Verity Reads Books (lots of them)
In which our heroine attempts to tame the to-read pile
We’re definitely in to the run in to Christmas now and the new books are starting to thin out, but one of (the last of?) this autumn’s buzzy romance releases came out this week. We’re in a bit of a phase of romances set around weddings, and Julie Tieu’s Fancy Meeting You Here has a heroine who is both bridesmaid and florist at three of her friends’ weddings over just a few months and a hero who is a caterer. I had it pre-ordered and I’m looking forward to reading it!
I just wanted to mention that the third in Ashley Herring Blake’s Bright Falls series of F/f romances has come out this week. I read the first two back to back earlier this year and have been waiting for this one to finish off the set. Iris has been a secondary character in the other two and I’m really looking forward to seeing what her happy ending looks like. This is very much a trilogy (or at least I think it is) so do try and read the others first for maximum effect. And I promise I will report back when I’ve read it.
Just a quick post today to mark the fact that Sweet Mercies, the sequel to recent BotW Small Miracles, is out today. It’s a Christmas book and I’ve started it, but not finished it yet because of that whole reading mojo slightly awol thing that I mentioned on Monday. I will get there though and it is on track to be my first Christmas novel of the season!
Last week it was the Christmas memoirs starting to appear, now it’s the Christmas-themed novels. And how could I not mention that the new Meg Langslow has arrived this week. Birder, She Wrote was a great title, but I think Let It Crow! Let It Crow! Let It Crow! may be the best Christmas-themed pun of the year. Anyway, everyone’s favourite blacksmith, mum and super-organiser and her family are back and it’s promising actual weapon forging as well as the return of Faulk and Ragnar. I’m really looking forward to reading it. Also book 35 has a title now too – Between a Flock and a Hard Place. Honestly I don’t know who comes up with Donna Andrews’s titles – Donna or her team – but I salute whoever it is.
Enjoy!
It’s the start of Christmas release season, and the first big memoir of the festive calendar is out, and it’s from actor Patrick Stewart. Depending on your age he’s probably either Captain Picard or Professor X to you, but he’s had an incredible theatre career as well and this seems to be a full autobiography- from early days in acting (he trained with Brian Blessed!) through the RSC and off to Hollywood and back. This is the point where I mention that I was lucky enough to meet him a few years back while working on a piece about the RSC’s costume sale and he was a total delight. I had a flick through a copy in Foyles this week and the photo suggestion would suggest it’s heavy on the theatre career and lighter on the Star Trek despite the title, but I may be mistaken. He’s doing a tour to promote it – so expect to see him popping up on a chat show near you soon too.
Back in January I did an anticipated books post here – and almost all the ones that i mentioned have now been published. So I’m coming back around for the stuff that’s still to come this year!
There is a new Alexis Hall coming in October, the cover is very Boyfriend Material-sque but it’s don’t let that fool you – Ten Things That Never Happened has a new couple and has a fake amnesia plot line… Staying with contemporary romance, I love a theatre-set book, so I’m looking forward to Amelia Jones’s The Stage Kiss which comes out in December. And they’re closer to inspirational than plain romance, but the next in Beverly Jenkin’s Blessings series, A Christmas to Remember finally arrives in mid-October. I haven’t read Love in the Time of Serial Killers yet, but Alicia Thomson’s next book is out in a couple of weeks at the start of August – With Love, from Cold World is about two workers at a Florida tourist destination where it’s always winter.
Moving to historical, and Sarah Vaughn has written a Regency-era graphic novel called Ruined about a marriage of convenience, and I love a marriage of convenience story (although I realise I still haven’t finished that recommendsday post about them I’ve been writing for years so have a link to the one about fake relationships instead ) so I’m really looking forward to reading that – it’s out in at the end of November. Staying with historical fiction, Mary Jo Putney has a new historical romance series set in Cornwall starting with Silver Lady which comes out at the end of November. It’s promising swashbuckling adventure – and the first one also has an amnesia plot although I’m not sure she’s faking it in this one! I think it’s already out in the US, but here in the UK we have to wait until the end of August for A Lady’s Guide to Scandal which is the sequel to Sophie Irwin’s A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting, which I really enjoyed last year.
There’s a few series with autumn releases – like the fourth in Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series, The Last Devil to Die, which arrives in mid September. Then there is the seventh book in the Vanderbeeker series also arriving in September. It’s called The Vanderbeekers Ever After and as the title suggests it’s the final book in the series. Luckily (!) for me the sixth book isn’t out in paperback here yet, so I’m going to be able to make the series last a little longer despite that. There’s a new Sarah Maclean – Knockout is the third in the Hells Belles series. And unexpectedly there is another Shades of Magic novel coming too. I thought VE Schwab was done with the world at the end of the trilogy, but The Fragile Threads of Power is taking it to the next generation as well as giving you another look at the original characters. And there’s a fourth in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series too – called Before We Say Goodbye.
There are always a slew of memoirs in the run up to Christmas – the one I’m excited about this year is Patrick Stewart’s, but I’m going to need to read some more of the ones I already have before I buy it. And finally there is of course the Lucy Parker – which I mentioned in that post at the start of the year – Codename Charming arrives on Kindle next month (the paperback doesn’t hit the UK until September). I may reread Battle Royal to prepare!
What riches we have to come…
Hilariously, given that my pre-ordered copy of The Bodyguard arrived less than a week ago, Katherine Centre’s new book is already out! I’d been waiting for the Bodyguard to come out in the UK for about a year – and now they’ve timed the release of Hello Stranger to match the US one. Bonkers. Anyway, the new one is out, and it’s got a heroine suffering from face blindness after an operation and trying to save her career as a portrait photographer. This sounds intriguing to me – although I only liked not loved The Bodyguard over the weekend so I may not buy it straight away!
Today I wanted to mention Gail Tsukiyama’s new novel The Brighest Star which came out this week. It tells the story of Anna May Wong, Hollywood’s first Asian American movie star from her childhood skipping school to go to the movies and dodging bullies to success on screen, even if behind the scenes things are still difficult. I love a Novelised Real person novel, and I love books about Hollywood, so I don’t think it will be a surprise that I really want to read this one. The only question is how long it will take me to get hold of it because it’s a hardback release and we all know I’m not meant to be buying any more of them because they take me so long to read and the Kindle edition is priced accordingly. Maybe it’s one for the Christmas list. And yes I know, it’s June but I really do plan ahead with these things!
I wanted to mention two books that are out this week – firstly the new Jenn McKinley is out on Kindle, no not new entry in her cozy crime series, but her latest romance which is set on Martha’s Vineyard. As you can see from the picture, it’s blurbed by Annabel Monaghan who wrote Nora Goes Off Script, which is still one of my favourite reads so far this year, and I have high hopes. I’m about halfway through it at the moment – so you may yet hear more about it. Fair warning: if you’re in the UK and want a physical copy, that doesn’t arrive here until July.
Also out this week is the latest Christina Lauren and as I mentioned in my Book of the Week post for The Soulmate Equation, it’s the story of Fizzy who is the heroine’s best friend in that. Fizzy is a romance writer who has never been in love and who finds herself starring in a reality TV show and the hero is a single dad who is one of the people making the show. I am very excited to see how this one works – I loved The Soulmate Equation and when Christina Lauren did TV show adjacent in The Honey Don’t List I also enjoyed it. So basically I really want to read this, stat!
Another one of my frequently recommended authors has a new book out today – this time it’s Mhari McFarlane. She writes romances with serious issues at the heart of them – I originally wrote rom-coms, but actually although they have humour in them it, it feels a bit wrong as she’s dealing with issues like relationships breaking up, gaslighting and similar. Between Us is about Roisin, who discovers on a weekend away with her writer partner and all their friends that Joe seems to have been writing her and their friendship group into his work – so that would track with being more serious than a rom com would make you think. I’m looking forward to reading this – but if you want a bit more of a sense of what McFarlane does you can check out my reviews of Mad About You, Don’t You Forget About Me and If I Never Met You.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 