books, series, Series I love, Young Adult

Series I Love: Fence

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So this week I’m adding the the graphic novel series that I’ve written about in my series posts – with Fence – a series I’ve been reading for years and hope goes on for more years to come.

Fence is the story of the members of a fencing team at the prestigious Kings Row boarding school. The main characters are Nicolas – the illegitimate son of a legendary fencer but keeping that secret, at the school on a scholarship and having had very little formal training but with bags of potential – and Seiji Katayama a hugely talented but deeply mysterious fencer whose presence at Kings Row is a bit of a surprise to the fencing world, who thought he would be at a better school. Because Kings Row is good – but it’s not championship winning good at the moment, so could this year’s team be the ones to change that? There are other members of the team and we see their stories too, but the Nick and Seiji strands are the main ones.

We’ve got to six collected editions now – and we’ve see the guys at school, at practice, in matches and most recently at a training camp with all of their main rivals. The boarding school element is what drew me to it originally – my love of Girls Own boarding school stories is well known here, but the rivalry aspect and the art just spoke to me. And the art has been consistently really good through the whole series so far – there are various different people doing different things here and there and although the styles vary, like with Lumberjanes they’re consistent in their own way and all really nice too look at.

There’s also a couple of novels now – I’ve read the first but not the second and they get more into the other members of the team and away from Nick and Seiji and I’ve enjoyed that as well. My only gripe really is that there is so long between each book. But then that’s a fairly common gripe for me with graphic novels – but I know they take a long time to draw and that they come out in single editions first so I cope!

You should be able to get Fence from any good comic book shop – they’re on Kindle as well and the first one is at a really reasonable price – although my experience with reading graphic novels on Kindle is distinctly mixed so your mileage may vary.

Happy Weekend everyone!

Book previews

Out This Week: Mona of the Manor

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I was hoping the picture for this post would be from an Armistead Mapin in conversation event, but I missed it on Monday night because work have sent me to a different continent, although by the time you read this I should be nearly home. Anyway, this is the tenth Tales of the City novel, you know I love this series and that I’ve been looking forward to forward to filling in the gaps and finding out what Mona was uptown in England in the 1980s. Hopefully my copy will have arrived at my parents house while I’ve been away!

books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: February Quick Reviews

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We’re into March so here we are with another set of reviews of a couple of books that I read last month that I haven’t already talked about. And I’ve already talked about a lot of books, so points to me for finding three more to talk about!

A Murder Inside by Frances Brody

This is the first in a new series from the author of the Kate Shackleton series. This though is set in the 1960s and our lead character is the newly appointed governor of a women’s open prison which is taking over the premises of a former borstal. And of course there’s a suspicious death – and the newly arrived residents come under suspicion. I really enjoyed this – I ended up staying up way too late on a work night trying to get to the end, before I eventually gave up and I’m looking forward to a sequel, although I hope it doesn’t mean no more Kate Shackleton books.

Grumpy Fake Boyfriend by Jackie Lau

This is the first book of Lau’s pair of books about the Kwan sisters. The sister in this is Naomi who needs a fake boyfriend to take for a long weekend at a Lake House with her friends – and her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. The fake boyfriend in question is Will, a massive introvert and science fiction author who happens to be friends with Naomi’s brother. Will is only doing this because he doesn’t have many friends and doesn’t want to risk losing one of the ones he has, but despite the fact that the two of them are chalk and cheese, there’s clearly some sort of spark between them. I liked the split narrative in this one – and watching the two of them figure out how to navigate a relationship – fake or otherwise – all while under the full glare of Naomi’s friends. It’s not the longest novel but it’s great fun and it zips by. I read it in a day and went straight on to the second book!

Lady Thief of Belgravia by Alison Gray*

This features a thief and an aristocrat teaming up in 1870s London to try and steal back some important documents. And firstly, let me just say that the cover is beautiful. But beyond that this is a bit of a weird one for me because I just couldn’t figure out what it was trying to be – and that’s why my plot summary is so short! The pacing was wrong for it to be a romance, and equally the espionage plot was too thin for it to be a mystery. And because of the fact it hadn’t decided what it wanted to be, both sides fell flat for me. There’s not enough characterisation and character development in either of the leads – you don’t really ever know why Della and Cole are into each other or what they like about each other. The turning Della into a lady lessons are a nice device but she seems able to grasp a ridiculously large amount of knowledge in not a lot of time and the combination of all that just made it all just a stretch too far for me. Never mind.

And that’s your lot – the BotW were The Belting Inheritance, Knife Skills for Beginners, The Love Wager and At First Spite. And the other recommendsday posts were about mid-twentieth century careers books and xxxx.

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: First Lady

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I said yesterday that whatever I chose today was going to be tricky for one reason or another, so I’ve gone for a rule breaker on the repeat front, rather than tell you (again) how much I love the Peter and Harriet books in the Wimsey series. If you want to know about that, you can go and read this post. So, instead I’m back on the Susan Elizabeth Philips train with a book from her Wynette, Texas series.

This plot is quite a lot, so hold on and bear with me. Our heroine is Cornelia Litchfield Case, widow of the President of the United States and also daughter of a former vice president. She’s found herself being pushed back into the role of First Lady and it’s killing her from the inside. So she gives her secret service minders the slip and escapes DC for a cross country road trip. Our hero is Mat Jorik, a disillusioned journalist whose ex wife has just died and is now taking charge of her children – but only to deliver them to their grandmother on the other side of the country. Nealy and Mat’s paths cross at a service station, and soon they’re on a cross country road trip together -in an RV with a surly teenage girl and a baby. The sparks fly between them – and this is the first time ever Nealy has had the chance to get to know a man who doesn’t know all about her baggage and her background, and who has no expectations of her. What could possibly go wrong?

So this is a road trip romance with a side of found family. I loved Mat from the start – he’s an absolute softie with a heart of gold that he hides behind a bit gruff exterior. And Nealy is one of the more interesting heroines you’ll encounter – her backstory is wild. I wasn’t quite sure how this was going to work itself out at the end, but it did and it was really quite neatly done – although it did all happen quite quickly, which is always annoying. But basically this is a fun read with a bit of an unusual set up and is all the better for it. I have the next two books in the series lined up (because they were on offer, although this was not) so I look forward to reading more of the series – and maybe seeing a bit more of the Wynette of the name!

I have no idea if it’s possible to get this in paperback for a reasonable price – but it’s available on Kindle and Kobo. And yes, I did break my usual pricing rules while buying it, but I’m blaming the jet lag!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: February 26 – March 3

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Hello from a mystery location, where it is 30+ degrees and very humid and where I can’t get my head around the massive time difference to home and my brain is a little frazzled. I’m on a work trip, so it’s been super busy – and that’s why the list is a little shorter. I have no clue what I’m going to write about tomorrow, because you’ve heard about all of these authors pretty recently but I’m sure I’ll think of something, or break the rules as usual!

Read:

Have His Carcase by Dorothy L Sayers

Opening Night by Ngaio Marsh

Strong Poison by Dorothy L Sayers

First Lady by Susan Elizabeth Philips

Mr Hot Shot CEO by Jackie Lau

Angel Catbird Vol 3 by Margaret Atwood et al

Sellin’ Out by Patti Benning

Started:

n/a

Still reading:

The Whole Enchilada by Diane Mott Davidson

Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date by Ashley Herring Blake

The Antiques Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C L Miller*

The Last Action Heroes by Nick de Semelyen

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Ummm. Well, two books bought at the airport, two more bought in a bookshop here and a couple of ebooks too. I blame the jetlag!

Bonus photo: clouds appearing on the plane camera just as I approached flying over home!

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

not a book, streaming

Not a Book: Bitconned

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Happy Sunday everyone, I hope you’re all having a good weekend. This weekend is the latest instalment in my occasional series of stuff about scams. I’ve already talked about documentaries about MLMs, about hydrogen trucks, and the next thing I’m expecting a wave of podcasts and documentaries about is crypto. I’ve already listened to a bunch of podcasts about Sam Bankman Fried and the fall of FTX, but that hasn’t really made it to screen yet, but what has is Bitconned, which tells the story of Centra Tech, a crypto startup who created their own currency but also said they were creating a debit card that you could use to spend your crypto in the real world. Except that it’s all a scam.

And what this documentary had is interviews with the people behind the scam. Yes, as in the actual people who carried out the con did interviews for this doc. It’s absolutely wild. And yes, they’re as obnoxious as they seem in the trailer. Maybe more so, but don’t let that stop you from watching it because it’s a truly bonkers scheme they tried to pull – and demonstrates what experts mean when they say that crypto was a Wild West!

Have a great Sunday!

books, stats

February Stats

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Books read this month: 34*

New books: 22

Re-reads: 12 (all audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 9

NetGalley books read: 2

Kindle Unlimited read: 7

Ebooks: 4

Audiobooks: 12

Non-fiction books: 0

Favourite book this month: Simply the Best by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Most read author: Ngaio Marsh because of the relisten

Books bought: ummm… I think it’s about 20 and a preorder.

Books read in 2024: 72

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 730

A pretty good month all in all, although I didn’t do very well on the NetGalley front. Must try harder in March!

Bonus picture: wisteria season not yet underway!

*includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – including 7 this month

Series I love

Series I Love: Heartstopper

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I’ve been saving writing about this series until after Volume five – because at the end of the fourth book it said five would be the last. Except that it’s not – and as there was a two year gap between four and five because Alice Oseman was working on the Netflix series, I’m not going to wait until after book six!

Heartstopper is the story of Charlie and Nick. They both attend the same grammar school but they’re in different years and their school experience has been very different. Charlie is an anxious over-thinker who has been bullied because he’s openly gay, while Nick is the star of the rugby team and friends with everyone. But when they meet they become friends and both of their lives start to change.

And I don’t really want to say much more because: spoilers ahoy and it all takes a while to develop, but over the course of the five volumes so far we’ve seen the gang experience first love, navigate relationships, deal with school bullies, take exams, go on school trips and in Volume five it’s time to look at universities. I love the art, I love the characters – and I recognise some of their experiences from when I was at school – and I definitely wouldn’t want to be back in a secondary school. And as I mentioned, it’s also been turned into a Netflix series – so here’s the trailer for the first series if you want more of an idea about what’s going on:

I’m not going to lie – I haven’t watched the show yet, because I wanted to wait for the books to be finished first, but that was when I thought it was one book to go. So now who knows what I’ll do – there are two series and series three finished filming at the end of last year. One of my friends *loves* the series and I know he’ll be waiting anxiously for the next one. But if you’ve watch the series and haven’t read the books I can recommend them too. You should be able to buy the books pretty much everywhere – I get mine from the Comic Book Store because I like to support them, but they’re in all the bookshops – and as I discovered the other week the new one is in The Works too!

Have a great weekend!

books

Out this week: Right on Cue

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I’ve had a bit of a moment over the last year about romances with celebrities, especially ones with normal (or normal-ish) people too. And this looks like another one and it came out this week. This features a former actress turned screenwriter who is persuaded back in camera to play the lead when her latest project hits a standstill. Then the leading man changes – to the man Emmy blames for the end of her acting career the first time, blockbuster hero Grayson West. But the two of them are going to have to work together to save both of their careers. Sounds like it’s got potential doesn’t it!

books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Romances with grovelling

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After reading At First Spite last week I started thinking about other romances where one of the couple has to do some serious grovelling to redeem themselves. Because as I said yesterday At First Spite has an absolutely epic grovel in it – but it also has some mental health issues that may mean that some people want to avoid it. So here are some other options.

It also turns out that maybe romances with grovels are my thing – because a lot of the books that I came up with were already books of the week! Let’s start with Sarah Maclean because she is maybe queen of the grovel – in most of her series there is a man who has done something awful and who you think is irredeemable and then in the final book of the series, she pulls it off. I could only pick one though so I’ve gone for Day of the Duchess because it is so good – but also because I know some people have had issues with Daring and the Duke because they don’t think Ewan is redeemable – so I think Day of the Duchess is the more reliable recommendation. Of course it’s going to work best if you read the whole series, but it does work on its own as well.

Next up, another historical romance and it’s Sherry Thomas’s Luckiest Lady in London. I can’t really explain this book any more than I did in that book of the week review but trust me, it’s good. A much more recent BotW is Devil in Winter – which is a classic of the historical romance genre and is totally worth reading if you like this sort of thing. And finally in the historical section there’s Romancing Mr Bridgerton by Julia Quinn – which is about to be the third season of Bridgerton and you can read now to get ahead. And if you want to know what he’s got to grovel for, just watch the trailer for the new series…

And now because At First Spite is a contemporary romance, I have to offer a few of those. But I did find this tricky. There are a couple of grovels in the Chicago Stars series, but they tend to be in the earlier books in the series with the most alphahole-y heroes and that’s not necessarily my thing at all. There is also Love Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood, which continues to come up in my posts despite the fact that I have reservations about Tiny Heroines and Giant Heroes (and tell you about that every time!). Then there is Glitterland by Alexis Hall, which I should say I have only read the original version of, so may have changed a bit since I read it but hey. This has a depressed former literary golden boy and someone who Hall describes as a sunshiney glitter pirate. I really enjoyed it a couple of years ago and I really should go back and check the new version. Maybe this is the push I needed? We’ll see.

And finally it’s sort of cheating but I think Olivia Dade’s Shipwrecked also sort of counts for this – although the hero in that hasn’t so much done something wrong as much as waited a long time to prove to the heroine that he’s the guy for her.

Happy Reading!