Tag: book reviews

books, romance

Valentine’s Day bonus post

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I know – two posts in two days.  I’m spoiling you.  But I couldn’t let Valentines Day go past without mentioning some of my favourite romantic books.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I don’t care about all the posts about how you wouldn’t actually want to be with Mr Darcy in real life because I love this book.  I started reading my mum’s copy of the book as soon as I’d finished watching the first part of the 1995 BBC adaptation of it and I adored it. I was in the tail-end of primary school and just flat-out loved Lizzy.  My TV tie-in copy is much loved and I read it a lot.  Read it and fall in love with Lizzy as much as you do with Darcy.  And he grows as a person people.  Everyone’s allowed to make a mistake and compared to some of the stuff romance novel heros have in their past, being a bit stuck up and arrogant is not the biggest problem ever!

These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer

And a prime example of how Darcy could be so much worse is the Duke of Avon.  Justin’s nickname is Satanas.  You’re told he’s lost a fortune at the gaming tables and then won back someone elses – someone who then killed themselves.  He kidnapped a woman to try to force her to marry him.  But I defy you not to be rooting for him as he turns Leon the page into Leonie the lady and restores her to her place in eighteenth century French High Society.  And the way he achieves it isn’t exactly all hearts and flowers (although it is totally deserved).  One of my favourite romance tropes is I’m not good enough for him/her and this is just the perfect example of that.  And then when you’re done falling in love with Big Bad Justin, read Devil’s Cub and meet his son Dominic – mad, bad and dangerous to know and watch prim and proper Mary win his heart.  He doesn’t think he’s good enough either.  Swoon.

Stately Pursuits by Katie Fforde

Still my favourite Fforde novel (see my love letter to Fforde here), and you may start to detect a theme in my heros here.  Connor is tall, dark, brooding and moody.  Hetty’s mum’s sent her to look after Great Uncle Samuel’s stately home.  Hetty wants to save it, Connor thinks selling it is the best solution.  Cue fireworks of two different types.  If you like your heros a little bit more beta, try Fforde’s Flora’s Lot and Charles the auctioneer.  He’s engaged and thinks Flora is pushy. She thinks he’s uptight and change resistant.  Another of my favourite tropes – I hate you, I hate you, I can’t stop thinking about your hair as Sarah McLean of Smart Bitches would say.

Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L Sayers

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  This is the most romantic detective story ever.  After 3 books of angst and tension, Peter and Harriet are finally married.  But a body turns up at their honeymoon dream house and unless they can figure out who did it Harriet is worried that Peter will be haunted by it forever.  You’ll appreciate it most if you’ve read the other three books first, but once you have you’ll come back to it again and again.  I’ve listened to it once this week on audiobook already.  If you need more convincing I wrote a whole post about the wonders of Peter in general and Peter and Harriet in particular.

And Finally…

And if this still isn’t quite enough romance for you, try Eloisa James Duchess by Night featuring another of my favourite tropes – girls dressed as boys (see also the aforementioned These Old Shades) or Sarah MacLean’s Nine Rules to Break when Romancing a Rake (I would suggest Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover but that’s the end of a series and a big spoiler for the earlier books) which is another great trope (heroine needs to learn about love, asks rakish man to teach her) or a bit of Julia Quinn.  Try not to get hooked.  American-import romance can be an expensive habit.

books, reviews

February Half Term Picks

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Happy Half term everyone.  Well if you have a half term.  I’ve got two overtime shifts coming my way and the most I can hope for is slightly emptier commuter trains as parents stay home to look after their children.  But if you do have some free time – maybe you’re even headed away for a few days – here are a few recommendations from me, that I think might make your break even better.

The Little Shop of Happily Ever After by Jenny Colgan

Yes! There’s a new Jenny Colgan book just in time for half-term.  I read it at the start of the week (thank you NetGalley) and fell in love. But then it’s a book about a book-a-holic librarian who starts her own mobile bookshop after getting made redundant. I’m not sure a book could tick more of my boxes if it tried. Maybe if the heroine had a thing for both Angel and Spike from Buffy, or a passion for watching figure skating and motorsport. But that withstanding this is so much fun.  Nina’s adventures as she makes the move from Birmingham to the Scottish Highlands and learns about herself are perfect holiday reading.  This will be everywhere – I’ve already seen it in the supermarket, but here are the traditional links just in case. Amazon, Kindle, Foyles, Waterstones, Kobo.

The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin

Escape to New York High Society in the 1950s as Truman Capote takes the world by storm and gathers a group of women for his inner circle.  Follow the trials and tribulations of his life and those of his “swans” over the next 20 years.  The narrative flips between the two time periods and unless you know more about Truman Capote’s later writing than I do, you’ll be trying to work out what it is that he’s done that they’re so annoyed about.  If you liked the glamour of Mad Men and like novels of scheming and intrigue this could keep you intrigued all week. The book paperback comes out on the 24th, but there is a hardback at the moment but the Kindle price was quite good (under £5 at time of writing) – Amazon hardback, Amazon paperback (in case you want to pre-order), Kindle, Waterstones, Kobo.

The Astonishing Return of Norah Wells by Virginia Macgregor

In pretty much any other week, this would have been my Book of the Week, but it had the mis-fortune for me to read it in the same week as Lauren Henderson’s The Black Rubber Dress.  Virginia McGregor’s second novel tells the story of what happens when Norah returns to the family she walked out on six years earlier.  But a lot has changed while she’s been away.  It’s got flawed adults, idealistic teenagers and the adorable Willa who was only a baby when her mum walked out. This is only in hardback at the moment – but I think it’s going to be THE bookclub book when it comes out in paperback, so get ahead of the game and read it now. Amazon, Kindle, Foyles, Waterstones, Kobo.

All Aboard (The Canal Boat Cafe 1) by Cressida McLaughlin

I loved Cressida’s Primrose Terrace series last year and her new serialisation The Canal Boat Cafe makes a really go start with All Aboard. Summer’s returned to the cafe that her mum used to run on a narrowboat.  There are secrets and conflicts and possible romances. And although you don’t have all the answers at the end of part one, it feels like it finishes at a natural break in the story. McLaughlin is confident enough in her story and her characters that she doesn’t end on a big old cliff-hanger out of no-where to make you buy part two because she knows you’ll be intrigued enough to come back for more. This is only in e-book – but it was a bargain 99p at time of writing on Kindle and Kobo,

The Case of the Blue Violet by Robin Stevens

This is one for you if you’ve got a pre-teen that you want to keep quiet for a little while.  Unless like me you’ve got a bit old boarding school story habit.  This is the first Wells and Wong short story and it’s a fun way mini-case that doesn’t involve a murder.  It’s also told from Daisy’s point of view instead of Hazel’s which makes it a bit different too.  And if you haven’t tried Stevens’s 1930s boarding school adventures yet the children that you buy books for haven’t got into Stevens’s 1930s boarding school adventures yet, this may be their gateway.  And you’ve got more three full-length adventures to read before book 4 comes out at the end of March. Another e-book only – Kindle and Kobo.

And finally…

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention last week’s BotW The Glittering Art of Falling Apart – which would make a great read if your on a sunlounger somewhere or enjoying the après-ski. Two women, one in 80s Soho, one in pretty much now trying to save a country house. But what do they have in common? Read the full review here and try not to get OMD’s Enola Gay stuck in your head!  And I mentioned The Black Rubber Dress earlier – it really is very, very good – if you like your murder mysteries smart, funny and 90s cool you’ll love it.

Happy holiday reading and spare a thought for me as I try and weave my way through the ambling and weaving half-term visitors to London on my walk from the station to work and back!

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: Queen Lucia

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This week’s BotW is the first in the Mapp and Lucia series by E F Benson – which doesn’t actually feature Miss Mapp – just Lucia!  I’ve read Mapp and Lucia – which is the the fourth boo in the series and have come back to the start.  I have Miss Mapp waiting on the Kindle in the interests of fairness!

 

 In Queen Lucia, we meet the residents of Riseholme and their snobbish leader.  Emmeline Lucas – Lucia – always wants to have the upper hand, and employs all sorts of underhand methods to dominate the neighbourhood.  She and her husband drop snippets of Italian into conversation to make people think they’re fluent (they’re not), and she practices her piano duets in secret so she can “sight-read” them when Georgie comes over.  Georgie is her best friend (if she can be said to have one when life is a constant competition for superiority), balding and greying and desperate to hide it, he has his faults, but in this book at least is a slightly more sympathetic character than Lucia.

But for all that Lucia is awful, this is such a fun book.  The townspeople’s snobbery leads them into trouble at every turn.  If you watched the 2014 TV adaptation you’ll recognise some of the plots here.  Snigger as the Riseholmians embrace yoga. Chuckle as they compete to be best friends with the visiting opera singer. Cringe as Lucia’s (lack of) proficiency in Italian comes under scrutiny.  And then thank goodness that your group of friends are nothing like this.  And if your group of friends are like this, then maybe consider finding some new ones – constantly trying to one-up everyone else must be exhausting!

Queen Lucia is available for free on Kindle and although it’s not free on Kobo it is available in a variety of file formats for free from Project Gutenberg.  There’s also a variety of omnibuses (omnibii?) at differing price points (depending on if you want the cover that ties in with the TV series) and DVD releases of both the most recent and the 1980s TV series.  Enjoy!

Book of the Week, books, historical, Thriller

Book of the Week: The Hourglass Factory

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So, a difficult choice for BotW this week – I finished the latest Laurie Graham last week and really enjoyed it – but I also read Lucy Ribchester’s Hourglass Factory and enjoyed that too.  So in the end, I’ve picked The Hourglass Factory for BotW and decided to do an Authors I Love post on Laurie G instead, which’ll be coming up in a few weeks. So more for you to read. Bonus.

The Hourglass Factory
Some of my best photos are taken on the train. No idea why.

In The Hourglass Factory, tom-boy reporter Frankie George is trying to make waves in Fleet Street, but all she’s getting are the women’s interest stories an the gossip columns.  When she gets assigned to write a profile of trapeze-artist-turned-suffragette Ebony Diamond she gets short shrift.  But then Ebony disappears and Frankie finds herself drawn into a world of corsets, circuses, tricks and suffragettes.  Where has Ebony gone?  What is going on with the suffragettes? And will anyone listen to Frankie if she finds out?

This has been sitting on my shelf for aaaaaages (what’s new) and I kept meaning to read it.  Then I saw it recommended by another blogger (Agi’s onmybookshelf) as one of her books of the year of 2015 – alongside several other books that I had read and liked and it gave me the push that I needed.

I really enjoyed this.  I haven’t studied the women’s suffrage movement in Britain in much depth – apart from as part of my history GCSE – so I knew the basics, but I don’t think you’d have too much trouble if you knew even less.  Lucy Ribchester paints a vivid picture of 1912.  Post-Edwardian London springs to life – all dark corners, imminent peril, seedy clubs, variety acts, cuthroats, suffragettes and jails.  Some passages were tough going – early 20th century jails were not nice places to get stuck in – but it was totally worth it.  This is quite a long read (500 pages) but it is pacy, exciting and thrilling – you don’t notice the pages going by.  So good.  And another cautionary tale about letting books sit on the shelf.

Get your copy from Amazon, Waterstones or Foyles, from Audible, or on Kindle, ebook or Kobo.  You’re welcome.  And thank you Agi for giving me the kick to read it.

reviews

Christmas (themed) Books!

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Here it is, slightly later than planned (don’t ask), the Christmas-themed book post!  It’s Christmas Eve, I’ve finished work for Christmas and I’ve read my way through a whole stack of Christmas-themed reading to come up with some top recommendations for you to read on your Christmas break.  As this is now too late to go to the shops, tonight’s links are to Kindle – but you can click through from that to buy the paperback if you want to.  Or you can pick them up in the scrum at the Supermarket on Boxing Day.

paperback christmas books
For once I have some of my recommendations in paperback!

Snowed in for Christmas by Clare Sandy

Asta is back in Ireland for the first time since she fled with a secret years ago.  Now the secret is sixteen and desperate to know about her family.  Asta was hoping to be in and out in a flash, but ends up snowed in with her madcap extended family.  Will she gets the answers that she needs or will her trip home bring more complications?

I think this is my favourite of the bunch – it might well have been BotW last week if it wasn’t for the fact that I wanted to feature it in this! Clare Sandy has featured on this blog before (with A Very Big House in the Country and What Would Mary Berry Do?) and this is such a joy.  I was trying to sum this up and I came up with Ballykissangel meets Marian Keyes and your favourite romantic comedy movie.  This book is wickedly funny but also touching and paints a vivid picture both of Asta’s London life and the village in Ireland.  It is so much fun – and very Christmassy – but without feeling contrived or saccharine.  It is a fabulous story that happens to be set at Christmas.

Make a Christmas Wish by Julia Williams

Last Christmas Livvy was knocked over in the supermarket car park and now she’s dead. But she’s not ready to let her husband and her son go, so she’s hovering on the edge of the afterlife – fuming over her husband’s new girlfriend and fretting about whether her son’s coping without her.  When she gets a last chance to make it right, will she take it – and what is right anyway?

This is so clever.  I started it thinking it wasn’t going to be my sort of book and then got totally sucked in.  I found Livvy quite a tough character to like, but I was totally rooting for her husband Adam and her son Joe.  This is not a sweet and fluffy Christmas book – it’s funny, but it made me cry too. I had moments of wondering whether it would all turn out right (in my opinion) in the end, but when I got to the end I had that warm and fuzzy feeling inside that you get from a good story well told.

Other top tips – I’ve already mentioned Trisha Ashley’s latest A Christmas Cracker on the blog, but I thought it was worth repeating that this is a great festive read – warm and witty and romantic. I’ve got Jenny Colgan’s latest (in paperback anyway) A Christmas Surprise waiting for me still – it’s the third Rosie Hopkins book.  And there’s my Novelicious colleague Cressida McLoughlin’s A Christmas Tail which I read through the year as the four part Primrose Terrace series.  For some Christmas crime, try Mavis Doriel Hay’s recently republished the Santa Klaus Murder or go equally golden age with a dose of Inspector Alleyn with Ngaio Marsh’s Tied up in Tinsel (which I can only find on Kindle as an omnibus with Clutch of Constables and When in Rome).

Shorter reads

If you want something a bit shorter but still festive, there’s a bunch of excellent short stories and novellas too.  Some of my favourites were revisiting characters from other books that I’d read earlier in the year. So you can see what happened next to the Winter family in Harriet Evans’ A Winterfold Christmas or you can catch-up with the residents of Hazy Hassocks in Christina Jones’s Mitzi’s Midwinter Wedding.  There’s also a new Christmas short from Katie Fforde – A Christmas in Disguise – which I enjoyed, but wanted to be longer.  And if you’ve been following the residents of Cherry Pie Island all year, then the final part of that, Four Weddings and A White Christmas is out as well (I’m halfway through it!).  There’s also the final part of Cathy Bramley’s Wickham Hall series White Christmas.  And don’t forget Silent Nights – the short crime story collection that was BotW a few weeks back.

And there you are.  Have a happy Christmas and I hope you all get what you wished for.  I’m back at work at 6am on Boxing Day, please think of me as you’re waking up with your hangover!

Disclosure:  I bought my own copy of all of the books and novellas in this post except for: Silent Nights and The Santa Klaus Murder which came via NetGalley, Snowed in for Christmas which I was sent by the author and Make A Christmas Wish which I won in a twitter competition.  In addition I received the Trisha Ashley via NetGalley – but bought myself a copy as well!

books, Gift suggestions

Buy Him a Book for Christmas: Gift Ideas

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I am the person who gives everybody they possibly can a book for Christmas.  My immediate family all get a book AND a “normal” Christmas present.  I buy young relatives books as often as I can. I even gift myself a Christmas book.  So I thought that I would give you suggestions for presents –  on top of  a post about Christmas-themed books.  This is the first of four post which I hope cover all eventualities.  Most of the links are to Amazon – because quite a few of the books mentioned across the various posts are in their 3 for £10 promotion, thus saving you money to use to buy yourself books on other things.

Non Fiction

Men can be tricky to buy for – or at least I find them hard.  I often end up buying biographies of sportsmen.  The Boy in my life is a massive petrol head – he devoured motorbike Guy Martin’s Autobiography this last weekend, which had been sitting on the shelf since last Christmas and is out now in paperback.  He’s said he’d quite like Martin’s hardback, When You Dead, You Dead.  Also on his Christmas list this year is ex-F1 driver turned World Endurance Champion Mark Webber’s book Aussie Grit.  The annual Jeremy Clarkson book will have been a fixture on many people’s Christmas lists for years, but if you fancy a change, The Boy really wants And On That Bombshell – a behind the scenes look at Top Gear, written by Top Gear’s script editor Richard Porter, who I’ve been following on Twitter for years without knowing what his day job was!

Guy Martin autobiography
I have had *such* headaches taking the photos for these posts. I could cry. Honestly I could.

Away from the motorsports books he’s a big Bill Bryson fan – so The Road to Little Dribbling may also turn up in his stocking.  One of his favourite books this year has already featured here as a Book of the Week – but A Year of Living Danishly is so good that I think it deserves another mention – particularly as Hygge starts in January and moving to a new country is often one of those things that gets mentioned in New Year’s Resolutions.

Trumbo by Bruce Cook
Check out my attempts at artistic arrangements of the books. This was the best I could manage.

On the history front, I haven’t read Trumbo (yet) but it’s just been turned into a film and the McCarthy era is fascinating – particularly in the movie industry.  I’ve also had quite a good hit-rate with Ben MacIntyre – my dad loved Operation Mincemeat, and Agent Zigzag and Double Cross have also gone down well with him and several other men of various ages that I buy for.  His latest is A Spy Among Friends, about Kim Philby, which I haven’t read – but which may well end up in someone’s stocking this year.

Fiction

My Boy has got hooked (like me) on Janet Evanovich this year, so I’ve been on the lookout for pacey and fun thrillers for him.  It’s tricky as it very often ends up with me buying books for me!  I’m going to try and turn him onto the Fox and O’Hare series next – The Heist is the first one, The Scam is the latest.  They’re basically Ocean’s 11 or White Collar but as a book.  She’s an FBI agent, he’s a fraudster – but they have to work together to catch con-men.

On the straight-up thriller front, The Spider in the Corner of the Room by Nikki Owen is a twisty thriller – you can check out my review for Novelicious here, equally The Devil You Know is dark, creepy and tense, although I wasn’t keen on the ending (again reviewed on Novelicious)  Crime-wise, Ben Aaranovich is one of my new obsessions (I’m trying hard to ration myself and read slowly) Rivers of London is the first, Foxglove Summer the latest.

Foxglove Summer
Try not to look at the dents in the hardback spines, I know once you’ve noticed it’s hard to stop,but…

I’ve already mentioned The British Library Crime Classics series in the BotW post on Silent Night, but it bears repeating that there some really good titles in this attractive looking series which would make good gifts for an Agatha Christie fan looking for Golden Age Crime.  And as the series is bring stuff back into print that’s been out of circulation for a long time, there’s much less risk that they’ll have read them already! On top of the ones I’ve already mentioned, try The Z Murders and Murder Underground.  Speaking of Golden Age crime, Sophie Hannah’s Poirot continuation The Monogram Murders might also be worth a look.

Murder Underground
Try and focus on the retro stylings of the book, and the shine of the table – which I polished specially

This is breaking my own rule about not mentioning stuff I’ve read for Novelicious before the review goes up there, but I’ve just finished reading TV historian Neil Oliver’s first novel Master of Shadows, and without preempting my review there too much, it is basically the novel version of one of those historical epic movies.  Set in the fifteenth century. it follows a young man as he flees Scotland, becomes a mercenary and ends up entangled in the fall of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine Empire.  It was too gruesome for me, but if you have a Game of Thrones fan in your life, this could be a great choice for them.

Master of Shadows
The pile of book effect is wearing thin? I know. And this has foil on the cover so its a photo nightmare

My Boy has also expressed an interest in Timur Vermes’ Look Who’s Back, which has been sitting in my Library book bag for ages.  In case you’ve missed it, this was a massive best seller in Germany – and tells the story of what happened when Adolf Hitler wakes up in 2011 Berlin.  It’s already been made into a movie in Germany and Radio 4 have dramatised it over here.  It’s meant to be laugh-out loud funny, but disturbing.

And finally, I’m not big on scary, but The Boy has film director David Cronenberg’s debut novel on his to-read pile.  I don’t like recommending books that I haven’t read (or that people around me haven’t read) but Consumed has a good review average on both Amazon and Goodreads and pull quotes from Stephen King and JJ Abrams, so strikes me as a fairly good punt in a genre I’m really not very fluent in.

Consumed by David Cronenberg
Still, at least I had enough books for this post to make a stack. Just wait til tomorrow…

Miscellaneous

If you want to give bookish gifts that aren’t actually books, then may I point you in the direction of American company Out of Print.  They do the most gorgeous clothes with book covers printed on them and for each purchase they donate a book to a community in need.  I’ve gifted their t-shirts to several men at various points – including The Boy, who loves them and stares wistfully at their website every time he sees me looking at it, but tells me he has enough clothes.  The tees are soft, the print isn’t crunchy (if you know what I mean) and they wash well and hold their shape.  If you’re in the UK I think we’ve already missed the cheap shipping international deadline, although they say you can upgrade, but TruffleShuffle stock a few styles, as do Amazon.

So there you are, hopefully I’ve recommended something for most tastes or situations – or at least provided a jumping off point.  Coming next:  Books for Her.

Book of the Week, reviews

Book of the Week: Not Quite Normal Service

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Hello!  After last week’s fog of misery and gloom, you’ll be pleased to hear I’m in a slightly better place in my head.  I’m not quite back to normal yet, so this is still not your normal BotW post.  Instead, here’s a brief snapshot of what I read last week.

So, there was a double dose of Janet Evanovich – Steph Plum 18 and Full Tilt, one of her romantic suspenses with Charlotte Hughes.  The Plum was quite a good one – not my favourite, but not quite as strangely magic-inflected as 17 so I was happy.  I’m still not sure what I make of the Full series – they’re not as fun as the other Evanovich series, but I get the feeling that if I just happened across them and they were an author that wasn’t Janet Evanovich I’d feel more enthusiastic about them!

I also finished The Necromancer by Jonathan L Howard last week.  This had been popping up in my recommendations lists all over the place and I mostly liked it.  I thought it had a slump at about two thirds of the way through – where I started to lose faith in the outcome, but it recovered and I was enjoying it again at the end.  I’m not sure if I’ll be reading the follow-ups though.  But that might be because it is quite dark, and I was in a dark place last week so it may not have been ideal reading matter for me!

Then there was Death before Decaf by Caroline Fardig, which NetGalley pitched to me as “if you love Janet Evanovich, then you’ll like this” – and while it didn’t quite live up to that billing (heroine a little too stupid to live, love triangle feeling a bit forced) I can see where the comparison was coming from.  A perfectly fine way to spend a few hours though.

Cathy Bramley’s latest, Conditional Love, brightened my mood a lot in the middle of the week – it’s this month’s Novelicious Book Club book – you can read my thoughts here and we’re chatting on Twitter tonight at 8pm.

My last book of the week was a Flavia de Luce – and I’m still not sure what I think of this series – Flavia drives me bonker sometimes, and the plots are a bit bonkers, but this one was really good fun.

So there you are.  I can string my thoughts together enough to give you mini-reviews, but that’s about it.  I’m getting there though.  Next week, dear reader, next week!

Authors I love, Book of the Week, Fantasy

Book of the Week: Manners and Mutiny

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Apologies for the late arrival of this week’s BotW post – I’d somehow convinced myself that I’d already written this piece because all I seem to have done this week is think about the end of the Finishing School series.  But no, clearly I dreamt it.  Anyhow, it’ll be no surprise to anyone who’s been following my social media in the last week that the BotW is Manners and Mutiny – the last book in the Gail Carriger’s Young Adult Finishing School series.

My Kindle tells you all you need to know about last week’s reading matter!

In book four, we find Sophronia back at school on board Madame Geraldine’s floating dirigible, but with a somewhat denuded gang.  No-one’s listening to her warnings about the Picklemen and she’s still not really sure where her future lies.  When danger threatens the ship and life as she knows it, she has to put all her training to the test as we what happened to make Sophronia’s world of mechanicals turn into the society we know from the Parasol Protectorate.

And that’s about all that I can say, without giving away big old spoilers. And even that last sentence is a bit of a spoiler, but I think Carriger readers have all been waiting since Etiquette and Espionage to see what on earth happened to turn one world into the other!  Or if you’re like me and E&E was your first Gail Carriger book and the gateway to the rest, to explain the moment at the start of Soulless where you were all “Huh?  Where did the mechanical servants go?”

So, it’s no secret that I’m a big Carriger convert, having basically read everything she’s written over the past year (see 2014 Discoveries post, my BotW posts on Timeless and Prudence and E&E’s mention in my YA Roundup) – and I was worried that this wouldn’t live up to the hype that I had set up in my head.  So many questions needed answering and it seemed like a bit of a mammoth task for one book to deal with.  I went so far as to re-read all three of the previous books at the start of last week so that I had everything fresh in my mind for the last book – and I can’t say that I spotted anything that wasn’t addressed or tied up (with a bow).  And it’s still a good read.  It doesn’t feel like a tying up the loose ends book.  It feels like Ms Carriger had a plan at the start of the series, and has executed it masterfully – leaving a trail of breadcrumbs through the books for us to follow so that in this last one it all slots together and clicks into place. And as you do this, you smack your head and wonder how you missed the clues.  So clever.

But I have to say that this is not the place to start your Carriger experience.  Do yourself a favour and start with the first book in the series.  Or if you’re not technically a Young Adult, start with Soulless and read them first and then come to Finishing School and see how clever it all is.  I’m so sad Finishing School is over, but it was a deeply satisfying series and never felt like it was going on too long.  If I hadn’t just finished listening to Soulless on audiobook, I’d be going straight on to read that again. As it is I’m halfway through the recording of Changeless, so I’m still in Carriger-land.  And I can’t wait for Imprudence.

Get your copy of Manners and Mutiny (if you’ve already read the others) in paperback or on Kindle.  Or start with Etiquette and Espionage – paperback or Kindle.  The complete-ist in me really wants to buy myself the paperback copies of all of them so that I can put them on the shelf next to the others, but as I’ve already bought two Carriger audio-books and the e-books of Soulless and Changeless this week (so I can read whenever I want…) I’m valiantly resisting for now.  Lets see how long that resolution lasts…

Book of the Week, women's fiction

Book of the Week: Appleby Farm

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I read a lot of books while we were on holiday, but this week’s book of the week is Cathy Bramley’s Appleby Farm which I started before we went away and finished after we got back*. That said, while I was on holiday I read parts two and three of Bramley’s latest serialisation and really liked them too, so it seemed like a really obvious choice.


So, Appleby Farm (which came out as a e-book partwork earlier this year before the paperback release) tells the story of Freya, who starts the book working in a cafe near the Ivy Lane allotments that featured in Bramley’s book from earlier this year.  But soon she gets an SOS call from her auntie, and heads up to the Lake District farm where she grew up after her uncle has a heart attack.  Soon she’s torn between the boyfriend down south and the farm that she loves.

I really liked Freya.  She’s a really well put together character, who has flaws and issues but is really, really likeable.  And as the granddaughter of a farmer (on both sides) and with three farms in the extended family (and another couple of cousins working in agriculture/agribusiness as well) the farm setting really worked for me.  I loved reading about Freya’s plans for the farm as she tries to help her auntie and uncle.  I wouldn’t say I’m a farming connoisseur, but I know the basics, and I didn’t spot any glaring errors in the farming facts, which was great.

I also didn’t notice the joins between the parts in this as much as I did when when I read Ivy Lane.  Appleby Farm, although it’s still divided into sections, seemed to flow better, with less building to cliff hangers which were rapidly/immediately resolved at the start of the next part.  It definitely feels more like a novel, than a part-work that’s been stitched together.

I’ve mentioned (many times) before that I’m not a great candidate for serialisations.  I don’t like cliffhangers – one year I waited til the start of the new season of Greys Anatomy before watching the end of the previous one so I wouldn’t be left in suspense – and when I find a series I like I like to be able to read on and read more (25 Janet Evanovich books in five months anyone?), but I really do like Cathy Bramley’s work.  As I mentioned further up, I read two parts of Wickham Hall during the holiday, and whilst I want to know what’s happening next (and have the book on preorder) I finished each part with a smile on my face having enjoyed seeing what had happened rather than angry that I’ve been left hanging.

Roll on Part four of Wickham Hall – and I really need to get my hands on Conditional Love too.

Appleby Farm was all over the supermarkets when it came out in August – and I’m hoping it’ll still be there and in the bookshops, but if you can’t wait – here’s the Kindle, Amazon, Foyles and Waterstones and as an extra special bonus, here’s Wickham Hall: Part One and Ivy Lane (both for kindle).

* I have a rule about not taking books that I’ve already started away on holiday with me.

Book of the Week, fiction, The pile

Book of the Week: Double trouble special

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Oh gosh.  I had such trouble picking this.  It came down to two choices – the latest Dandy Gilver book, which I devoured Sunday-into-Monday last week or  Jojo Moyes Me Before You, which I was *sure* I had read, and then realised that I hadn’t and really ought to get in there quick before the sequel arrives on Thursday.  But, if I make Me Before You this week’s BotW, then what happens if After You is amazing.  But then what happens if After You isn’t awesome – and I haven’t said my piece on Me Before You.  Basically, this boils down to a lesson in why I shouldn’t get behind with books.  Which is what this whole blog is about.  And you know I’ve written this whole opening paragraph without actually having decided – the post title just says Book of the Week and I’m still dithering.

Dandy

Jojo

Dandy

Jojo

Dang it. Double-header special it is.

So, lets start with Me Before You.  I’m sure you’ve all read it already (as I said, I was convinced that I had too), but in case you’ve missed it, it tells the story of Lou, who loses her job at a cafe and finds a new one, working for Will Traynor – whose life was changed forever in a motorbike accident.  If you haven’t read it and think I should say more about the plot, I’m sorry, but I don’t want to give too much away.  But it’s funny and romantic and it had me surreptitiously crying in public.  It could have been a very depressing book – there are some really serious issues in here and I was seriously worried that the ending was going to make me really miserable – but it’s not.  A lot of research has clearly been done and it wears it very lightly.  Will is clearly one individual, in a specific situation, who is making a certain choice – but there will be people out there who don’t like the way that this unfolds.*

On to Dandy Gilver and the Unpleasantness in the Ballroom, which is the 10th in the interwar-set detective agency series and finds Dandy in the ballrooms of Glasgow investigating threats made against a dancer.  I’ve read just over half of this series and this is as good as any of them.  I love the dynamic between Alec and Dandy (although as I’ve not read a couple of the early books so I think I’ve missed some bits there) and the dance hall world of Glasgow is compelling.  And despite the pretty covers, the plots are often quite dark and there’s a (relatively) high body count.  They’re smart and different and don’t rely on murder mystery cliches, but without going for lots of sexual violence.

So there you go – two books of the week this week, a lot of dithering and another lesson in why a big book backlog isn’t good!

* And I wish there could have been a magic fix ending, but that’s not how real life works.