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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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!
Now considering that I finished the new Olivia Dade last week this may be a surprise to you, but you all know I like Olivia Dade and Second Chance Romance was indeed great fun, but Heir Apparent is a new release and I enjoyed it although I have some quibbles as you will see so I have things to say about it that you won’t have heard before!
Lexi Villiers is living in Tasmania and in the middle of training to be a doctor. She’s busy building an independent life for her herself. But on New Years Day a helicopter lands and her grandmother’s right-hand man steps out to tell her that her father and her twin brother are dead and she needs to come home. Lexi’s grandmother is the queen of England and Lexi is now next in line for the throne. She’s got to decide if she wants to return to the family fold – and if she does she’s got to figure out how to get the British public to warm up to her and how to deal with the scheming that surrounds the monarchy, particularly from her father’s younger brother Prince Richard who is next in line after Lexi.
So in case you’re wondering, in the world of Heir Apparent, Charles II’s wife died and he remarried to his mistress Barbara Villiers, who then acted as Regent when Charles died before their eldest son was of age. This means that Armitage has been able to invent her own cast of characters and a distinct history for the House of Villiers, but as a reader you can also spend time spotting where she’s taken inspiration from the real British royals. So Lexi’s mother died young after an acrimonious divorce from her father, who went on to marry his mistress. You get the idea.
This is a really fun and page turning read – partly because of how much fun it is looking at those parallels to the real royals. I really enjoyed it – right until the end where I don’t think it quite stuck the landing. I really can’t explain why without giving huge, huge spoilers, but I suspect that other people may feel the same as me. It’s a great sun-lounger read right up until that point though, and I don’t even think that the ending issue is because Armitage is leaving room for a sequel. So that’s frustrating. But your mileage may vary on that ending – and you won’t know until you’ve read it! If nothing else it will make for a debate at all the book club meetings – and it’s a Reese’s Book Club pick so it’ll be popular on that front.
I got my copy from NetGalley and as it only came out on Tuesday last week I haven’t had a chance to look for it in the bookshops yet, but I will report back in when I do but it should be really easy to get hold of in the US because of that Reese pick. It’s also available on Kindle and Kobo and as an audiobook.
It’s only a couple of weeks since I did a recommendsday post of First books in mystery series, and here I am today back with a BotW post for another first book in a cozy mystery series. Who could have predicted it…
In Buried in a Good Book, thriller writer Tess has taken her daughter to spend the summer at her grandfather’s cabin in the woods. Tess is telling Gertie that it’s because a summer without wifi will do them both good, but really she’s trying to take Gertie’s mind off the fact that her father, Tess’s ex-husband hasn’t been in contact with Gertie for months. But soon after they arrive, there’s an explosion and fish guts start raining down on them but also a human arm. Tess is suddenly part of a real life murder mystery, rather than writing one – and the detective investigating is the spitting image of the hero of her books, a fact he’s not best pleased about.
This was my first book by Tamara Berry and it was a really nice read for a winter weekend. The mystery is more complicated than you expect and it’s got a nice sense of humour about it too – Tess can’t turn her writer brain off and she knows it’s ridiculous to be caught up in a real life murder and that she’s not helping herself. I read a couple of books last week where the amateur sleuth really wound me up, but Tess was such a great break from that. I liked the group of secondary characters that were being set up too – and the small town setting has enough detail that it doesn’t feel like a cliche. I was really pleased to see that there are already a couple more in the series and I may already have acquired book two…
I read this on Kindle, but it’s also available on Kobo (although more expensive than Kindle) and in paperback with a different cover and at a frankly ridiculous price on Amazon at time of writing although it reckons there is only one copy next so who knows.
You know I seriously picking Romantic Comedy as BotW again – but I decided that that would be too cheaty even for me. But I did listen to Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel about a writer on a show that’s definitely not Saturday Night Live on audiobook last week and it’s still a delight, even if I didn’t love the way the narrator did the male voices. But it remains my favourite novel that includes the pandemic in it and I thoroughly recommend it. But like I say, I didn’t pick it again. I just put all the links in…
Instead I have a pretty newly released BritishLibrary Crime Classic, and another Christianna Brand murder mystery – this time it’s her debut, Death in High Heels. This features a murder at Christopher et Cie, a dress shop of the most superior kind, where the murderer must be one of five young women who work there. Our detective is a young and somewhat susceptible Inspector Charlesworth, who is trying to untangle the murder.
I do like a workplace mystery, especially where you learn something about how things used to be done. Murder Must Advertise where Wimsey is employed at an advertising agency is brilliant for this – with print blocks, art studios and runners, and Death in High Heels also has vanished details about how clothing shops used to be done – with things like women employed as mannequins to demonstrate how the outfits look to clients, and a staff lunch service. The introduction to this BLCC edition says that (like Dorothy L Sayers and her time in advertising) Brand took inspiration from her own spell working in a shop selling cookers to write this. As I said, this is Brand’s debut, and it’s not as good as Green for Danger or Tour de Force but it still makes for an interesting read, even if Charlesworth goes off down a lot of wrong paths and seems to stumble upon the solution.
As I said yesterday, most of my reading last week was to contribute to this year’s fifty states challenge and this was one of them. It’s slightly rule breaking but I’m going with it.
Buffalo West Wing is the fourth in Julie Hyzy’s White House Chef mystery series featuring Olivia Paras, who (as the title suggests) is the executive chef at the White House. In this, a new president has just been elected and that means big changes for the staff at the Residence. It also means Olivia needs to impress the new President and his family, but when some mystery chicken wings turn up in her kitchen, she gets off on the wrong foot with them because refuses to serve them to the First Kids. But when the people who do eat them fall ill, she’s caught up in a plot to threaten the First Family.
This is the first in this series that I’ve read (or even come across) and it had slightly more peril than I was expecting and also a lot of pre existing relationships to get my head around. But there was info there (and not in info dumps) that it made sense and I really enjoyed it. I would happily read more of the series.
I read this one in paperback as you can seem but as it’s nearly 15 years old (and the series has been dormant since 2016) they may not be that easy to find in physical copies. In fact I’m amazed I found this one in Waterstones a couple of months ago. But they are all available on Kindle and Kobo.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 