Tag: Book of the Week

Book of the Week, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter

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I may not have read much last week (Winter Olympics!!!) but at least one of the books I did read – and also really enjoyed – is out today so once again I’m managing to be timely. Even if it is a sort of accident.

In 1920s Montreal, Agnes is looking for a new home for her cat shelter. The previous one is collateral damage in a fight between two magicians so they can’t stay there, but no one is keen to rent a shop to a charity dedicated to rescuing street cats. And that is how the shelter ends up being a front for a mysterious magic shop. As the cats make themselves at home upstairs, downstairs Havelock Renard, the world’s most famous magician and possible Dark Lord is selling magic from the basement. Agnes isn’t happy about being connected with magic – she’s dedicated to the cats – but when one of Havelock’s enemies starts threatening him, she’s drawn into the world of the magicians and may end up having to help Havelock in order to save the world.

The first thing to say about this, is that this is incredibly Howl’s Moving Castle coded – but with more romance. And given that the thing I wanted from the movie of Howl was more romance, that was exactly my jam. Yes, it’s also looking at loss and grief, but it’s got a grumpy, misunderstood magician and an efficient non-magical person who isn’t taking any of his nonsense. I really loved the world building and the way that it was woven into the story and revealed as the plot unfolded rather than info-dumped on the reader, and the denouement at the end was so moving that I ended up crying on a train, which hasn’t happened in a very long time! I could absolutely have spent another 100 pages in the world at the end – and if there’s a sequel I will be first in line!

I’ve used the UK cover for the image at the top, because that’s what you’ll see in the shops, although I have to say that I’m not sure I would have picked it up in a shop if I’d seen it although I can’t quite put my finger on why. The version that I got from Netgalley had the US cover – which I’ve included a screenshot of below – because it’s so pretty but it’s also so 1920s and such a different vibe. Anyway. I have learned my lesson and I will be off to have a look at Heather Fawcett’s Emily Wilde series which I’ve seen around but haven’t really picked up.

My copy came from NetGalley as I mentioned, but this is out today in hardback, Kindle and Kobo. I’ll be checking the shops for it so I will report back if/when I see it about how likely it is for you to be able to find this one in the wild. Also, while I have your attention. Hattie Brings the House Down, which is the first book featuring Hattie from Hattie Steals the Show (one of my favourite new books last year) is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment – so if you haven’t managed to read any either of those yet, this may be your chance!

Happy Reading!

detective, Recommendsday

Book of the Week: Cyanide in the Sun

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We’ve reached the sixth Tuesday of 2026 and I’ve picked a British Library Crime Classic as Book of the Week. I haven’t quite made it to two months since the last time I picked a BLCC book, but given that I was disappointed by a couple of the things I read this week, I really had no other option…

Cyanide in the Sun is a collection of eighteen holiday-themed short stories. Among the authors are Christanna Brand, Anthony Berkley, Anthony Gilbert, Julian Symons and Michael Innes among others. I hadn’t read any of these before – which I think is because a lot of them were either published in newspapers or in hard to get collections. And the nature of newspaper stories means some of them are really quite short, but I enjoyed that about the collection – they were in and out and didn’t outstay their welcome if that makes sense. There are a few here that are really quite clever with nice twists that leave you surprised.

I find that short story collections can be a bit patchy – with the BLCC it can sometimes be because the stories aren’t as good as you want them to be, as opposed to there being something that’s been around a bit in them. But this is a good one with stories picked from some of the most successful of the recent BLCC authors. Here in the UK it’s definitely not the right time of year to be reading holiday stories if reading about sunshine and beaches when the weather outside is wet and cold gets you down, but personally I usefully find it a nice treat to be taken away from the worst of the weather. And last week was definitely in the worst of the weather category at times!

This one is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment, so it’s not on Kobo, but once it has rotated out of that it should be back on other ebook platforms. And of course it’s also available in paperback which you can get direct from the British Library bookshop where they have a three for two on the Crime Classics.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: The Future Saints

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We’re into February and for the third time in four Books of the Week so far in 2026, I’ve picked a new release. OK, so this came out the week before last not last week, but it was still a late January release and so I’m claiming my prize.

Anyway, The Future Saints is about Theo, a music executive and the latest band he’s been sent to try and rescue: The Future Saints. The three-piece band has been struggling (unsurprisingly) since the death of their manager and when Theo first sees them they’re bombing at a dive bar in their home town. But they owe their label one more album and Theo’s job is to try and get that done and complete their contract. Hannah, the group’s lead singer, has taken them in a new direction with tortured rock about grief and loss replacing their earlier California-pop-surfer sound. But when one of Hannah’s performances goes viral it looks like the band is on an upward trajectory even as Hannah appears to be spiraling out of control. Can Hannah – and her sister Ginny – survive the effects of fame and overcome the tragedy that the band has suffered? And can Theo help them through it and keep his career?

I read one of Ashley Winstead’s previous novels, The Boyfriend Candidate, nearly three years ago. That was a romance, but since then she’s written thrillers – until this. The Future Saints is comped with Daisy Jones and the Six in the blurb and although that’s not quite right (for me at least) it’s definitely different to both of those prior genres Winstead has written in. There isn’t a thriller plot here but there is a romance strand, but it’s not the main point to the plot – which is how does a band deal with a tragedy and how can you save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.

It’s also hard to explain all of what is going on here without giving a major element of the plot away, which the blurb and the early stages of the novel are very careful not to do, so I’ve respected that, but I also need to say that it was quite unexpected and kept me guessing about what was going on and how it was all going to work out for a long time. I also thought that the resolution of the novel was really well done in a way that I hadn’t thought possible at times. It has a few overblown or over drawn moments, mostly when it came to Theo, who for a smart person is remarkable dense at times when it comes to his career, but I enjoyed it and I think it would make a really good book club book.

My copy of The Future Saints came from NetGalley, but it’s out now in Kindle and Kobo – where it’s only £3.99 at time of writing, as well as in paperback. I haven’t spotted it in the shops yet, but I will keep looking

Happy Reading

Book of the Week, new releases

Book of the Week: Beattie Cavendish and the Highland Hideaway

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Happy Tuesday everyone, and I’m back with a Book of the Week pick after last week’s skip, although I have a slight issue, because although NetGalley says it was out last week, none of the sites seem to have it as out until the middle of February. But as it was the best thing I read last week, I’m still writing about it. Sorry, not sorry. I’ll try and remember to remind you when it comes out.

It’s 1949 and Beattie Cavendish works for GCHQ. Officially she works in admin and training secretaries, but actually she’s a covert operative. When her bosses send her to Scotland to investigate a disappearance at a a listening station. The staff there are suspicious of her, and she has a job on her hands to find out what is going on. Her uncle lives near the station but when she goes to visit, she discovers that his cottage is empty and looks like it was left in a hurry. Beattie becomes convinced that the two things are related and starts to dig in to what is going on in the Highlands with the help of private investigator Patrick Corrigan, who is all to happy to leave London for a bit after having caught the attention of some Russian gangsters.

This is actually the second book featuring Beattie, and although I haven’t read the first it didn’t really cause me too many problems with the plot. There are some throwbacks to that previous novel but enough is explained that you can follow along – although it did make me interested in reading that earlier book. This is the first book by Mary-Jane Riley that I’ve read but also the first Cold War set historical mystery that I’ve read in quite a long while. And this is specifically Cold War (rather than generic 1950s) because of Beattie’s work and all the circumstances of the mystery. And I enjoyed it a lot.

There are some commonalities in Beattie’s back story with other characters that I have liked in inter-war-set mysteries – I can’t really tell you what because it’s spoilers – and it makes for an interesting character. I’m also interested in the friendship with Corrigan and the context around that – this is where I did feel that I was missing some context – he has a fiancée and without having read the first novel I wasn’t sure if I was meant to be rooting for him to break it off with her for Beattie or not – because from the information given his fiancée had helped in that previous mystery even if her actions in this one seemed to be slightly against what Patrick wants in terms of his future. So definitely up for reading a third book to see what happens there.

My copy came from NetGalley, as I said at the top it’s not out until February 19th. You can however pre-order in Kindle or Kobo. There is also apparently a paperback edition coming in the autumn.

Happy Reading!

announcement, Book of the Week, books

No Book of the Week!

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I’m sorry! Too much skating, not enough reading . I’ve got three things part finished but nothing to write about today so I’m giving myself a pass this week. In the meantime, here are some of my favourite performances from last week that might have gone under the radar if you only watched the final groups of the competition:

Josefin Taljegard from Sweden absolutely nailing her skate to It’s All Coming Back To Me Now, skating second in the women’s free programme (after the first person fell five times) and getting a standing ovation from the crowd for her performance, musicality and emotion. And we didn’t give many ovations.

We’ve had a lot of Moulin Rouge routines over the year but nothing quite like The Finns and their slightly unhinged but very entertaining take on it (that’s them in the picture at the top taking their bow).

And finally, my prediction for a potential viral moment at the Olympics: if Tomas Llorenc can land the triple axel at the start of this Minions programme for in Milan it will take the roof off.

Enjoy!

Book of the Week, Book previews

Book of the Week: Meet the Newmans

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Happy Tuesday everyone and this week I’ve picked one of this week’s new releases – it’s out last week if you’re in the US or on Thursday if you’re in the UK. Check me out being actually topical for once.

It’s 1964 and Del and Dinah Newman and their two sons are household names across the States as the stars of a prime time TV show based upon their lives. But their 12 year contract is coming to an end and the ratings are down, the times are changing and behind the scenes the family itself is fraying: Dinah and Del are sleeping in separate rooms, elder son Guy has a secret in his private life and younger son Shep, a rock and roll teen idol, may have run into a problem his dad can’t buy him out of. And then Del is in mysterious car crash that leaves him in a coma with just weeks to go before the season finale – which could well be the series finale. Dinah decides to take matters into her own hands and take over the reigns of the family and the show. But can they keep it all together to get the finale across the line?

This is Jennifer Niven’s latest novel and is being blurbed as for fans of Lessons in Chemistry and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and I would say that that is a pretty good comparison. The family live in the spotlight and who struggle with it in various different ways but as well as that the world has changed around them and their brand of entertainment hasn’t changed fast enough. It’s also a look at the way that women were viewed in society in the 1960s and the restrictions that they chaffed against (or not in some cases). It felt really timely to me, because the fight for various rights has never really gone away and it is good to have a reminder of how recently some of these things actually happened. But that makes it sound a lot heavier a read than it is – it’s fun and frothy and surprised me in how things all resolved at the end. I do hope that’s not too much of a spoiler!

My copy came from NetGalley and I’m writing this before the release in the UK so it’s quite hard to tell how widely available this will be in the bookshops, but I’m hoping to spot it soon because Waterstones are showing plenty of copies on their website. And of course it’s also available in Kindle and Kobo and as an ebook.

Book of the Week, romance

Book of the Week: Totally and Completely Fine

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It’s that time again: the first Book of the Week of a New Year. And you can tell that we’re in the depths of winter purely from the photo of the book, because it’s getting harder and harder to get enough daylight to get a not-dark picture of anything. Hey ho. We’re past the shortest day now…

In Totally and Completely Fine, Lauren is still in the same small town in Montana where she grew up. She’s the widowed mother of a teenage daughter, but her reputation as a teenage tearaway still looms large in the mind of some of the town’s residents. She doesn’t really care about how others see her, but she’s still drifting through life after the loss of her husband. Then when she visits her brother Nate on the set of a movie he’s working on she meets his co star Ben. Ben is a decade younger than her and about to be an even bigger deal than he already is, but their attraction is mutual. But when Ben comes to town to help Nate relaunch the local theatre, there’s a chance that it could be something more than a one time thing – if Lauren can find a way to reconcile the different parts of her life.

Now if some of the names here sound familiar, that’s because Nate is the hero of one of Sussman’s previous books, Funny You Should Ask in which Lauren and her daughter Lena also make an appearance. I loved that previous book, and it’s fun in this to see Nate and Chani again and get some more of their story. But this really is about Lauren as the narrative switches between parts of her past – her teenage years, her marriage to Spencer – and her present. Lauren and her husband were happy, she is heartbroken by his death and this is about a new way of living with grief as well as about finding a new love.

It’s a bit of a tearjerker at times, and if I really just wanted Lauren to use her words to her therapist to help herself more, I get why she didn’t and it made for a great payoff at the end. None of the characters here are neat and easy, they’re all messy and complicated and have baggage – which is what makes it so satisfying when they work things out in the end. I enjoyed reading it, and it reminded me why romances with Proper Grown Up Characters are so good, after what feels like a bit of a string of romances with leads who were exasperating in their inability to adult properly!

My copy was a paperback, but it’s also available in Kindle and Kobo and should be fairly easy to find in a big enough bookshop – I’ve definitely seen it in a few.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, Christmas books, reviews

Book of the Week: Season of Love

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It’s the last Tuesday of 2025 and that strange period between Christmas and New Year where no one is quite sure what day it is, where we’re all still eating meals at strange times and there’s a box of chocolates just open on the counter. So before the Christmas mood is completely over, I’ve got a festive BotW pick for you.

Cover of Season of Love

Artist Miriam Blum hasn’t been back to her aunt’s Christmas tree farm in a decade, but when she hears that Aunt Cass has died, she heads back to Carrigan’s to sit Shiva. Her plan is to be in and out as quickly as possible – avoiding her family and having to deal with the difficult emotions that being back there bring up. But that’s all thrown up in the air when she discovers that Cass has left her a share in the business – and it’s at risk of going under. Noelle is the farm’s manager and she really doesn’t want Miriam around – she’s spent years dealing with the fall out from Miriam’s flight and she thinks Miriam is nothing but trouble. But sparks fly as they’re forced to work together to try and save the Christmas tree farm.

There is a lot of trauma in both Miriam and Noelle’s backstories – Miriam’s father is absolutely terrible in ways that I can’t really go into because: Spoilers, and Noelle has severe abandonment issues, so although this is billed as a rom com, the plot and underlying conflict here are less frothy and fun that that might suggest. But don’t let that put you off, because there is a lovely found family in the Carrigan’s community, there are people who use their words to sort out conflicts (well mostly) rather than them being fixed by magic sex. In fact this is pretty closed door on the actual romance front as well as being pretty slow burn, reluctant attraction in trope terms.

I really enjoyed this and read it in less than 24 hours. And as you might expect from a book about a Jewish-owned Christmas tree farm, the actual Christmas content here is mostly decoration and baubles (rather than church and Jesus) because the characters are only really interested in Christmas as far as it is needed for their business to work – and part of the plot sees them looking at how they can become less dependent on Christmas as a money earner. There are now two more books in this series, and I really want to read them!

This is available on Kindle and Kobo and allegedly in paperback although I haven’t seen it in the bookshops (and believe me, I’ve looked).

Happy Reading

Book of the Week, detective

Book of the Week: Murder Most Modern

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It’s Christmas Eve Eve and this is a bit of a cheat because I finished it on Monday morning – but I did finish it so early that Goodreads still tried to date it as Sunday, so that’s almost like I did finish it on Sunday right? I’ll keep telling myself that…

It’s 1931 and Clarice and Cliff have been invited to a housewarming party at a new modern mansion on the coast. Their host, Sir James, has been persuaded to build it by his second wife Lady Theodora, who seems determined to set her stepchildren agains her. But when she’s found dead in the swimming pool they are not the only people who might have wanted her out of the way. The police think they know who did it but Clarice and Cliff aren’t convinced so set out to investigate themselves.

This is the second In Hugh Morrison’s new series. I mentioned the first one in Quick Reviews back in February but you really don’t have to have read that to enjoy this, which is why I’m fine with breaking my own rules about only recommending first in series. I like a mystery set at a country house and this one has plenty of suspects and a denouement that makes a change from suspects sitting around in a drawing room to be accused. It’s definitely a summery book, so reading it in the depths of winter will make you pine for a bit of sunshine – particularly if you’re reading it on the winter solstice! – but if you’re in the southern hemisphere it might feel more apt this week than a snowy Christmas book!

This is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment, as is the first one. This of course means it’s not on Kobo. Amazon claims to have a paperback, but I suspect it’s a print on demand type situation so I don’t think you’ll find it in the shops – certainly I don’t think I’ve seen any of Morrison’s other books in the wild.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, Forgotten books, mystery

Book of the Week: The Odd Flamingo

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Yeah, I know, it’s only been three weeks, but I’m back with another British Library Crime Classic pick. I can’t help myself but in my defence, this only came out in the summer, so it’s a relatively recent release and it’s also in Kindle Unlimited at the moment, so I’m going with it.

Cover of The Odd Flamingo

When Will gets a phone call from the wife of an old school friend to come and help her, he finds himself drawn into a rather seedy potential scandal. A young woman called Rose has come to call on Celia and says she is pregnant, and the father is Celia’s husband Humphrey. Celia wants Will firstly to deal with the visit, but then because he’s a lawyer to try and handle the situation for them. The Odd Flamingo of the title is a seedy club where Will and Humphrey both used to visit when they were younger, but where Humphrey it seems is still a habitue. Will’s staid life is soon caught up in potential murder and blackmail as he tries to work out what is going on.

Nina Bawden is probably most famous for her World War Two set children’s novel, Carrie’s War. This is from the very start of her career – her second published novel which originally was published in 1954, twenty or so years before Carrie’s War. But you can see the shadows of her later work in it, even though the audiences are so different. It’s got plenty of twists and turns and it keeps you turning the pages. The portrayal of the London underworld is really atmospheric and there isn’t really a sympathetic character among any of them, which I liked about it but may frustrate others. I really enjoyed it – I raced through it to see how it all turned out and which particular awful person was going to be responsible for it all.

As I said at the top, this is in Kindle Unlimited so it’s not on Kobo at the moment but of course it’s also in paperback and the British Library shop is still doing three for two again at the moment – so you could buy this and Death in High Heels and get A N Other BLCC for free!

Happy Reading!