Another bonus review on the blog today – Iona Grey’s Letters to the Lost. This was my Curtis Brown Book Group book for March – and it would have been my book of the week back when I read it – except that it was a month from it’s release at the time, and I hate reading reviews of books and then not being able to buy them *rightnow*. So here we are, the book comes out today and I can tell you about it.
My copy was an advance copy – so my cover is different to the “proper” one
In modern day London, Jess breaks into an empty house to hide after running away from her violent boyfriend. The next morning, a mysterious letter arrives at the house, and after opening it, Jess is drawn into the story of two lovers in 1942 – Stella and Dan, who is a US airman. And in keeping with my no spoilers policy*, that’s about all I’m going to tell you about the plot.
I’m not usually one for a weepy – and you know from very early on that there are going to be tears involved in this – but I absolutely loved this book. The characters felt real, the places felt real and the crying was definitely very real. I had very definite views about what I wanted to happen to some of the characters (which didn’t always come true) and wanted it to be longer – even though it’s already really quite long.
So if you like timeslips, weepies, World War 2 set epic romances and non sappy saga-y type books, this may be for you. It’d make a great holiday read – and if you’re a “normal” reader (which apparently I’m not, the speed I go through stuff) it’d probably last you a few days at the beach!
As I said, I got my copy in advance because I’m lucky enough to be in Curtis Brown’s Book group, but you can get your copy from Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles and for a bargain £3.99 (at time of writing) on Kindle.
* A policy which I’m increasingly realising means that I can’t say a lot of things that I really want to about books, but which stops me from being that person I hate, who ruins plots and shocks and reveals and spoils people’s enjoyment of books, so it stays!
This week’s BotW is Gail Carriger’s latest – Prudence – and you can’t say that I didn’t warn you that this might happen. Because I did, even if it’s a few weeks later than I thought it might turn up here. And that’s because I took an executive decision to save it for my holiday book – for our trip (to Vienna in the end) to mark a Significant Birthday for The Boy. A holiday book should be a treat, preferably something that you know you’re not going to hate, and as it was already on the to-read pile, saving this meant I didn’t incur the wrath of The Boy for buying books again…
I really like the purple and pink theme. And I’m not usually a pink person…
Anyway, Prudence is the first book in Carriger’s new series – the Custard Protocol. Set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate and Finishing School books, there are some familiar faces, not least Prudence herself – last seen as a toddler in the Parasol Protectorate series. When Rue is given a dirigible, she names it The Spotted Custard and heads for India on a secret mission. But the situation there is not as simple as she had been lead to believe (and that wasn’t that simple to start with) and before long she’s dealing with dissidents, kidnappings and a pack of Scottish werewolves and it will take all her metanatural skills to deal with it.
Now, I’ve read all (I think) of Carriger’s other series, but I don’t think it would spoil your enjoyment of the book if you haven’t read them* as Carriger has been very careful not to give away too many spoilers for the plots of her previous books.** However, for those of us who have read the previous books, you get the delicious enjoyment of being better informed about the past than our heroine, and equally delightful anticipation of confrontations and revelations yet to come.
When I read Timeless, I spotted a few dangling threads left that I hoped were teasers of stuff yet to come – and I was on the right track. Again, my spoiler policy makes it difficult to be more specific than that, but I really like the direction that this series looks to be heading in. The only problem with having read Prudence in fact is that I now have to wait (probably) a year to find out what happens next in Imprudence – and it’s still more than six months until the final Finishing School book – Manners and Mutiny – where I finally get to find out how Sophronia’s world became Alexias.
You can buy Prudence from all the usual sources – like Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles and Kindle. I’ve also spotted it in my local library already – which I haven’t seen before – and is brilliant, because hopefully it’ll introduce more people to Gail Carriger and then they can fall in love with her world like I have.
* Although the Parasol Protectorate is the more relevant to this book if you want somewhere to start
** Although the identity of Rue’s parents is a bit of a spoiler for Souless, there’s no way to avoid that!
This week’s BotW is the new novel from Eloisa James – who is one of my favourite historical romance authors. Four Nights with the Duke is book 8 in her Desperate Duchesses series. My first Eloisa book was Desperate Duchesses 3 – Duchess by Night – which I stumbled across at the library back when I still lived in Essex (so 5+ years ago) and when she returned to the series to add a 7th book last year I was thrilled. Although I’m still really annoyed that we only got a UK paperback release of books 1 – 4 – I had to buy 5 and 6 from the US to read them as they weren’t on Kindle at that point – and then the paperbacks started again with 7. And of course none of them match…
The Historical Romance bookshelf – three difference sizes across the same author in some cases. Your basic nightmare.
Four Nights with the Duke is the second story in the second generation of the Duchesses – which appears to be subtitled “Desperate Duchesses by the Numbers”. Four Nights tells the story of Mia and Vander. Mia needs to get married (no, not because of that) and the only person she can turn to is a man she swore that she would never marry (and he was there when she did the swearing). Vander definitely doesn’t want to marry Mia – after all her father was his mother’s mistress and he’s still Very Angry* about that. But Mia has a rather incriminating piece of paper that means that he’s going to have to do it, or lose everything. So he offers her a deal – he’ll marry her, but he’ll only spend 4 nights a year with her (if you know what I mean) and she’s going to have to beg him for them…
Now that sort of set up is totally my sort of thing** – this is a plot device that totally floats my boat – the spouses at war/married because we had to trope is one of my favourites – right up there with fake engagements and you’ve been like a sibling to me until…x. Not an accidental pregnancy in sight (yay!). Add to that the fact that Mia has an alter ego as a romance novelist and I’m in historical romance heaven. And Eloisa James is such a safe pair of hands. There’s never an anachronism that I can spot, or a jarring word (except when I’ve got the American editions with the Wrong Spelling) or something that seems just too improbable – even for romance.
I read this practically in one big gulp on Easter Sunday – pausing only (with less than 50 pages remaining) to go to the big family meal at my auntie’s in the evening – and if I could have put off leaving to finish it, I would have done. The only problem with that is that I’ve now got to wait a year until there’s another one, and I think I’ve practically read the whole of the Eloisa James back catalogue now – as evidenced by the Kindle folder and the romance folder…
The Kindle folder for Eloisa James books is three pages long
Having read some Historical Romance recently that I was less than crazy about – and a couple of books that weren’t as good as I was hoping they would be as well, I was really pleased that this totally lived up to the hype that I had given it in my head. It’s not my favourite in the series (a toss up between a Duke of Her Own and Duchess by Night) but it’s still really, really good. If you’re not a historical romance reader – and want to see what the genre is all about, Eloisa James along with Julia Quinn and Sarah MacLean are the authors I recommend as starting points (they’re also the authors that keep hold of after I’ve read them – as you can tell from the romance shelf).
You can get your copy of Four Nights with the Duke from all the usual sources – it’s got a paperback release – so Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles are all stocking it – and you never know, it might even make it into WH Smiths and the supermarkets too. And obviously, like me, you can buy it for Kindle or ebook.
And in the interests of full disclosure, I bought my copy of Four Nights – but I am in Eloisa’s fan outreach-y group on Facebook. But I’m posting this because I loved the book – not because they told me to.
BONUS PICTURE: Another brilliant example of the difference between UK romance covers and US ones…
* Sorry, I was watching Pretty Woman over the weekend – and writing that sentence made me think of this quote: “I was very angry with him. It cost me ten thousand dollars in therapy to say that sentence: “I was very angry him.” I do it very well, don’t I? I’ll say it again: I was very angry with him. “Hello, my name is Mr. Lewis, I am very angry with my father.” Although obviously Vander is angry with his mother and Mia’s Father, not his father. But still. It’s a good line.
** The Smart Bitches would call it my catnip. I’m not sure whether I can pull off calling something my catnip. I think I might be too British/dull/self conscious.
This week’s book of the week is the very wonderful and very funny Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. I have recently discovered the Dear Bitches, Smart Authors podcast – and through it the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books website. Now I’ve documented here in the past my slightly shamefaced addiction to US romance novels with the sort of cover I’m embarrassed to take out in public. Now whilst I stick mostly to historicals, these ladies have read the lot – and can dissect it brilliantly and hilariously. If you have a problem with profanity this may not be for you (Hi Mum!) but I just found it absolutely side-splittingly funny and totally on the mark.
My copy of Beyond Heaving Bosoms
As someone who has discovered the massive US historical romance market through Julia Quinn, Eloisa James and Sarah MacLean, I also got a lot of recommendations for old school authors to go back and read – to add to the massive book list I’m accumulating from the podcast.
I was reading this over the weekend whilst I was staying at my sisters – and had to keep stopping to read bits out to her – or pass the book over for her to read longer chunks. She’s not a romance reader – but she found it hilarious too.
My only gripe with the book is that in the chose your own romance novel section, I kept being too sensible and the stories ended too soon… Now I’ve got two days off this week and I’m off to read the new Sarah MacLean which has been sitting at the top of the to-read pile for weeks waiting for me to not have to leave the house!
