The Thursday Murder Club series has featured a fair bit on this blog, but after the last one came out Richard Osman said he was taking a break from writing the series to write something different – and today is the day that that something different comes out. It’s called We Solve Murders and it’s got a detective duo who are father-in-law and daughter-in-law. He’s retired, she’s a private security officer and from the blub it sounds like an adventure caper with murders. So I’m hoping for something that’s a bit early Steph Plum maybe, because Osman does humour in his mysteries. I’m hoping to pick up a copy of this at the airport next time we go on holiday, because once again it’s a hardback first release, and I’m bad at waiting. So watch this space!
Back once again to tempt you into opening your wallet/breaking your book purchasing rules, here I am with the Kindle post. t’s actually a really good month for offers – and given the positive orgy of book acquisition I’ve been on over the last few weeks, the very act of writing this was a little bit risky. How much more will I have spent by the end of this post? Who can tell, and you’ll have to read to the end to see if I’m prepared to admit to it…
Lets start with a book whose sample I loved so much that I bought the paperback straightaway – because the kindle edition was too expensive – because now that Kindle version is only 99p! Yes Summer Fridays is on offer, and it’s really good – although read my review for the caveats about why some romance readers may have an issue with it. Also a bargain and really good is last year’s Christina LaurenThe True Love Experiment. I really enjoyed Kirsty Greenwood‘s The Love of My Afterlife when it came out a few months back, and it’s got loads of buzz and great reviews too – so it’s a total bargain for 99p at the moment. More expensive at £2.29 but worth mentioning because it’s also in Kindle Unlimited now is Annabel Monaghan’s latest book Summer Romance which was BotW just a couple of months ago. A little bit older, but still a BotW is Rachel Lynn Solomon’s Business or Pleasure.
Emily Henry’s Book Lovers, is 99p, as is one of the earlier Katie Ffordes Life Skills, which is one of her books that features canal boats (yes there are more than one of them). The fourth in Jenny Colgan’s Little Beach Street Bakery series Sunrise by the Sea is 99p at the moment. I’ve only read the first in the Lovelight Farms series, but I keep seeing them everywhere in the bookshops, so it’s only fair to mention that the final instalment Business Casual is 99p at the moment.
I’m a big fan of Curtis Sittenfeld as regular readers will know, and Rodham, her alternative story of what might have happened to Hillary if she hadn’t married Bill Clinton is 99p at the moment. I really like Barbara Pym and should probably mention her more often, so you should definitely take a look at Jane and Prudence which is 99p at the moment if you’re interested in witty British authors from the mid-twentieth century. Also in this category is Elizabeth Taylor – I bought one of hers that I haven’t read (yet) in Paris, but one of my favourites of hers is Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont – I have a lovely Virago Designer hardback copy, but you don’t have to have such a pretty one when the ebook is 99p! Another book that I should probably have mentioned more, and which has a spot on the downstairs bookshelf is Mary McCartney’s The Group – if you haven’t read her novel about a group of young female Vassar graduates in the 1920s, where have you been?
I’m slowly working my way through the Matthew Shardlake books when I get a chance, and the second one of them, Dark Fire is £1.49 at the moment. I’ve got the TV adaptation on my list of things to watch next time I get a Disney+ subscription (which may be sooner rather than later given the arrival of the latest series of Only Murders in the Building). Also in historical mysteries is Umberto Eco’s In The Name of the Rose which I have recommended more thanonce and is really worth reading – there’s also a recent TV adaptation of it to add to the movie (which has Sean Connery!).
This month’s Discworld is Jingo at £1.99 – it’s the fourth in the City Watch sub-series, and it’s a good one, as a new island appears in the sea between Ankh Morpork and Klatch and causes no end of trouble. The Georgette Heyer is The Nonesuch, which I actually listened to (again) last week on Kindle and always think is underrated. Summer Lightning, which is one of my favourite of P G Wodehouse’s Blandings series is on offer too
Frank and Red by Matt Coyne is on my Kindle waiting to be read, but it’s also 99p at the moment. And I read a lot of Jenn McKinlay’s cozy mysteries but her latest non-cosy Love at First Book is 99p at the moment. On the non-fiction front, still on the pile after I bought an airport paperback copy when we went on holiday but now out in actual paperback and on offer for £1.99 is David Mitchell’s Unruly.
What did I buy while writing this? Well Patrick Stewart’s memoir Making It So, Hema Sukumar’s Minor Disturbances at Grand Life Apartments which I’ve had my eye on for a while and is finally on offer and Nisha Sharma’s Marriage & Masti which is the third book in her series which started with Dating Dr Dil and is a Twelfth Night* retelling.
And that is surely enough books to tempt anyone – I hope you’re not leaving me to spend alone…
Happy Humpday everyone!
*my favourite Shakespeare play, forever and always.
Yes, the list last week was huge, with lots of good stuff on it – but I have other plans for some of them. Yes, yes, yes, this is cheating because I finished this on Monday. No, I’m not really bothered that I’m breaking my own rules again because I’m jet lagged and I’ve caught something with a cough from the plane (no it’s not Covid, I did a test). So here we are with a rule breaking BotW pick, you’re welcome.
Roller Skates is a Newberry award winning children’s book, first published in 1936. Set somewhere in the 1890s, it tells the story of a year in the life of a little girl called Lucinda, who moves to New York to stay with two ladies while her parents are away in Europe. Lucinda has a greater degree of freedom while living in New York than she is used to at home, and as a result explores the city on her roller skates and makes a variety of friends along the way. Lucinda clearly comes from a fairly well-to-do background, but many of her friends do not, and she learns a lot about the way of the world from her adventures.
My love of children’s books from the first half of the twentieth century is sufficiently well known at this point – and this was one of my acquisitions from Book Con this year. And as is often the case in books of this age, there’s more death in Lucinda’s life than might be expected in a modern children’s book, but given my grandma’s stories about her childhood, nothing that wasn’t realistic. I haven’t read a lot of children’s books set in late nineteenth century urban America and that made this interesting even beyond the lovely writing. It’s hard to tell whether I would have loved it as a child the way that I did Lottie and Lisa – which was written about ten years later and which I used to borrow from the primary school library on the regular and obviously is the basis for one of my favourite Disney movies – but as an adult with an interest in the genre is an interesting one.
I’m not expecting many (any?!) of you to want to read this, but if you do, you’re going to have to pick it up second hand I’m afraid, but there are a few copies on Abebooks.
Well that was quite a week! I’m back in the UK now, but I’ve been travelling again for work – this time to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. I had an amazing time and I also had a lot of reading time on the journey home. I’ve finally got the still reading list sorted out – but I’ve also started a bunch of stuff so unless I’m careful it’ll be building up again…
Bonus picture: so many pictures I could have chosen from last week, but I’ve gone for this one because the Petronas Towers are iconic and they look so cool at night.
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
Another week, another streaming pick and I do apologise for the fact that they’re all over the different services. I’m as cross about it as you are – which is nearly as cross as I am about the fact that I now have to sit through ads mid show on some of said services. Hey ho.
Ever thought “what I really need right now is an alternative history Tudor dramedy with a bit of magic”? No? Me neither. And yet we binged My Lady Jane across three nights and it’s a real hoot and a half. As you’ll know if you’ve watched the trailer (or maybe just by the fact that I said it’s Tudor and she’s called Jane) this is about Lady Jane Grey, who due to the machinations of those around her had an incredibly short reign after the death of Edward VI and was then executed by Queen Mary after she took the throne back. But this is an alternative history, and so there is swearing, a distinctly un-Tudor voice over and a plot that gets more and more bonkers as you go on.
It’s also got a cracking cast. I hadn’t come across any of the younger leads before but it’s got Anna Chancellor as Jane’s scheming mother, Rob Brydon having an absolute ball as Lord Dudley and Dominic Cooper as Lord Seymour. It’s utterly utterly bonkers and incredibly watchable. The ending is left open for a second series, but Amazon have already announced that there won’t be one, much to the consternation of the fans who have started a petition to try and change their mind. Watch this space, and in the meantime, have the official playlist.
Yes, this is early, yes it’s because the pile is out of control and I wasn’t going to be able to get it all in one photo. So there’s another post coming next week … and on that note: what have I bought?
Let’s start at the front and go clockwise – At Mrs Lippincote’s and the French Cazalet are from my Paris trip. Then there’s the next book that I haven’t read in the Library Lovers series, and two more Museum mysteries after I enjoyed the one that I picked up at Book Con so much. Murder on the Eiffel Tower was because I fancied a Paris set mystery after the trip – and this is the first in the series, then there’s Ex-Wife which has just been reissued and is from my inter-war sweet spot. Below Ex-Wife is another Anne de Courcy which I picked up on offer after reading Five Love Affairs and a Friendship last month, and then there’s Adrian Tinniswood’s Noble Ambitions, which was also on offer. And finally there’s the new Rivers of London Novella, which came out this very week and was waiting for me when I got home from my travels on Friday lunchtime.
Yes it’s Friday, no this isn’t really a series post. Well it is, sort of. Let me explain. Back in May 2022 I wrote a series post for Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce books, and in it I said that as there hadn’t been a new book since 2019, I thought the series might be finished… but no! After a six year wait, we have an eleventh book, and it came out this week.
A quick recap for those who haven’t read any Flavia (or in fact my previous post about her). She’s still not quite in her teens yet and a prodigy when it comes to sciences, but in most other areas very much as mature as you would expect for her age, especially when it comes to interpersonal relationships. In this latest instalment, Flavia is still saddled with her even younger cousin Undine, who is desperate to be part of all of Flavia’s activities no matter how hard Flavia tries to stop her or put her off. When a village resident is found dead after eating poisoned mushrooms and Flavia’s own housekeeper is the prime suspect, it is only natural that Flavia starts to investigate herself, which leads her into areas that she could never have suspected.
The next thing to say is that you should not read this as your first book in the series. Alan Bradley writes lovely prose, and his descriptions are amazing, but this has got a lot of threads to it that call back to previous books in the series but also goes in a slightly different direction to the usual historical mystery vein of the series. I enjoyed reading it – it was great to be back in Flavia’s world – although I had to do a quick refresh of where we’d left her as it had been so long. And I would say as well that this doesn’t feel like it’s a final hurrah either. I mean it could be, but there are definitely options.
You can buy What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust on Kindle, Kobo and it should be in the shops too – but as I said, if you haven’t read any of the series before, don’t start here. The others are usually fairly easy to get hold of in bookstores, although they’re now on their third cover style (at least) with this new one so don’t expect to be able to get a matching set…
Our heroine is Brynn, newly divorced and with a new roommate, Josh, to help her pay the bills. On her birthday she makes a wish on a cake that mysteriously appears on their doorstep and the next morning she wakes up inside her favourite 90s soap Carson’s Cove – and Josh is there too – he’s the bad boy and she’s the sweetheart. The blurb is promising a rom com with 90s nostalgia – and this is one of those where I feel like it’s either really, really going to work for me – or somehow not. But I’m always an optimist in these preview posts, which is why I picked it out of the new releases this week to highlight! Prime Time Romance came out on Tuesday if you’re in the US or today (Thursday) if you’re in the UK and it’s a Penguin release so it should be available pretty widely.
Another mixed bag of quick reviews this month – but fairly on brand for my August – something Girls Own, some modern crime and some classic crime!
The Swish of the Curtain by Pamela Brown
This is the story of seven children from three different families who band together to start a theatre company in an abandoned chapel in their home town. Across the course of the book they grow in confidence and reputation to the point where they enter an acting competition against other amateur groups in their town. Children’s books featuring the theatre world are among some of my favourites (the Drina series, Sadlers Wells series and of course Ballet Shoes) so I was excited to read this. And although it’s a bit slow to get going, and may be a bit too long (although it does cover a two year period so maybe the length is understandable) but actually once it got to the final phase of the children trying to prove to their parents that they should be allowed to pursue careers on the stage it was much better. Probably not one that I’ll read again, but I’m glad I read it.
Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmire*
What happens when a hard-bitten LA cop and a little old lady who solves murders in her small village collide? Well, a completely brain fuddling murder mystery that’s what – and I mean that in a good way. The Cracked Mirror of the title is a screenplay, which seems to have lead to several deaths, which the authorities think are suicides, but Johnny Hawke and Penny Coyne are not convinced and end up investigating their separate cases – which soon collide. And lots of other things are colliding in this too – it’s really hard to explain without giving too much away, but I did enjoy it, once I had time and brain space to concentrate on it so that I could follow what was going on. But it is definitely not a straight-down-the-line crime or mystery novel and I know the blurb says that, but I really cannot emphasise that enough.
Death and the Maiden by Gladys Mitchell
Given how much I enjoy the other Queens of Crime, every now and again I acquire some more Mrs Bradley books and try again in the hope that I just haven’t found the right one to unlock the series for me yet, and every time it’s the same problem. They’re just so hard going compared to the others. The TV version clearly seduced me!
Long-time readers will remember that I love a book or a podcast about a business disaster, and this week’s BotW pick is indeed a business disaster, but also a very quick turnaround on one of the big financial collapses of recent times.
Michael Lewis is the author of among other things The Big Short and Moneyball, and was working on a book about Sam Bankman Fried as the whole FTX collapse unfolded. And Going Infinite is the result – the story of the rise and fall of the world’s youngest billionaire and the crypto empire he founded. I should probably explain SBF as he’s known shouldn’t I? For a couple of years he was the bright young thing of the financial world – the wunderkid who had left the trading firm he worked for to found a crypto trading firm and then a crypto exchange. All of this made him the poster boy of Crypto and his friendly nerd persona – wild hair, constantly multitasking and playing computer games while doing TV interviews – right up until the point where it all came crashing down and he ended up on trial for fraud.
On the one hand, this has the fact that Lewis was on the scene when the collapse happened and so this is informed by first hand observations and interviews with the players involved. On the other hand, Lewis went into this endeavour expecting to write one thing and ended up with a breaking news story on his hands and clearly got the book out as quickly as possible after it all happened – this came out in the US just as the trial was starting. On the other hand, I’m not sure the whole thing was quite resolved enough that the point it was being written for it to have a strong enough central thesis.
I read this in less than 36 hours – but I have also read a lot of long reads and listened to at least three different podcast series about SBF and FTX so part of the interest for me is seeing how they all compare to each other and how the story is changing and evolving. So i don’t know how this is going to hold up in a year’s time – this paperback has already been added to with an epilogue about the court case – but for now, it’s the most in-depth look at it all that I’ve found.
You can buy Going Infinite on Kindle, Kobo or in paperback – and it should be fairly easy to get hold of as it’s a high profile author on a big, well known scandal/court case.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 