It’s Tuesday again and as I promised last week, I’m back with a Book of the Week pick – and we’re back in old Hollywood for Katherine Blake’s The Unforgettable Loretta, Darling.
It’s the early 1950s and the titular Loretta is a Brit abroad, escaping from her past in Lancashire by reinventing herself in Hollywood, not as an actress but behind the scenes in the make-up department. She’s new to Hollywood and its machinations, but she’s a fast learner and she has got some weapons of her own as she fights her way through the studio system in the hunt for success.
It’s quite hard to describe what actually happens in this, or give it a genre. It’s historical fiction, but there’s a dash of mystery in there and it’s witty too. But there’s also some sexual violence that I need to warn you about because I know that’s a hard no for some people. I love a book that features Golden Age and studio system Hollywood and this has plenty of that – with faded starlets, up and coming ingenues and plenty of awful men. If you liked The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo this has some similar vibes – but with a darker edge.
This is a relatively new release – it came out in the UK last month, but in the US last week. I haven’t seen it in the shops yet, but it may be that I’ve been looking in the wrong places because of that genre thing I mentioned – or simply that I haven’t been in a big enough bookshop. My copy came from NetGalley but you can also get it on Kindle or Kobo and on Audible.
Another massively busy week – but actually a reasonable list of reading, and I’ve got nothing on the ongoing list, which is always a nice (and unusual) position to be in. There are quite a few books out this week that I have from NetGalley, so I’ve started a lot of those to try and be timely for once in my life – we’ll see how that goes…
Bonus picture: A rare picture of me because I did Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life on Sunday. This year has been particularly terrible one in my extended family and friendship groups for cancer, and I lost a very dear friend to cancer on Election Day so despite my incredible lack of ability at anything athletic, I rage-ran my way around Abington Park on Sunday. I was hoping to raise £200, but I’ve more than tripled that – so that really helped propel me around the course, which was much hillier than my regular route around the Racecourse. I’m just going to leave my donation link here, just in case anyone else wants to take pity on me and my tremendously red post-run face.
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
I’ve got another theatre trip to tell you about this Sunday – because I had a fabulous night out at the Barbican on Friday night.
In case you haven’t encountered it before, Kiss Me, Kate is about a warring couple who are working together on a production of a musical version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Fred and Lilli are divorced, and their relationship dynamic somewhat mirrors that of the characters they are playing in the musical. There’s also subplots with the show’s young ingenue, newly arrived from nightclub singing, and her boyfriend Bill who is also in the cast and has a gambling problem that has led him to sign a $10,000 IOU with Fred’s name on it – leading to the arrival of a pair of gangsters at the theatre.
Kiss Me, Kate premiered on Broadway in 1948 and has music and lyrics by Cole Porter. I saw the last London Revival, which was in 2012 at the Young Vic and starred Hannah Waddingham and Alex Bourne, and really enjoyed it so I had high hopes for this production at the Barbican which has Tony-award winning Broadway powerhouse Stephanie J Block as Lilli and Adrian Dunbar as Fred. The Barbican has a good track record of producing big productions of musicals (see Anything Goes with Sutton Foster a couple of summers ago) and this is a show that repays a big production.
And this is A Big Production – you can see the size of the set from the photo at the top, but what you might need to watch the video to see is that it rotates*, it’s also got a big orchestra to blast out those Cole Porter standards like Too Darn Hot, Always True to You in My Fashion and So In Love. It’s directed by Barlett Sher, who also directed the Lincoln Centre Production of The King and I which came to the London Palladium with Kelli O’Hara a few years ago and has been touring the UK recently, and so has plenty of experience with big, classic musicals. And he’s created a really enthralling evening at the theatre – the show within a show means that there is fourth wall breaking, interactions with the conductor and the audience and plenty of general chaos.
And the cast are all giving great performances. It’s hard to single out anyone in particular, but if you forced me, I might pick out Nigel Lindsay and Hammed Animashaun who play the gangsters, who made me laugh the whole night building to a brilliant and nearly show-stealing Brush Up Your Shakespeare. Which brings me to one thing that I had forgotten about Kiss Me, Kate, which is how equitably the songs are spread out – everyone in the main cast gets at least one brilliant song and there’s plots and sub-plots galore.
I went with my mum who absolutely loved it – and I had such a great time I’m trying to figure out if I can go again before the run ends in mid-September. It’s had excellent reviews from the actual theatre professionals too – but there are some really good deals available on tickets at the moment – I suspect because the Barbican is out of the main drag of the West End so it doesn’t get the passing trade that some of the other theatres do (this is also an issue for the Shaftesbury Theatre – which had a bit of a reputation of being cursed for shows a few years back). I got my tickets from TodayTix who I use quite a lot these days, but you can get direct from The Barbican as well. And if you’re buying last minute they do on the day rush for £30 too.
Have a great Sunday – here’s hoping for an England win tonight…
*I love a rotating set – one of my early London theatre memories is of a production of the Wind in the Willows at the National Theatre where the set not only rotated but it came up from the ground, and more recently I loved the production of Follies – again at the national – which had a rotating set – although that just had a front and a back where as this has three sides.
I think this might be a first. Hold on to your hats, something amazing has happened. No not quite that amazing, but it’s pretty good:
Only two books bought – and I read both of them on holiday so they have not added to the pile! I think this is a complete first. You can read my book of the week review of The Formulahere. And the other of course is the third in Reverend Richard Coles’s Canon Clement series, which I included in my murder mysteries with vicars post.
The second in Ovidia Yu’s Aunty Lee series, Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials, is 99p on Kindle at the moment – I don’t know how long this deal is going to last, but this was a Book of the Week when I read it and so this seemed like a good time to remind you of Ovidia Yu’s excellent Singapore-set cozy mystery series. Aunty Lee is an older lady detective – something that I’ve always loved in murder mysteries – but this time she’s also well connected and relatively wealthy widow and restaurant owner. The food always sounds amazing in this, and the mysteries are fun. If you liked the society vibe in Crazy Rich Asians, this will give you something similar (slightly less affluent but still similar) in the cozy crime world. Do go and read my original series post as well and don’t forget Yu’s other Singapore-set mystery series – the historical Crown Colony series.
We may be into July but there are still some summery romances releasing. This week it’s The Next Best Thing, which is Gabriella Gamez’s debut romance with a librarian heroine, an NFl hero and a fake relationship situation. Sounds promising doesn’t it? And I really like the cover too.
I’m back with the most expensive post of the month – as it’s a rare month when I manage to write this without buying books myself. But I’ll give it a go – hang around until the end and I’ll let you know how I get on!
As usual, lets start with the former books of the week that are on offer. At 99p there’s Emily Henry’s Happy Place, which is last year’s release and thus just out in paperback. Also on offer because the author has a new book out is Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis – and at this point Hazelwood seems to have a book at 99p every month, so you just have to wait long enough for the one you want to come around. I’m still waiting to get my hands on the new Christina Lauren, but The Unhoneymooners is on offer at the moment – this is an enemies to lovers, forced proximity romance– where food poisoning in the bridal party sees the bride’s twin sister go on the honeymoon with the best man – who happens to be her nemesis.
I’m really trying not to be annoyed about this considering I went out and bought the hardback on release day, but the final Maisie DobbsThe Comfort of Ghosts is down to £2.99 at the moment. This was my favourite book I read last month and is a lovely ending to the series, but as usual you’ll probably want to have read the others to get the most out of it.
On the non-fiction from Tara Westover’s Educated is 99p – it’s a few years now since I read this one, but it has really stuck with me because Tara’s childhood is so awful and she has overcome so much. Something I read much more recently is Nick de Semleyn‘s The Last Action Heroes about the stars of the blockbuster action movies of the 80s and 90s -if you liked the Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary on Netflix, then you’ll be interested in this. And if you want some history, Lucy Worsley’s Jane Austen at Home is 99p too.
I still haven’t watched the new series of Bridgerton, but the book that inspired it Romancing Mr Bridgerton is on offer this month – all the usual caveats about the differences between the twenty-plus year old source material and the adaptation.
Well that was quite a week. I’m still not sure if I’m coming g or going. And my brain has been pretty fried so I think that explains the descent into binge-reading of Patti Benning mini-mysteries. I wish I could say what I’m going to do tomorrow, but I don’t know yet and I’m hoping inspiration will come to me at some point.
I promise normal service will return soon, but my brain is still recovering from Thursday night, my sleep is out of whack. England needed penalties to get through to the semi finals of EURO 2024 last night and it’s the British Grand Prix just down the road from me today. And that’s not even mentioning the MotoGP, the Tour de France and Wimbledon. Plus the fact that I have to run around the park today because I’m doing the Race for Life next weekend. Back tomorrow…
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 