Tag: book reviews

Book of the Week, non-fiction

Book of the Week: White House by the Sea

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After last week’s Inauguration recommendsday, this week I’m back in the US presidential adjacent sphere with my BotW. It may have taken me a couple of weeks to read – but that’s because it’s a nice if US sized paperback and I didn’t want to wreck it by putting it in my work rucksack!

Kate Storey’s The White House by the Sea is a whistle stop tour through the history of the Kennedy family at Hyannis Port. Yes it’s more than 300 pages long, but that’s not a lot of pages to cover three and a bit generations of a very large family. That means that you’re not going to get lots of detail on everything that happens in the Kennedy family – but you don’t necessarily need to know all the details of everyone’s lives to follow it either.

You’ll probably find it easier if you know at least the main beats: Joe and Rose had a lot of children of whom Joe Jr died in World War Two, Kathleen died just after the war, JFK was assassinated while president, RFK was assassinated while running for president, Ted kept considering running for president and Rosemary was given a lobotomy. There are also a lot of grandchildren – many struggled in various ways to live up to their family’s legacy and some of them also died tragically young. There. That’s about all you need to follow the family’s love affair with this part of the Massachusetts coast – and the effect that it had on a small town that found itself at the centre of national attention because of its most famous residents.

Storey has conducted lots and lots of interviews with the people of Hyannis Port and those connected to the Kennedys so it does feel like you’re getting new insights into the subject. I’ve still got Ask Not on the to read pile, and will report back on that one too but this is certainly worth reading. I have long come to the conclusion that the Kennedy family wasn’t a great one to marry into, and nothing here has changed my mind but it remains fascinating to see the outsize impact of one family on America.

I got this one for Christmas and it’s probably going to be a special order job rather than a wander into the bookshop and find a copy book, but if you’re interested it’s worth it.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, cozy crime, historical, mystery

Book of the Week: Deadly Summer Nights

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Happy Tuesday everyone and today’s pick is a first in series historical cozy crime that I picked up when I was spending that Waterstones gift card before Christmas.

Our setting for Deadly Summer Nights is a holiday resort in up state New York. It’s 1953 and it’s the second season that Elizabeth has been managing Haggerman’s Catskill’s Resort. Her mother is a former actress and dancer and inherited the resort – and although she’s using her connections to book entertainment acts for the resort, it’s her daughter who is doing all the hard work on the day to day. And because it’s the 1950s and she’s a woman, not everyone is pleased about that – or prepared to listen to her. The last thing they need is a dead body at the resorts, but that’s what they’ve got. And in the dead man’s cabin the chief of police finds a copy of The Communist Manifesto and suddenly everyone is claiming that the resort is a hotbed of communists. But Elizabeth isn’t convinced and sets out to try and figure out what happened herself.

I really, really enjoyed this. The setting is fun and a bit different – even if I was really annoyed on Elizabeth’s behalf at all of these useless men who wanted to dismiss her. I do like a historical murder mystery and I haven’t read a lot that are set in mid-century America outside of a big city like New York. And the resort setting is a lot of fun whether it’s modern or historical- I’ve read Kathi Daley’s series set on a resort and I would happily read more if they appear.

This is also my first Vicki Delaney novel – although I have read one of her books under her Eva Gates pen name. There is only one other book in this series so far – and I will try and get hold of it to see what happens next. This has the start of a promising love triangle going on and I hope there’ll be clues in that about whether there will be more – Delaney seems to have a lot of series going on under her various names and I don’t know enough to know which ones are still active.

My copy came from the lovely cozy crime bookshelf in Waterstones Piccadilly, and I think it’s going to be a special order if you want the paperback version. And it’s also on Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: The Paradise Problem

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Yes, for my first BotW of 2025 I am breaking my own rules again and picking a book I finished on Monday. I just can’t help myself. And also if I could have finished it sooner I would have but Carlisle to Northampton is a long drive, even when it’s not snowy/sleeting/raining/foggy – and at various points on Sunday I had all of these, which does make it particularly ironic that this is a book mostly set on a tropical island!

The plot: Anna married West when they were both students in order to be able to access subsidised family housing. She also thought that the papers she signed when they graduated meant they were divorced. But then three years later West turns up on her doorstep, just after she’s been sacked from her gas station job and it turns out they’re not. And also that West is the heir to a huge amount of money and if they can’t convince his family that they’re actually a happily married couple at his sister’s wedding it would have dire consequences. And he’s willing to pay her to help him pull it off and the money would help Anna pay for her dad’s medical treatment but also maybe give her some breathing space to help her focus on her art career.

So there’s a couple of things to note here: firstly Anna would have to be incredibly incurious to not have figured out who West is, especially given she is also friends with his brother (and as a nosy person I had to suspend disbelief here!). Secondly there are a lot of awful rich people in this (not West!) and although there is comeuppance, your mileage on this may vary. But that said, I enjoyed this a lot as escapist fiction with a good twist on the fake relationship-turns real trope and plenty of witty banter. I’m a little unsure how West and Anna didn’t get any action together when they were roommates the first time but hey, staring a relationship with a roommate is a bad idea in case it doesn’t last. Trust me.

This one should be fairly easy to get hold of – I’ve seen the paperback in shops, although I have a copy on Kindle.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, Christmas books

Book of the Week: Christmas Is All Around

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I am closing out the year with my second Christms-themed BotW of the season, even if I did read it in Betwixtmas rather than before. Reading this was my reward for getting down to one state to go on the 50 States challenge – because some of the books for those final states have been really hard going and I deserved a treat, especially as I’ve had to put some of the books I really wanted to read before on hold to get the challenge done whilst still being able to do things in Real Life.

These days, Charlotte is an artist and illustrator. But back when she was a child she was the star of a holiday movie that people just won’t let her forget. Unlike her sister, she never wanted to be an actress – her father is a director and got her the role – and she didn’t enjoy the process at the time, or the fact that it’s always brought up in everything she’s done since. So after a trade magazine reveals she’s the reason a reboot didn’t get made and an avalanche of fans pile on to her on her social media (and sometimes in public), she decamps to spend Christmas with her sister in London. Said sister is a new mum and is determined to make Baby’s First Christmas the most perfect and festive ever. Which is how she accidentally ends up at the stately home used as a filming location in said Christmas movie, and when she’s accidentally left behind she ends up getting a lift back to London with the son of the house – whose family business depends on visitors, of whom many come precisely because of that Christmas movie. Charlotte agrees to do a series of illustrations of locations used in famous Christmas movies and Graham agrees to accompany her on her sketching trips – but can there be a happy ending for a Christmas romance when one half of the couple hates Christmas?

The whole premise of this is that someone who hates their involvement in a Christmas movie gets caught up in a romance that could be the plot of a Christmas movie. And it’s just so much fun. Obviously Martha Waters has made up her own movie for the purpose, but I think it’s fair to say that Love Actually may have inspired some of it – there’s a Heathrow Airport joke right at the start and there are a few more nods to the quirks (shall we call them) of Richard Curtis’s Christmas anthology movie as well. If that was all this was doing, it could have run the risk of being a bit one note or basic – but there’s much more going on than that. Charlotte’s got issues that she needs to work through – not just with her former child stardom, but with her parents too – and adds to the layers of the story. There’s also witty banter and a great cast of supporting characters with enough quirks to make them funny but not so many that they become teeth itchingly irritating.

I’ve recommended one of Martha Water’s historicals – To Swoon and to Spar – before, and I have another waiting on the shelf. This is her first contemporary romance and I really hope she does more of them if they can all be as good as this.

I bought my copy in Waterstones, but the Kindle and Kobo editions are 99p at the moment – although you might need to get in fast on that though as I suspect it’s a December deal, and we all know December ends at midnight…

Happy Reading…

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: Cure for the Common Breakup

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Did I finish this on Monday? Yes. Would I have finished it on the train to work if that train had taken ten minutes longer? Also yes. But still. This one was a lot of fun, so it deserves it.

Summer is a flight attendant – and her always moving lifestyle is perfect for her attitude towards relationships. Except… at the start of a long haul flight to Paris, she hears her boyfriend might be about to propose and she’s thinking about saying yes. But then the flight goes wrong and everything changes. Summer needs somewhere to recover (physically and mentally) and heads for Black Dog Bay, a small town in Delaware known as “the best place in America to bounce back from your breakup”. There she finds a small town community ready to welcome her – and a mayor who is definitely not her type and who definitely doesn’t do relationships…

The fact that this is set in Delaware probably gives you the hint about why I was picking this up last week, but often with the books I read at the end of the year to tick some states off, they’re a slog to get through (and I might have given up on them in other circumstances) but this was really nice. If you had told me it was written in the early 2000s I would have believed it too – except for the smartphones! Not because it’s outdated but because there’s just something about it that reminds me of the books I used to read back when I was at university – funny and slightly caper-y, and with a romance but more about the female lead finding herself than just getting the man.

Anyway, this is the first of a series set in Black Dog Bay – and I will happily read more and try and not use them all up as my Delaware option too fast!

I bought my copy on Kindle, but it’s also on Kobo. I suspect any physical copy will be harder to find, but I’m sure the big vendors will try!

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, non-fiction

Book of the Week: The Divorce Colony

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It’s Tuesday again and as I said yesterday we are hurling towards the end of the year and I’m trying to finish the Reading challenges. Today’s pick covered me off for South Dakota…

It is well know that laws in the US can vary from state to state. And most people have probably read a book or watched a movie where someone goes to Reno for a quickie divorce, but what you might not have come across is the period in time where South Dakota was the location of choice for obtaining a divorce. April White’s The Divorce Colony looks at this time and some of the women who went to the frontier of the US to end their marriages.

This focuses on four society women who made the trip to Sioux Falls and the different challenges they faced. I found the women themselves fascinating as well as the quirks and tribulations of divorce laws. As social history it is fascinating and an illustration of how much has not changed as well as how much has.

My copy has is a hardback, and it’s probably going to be a special order and the Kindle price has dropped since I bought a hard copy!

Happy Reading!

Christmas books, Forgotten books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Classic Christmas mysteries

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Anyway, some Christmas murder mysteries for you today – and did I say I was done with British Library Crime Classics for the year? Ahem. Here I am with a post that’s two thirds BLCC. And that’s if you’re being charitable. It’s probably more like three quarters. Oopsie Daisy.

Santa Klaus Murders by Mavis Doriel Hay

Starting with one I read a while ago – in fact I’ve read Mavis Doriel Hay’s other crime novels, which were among the first BLCCs I read and they are brilliant, but forgotten, Golden Age crime stories. This is no exception. A Christmas set house-party murder – with chapters written by various different character – it ticks all the boxes for what I look for in a murder mystery. It’s well worth starting your Christmas reading with this – especially as it’s in Kindle Unlimited at the moment.

Dramatic Murder by Elizabeth Anthony

So this is the new BLCC release for this Christmas, and features the murder (even if the courts think it’s accidental death) of the host of a Christmas show party by one of the guests. I will admit that I had the culprit worked out before the end, but as far as Christmas mysteries go, this is a pretty good one.

Midwinter Murder by Agatha Christie

The Autumn equivalent of this was a BotW not that long ago, but I think this winter version is maybe slightly better – at least if you like Christie’s big name detectives. This has plenty of Poirot in it as well as some Miss Marple, Parker Pyne and Harley Quinn and the mix is pretty good. And of course the fact that it’s short stories means that you can read one, and then go do something else – ideal if you’re preparing for Christmas!

Just a couple more from the British Library to mention before I go: firstly Mystery in White by J Jefferson Farjeon – I’m the reverse of most people in that I prefered Seven Dead to Mystery in White, but if you want a locked room Christmas mystery, then this might be it. Then of course there is Christmas Card Crime – book of the week just after Christmas 2021. Silent Nights collection – BotW back in 2015!

Happy Reading!

Recommendsday, romance

Book of the Week: Rivals

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I was trying to work out when I was finishing the Week in Books yesterday how obvious it was that what I was going to pick today. I was figuring that given that I wrote about the adaptation on Sunday and then a 700 page plus book appeared on the list and had been read in under a week the signs might have been there. But who can tell the workings of my mind? Anyway, here we are.

So (obviously) this is the book the Disney+ series is based on. And what I didn’t mention in the post on Sunday is that the eight parts of the adaptation don’t cover the whole of the book. And having been left on a cliffhanger of not knowing l of course I wanted to see how it all turned out without having to wait however many years it’s going to be for series two. If we get a series two because I’ve been burned before (see: My Lady Jane, Pushing Daisies, The New Adventures of Superman). And also I wanted to know how different the book is from the show.

And the answer to that second question is it’s pretty close. There are a few things that happen a bit differently most of which I can’t mention because of spoilers but the one I can is that Rupert being blonde in the book and dark haired in the show. And that didn’t bother me because traditionally I prefer a dark and brooding hero and I saw the adaptation first. I’m fickle me. The 80s attitudes to some things are still there in the book – but some of the best lines in the show come directly from the book dialogue.

Some of the people are worse in the TV show than the book, others the reverse. There are a few characters in the show who are more fleshed out on screen than they were in the book. I was wondering how they could do a whole other season out of what was left of the book but there’s so much plot still to cover I’m pretty sure they can – especially if they want to bring a few of the things that are different back around to the book. Plus the ending of the book is all very fast. So there’s a bit of scope there.

All in all it’s deeply readable and although it satisfied my craving for resolution it probably made me even more desperate for series two sooner rather than later. Hey ho. At least I can reread/rewatch if I want to.

You should be able to get a copy of this absolutely everywhere given the adaption and of course it’s on Kindle and Kobo too. Plus there’s a new reading of the audiobook performed by Georgia Tennant aka David’s wife if you want a bit of a crossover effect and nearly twenty five hours of audio to listen to!

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, Children's books, Forgotten books

Book of the Week: The Top of the Climb

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I was wondering what to write about this week and then I realised that I was the only person to have read and rated this on Goodreads and so obviously the choice became clear! And so this week we have another in my intermittent series of career books for girls from the mid-twentieth century.

As you can tell from the cover, this is the story of a plucky young wannabe air hostess through her training and into the early stages of her career. In this case it’s Caroline, who comes down from the north of England for her interview at London airport and doesn’t speak much of any foreign language, but clearly has the right accent and the right stuff for the job. This runs you through the skills that an air hostess needed at the time, and then a bit of the day to day of the job once you qualify.

The rest of Betty Beaty’s books appear to be Mills and Boon category romances – between air hostesses and pilots, but there’s not actually a lot of romance in this – for all that the traditional love interest is easily spotted early on. There’s a dollop of glamour with trips to New York- but also the usual dash of teething troubles and peril. I’ve said before that my expectations for air travel were made unrealistic by the fact that I read Shirley Flight, Air Hostess as a child – and this would have done the same, although maybe not quite to the same extent.

Of course the main issue with a lot of this era of books is that problematic content can pop up anywhere – and anything with travel tends to have at least a few issues. The Shirley Flight books are particularly bad when it comes to the portrayal of anyone non-British, and although it has a moment or two, The Top of the Climb is better than they are on that front. And also, spoiler, there’s no plane crashes in this. Shirley crashes in practically every other book, but Caroline makes it to the end sans wrecked plane – despite a few scares. All in all an interesting and mostly fun way to spend a couple of hours.

I bought this at Bristol Book Con this year, and I can’t see any other copies anywhere, so if you want to read this you may have to make me an offer. But I don’t suppose you will – and indeed I’m not really suggesting you should.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, Christmas books, new releases

Book of the Week: The Anti-Social Season

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It’s November and we have our first Christmas-set pick of the season and it’s one of the new releases! And yes I know, I told you about it on release day, but now I’m reporting back…

Thea has been a firefighter for a decade, except that now she can’t do it any more after a colleague was injured. She’s got the chance of a job managing the fire service’s social media – but can she cope with being so close to her old job without actually doing it? And who even is she if she isn’t a firefighter? Simon is a librarian and manages the library’s social accounts part time. He’s the man tasked with teaching Thea the ropes of her new job. He also had a huge crush on her when they were at school – even though she didn’t notice him at all. As they work their way towards Christmas the two of them realise that there is something going on between them – but can they do anything about it without risking their jobs?

This is actually much lower angst than that description sounds. There is no active peril really, just some slightly toxic family members and two adults working out whether they might work together beyond the bedroom. There are adult conversations when things go wrong (not always straight away) and grown up behaviour. It’s actually a very comforting and calming read. Well except for Simon’s sister and mother who need to be fired into the sun. But apart from that. If you want to start your festive reading, this wouldn’t be a bad place to do it.

As you already know, I had this one preordered and it’s available now on Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!