Tag: autumn reading

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Cozy Autumn reads

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I don’t know about you, but there’s something about some books that means I just want to get them out to read them in the autumn. Curl up on the sofa with a blanket and re-read a favourite type things. So here we are today with some of the books that I think would make a great read at this time of year.

I would say there are two big themes in the autumn. One is back to school and the other is Halloween. Well the spooky books can wait til next month, but I have a boat load of school books on my shelves as you know, but most of them are for kids and are somewhat… classic. So I’m going to suggest Jenny Colgan’s Maggie Adair series – I’ve read the first two which were originally published under the pseudonym of Jane Beaton, and there are now two more. They’ve been blurbed as Mallory Towers but for Grown ups if that helps with the vibes. The first one is Class, then Rules, Lessons and most recently (earlier this year) Studies and they should be relatively easy to get hold of.

Autumn is also the perfect time to start a new to-you series. I often do a re-read of The Cazalets at this time of year, and given that I bought Casting Off in French the other week, I could try my luck at that if my brain is feeling in gear. But I think Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire books also make for good autumn reading. You don’t have to read them in order, but the earlier ones are better – my choices for good ones that feel autumnal include the first one High Rising, or Pomfret Towers or The Brandons. And there are also a couple of school-set ones if you want to continue the back to school vibes. And it’s also a pretty good time to start a Cozy Crime series – and goodness knows I’ve written about enough of them over the years, although some feel more autumnal than others – probably due to where they’re set. So for example Jenn McKinlay’s Cupcake Bakery series feel like more summery books to me because they’re set in sweltering hot Arizona, but her Library Lovers series definitely feels autumnal because it’s set in Connecticut and there’s often talk of stormy weather. I know. I’m weird.

If you want a more recent release, I think recent BotW The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club would be a good pick – because it’s about new starts and despite having been out of school for a while I always think of the new school year as a new start.

And that’s your lot for today – Happy Humpday!

Book News, books

Upcoming Excitement

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Now seemed like a really good chance to mention a few books that I’m really excited to read over the next few months.  And also if I tell you that I’m going to read them over the next few months, then I might actually manage to do it!

Firstly, out this week just finishing, Laurie Graham’s The Grand Duchess of Nowhere.  I love Laurie Graham’s books – as I may have mentioned before, Gone with The Windsors is one of my all time favourites, so I’m always excited to read something new from her.  Grand Duchess has just come out in hardback, so it may well go on my Christmas book list if I don’t manage to resist snapping it up before then!

Coming out in November is the latest book from Marian Keyes.   I’m expecting The Woman Who Stole My Life to be one of the big books this Christmas and I’m excited to see what Marian has come up with this time.  She’s one of my favourite authors on Twitter (so funny) and her books are always the right balance of funny, sad and thought provoking.

Also on my watchlist is Mhairi McFarlane’s It’s Not Me, It’s You – which is out the same day as the Marian Keyes.  The blurb for this is totally up my street – a quest for the heroine’s real self with dodgy jobs, weird bosses and handsome journalists. Sounds perfect and I’m really looking forward to it.

Now there are a whole bunch of other books that are coming out soon that I’m hoping to read too – but they’re all themed around a major festival that happens in December and I refuse to start talking about that this early.  Having worked in a shop through sixth form and university I have developed an aversion to the countdown to that particular event starting too early.  But rest assured, I will be posting about books suitable for reading at that time of year in enough time for you to get them on your gift lists or to stock up for reading in front of roaring fires whilst you eat seasonally appropriate food stuffs.  Just not in early October. I can’t do it.

 

Chick lit, fiction, new releases, Uncategorized

Review: The Honeymoon Hotel

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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