Out today in paperback is Louise Walter’s first novel Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase, which I’ve been wanting to read since I heard about it. I love timeslip novels and the blurb looked right up my street – but my rules about not buying hardbacks except in extremis (and anyone who’s seen a photo of my to-read pile knows that I’m not in extremis!) meant I had to hold my horses and wait for the paperback! I was thrilled to get a copy ahead of its release – and wanted to share my thoughts about it.
Firstly the plot: Roberta collects letters left inside the books that she sells, but when she discovers a letter from her grandfather written after he was supposed to be dead, family secrets start to unravel. The book moves between Roberta in the present day (or near enough) and her grandmother, Dorothy, in the 1940s as the reader discovers what really happened during the Second World War.
I absolutely gobbled this book up – all done in two train journeys. I would have tried to make it last longer, but I was too desperate to find out what happened to pace myself. Roberta’s story is slighter than Dorothy’s but is no less fascinating. I thought both the leading ladies were engaging and believable and I really wanted to know what the solution to the puzzle was.* World War II isn’t usually my first choice of historical period to read about, but this has made me think that I need to read some more books set in this period.
This is a really impressive first novel – I’m passing it straight on to my mum (and then probably my sister) and I will be looking forward to more books from Louise Walters.
If you want to read Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase it should be available in all good bookshops (and I hope nice and prominent) like Foyles and also Kindle and other e-readers.
My copy of Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase was sent to me by Bookbridgr in return for an honest review.
* I’m trying not to give details about the plot away because I’m sure there will be other people out there who’ve been waiting for this the way that I have.
As you’ll have seen from Friday’s post, I’ve given up on Titus Groan so that has gone from the list. And I feel relieved. Considering Flappers is 500 pages (and worth it) I don’t think I’ve done too badly this week.
Read:
Deception by M C Beaton
Flappers by Judith Mackrell
Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase by Louise Walters
A Surfeit of Lampreys by Ngaio Marsh
Murder Underground by Mavis Doriel Hay
Started:
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
Beyond Seduction by Stephanie Laurens
Still reading:
n/a
Only one free Kindle book acquired this week – and the rest of my last orders all turned up too. I’m trying not to buy books because I know that I’ve got nightshifts coming up and they make me susceptible to buying stuff and I already have way too many books – even my sister told me the pile is out of control today!
I’ve done it. I’ve called time. I have given up. Titus Groan has gone to the Shelf of Shame. Eight months after I started reading it, I’ve decided it’s not for me, that I have other things that I would rather read and that there is no point in carrying on with something I’m not enjoying just for the sake of saying I’ve finished it.
What prompted my decision? Well it was reading another book that I wasn’t enjoying and deciding to give up on that after 75 pages and only two weeks of trying. The other book was one by an author that I’ve read before but not particularly enjoyed. I was trying this author out again because I’ve seen really enthusiastic reviews and lots of books by this author in the bookshops and wondered whether I’d made a mistake.
When I read this author before, I was living in France and had a very limited supply of English books. There was a foreign language bookshop in town, but the prices were high and the selection limited. I discovered some gems there (my first Isabel Wolff came from there) but some didn’t thrill me the same way. And when you’ve paid £10 for a paperback you know would have cost you £6 tops in the UK, you feel dissatisfied if it’s not Amazing-with-a-capital-A. And I wondered if that was what was behind my previous issues – after all I’d bought TWO of this authors books while I was in France (I mentioned that there wasn’t a large selection didn’t I) so there must have been something there that I liked – even if I had given them away rather than bring them home!
But about a quarter of the way in to the book I still wasn’t grabbed and I was finding excuses to read other things instead, so I decided to give it up. And I thought “How is this different to Titus?” which I’ve been reading it for months, have got about a quarter of the way through and am constantly finding excuses to not read. I was also paying far too much attention to how many pages I’d read – when I’m enjoying something I don’t notice how many pages until I put it down.
So I decided that this was A Sign – and admitted defeat. These two books join my (small) shelf on Goodreads called The Shelf of Shame – The Ones I Gave Up. It’s not a very long list – other books on it include Dan Brown’s third Robert Langdon novel and a Dawn French novel – overall I’ve given up on less than 1 percent of the 1100+ books I’ve got marked as read on Goodreads. I would leave them off my account all together (they don’t count towards my total of books read in a year because I don’t add a date) but this way it reminds me of what I really didn’t like and stops me from making the same mistake again.
I hate giving up on books – particularly if they’ve been sitting on the shelf for a while waiting to be read – but I’ve decided, there are so many good books out there, why waste time on the ones I don’t like. Titus Groan has joined the pile going to the charity shop – after all, he might be someone else’s new favourite book.
Well. Three months ago I posted a picture of the to-read pile as part of my efforts to get myself to shrink my stockpile of books waiting to be read. Here’s how it looked:
The to-read pile back in May
So here we are, in August and I thought it was time to report back on my progress in my quest to reduce the backlog. Brace yourself:
The current state of the to-read pile
So I think it looks a little better. Of course this is partly because I’ve had a rationalisation of the library book stock pile and taken a lot back. But even taking that into account I don’t think that the pile has got any bigger – and if you compare the photos you’ll see that although some of the same books are still there there’s also a fair few that have changed. So I’m not too discouraged – but there is still a lot of work to do.
A much more productive week than I was expecting – and some really good books in there – check out the reviews of American Blonde and The Storms of War. It’s also been a very early Twentieth Century week – Flambards in the pre-Great War period, The Storms of War covering 1914-18, Laura Lamont starting in the 1920s and going through to the 1970s and American Blonde set in the 1940s! And that’s before you get to the fact that I’ve started Flappers I also really enjoyed the Donna Andrews, the Meg Langslow series continues to provide me with a lot of laughs and it was great to fill in a gap in my Christina Jones back catalogue with Tickled Pink.
Read:
American Blonde by Jennifer Niven
Tickled Pink by Christina Jones
The Penguin Who Knew Too Much by Donna Andrews
Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures by Emma Straub
The Storms of War by Kate Williams
Flambards by K M Peyton
Started:
Deception by M C Beaton
Flappers by Judith Mackrell
A Surfeit of Lampreys by Ngaio Marsh
Still reading:
The Beach Hut Next Door by Veronica Henry
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
No books bought this week – so that’s progress of a sort. Still, not all of last week’s splurge have arrived yet…
Finishing off a busy week over here on the blog with a review of Kate Williams’ The Storms of War – which I started during #Sunathon and has taken me longer to read than you’d expect considering how much I enjoyed it – because of the fact that it’s a hardback and I can’t lug it around with me on the train.
Firstly, I love a good saga – I worked my way through Barbara Taylor Bradford’s Woman of Substance trilogy when I was 16 (back when it was still a trilogy!) and then moved on to Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet books, which I adored – so this looked just up my street, especially when you consider that I studied First World War Literature for my A-Level English Literature.
It’s a big hardback – but it’s got such a pretty cover
So, the plot: The de Witts are an Anglo-German family, who, at the start of the Great War, are preparing for the marriage of their eldest daughter to a member of the English Nobility. Rudolph, the father, is from Germany and has made his money through meat factories. Verena, the mother, is the daughter of a lord and they have four children Michael, Emmeline, Celia and Arthur (who is away from home at the start of the war). The book follows them through the war, as Rudolph suddenly becomes an outcast in the country he considers his home and the children face not only the consequences of that – but the effects of the war in general.
I really enjoyed this – as I’ve already said on Twitter – I would describe it as Cazalets do World War One, but with added tensions caused by the family’s German links. The characters were interesting and engaging and having read a lot of books about World War One over the years, both novels and non-fiction, their experiences seemed realistic and rang true with what I have read – which to be honest is only what you’d expect as Kate Williams is a “proper” historian. The fresh angle here is that Anglo-German twist that I’ve already mentioned – and I thought that was handled really well. Book two is promised for next year – and I look forward to seeing how the family fares in the post-Great War world. I foresee interesting possibilities – particularly as there are ends left untied here and a development at the very end of the book creates potential for fresh conflict within the family.
I’ve read some of Kate Williams’ historical biographies in the past – but it was a few years ago and I found the writing style a little harder to get on with than some others in that genre. This, however is an absolute joy to read – and very difficult to put down (despite its size!) – and it has inspired me to bump one of her other books that’s still sitting on the to-read pile up to the top of the list. The front cover has a quote from Alison Weir recommending it to fans of Downton Abbey and although I think that’s a bit of a simplistic view of the market for this book, I think that it is a great way of getting people to pick up what is a large and intimidating looking hardback.
There’s a wealth of books about World War One out there (and lots of new ones appearing at the moment because of the anniversary) so there are lots of other books to read if you like this – I’ve already mentioned the Cazalets which is a slightly later period, but is a similar sort of family saga – but there are also books like Pat Barker’s Regeneration and a wealth of accounts written by people who lived through the Great War – like Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front and Robert Graves’ Goodbye to All That.
Kate Williams’ The Storms of War should be in all good bookshops – as the phrase goes – and here are my traditional links to Foyles for the hardback and Amazon for the more portable Kindle edition. This is the sort of book I always want an actual copy of though – as I know I’ll want to lend it to my mum and sister if it’s any good.
On Good Reads to-reads shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 441 (I’ve got to stop adding new books to the list and start reading them!)
New books* read in July: 18
Books from the Library Book pile: 0
Books from the to-read pile: 9
E-books: 6
Books read as soon as they arrived: 3
Most read author in July: Jasper Fforde
Books* read this year: 129
Books bought: 17 – 13 paperbacks (but they haven’t all arrived yet so the pile is smaller…) and 4 e books
Books acquired**: 9
Net progress: 8 books more on the pile…
Oh dear. I was going really well until the last week of the month – when I bought 7 books second hand on recommendations and another couple of kindle daily deals. But really the problem is the tempting Nature of Net Galley – and my ability to acquire books on there. But as they are all on the Kindle, they kind of don’t count right? I’ve decided that I need to weed the library pile – there are clearly books there I’m never going to read and I should take them back. And will August be the month that I admit defeat on Titus Groan – or will I finally finish it?!
**You’ll notice I’ve added a new category this month – books acquired – to cover the free books that I’m winning or being sent via NetGalley etc and free kindle books.
Out today (that’s Thursday 31st July) is this great chick-lit novel by Claire Sandy. If you’re a Great British Bake-Off fan, this may be the book for you if you’re getting panicky before the start of the new series next week. And if you’re not a baker or a cook, What Would Mary Berry Do? may still be the beach book for you this summer.
What Would Mary Berry Do? and some of my Bernadette Strachan collection…
So, first, the setup: After a disastrous school bake sale, Marie Dunwoody decides that by this time next year it will be different. With a Mary Berry Baking Bible in hand, she sets out to conquer cakes – and change her outlook on life thinking “What Would Mary Berry Do?” At the same time, husband Robert is struggling with office politics – where a muffin is worth more than sales figures and son Angus is struggling with problems at school – something his nine-year old twin sisters are determined to get to the bottom off…
I loved the cast of characters in this book – the Dunwoody family are a hoot and there’s a set of fully rounded supporting characters too, I particularly loved Marie’s employees at her dental surgery. The different strands of the plot work very well – and whilst I was frequently laughing, I also had a tear in my eye at one point too. You don’t have to be into making your own baked goods to enjoy either – the plot and characters are engaging enough to interest people who don’t know their Croquembouche from their Crème Anglaise.
The blurb says it’s ideal for fans of Jenny Colgan and I’d agree with that – but I’d also add that fans of Trisha Ashley and Alexandra Brown would probably enjoy this one too – and anyone who likes their chick lit with a dose of humour. And as Claire Sandy is a pen name for the fabulous Bernadette Strachan, if you haven’t read any of her work, can I point you in the direction of my favourite of hers – The Reluctant Landlady – where you’ll find loveable characters (Bing! Bernard!), a great plot, lots of humour but a bit less baking.
I’m hoping you’ll be able to get hold of a copy of What Would Mary Berry Do at all good bookshops, but in case you can’t get to an actual shop, here it is on Foyles website and Kindle. I’m hoping it will do really well – it’s my favourite book I’ve read this month.
A busy week here on the blog – because a lot of my advance copies come out this week! Today I’m doing American Blonde by Jennifer Niven (published this very day) and tomorrow is my favourite book of the month so far (and there isn’t much reading time left in July) – What Would Mary Berry Do?
So I discovered a little way into this book that there have been three previous books featuring the leading character Velva Jean, which I of course haven’t read. And that did explain the start which seemed to plunge you right into Velva Jean’s life without giving you much detail about what is clearly a fairly complicated back story! But that said, I don’t think you need to have read the previous stories to enjoy this one – I haven’t (duh) and I still liked it.
Velva Jean Hart returns to the US after serving in the WASP as a pilot in Europe. She’s had some adventures there (about which I’m hazy and I wouldn’t want to give away anyway) and is a war heroine. She’s promptly snapped up by Hollywood giant MGM after the publicity surrounding her return. At the studio, she joins up with one of her former WASP colleagues – who is a film star – and navigates the tricky waters of stardom, with a new name, a new image and a studio who wants to control every aspect of her life. But when she witnesses a suspicious death and starts to investigate, she discovers how far the powers-that-be will go to maintain Hollywood’s perfect image.
I picked this on Net Galley because I have a bit of a fascination with studio-system-era Hollywood – and it really delivered. I loved the studio intrigue, the cover-ups and the machinations, although with such a huge cast of characters – many of whom had stage names – I did occasionally find it a little hard to keep track of who was who. I did like the leads, although I felt like I was missing out a little bit on the back story to some of them, which would have explained why she preferred one suitor rather than the one that I liked best!
But this is a really good read – and if you’re a fan of Hollywood’s Golden Age there’s plenty for you here, but equally, I think the murder mystery is good enough to hold your interest even if you’re not fascinated by the machinations of the studio system. Once I’ve got the to-read pile more under control I may well try and go back and read some of Velva Jean’s previous adventures.
American Blonde is available through Foyles and Amazon although I can’t see it as an e-book in the UK. My copy was provided by Net Galley in return for an honest review.
Not a good week. I don’t know what went wrong. I was so excited about #Sunathon but somewhere in the week it all went off the rails. I had Monday and Tuesday off – and The Boy was off too so we had two lovely days together – but I didn’t do much reading. Then I was away for work for a couple of days – and couldn’t take the Kate Williams with me because it’s a hard back and just takes up too much space. Wednesday went really well though – as I read all of What Would Mary Berry do but on Thursday I was out at the theatre after work and didn’t read anything much at all. Then on Friday afternoon I got rained on in my lunchbreak and on my way to the station after work and ended up reading bits of several different things on the way home from work and not really making any progress much on anything. Then on top of that a busy weekend where I didn’t really read anything and this is where we’re at…
Read:
Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons
What Would Mary Berry Do by Claire Sandy
Started:
The Storms of War by Kate Williams
Tickled Pink by Christina Jones
The Beach Hut Next Door by Veronica Henry
Still reading:
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
American Blonde by Jennifer Niven
And as far as book acquisition goes, a copy of a book that I’ve won appeared in the post – and I’ve ordered a few more, but they haven’t turned up yet, so I’m not sure whether to count them in the total or not… Oh and the Christina Jones that I started was a Kindle Freebie this week. I’m trying not to think about the state of the July stats after this week. Here’s hoping this week coming (four day shifts, home every night) is better.
