by Portia MacIntosh

The Brandons by Angela Thirkell

Rock Courtship by Nalini Singh

Started:

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

Honeymoon Hotel by Hester Browne

The Constant Nymph by Margaret Kennedy

Still reading:

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

The bright side is that whilst I haven’t read a lot, I haven’t bought anything either after last week’s orgy of purchasing!

Uncategorized

Follow-on books

veritywilde

Two things conspired to make me write this post this week – firstly the publication of Sophie Hannah’s Poirot continuation The Monogram Murders and secondly the arrival in the post of The Chalet Girls Grow up – a follow on to my favourite school story series that I’ve long hesitated over reading that a friend has lent me.

Why have I been worried about reading it?  Well the reviews on Amazon are pretty polarised shall we say, and I have a bad track record for dealing with outcomes that I don’t like in books.  As I’ve mentioned before, there’s one of my previous favourite books I can hardly bring myself to read any more after the author (in my opinion) messed up the ending to the final book in the series.  I’ve since “forgiven” the author – I still read and look forward to her new books, but I can’t get past the ending to the third book when reading the first.  So, I thought, why run the risk of ruining the Chalet School?

So what’s changed?  Well there have been hints recently that my attitudes are changing – dare I say maturing.  I read the Sebastian Faulks Jeeves and Wooster novel at the start of this year – and although I thought the writing style was pretty spot on, I wasn’t keen on the plot or on the outcome (if you know what I mean).  But it hasn’t stopped me returning to my “proper” Wodehouse books.   But I don’t love Bertie and his butler the way that I do the Chalet School.

I do love the Peter Wimsey books though – it’s not as long standing a passion, but if you set me going, I think I could recite large chunks of Busman’s Honeymoon and in the last week I’ve listened to the audio book of Strong Poison and the radio plays of Have His Carcase, Murder Must Advertise and Gaudy Night.  And a few years ago I read two the Jill Paton Walsh Wimsey continuations – Thrones, Dominations and The Attenbury Emeralds. The first I thought was ok, if more sordid than Wimsey novels usually are and more packed with returning characters, the second I was disappointed in – I haven’t read the third or the fourth.  But it (clearly) hasn’t stopped me loving the originals.  There was nothing in there that ruined my enjoyment of Peter’s other cases.

I’ve also recently read my first Chalet School “fill-in” title (lent to me by the same friend who’s sent me Grow Up), that’s a book by a different author that fills in a gap in the series. I quite liked the plot, I didn’t think it was entirely “right” but it didn’t bother me enough to stop me from finishing it – and I’d read some more if I get a chance to.  I’ve also read really quite a lot of Pride and Prejudice follow-ons/retellings – some that I’ve hated (Emma Tennant’s Pemberley) and some which I’ve enjoyed (P D James’ Death Comes To Pemberley) and I’ve another (Jo Baker’s Longbourn) waiting on the pile – and they haven’t dimmed my liking for the original.  In fact some of them, have given me a good laugh – although that probably wasn’t what the author intended.

So – I think I’m prepared to risk both the Poirot continuation and the Chalet Girls Grow Up. If you find me in a puddle weeping, you’ll know that I’ve completely miscalculated and have Ruined It All For Ever.

Feel free to share your follow-on novel stories and recommendations in the comments – are there any others that you think I should definitely read?

reviews, women's fiction

Review: Love Me Or Leave Me

veritywilde

Another review of a new book – out today in Kindle, and later in the month in paperback (though I think it’s been available in giant airport size paperback for a few months) – it’s Claudia Carroll’s Love Me Or Leave Me.  You’ll be pleased to here that it’s not one of a series that I’m coming to mid way through, or a serialisation that’s driving me to begging.  I’m also well rested and hopefully coherent!

This is the third of Claudia Carroll’s novels that I’ve read – I have a fourth waiting on the Kindle for me to get around to it (quelle surprise!) and I’ve read a few of her short stories too.  She’s one of a gaggle of Irish authors who I’ll always have a look at when I see that they have something new out, but won’t necessarily automatically buy.

Love Me Or Leave Me tells the story of Chloe – dumped at the altar and rebuilding her life – who takes a job as the General Manager of Ireland’s newest concept hotel – a divorce hotel.  That’s right – you check in married and check out divorced (practically) as the hotel helps you untangle your life from your ex-spouse’s.  But the book doesn’t just follow Chloe – it also follows three of the couples who check in for the hotel’s opening weekend.

I really liked the multiple Points of View you get with this novel – Chloe is a first person narrative – and the others are third person – which helps keep the focus on Chloe and her journey.  But all the stories are interesting and having four means that there are enough twists and and turns to the novel to keep it pacey and interesting without it seeming forced or over dramatic – after all when your heroine’s been left at the altar at the start of the book, there’s not a more drama that can happen to her without it seeming like she’s being picked on by a higher power!  I liked the little reveals of the secrets in the other couple’s relationships and I found myself rooting for different people and various different outcomes.

And for a novel about divorcing couples (and heartbreak) it’s actually a cheerful and up-beat read.  And that’s partly because of that four-way narrative again – each couple’s story is well-fleshed out and feels real, but because there are three of them (and Chloe’s story) you don’t have to have 100 pages of each couple being miserable to set up the split and make you care about what happens to them.  In fact I’d say Carroll’s done a great job of writing each story so that it grabs you and gives you definite opinions about the characters very quickly – without a lot of background waffle.

This is a lovely back to school read – it is romantic and chick lit-y but to me it doesn’t feel like a book for reading on a sun lounger.  Perfect for a rainy Sunday afternoon as you curse the British weather – and the lack of an Indian Summer!  Find the Kindle edition here or pre-order the paperback here or from Hive or at your bookseller of choice.

Uncategorized

Booker Shortlist

veritywilde

Back in July I posted about the Booker Longlist and the chances of the short list increasing my hit rate for award winning/nominated authors – well the results are in. The short list is:

Joshua Ferris -To Rise Again at a Decent Hour

Richard Flanagan – The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Karen Joy Fowler – We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Howard Jacobson – J

Neel Mukherjee – The Lives of Others

Ali Smith – How to be Both

And it’s good news!  I’ve read Karen Joy Fowler’s Jane Austen Book Club, so I’ve read something by one of the authors.  This is an improvement on last year when I hadn’t (and still haven’t) read anything by any of the authors on the list.  This still means that I can’t predict who’ll win, or converse knowledgeably about the nominees (except to know who’s nominated) but, hey, baby steps, baby steps…

stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: September 1 – September 7

veritywilde

There’s a couple of short stories on the list this week, which make it look longer than it should.  I spent Monday to Wednesday recovering from nightshifts (which finished at 6 on Monday morning) and catching up on housework so the reading got a bit left behind – though the slow trains home from my four late shifts at the end of the week helped redress the balance!

Read:

The Empress Chronicles by Suzy Vitello

Pomfret Towers by Angela Thirkell

No Weddings by Kat Bastion with Stone Bastion

Storm in a Tea Shoppe by Carola Dunn

An Unhappy Medium by Carola Dunn

The Lady’s Disgrace by Callie Hutton

Love Me or Leave Me by Claudia Carroll

Who Needs Mr Darcy by Jean Burnett

Started:

The Brandons by Angela Thirkell

Shakespeare’s Trollop by Charlaine Harris

Still reading:

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

I think we should skim over the number of books bought this week (6) as the arrival of parcels from previous weeks and from a publisher or two has already disturbed The Boy’s belief in my ability to reduce the pile.  Still this week I’ve got much closer to up to date on my NetGalley backlog.  Swings, may I introduce you to Roundabout.

books, Chick lit, cozy crime, fiction

Bargain Book Deals

veritywilde

Now I know that not everyone is like me in having a to-read pile a mile high, so if you’re in the market for some more reading material – here are some of my favourite bargain deals around at the moment.

If you haven’t read Jane Lovering’s Please Don’t Stop The Music yet – where have you been?  It was the RNA’s Romantic Novel of the Year in 2012 and it’s only 99p on Kindle this month.

Christina Jones is another of my favourite authors – and the older parts of her back catalogue are being republished as e-books at the moment.  My backlog is such that I haven’t managed to read them all yet – but I did really enjoy Tickled Pink a few weeks back – £1.53 on the Kindle at the moment

Previously reviewed on the blog, Trisha Ashley’s Every Woman for Herself is currently £1.49 for Kindle – I loved it, if you haven’t read any of Trisha’s books before, this wouldn’t be a bad place to start (although my favourite is still A Winter’s Tale which is a fairly bargainous £1.99).  If you want a paperback Trisha fix, the paperback of Good Husband Material is available on sale for £2.99 on The Works’ site – which leads me nicely onto…

If you’re an M C Beaton fan, The Works have a selection of her books including Hamish Macbeth, Agatha Raisin and some of her historical romances for around £2 or £3  and a bundle of five Hamish books for £7.99 here.

Also on The Works website there are all three of Carola Dunn’s 1960s set Cornish mysteries for £2.99- ideal if you want a bit of cozy crime for your autumn nights – the first in the series is Manna from Hades.

I’m a big Lucy Dillon fan – and The Works have several of her books – not only A Hundred Pieces of Me – which I read and adored earlier in the year in the pre-blog era (you can see my rave review on Goodreads here) – but also Walking Back to Happiness and Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts – all for less than £3 each.

And the goodies just keep coming on the Works site (and they’re doing 6 for £10 so you can really splurge) with Laurie Graham’s A Humble Companion.  I love her books – although my favourite Gone with the Windsors is hard to get hold of – and this was her 2012 book which is an insider look at the Royal Household during the time of George III.  Well worth a look.

I’m hoping this list has something to tempt you – if you’re heading to the supermarket this weekend, I’m hoping some of the new releases I’ve reviewed recently will be in their deals – certainly Daisy Goodwin’s The Fortune Hunter should be.  I did try to find out what the deals were this week in WH Smith, but drew a blank.  If you spot any good bargains you think I might like – post them in the comments below!

Edited – I originally posted that Gone with the Windsors was out of print, I’ve since found some copies in some places – so I’ve upgraded it to hard to get hold of.  It’s definitely not on Kindle though, which is a big loss.

fiction, reviews

Review: The Secret Paris Cinema Club

veritywilde

When I replied to this intriguing tweet from Quercus at the start of the month, I didn’t know what to expect.

I did try and work out what the book in question might be (and failed spectacularly) and settled down to wait for the package, which duly arrived bearing a copy of The Secret Paris Cinema Club by Nicolas Barreau – which is out today in its shiny English language edition.  With the author name and the subject matter, I was surprised to find that this is a novel in translation from the German – not from French.  I went looking because I would have loved to have read this in French back in my university days when I had to review a French language book a term (my choices back in those pre-e book days tended to involve dry French classics which I struggled through and did not enjoy).

So, a plot summary:  Alain owns and runs Cinema Paradis – an arthouse cinema in Paris.  He is a man after Mark Kermode’s heart – his cinema doesn’t sell popcorn and he has strict rules about the sort of films that he’ll show.  He’ll also do anything for his customers – particularly one of his regulars – a woman in a red coat. But just after he eventually plucks up the courage to ask her out, she unexpectedly vanishes just as his cinema gets a new lease of life…

This book reminded me in some ways of one of my favourite French films – Amelie.  It’s fun, it’s quirky, it’s almost ridiculous in places and the city of Paris is practically a character in its own right.  Despite Quercus’ tweet, I’d say it’s more about films and acting than it is about theatre – and it’s about secrets and coincidences as well.  The Secret Paris Cinema Club is a little gem of a romantic comedy, which will bring a smile to your face as autumn arrives.  It’s also chock full of film references and quotes – I’m sure I didn’t spot them all – and it’s given me some really good ideas for French films to watch.

This book wasn’t on my radar until I won a copy from Quercus – but it brightened up my commute during nightshift week and I’m hoping that it’ll find an audience beyond sleep-deprived Francophile chick flick fans.  You can find the Secret Paris Cinema Club here and on Kindle here – and if you’re in the US be aware it was published as One Evening In Paris in the States.

books, Uncategorized

Liebster Awards

veritywilde

Thank you very much to Amanda at ChocolatePages for nominating me for a Liebster Award – and sorry it’s taken me so long to post this.  I’d never heard of them before – so I had to have a google to find out about more.  There appear to be a few variants of the rules, but the rules I was nominated under are:

1. Thank and link back to the blogger who nominated you.

2. Write 11 random facts about yourself.

3. Answer the 11 questions you have been asked from the blogger who nominated you.

4. Nominate 11 bloggers with under 200 followers and set them 11 questions to answer.

So here are your random facts about me:

1. I’m a journalist in my day job

2. I really don’t like violent films or horror movies – The Boy had to stop Pulp Fiction half way through because I was so upset.  This surprises people because as part of the aforementioned day (and sometimes night) job I sometimes have to watch really horrible videos.

3. I have a large collection of Chalet School books – old paperbacks and new reprinted (unedited) ones from Girls Gone By. They were one of my favourite series when I was younger – and I’m still working to complete my set!

4. My first job was a bell-ringer at church weddings – £5 per wedding (back in the late 90s) was much better than the hourly rate in a shop at the time!

5. I’m a massive theatre fan and write about it here – although I don’t post on that as often as I do over here, books being somewhat cheaper than the theatre!

6. I lived in France for a year when I was at university – I was at university in Tours

7. As a child I had an obsession with Queen Victoria.  I used to play pretend games where I was her.  Or her daughter Victoria.  This means I (still) know some really random stuff about her and the royal family.  Like the fact that Edward VIII’s name was actually Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David and that he was always known as David.

8. My Granny loved Mills and Boon books.  When I was about 12 I had a phase of borrowing them and reading them.  I thought they were like Sweet Valley High, but with sex.

9. My favourite movie – ever – is Pillow Talk. Although this trailer does it no justice at all.

10. I’m a massive motorsports fan – Sunday afternoons during the season will find me camped on the sofa watching Formula One or MotoGP.

11. I don’t really have a claim to fame – I’m very jealous of people who do.  The best I have is that my Grandad stood as a candidate to become an MP in the 1960s.  He didn’t win.

And my 11 answers:

1. Sweet or savoury? Savoury – especially anything involving cheese

2. What made you start blogging? A need for more than my twitter account to express myself?! Seriously though, Verity Reads Books came about as part of a concerted effort to reduce the to-read pile – I thought if I was telling the world about it, I’d be less likely to ignore the backlog.  It hasn’t always worked.

3. Cats or dogs? Cats

4. Who is your favourite author? This is really tough for me, because there are so many people that I love reading.  I think either Dorothy L Sayers or Terry Pratchett – because I have one or other of their books as an audiobook on my headphones almost all the time and that’s got to mean something right?! Apart from that, I buy everything that Katie Fforde, Trisha Ashley, Laurie Graham and Christina Jones publish.

5. Tell me one interesting fact about you? I used to be a breakfast sidekick on a local radio station.  I started off as the newsreader, and ended up spending the whole show in the studio chattering away.

6. Who would be your 3 ideal dinner guests, (dead, alive, famous or not)? Doris Day, Freddie Mercury and Cecil Beaton.  Who knows if they’d get on or not…

7. What would you serve them? My speciality (and the one dish I’ve never messed up so far) is Mary Berry’s Chicken Taleggio – originally from her book Cook Up A Feast but now widely available on the web.  Here for example.  So that, then a crumble and a cheese board probably – because I’d hate to do something that didn’t turn out right!

8. What’s your all time favourite tv show? Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Particularly the High School seasons.  Every time I watch an episode I remember how much of my vocabulary comes from there – and how it shaped my teenage years. I used to try and wear my hair like Buffy’s (style not colour) was during Becoming Part II *all the time*.  I can still quote BTVS extensively…

9. What’s your ideal date? A night out at the theatre with a nice meal beforehand – something My Boy has got the hang of now – usually arrange the theatre – he buys the dinner! A Dream date would be going to see some Formula One or MotoGP – The Boy took me to the MotoGP at Silverstone last year and it was amazing.

10. Who is your celebrity crush? Oooh.  Tough. Patrick Dempsey maybe – not only is he hot and in one of my favourite shows, but he’s a racing driver in his spare time. I also like Benedict Cumberbatch – the various series of Cabin Pressure are also on frequent rotation on my mp3) and I still have a massive soft spot for David Boreanz and James Marsters from Buffy.

11. Tell me 2 of your favourite bloggers? The first blog I ever encountered is still one of my favourites – and that’s Dooce.  I’ve been reading her since just after Leta was born (and she’s 10 now) – which is longer than I’ve known some of my best friends!  I also love The mighty mighty Monkseal whose blogs on various reality shows are so funny they’ll make you cry. I nearly put him as one of my 11 – but he’s not a well-kept enough secret to be under 200 followers!

Here are my 11 questions to be answered:

1. What was your first job?

2. What’s your claim to fame?

3. What was your favourite book when you were a child?

4. What’s your favourite film?

5. Who was your teenage crush?

6. What’s your embarrassing childhood secret?

7. What’s your favourite TV show?

8. What was your first pet

9. Have you ever lived abroad (aka not the country you come from) if so – where

10. Favourite Sweet?

11. And is there one book you think everyone should read?

And my bloggers and this is where I had problems – so it’s not the full 11 I’m afraid.  I didn’t want to use anyone who I don’t actually read – and I found a lot of the blogs I read didn’t fit the criteria.  In fact it’s a shameful three – but I’ve had this post sitting in draft form all ready to go bar the bloggers for nearly three weeks.  So as it was starting to look rude, I thought I ought to swallow my pride, admit my failings and post as is so to speak.

1. Nutley One

2. A Small Mind at the Theatre

3. The Lovely Emma Louise from EmmaLouBookBlog (I apologise if you’ve done this before and I couldn’t spot it)

So there you go.  I promise I’ll try and do better in future.