Long time readers will know that I am a big figure skating fan (but an extremely bad skater myself) so it may not come as a surprise to you that I wanted to mention a novel that’s out this week and features a pair of ice dancers. The Favourites is about a pair of wrong side of the tracks skaters, Katarina Shaw and Heath Roca, who captivate fans right up until something happens at the Olympics to cause the instant end of their partnership. Ten years later there is a documentary coming out about them and Kat may need to speak out if she wants her story to be heard.
I’m fascinated to read this and see how much of it is skating, how much of it is drama and what on earth the incident was. I will endeavour to report back, maybe even before the skating season is over*…
*Worlds is at the end of March so that’s possible right? Right?
I try and write one of these every year, and as ever the new books are weighted towards the start of the year because those are the ones that we know about already and the later part of the year is somewhat less clear. But if you go back and read yesterday’s series post you’ll see quite a few books there in the back half of the year, so it does even out a little bit.
Let’s start with something I have mentioned before: the new Taylor Jenkins Reid – Atmosphere – which comes out in June and which I had pre ordered about 30 seconds after I found out that it existed. It’s set in the 80s and about astronauts in the space shuttle programme and I am very excited to read it.
Next up is one that came out this week and is blurbed as “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets First Lie Wins” – Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagin. It’s about an elusive best selling author who has managed to keep her real identity a secret but is now ready to face her past. I will be reading this, probably sooner rather than later.
Also due to be read sooner rather than later (because I have a copy from NetGalley) is Murder in the Dressing Room which is a murder mystery set in Soho with a drag queen detective. It’s written by Holly Stars, who is a drag queen and writer who wrote the drag murder mystery play Death Drop which has had a couple of runs in London. It’s out in early February and I’m hoping for good things.
On the non fiction front we have Story of a Murder by Hallie Rubenhold coming in March. This is her first book after the really successful and very very good The Five and she’s now turning her attention to Doctor Crippen – again looking at a notorious murder from the point of view of the women involved.
And then let’s finish with a couple of romance novels: Emily Henry’s next novel is Great Big Beautiful Life which is coming on April 22, and Ashley Poston has Sounds like Love coming on June 17. The Emily Henry has two writers in completion to tell the story of a famous heiress and the Poston has a songwriter whose parents are closing down the family’s music venue.
It’s the end of the year and there aren’t a lot of books being published at the moment, but Alexis Hall has a new one out this week so here we are. Something Extraordinary is the third in Hall’s Something Fabulous series and I have somewhat mixed views here. I really like a lot of Hall’s modern set books like Boyfriend Material but I really disliked the first in this series to the point where I nearly didn’t finish it. And o didn’t finish the follow up to Rosaline Palmer Takes The Cake. But these are now in KU and this one has a marriage of convenience (which is a trope I like) and Highwaymen (which I can also quite like) so I may give the series a second chance…
I was trying to get this finished in time for today, but I totally failed because: theatre and reading challenge completion attempts. But if you’re in the US, you can get your hands on this now. It’s comped as The Hating Game meets Beach Read, one of which I loved – the other triggered some of my issues with people behaving unprofessionally. So far this is skirting on the edge of them being too awful to each other for redemption, but I’m only a third of the way through. I will report back…
I finally got myself up to date with Ann Granger‘s Campbell and Carter books earlier this year – and now we have an eight in the series. Death on the Prowl is out in hardback today and despite the December release date, doesn’t look like it’s set at Christmas – or at least if it is it’s not mentioned in the blurb! It sees Jess and Ian investigating the murder of an unpopular man who inherited a cottage in a Cotswold village after his aunt’s tragic death and who is still seen as an outsider by the locals. I’m looking forward to reading it – although I’ll probably wait until the paperback in May on account of my matching set issue – and I am very glad that Granger has added to this series (and Mitchell and Markby the other year) as well as continuing to write her historical murder mysteries.
Here’s the link to the Kindle and Kobo editions – and I’m hoping the physical copies will show up in shops, they certainly usually do at the bigger stores like Waterstones Gower Street and Piccadilly or Foyles on Charing Cross Road.
This is slightly early – because the official release date for this is Sunday, but depending on how you buy this, I think you might already be able to have The Dratsie Dilemma on your device. This is the latest in Gail Carriger’s San Andreas Shifter series – which features similar sort of supernatural creatures to her Parasol Protectorate and Custard Protocol series, but in modern day California and a very different type of world. It’s been four whole years since the third instalment so I’m really excited to see what next for the found family that we’ve got to know and love.
The new novel from Lauren Willig, Karen White and Beatriz Williams has come out this week – and part of the blurb describes it as Murder, She Wrote meets Agatha Christie which is absolutely something I can get on board with. As I said in the autumn preview post this has got a big name author being murdered on a remote island in the Scottish Highlands, with three authors among the suspects.
When I came to write this post, I was convinced that there was more than one novel this Christmas that has got an author being murdered on an island (even an island in Scotland(, but I thought I must just have been remembering being excited about this one, which is hilarious. And then when I was in Foyles the other week I spotted this years BLCC Christmas release in the wild, which is about the murder of a well known playwright at his castle on a private island off Scotland – so I was right, there is more than one, it’s just the BLCC one was first published in 1948 and has been forgotten since then. So I wasn’t going mad, and I had actually remembered something real. Anyway this seems to be a break from their previous books as a trio because as far as I can tell this one only has one strand and it’s set in the present day. The blurb describes it as a pointed satire about the literary world, which is definitely a new development for these three, so I’m excited to see what they’ve written – if I can find a copy which is always a challenge…
I’m going to start with the fact that I have no idea why this is coming out on a Friday, when Thursday is the usual book release day in the UK and Tuesday in the US. But that’s what the bookshop websites say, so I’m going with it as it enabled me to post about the new TJR yesterday, even if I then found copies on sale in Foyles yesterday evening on my way to the theatre. And yes. I checked the release date again and it still said preorder on the book sites.
Anyway, this is the sequel to Mi-ye Lee’s The DallerGut Dream Department Store, which came out this time last year (and which has been sitting on my tbr shelf for almost that long) and has been one of the translated fiction books you’ll have seen in the bookshops this year. In the first book we meet Penny, a new employee at the store which sells dreams, in book two she is continuing to learn about the dream industry – and discovers the people who make complaints about their dreams and tries to work out why some people never come back to the shop.
Will this be the push I need to read the first book, for the sake of my TBR pile we can only hope it is…
Another Thursday, another new book to highlight. This time it’s the new Adele Buck book, The Anti-social Season, which is the second in her first responders series and came out today in the UK – and on Tuesday in the US. The first in the series was Fake Flame which I reviewed back when in May when it came out here. That was about a fake relationship between a university professor and a firefighter after her ex tried to win her back with a public proposal which she tried to set on fire. This time it is Christmas themed and has a female firefighter who is about to hang up her active duty hose and a male librarian who is tasked with teaching her about her new job as the squad’s social media manager. I love the fact that the genders are the reverse of what you normally find in a firefighter romance – or a romance involving a librarian – so I can’t wait to read it – I have it on pre-order so it should have dropped onto my Kindle by the time you read this!
If you want to buy it, it’s available now on Kindle and Kobo. And as a bonus, Fake Flame is 99p on Kindle and Kobo at the moment too.
A step away from the Christmas themed-books today for a new historical mystery. It’s 1774 and Susan’s father is the Dean of Westminster. Life is pretty calm, until the Society of Antiquities arrives with a letter from the King demanding the opening of Edward I’s tomb. Then a ghostly figure is spotted and then a man is murdered. Susan’s father’s job is under threat so she decides to investigate. I do like a good historical mystery and this is recommended for people who like Andrew Taylor (among others) so I have high hopes!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 