Jenny Jackson’s first novel Pineapple Street was one of my favourite new books of 2023 and so it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that her new novel is the new release that I want to highlight this week. Per the Blurb: The Shampoo Effect is about one summer in New England, where writer Caroline arrives in Greenhead and falls for its charms and for one of it’s residents, Van Whittaker. She spends the summer with his friends, including one who is pregnant with Van’s child, and it seems that the fun will keep coming – right up until it doesn’t. I love a rich people problems story – and I’ve also had a pretty good run of summer people and year round people novels which this sounds like it is too, so I have high hopes for this – and I have it on my pile ready to go too!
For the second week in a row, the new release is from an author where I’m a bit behind on their back catalogue. But with Beatriz Williams I have more of an excuse than Ashley Poston because her books can be much harder to get hold of over here. Her 2024 and 2025 releases still aren’t available on Kindle in the UK – which means I suspect that the hard copy versions I can see on Amazon are US editions and the only page for this new one on UK Amazon is a large print edition. Still The Beach at Summerley did arrive on Kindle eventually so fingers crossed for these latest three. Anyway, that’s an awful lot of talk without saying what this book is actually about, so here we go:
Lucy is a young widow, who returns to her family’s New England estate for the summer with her young daughter to mourn her father only to discover that the property is in a mountain of debt and the man who doomed her friendship with her teenage best friend is vacationing next door after an accident ended his NFL career. Because it’s Beatriz Williams there is also a historical element – this time about a fabled pirate treasure from the early eighteenth century. The location of Lucy’s family home is Winthrop Island which has also featured in other Williams novels so I really do feel like I need to read the back catalogue first, but if you’ve already done that (or you’re not as fussy as me about things like this!) then I think this sounds like an amazing summer holiday beach book.
After a glut of books that I had already read that came out last week, this week is one of those were there are a lot less new releases that I’m interested in. But never fear, there is (almost) always something that I would read, if only the pile wasn’t so huge. And this week my choice would be the new Eva Gates book Whose Body in the Lighthouse, which is the thirteenth in her Library Lovers and is doing something different which I find really quite interesting. For the first twelve books in the series, the lead character has been Lucy, a librarian in the Outer Banks. When I read book ten in the series three years ago, that book was covering Lucy’s wedding. Now two books on she’s had twins. I’ve written before about the difficulties of keeping a cozy series going and not progressing the characters personal lives but also the challenges presented by a heroine with young baby (or at least I think I have!) and Gates is dealing with this by… introducing a new librarian to get caught up in a murder. Or at least that’s what I think she’s doing – the start of the blurb is:
A new librarian’s first day goes terribly wrong when she finds a dead body on the front steps of the library.
In the thirteenth instalment of the beloved Lighthouse Library mysteries, a new character takes the reins.
And I’m not going to lie – I’m sort of fascinated by that. I can’t think of any cozy series I’ve read where the main character has been switched, much less successfully. If you can, please do drop them in the comments because I would love to read some. Agatha Christie moved the narrator around in her series, but the detective character was always the same – it was a Poirot mystery whether the narration was coming from Captain Hastings or Roger Ackroyd or whoever. So this has gone onto my list of things to watch out for because it’s an interesting and unusual way to tackle the problem.
June is Pride month and so its fitting that the first new release I’m featuring this month is the new book in Alexis Hall’s London Calling series – aka the third in the series that started with Boyfriend Material. It’s called Father Material and I have to say I am trepidatious. I loved Boyfriend Material and I liked Husband Material, just not as much (but still enough for it to be a BotW). I liked that Husband Material didn’t use the break-them-up-to-create-conflict trope that you see so much in sequels to romance novels – but the ending of Husband Material was not quite what a lot of readers wanted and left some people feeling like they’d fallen for a bait and switch. I did not feel like that I should say – I thought it was a perfectly consistent way to wrap up the conflict that was going on in the book. But there is definitely potential for another similar situation in this book, and that’s where my trepidation comes from – because if it does, then there’s been no character growth in anyone, at all, since the first book. And I’m not here for that. And of course it could go in a totally different direction to all of that – and I have a mixed record with some of Alexis Hall’s plots. I really liked Rosaline Palmer Takes The Cake, but I couldn’t finish the next in that series Paris Daillencourt is about to crumble and I had very strong feelings about Val deserving better than he got in Something Fabulous, to the point where I still haven’t read the sequel because I’m worried I will hate it.
All of which is to say – there is a second sequel to a beloved first book that came out this week and you should be able to find it in stores as well as on Kindle and Kobo. Best of luck everyone…
Happy Thursday everyone and this week’s new book to mention is the new Annabel Monaghan, Dolly All The Time which came out on Tuesday. According to the blurb, this is about self sufficient, problem solving, single mum Dolly who moves back to her seaside home town and finds herself in a fake relationship with the wealthy, workaholic son of one of the town’s major families. I loved, loved, loved Nora Goes Off Script back in 2023, and I have enjoyed the three books of hers I’ve read since, although none of them have quite hit the same buttons for me as Nora did. But that’s a very high bar. I had this pre-ordered, so I already have my copy waiting for me but if you weren’t planning that far ahead, it’s out now in paperback, Kindle and Kobo.
This one has been out in the US for about a month now, but the new novel from Emma Straub is out in the UK today. American Fantasy is set on a cruise for fans of a 90s boyband, where thousands their now grown up fans are on a ship with all five band members. One of the cruisers is Annie who’s really only there to keep her sister happy, but reconnects with a part of herself that she’s forgotten and (per the blurb) “By the time she meets one of the band members—not just a celebrity but someone in need of a friend—she has accessed a new sense of possibility.” If this is going where I think it might be going, it’s joining a number of books along the same lines in the last few years – but this being Emma Straub I could be completely off base with where this ends up. So I’m looking forward to reading it, and expecting to see it in the shops quite a lot.
The third Theatreland mystery featuring stage manager Hattie comes out today and the fact that I’ve picked this to highlight this week should probably not be a surprise to you as the first book was a BotW back in February and the second one was one of my favourite new books of last year. According to the blurb, Hattie Breaks A Leg sees Hattie struggling to find work because of all the enemies she’s made. And that’s why she finds herself working on a one night only vanity project. But when a friend comes looking for help to escape serious trouble, she finds herself sucked into a cat and mouse game with some shady types. I really enjoyed the first two books and I’m really looking forward to reading this when my preorder arrives (hopefully today). And because I think it’s a bit under the radar I’m happy to keep banging on about these because I think they deserve it
Hattie Breaks a Leg is out today in paperback, on Kobo and in Kindle Unlimited. I’m hoping that it will relatively easy to find in bookshops too – I’ll be keeping an eye out and reporting back!
It’s Thursday and I’ve got another book for you that is out today (in the UK). Murder at the Hotel Orient is set in modern day Vienna at an (in)famous hotel where cameras are forbidden, guests use aliases and lovers can enjoy a night of debauchery. But when two people are found dead after a party, concierge Sterling Lockwood has to work out who the killer is in order to clear her name. This one is on my virtual to read pile and yes, I know I said I was getting a bit ahead on some of the NetGalley reads, but no, this wasn’t one of them. I don’t know why, it just wasn’t. But I will get to it…
The stats are coming up tomorrow as a Good Friday treat for you all, but before we get to that given that I’m on a run of cozy fantasy books I wanted to mention this one, which came out on Tuesday and which I’m already reading (but haven’t finished yet so this isn’t a review!). This is an alternative history type historical fantasy in a world where magic is real and Mary Anning (who was a real life fossil collector and palentologist) is a struggling fossil dealer who wants to be accepted into the Geomagical Society of London but is stymied by her gender and her lack of formal higher education. But one day she is out fossil hunting after a landslide when a pterodactyl egg hatches in her hand. Ajax could be the thing that makes her career – but the emissary from the society is her former fiancé and soon she is stuck between rival factions of the society with their own agendas. This is blurbed by Heather Fawcett (as in Emily Wilde and Agnes Aubert) which is why I requested it – so far (just over a third in) it’s a bit less cozy and has more religion than I was expecting, but I’m interested to see where it goes and how it all gets resolved.
A bit left field for this week’s new book because Alan Bennett is a legend. This officially comes out today, but the copy I pre-ordered for my little sister arrived on Tuesday. So you may already have your copy too. Enough Said is the fourth volume of Bennett’s diaries, taking you from 2016 – 2024 when Alan turned 90. He will be 92 in May and so every new thing at this point is a blessing and a treat. A Question of Attribution was on TV over Christmas, and I’m waiting for The Choral to pop up on a streaming service so I can catch up on that too.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 