Tag: book roundups

book round-ups

Buy myself a Book for Christmas

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As I mentioned in last week’s Buy me a Book for Christmas post, I did a bit of purchasing while I was putting that post together, so this weekend, here’s the stuff I bought, in case you need further inspiration!

Firstly I should say that the way that I put together the Buy Me a Book post is the same every year – I go through my Amazon wishlists of Books and my Goodreads to-read shelf to look for books that I’ve added over the course of the year but haven’t bought. And then I go wandering around the various book buying websites to see how easy (or otherwise) they are going to be to get hold of. And secondly I try not to ask for books that might go on offers, be available in the supermarket 2 for however many offers and thirdly I should say that I was writing the original post in November, but it’s now December, so bear that in mind if I’m mentioning offers. Oh – and there are no graphic novels on the list because I buy those from my local comic book store and want to give them the custom.

Fiction picks

And the reason that the Buy me a book post was non-fiction heavy was partly because a lot of the fiction I was after was on some kind of offer! So I picked up the latest Emma Straub novel, This Time Tomorrow, and also the next book in Alexis Hall’s baking show series, Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble. I also preordered the next in Jen DeLuca’s Willow Creek series Well Traveled as well as the new Olivia Dade (which as you know already came out and I’ve already read), and I finally bought Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Gods of Jade and Shadow. And because I happened to wandering around the Waterstones site, I picked up a signed copy of Rainbow Rowell’s new short story collection Scattered Showers. I did look at the British Library Crime Classics selection too – but that just added a load of books to my Kindle Unlimited list! Finally there’s Mrs Harris Goes to Paris, which was on offer in a special tie-in edition because the movie came out a couple of months back.

Non fiction picks

I’ve had my eye of Julia Boyd’s Travellers in the Third Reich for a while and this year a follow up is out. but both Travellers and A Village in the Third Reich were on offer on Kindle when I was putting the post together so rather than asking for the paperbacks, I just bought them! The new Anne De Courcy about Nancy Cunard (another in that group from the 1920s who pops up a lot) Five Love Affairs and a Friendship was on offer on Kindle at a sensible price for non-fiction, as was Mary Churchill’s War (the wartime diaries of Winston Churchill’s daughter, edited by Emma Soames) and Spying and the Crown by Richard J Aldridge and Rory Cormac. Then there is Heiresses by Laura Thompson, about heiresses from the Seventeenth Century to the present, which is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment, so I borrowed it. Oh What a Lovely Century would also have been on the list for this Christmas – if I hadn’t found that copy in the work charity book sale.

And I think that’s the lot. Have a great weekend everyone!

book round-ups, fiction, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: (Late) Summer Holiday Reading

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Yes, this is very late now, but it’s a bank holiday weekend coming in the UK this week and last week I had three nights away from home so I *finally* pulled my finger out and read the rest of the books that I had been thinking about for this post. I know – I started writing this in late June, but I got distracted by the rereads and exciting new series. And some of the books I was going to put into this ended up in other posts, or as books of the week (Acting Up I’m looking at you) I am such a mood reader. I don’t even know why I try to make lists and plans of what to read when. And yes, this is all romance or romantic comedy or adjacent genres, but that is what I like to read on a sun lounger. Sue me. As usual, if it has an * next to the title if came from NetGalley, otherwise I paid for it with my very own money. And you’ll be glad to know I’ve already started on the Christmas reading post. Maybe I’ll get that one done on time…

Beach House Summer by Sarah Morgan*

Sarah Morgan‘s summer novel this year follows the ex-wife of a TV chef in the immediate aftermath of his death in a car crash. Stay with me, I know that sounds like it might be miserable, but don’t worry. To return to the plot: Joanna’s marriage to Cliff was dysfunctional to say the least and carried out in the glare of the media spotlight. So when she finds out that there was a young woman in the car when it crashed and that the woman is pregnant, Joanna knows she has to help her. The two women head to Joanna’s house in the town that she grew up in to hide from the paparazzi. Joanna hasn’t been there since she ran away with Cliff in the aftermath of a breakup with her high school boyfriend and she’s soon going to have to face the past and the community she left behind. Ashley needs space to plan her and the baby’s future – but there are still a few secrets to come out… This is a delightful sun lounger read, if you can just get past the death-y bit at the start, which I did – but that’s why it was on the list for a couple of weeks! It’s basically a small town, second chance romance with relatively low peril.

The Friendship Pact by Jill Shalvis

On to another regular author of mine and Jill Shalvis’s summer ‘22 book is a second chance romance for two characters who have been damaged by their childhoods. Tae spent her childhood worrying about money and about her mum’s attempts to find a man to make them a family. Riggs’ dad was an alcoholic who liked to hit his kids. But the two of them were friends in high school – until they weren’t. Now Riggs is back in town to visit his brother and his company providing adventures for athletes with disabilities and wounded veterans. Tae’s events planning company is organising their summer programmes. The two of them reconnect, but there are obstacles to a happy ending for them. I read it in 24 hours and was nearly late back from my lunch break because I was enjoying it so much. There’s a testimonial for you!

In a New York Minute by Kate Spencer*

Franny Doyle is already having a bad day before her dress catches in the subway door: she’s just been made redundant. But now her dress is ripped but even worse – the whole subway can see her bum and her knickers. luckily fellow passenger Hayes lends her his jacket to save her blushes. That would be the end of it – except someone has posted what happened to their Insta stories and now they’re viral sensations – #SubwayQTs. Their new found fame (notoriety?!) means they end up seeing each other again, and again, and again: but is there more there than just a hashtag? This has a buttoned up and awkward hero who comes off as aloof and a creative heroine with a tight knit group of friends. If I hadn’t had to do actual things, I could probably have read this in one giant sitting – it’s light and fluffy and endearing.

Donut Fall In Love by Jackie Lau

And finally, this isn’t a summer new release (it came out in October last year!), but I’m giving it a quick shout out because it feels like it would be a fun read if you were on a sun lounger. This has a Hollywood star and a normal person pairing (which I like – see Olivia Dade!) and it’s also got a bakery and a baking show. What’s not to love.

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Books about Friendships

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Yesterday’s book of the week follows a friendship through three decades of life, and that inspired me to put together this Recommendsday.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Proviso: I’ve only read the first of the four books in this series, but I’m still recommending it here. Also apologies if you’re one of the millions who has already read these – as you know, I’m consistently behind the times on some things! Anyway, My Brilliant Friend is the the first book about Elena and Lila as they grow up in Naples in the late 1950s. They both want to escape the lives seem set out before them but chose different ways to try and do it. The book is about the two women, but also about the realities of life in a poor part of Naples after the Second World War. It’s harsh and hard scrabble and violent. I’ve got book two on the shelf waiting to be read, and I really must get around to it because writing this has reminded me that I want to know what happened to the women next.

The Group by Mary McCarthy

Mary McCarthy’s novel follows a group of young Vassar graduates in the 1930s. You follow them as they try to make their way in the world – to strike out and live different lives to their mothers, despite the obstacles still in the way of women at the time. They don’t all stay in touch with each other all the time, but their lives intertwine and the fellowship between them remains. You may have spotted this on the bookshelf on Saturday’s Bookshelfie – I read it a decade ago and I’ve kept hold of it because I liked it that much. But be prepared to be angry at the way the world treated women back then. It was written in the early 1960s, but McCarthy was born in 1912 so this is era she grew up in.

The Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

Another book written in the 1960s, another one that’s retained a place on my shelves for about a decade. I picked the Valley of the Dolls up in my initial Virago Modern Classics buying spree because it looked so pretty, and I’m so glad I did. Neely, Anne and Jennifer make friends when they are young and struggling in New York City. They fight their way to success in the entertainment industry, but it comes at a massive cost for all of them. If you’ve read anything about Hollywood or the entertainment industry in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, you can try and spot which actors and actresses might have inspired who (a bit like you can with the much more recent Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo). Don’t go expecting happy endings here, but it is a gripping read.

To add to these, you could probably put The Enchanted April – although the friendships there are developed over a much briefer period of time than the books I’ve mentioned above. And the Clary and Polly strand of the Cazalet Chronicles is definitely a story of friendship as well as one of family (they’re cousins). And there’s also The Lido by Libby Page, which tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a young reporter and an elderly woman as they try to save the community’s outdoor swimming pool.

Happy Wednesday everyone

book round-ups

Favourite not-new books of first half of 2022

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So yesterday we did the new releases, and today I’m back with my other favourite books of the year so far – the ones that aren’t new, but that I’ve read for the first time this year. And it’s a slightly random mix of the nearly new and the really old.

I’m going to start with the really old – and that’s two of my Persephone subscription picks. I’ve had five of my six books through now and read three of them and A House in the Country by Jocelyn Playfair and The Young Pretenders by Edith Henrietta Fowler both got five stars from me. The Two Mrs Abbotts got four stars – and that was mostly because I wanted more Barbara herself and even as I write that I wonder if I was being too harsh and I should upgrade it! All three of them – and the other two Miss Buncle books are great if you want low peril reading in your life at the moment – and who doesn’t to be honest.

Then there are two nearly new books that I’ve given five stars as well so far this year – there’s Greg Jenner’s Ask a Historian answering fifty questions about history that people have asked Greg. And then there’s very recent BotW pick Acting Up by Adele Buck, which is a theatre-set romance which I loved so much I immediately bought the next book in the series. Honestly June was such a good month of reading for me.

Close behind these there is also Emily McGovern’s Bloodlust and Bonnets if you want a gothic-spoof graphic novel – I mentioned Julia Quinn’s Miss Butterworth… in Quick Reviews the other day and they’re actually quite and interesting pair. Or there is Roomies by Christina Lauren if you want another hit of theatre-set romance after Acting Up. And an honourable mention to to Julia Claibourn Johnson’s Better Luck Next Time and Stephen Rowley’s The Editor.

It’s been a good year in reading so far folks.

book round-ups, reviews, stats

Best new books of the first half of 2022

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As promised, here is part one of my favourite books of the year so far – and we’re starting with new releases. I’ve already read 200 books this year, so I’ve got plenty of books to chose from but it’s no surprise that I’ve already written about most of these at some length.

I haven’t read a lot of nonfiction this year and not much of it is new-new but I have read Stories I Might Regret Telling You by Martha Wainwright and it’s such a good one. As I said in my BotW review back in April, this is one of the most unvarnished memoirs I’ve read. Martha Wainwright is as clear eyed about her own faults and her life as you will find someone and is prepared to put it out there in a book. Even if you don’t know her msuic, this is well worth reading – especially if you’re interested in the effects of famous paretns and/or competitive siblings and/or life in the music industry and particularly life in the music industry as a woman. And it turns out to be easier to get hold of than I thought it would be.

On to fiction and most of my favourite reads (that aren’t in series) are either romance or romance adjacent. There is the fabulous and sunny Book Lovers by Emily Henry and the redemptive and ultimately hopefuly Mad About You by Mhairi MacFarlane. They have very different plots, but they also both have heroines who know what they want in life and what they deserve. Mad About You has darker moments than Book Lovers, but you will come away from both with a big happy smile on your face.

Then there are two books that I have read in the last couple of weeks. I actually finished Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus and The Unsinkable Greta James by Jennifer E Smith one day apart and then had a massive book hangover from two of my favourite books of the year so far. Greta is this week’s Book of the Week so you can read all about that there, and Lessons in Chemistry was the top review in Quick Reviews yesterday – and wasn’t actually that quick a review.

And as I mentioned earlier – there have also been a few really good new entries in series that I like – there is The Prize Racket – the latest in Isabel Rogers’ Stockwell Park Orchestra Series, the latest Rivers of London book, Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch, and the latest Vinyl Detective novel Attack and Decay by Andrew Cartmel.

And lets finish with a couple of honourable mentions – all the books above got five stars from me on Goodreads, but there are a couple of really, really good books nipping at their heels – like Jill Shalvis’s The Family You Make and Harvey Fierstein’s memoir I Was Better Last Night which I still haven’t written about here but will undoubtedly figure in my long planned actor memoir recommendsday post, just as soon as I read the other actor memoirs I have on my shelf!

So that’s half a year done – fingers crossed that the new books in the second half of the year are as good. Tune in tomorrow for my favourite new-to-me books of 2022 so far!

book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: June 2022 Quick Reviews

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I read a lot of books last month. But there were also a lot of rereads, and I do have this terrible tendency to have already written about al lot of books by the time we get to this point in the months. But I have a plan to try out for that in July, so I’ll keep you posted…

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Cover of Lessons in Chemistry

Elizabeth Zott is a scientist. The trouble is that it is America in the 1960s and women apparently women aren’t meant to be scientists. Her Nobel nominated colleague Calvin can see that she’s a scientist and a lot more and the two of them start a relationship. But three years later Elizabeth is a single mother and is presenting the world’s most unconventional cooking show on regional TV. I need to give you a warning serious sexual assault early in this book and a death a little while after, but if you can cope with that once you get out the other side you’re ok. And we all know that I’ve had trouble with dealing with stuff like that recently and I was find with this. Elizabeth is an brilliant character – she knows what she wants to do and refuses to understand people who tell her no or change what she’s doing if she thinks she is right. The book is told from various different character’s perspectives, including her dog and her daughter and it’s just a delight. Six Thirty is the smartest of us all. This s Bonnie Garmus’s debut novel and it’s such a delight it was nearly BotW yesterday. It’s had a lot of buzz so you should be able to get it really easily – and if you are going on holiday, it was definitely in the airport bookshops when we were there!

Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron by Julia Quinn and Violet Charles

This is much referenced in the later Julia Quinn novels, and now we finally have (a graphic novel version of) Miss Butterworth! In the books it’s a romantic and gothic novels – much play is made of its outlandish plot – a character is pecked to death by pigeons for example. And it’s everything you would expect – utter, utter madness, beautifully illustrated by Quinn’s sister Violet Charles. I enjoyed this and I’m so glad it got published – for reasons that will become clear if you read to the end.

The Intoxicating Mr Lavelle by Neil Blackmore

Benjamin and Edgar Bowen head out into Europe on a Grand Tour that their mother has devised for them to help them meet People of Quality so they can come back with an enhanced social standing to help the family. But when Benjamin meets Horace Lavelle, the brothers’ paths and goals diverge. This came out in 2020 – I got a copy from the work book sale a few weeks back and then realised that I had it in the NetGalley backlog as well. Oops. Anyway, I liked the premise and the writing style, but it was a bit too bleak for me in the end. I don’t do well with books that are hurtling towards disaster at the moment, even if they are dealing with expectations and society and judgment and constructs and stuff that I am interested in. I wanted it to be ok for Benjamin; but I knew it wouldn’t be. But historical fiction isn’t always neat and happy, and may be that is the point. I suspect that pre-pandemic I would have been more enthusiastic about it – so I suspect other people who are not in need of neat resolutions and/or happy endings at the moment may really enjoy it.

Paper Lion by George Plimpton

So this was one of the longest of the long runners on the still reading pile. And that’s partly because it was a paperback so didn’t go in the work rucksack but mostly because I managed to lose it for ages! Anyway, this is a legendary book about American football in the 1960s when a journalist managed to persuade the Detroit Lions to let him join their preseason training camp as a quarterback. Obviously a lot has changed in professional football since then, but this is a fascinating glimpse of how sportsmen trained and lived at the time as well as the workings of an NFL team. If you like sport it’s definitely worth looking out for.

Enjoy!

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Set in Boarding schools

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Long time readers of this blog will be aware of my fondness for Girls Own books – particularly those set in boarding schools. I’m fairly sure that I would have hated boarding school in reality but I love reading about them – particularly the ones set in the first half of the twentieth century. A result of this is that I do love an adult book set in a boarding school and showing the other side of things. So for recommendsday today, here are some adult books set in schools of various types.

Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie

Let’s start with a classic murder mystery. An exclusive girls school is thrown into chaos when an unpopular games mistress is found shot dead in the sports pavilion. This is a Hercule Poirot novel, but he actually only appears very late on in this – which has school politics and international espionage among the options for the motive for the murder. I remember first reading this as an early teenager – around the same time as I was reading all the Girls Own books and being sort of horrified at the idea of a murder at a boarding school. It’s a much later Poirot novel – for all that I didn’t realise that when I first read it and the TV version of it is really quite different because it had to be moved back to the 1930s. Worth’s look if you’ve never read it.

Poison for Teacher by Nancy Spain

It’s only a few weeks since I picked Death Goes on Skis for a Book of the Week, so it’s perhaps a bit naughty to be picking Nancy Spain again, but I think if anything I liked this even more. Miriam and Natasha find themselves undercover at a boarding school to try to work out who is trying to put the school out of business. But while they are there, a teacher is poisoned and it all gets complicated. This has awful children, horrible teachers, seething rivalries – professional and personal – and a staff play that causes nothing but trouble. It’s really, really funny.

Summer Half by Angela Thirkell

Also funny, but without any murders is Angela Thirkell ’s Summer Half, which I still think is one of the funniest of all of her Barsetshire books. It has a serious teacher getting himself engaged to featherbrained girl who is clearly going to cause him nothing but problems and everyone in the book is hoping that he’ll some how manage to escape. Schools – and teaching – has changed a lot since this was written but it’s all still recognisable.

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

Let’s jump forward to the more recent past. Preplis about a scholarship student at a fancy New England Boarding school. Yes, I wanted to smack some sense into Lee for at least the second half of the book, possibly longer but that may have been because I could see some of the elements of my own character in her – the ones that I try hardest to overcome and she’s making no effort to do so, (or because she doesn’t try and make the most of the opportunity that she made for herself) But this did feel like a very realistic and truthful portrait of what life in a modern (ish) co-ed boarding school might have been like – in the time immediately before computers and mobile communication took over. This was Sittenfeld’s debut, and although I’ve enjoyed other books of hers more (the first or hers I read was Eligible, I’ve read almost all of her backlist and buy the new stuff as it comes out) but if you haven’t read it it’s worth a look.

I recently read Charlotte Mendelson’s Almost English – which is about a scholarship girl at an English country boarding school – which wasn’t for me, but I think others will like it- my problems was around not liking any of the characters enough to go with them while they made stupid decisions all over the place! And to finish I’m going to throw a few mentions in to stuff I’ve written about recently that also fits in here: As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust from Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce series, which sees our heroine stuck in a boarding school in Canada. And then there is Murder in the basement which was a BotW six months ago, and so I can’t really write about at length again – yet!

Happy Wednesday!

book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Lost Heirs part 2

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Here is the second part of my Recommendsday selections featuring lost heirs – inspired by An Impossible Imposter! Today we’re looking at romance novels!

So we have two basic types of Lost Heirs in romance – potentially fake to steal something away and ones the family didn’t know about or tried to get rid of. The latter tend to be the heroes of the story, the former the baddies. As is often the case, let’s start with Georgette Heyer. She has a lot of tropes – but in this case only really the hero type of lost heir. Hugo in The Unknown Ajax is an heir that the rest of the family didn’t know about – his grandfather had ignored his existence until the deaths of the people between Hugo and the title. This is one of my favourites – because Hugo has hidden depths, the secondary characters are delightful and there are smugglers.

Julia Quinn has a pair of books dealing with both sides of a lost heir problem – The Lost Duke of Wyndham and Mr Cavendish, I Presume. The first is the story of a highway man who discovers he may be the long lost heir to a dukedom. The second is the story of the man who thought he was the heir but discovers that he may not be. I remember these as being not quite as steamy as her Bridgerton series but I may be misremembering because it has been a while!

The clue is in the title with KJ Charles’s An Unsuitable Heir – in which a private equity agent is sent to find the missing heir to a title and finds him in a circus. This is the third in a trilogy of longer than novellas but not really quite as long as a novels and has the conclusion to an overarching storyline so maybe if you’re going to read it do the lot. They’re all connected but with different couples and different LGTBQ identities and relationships in Victorian London. Definitely not closed door.

I’m honestly sure I’ve forgotten some – I feel like I’ve read loads over the years but I couldn’t think of any more. I even went back on a magical deep dive of goodreads to try and find them. If it comes to me, there will be a part three!

Book of the Week, book round-ups, romance

Recommendsday: Secret identity/double identity romances

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Off the back of yesterday’s book of the week, today we’re talking romances where one (or both) partners are living a double life or have a secret identity

Let’s start with Georgette Heyer – because she has a few of these of various types. The Masqueraders has a cross dressing brother and sister who are trying to lie low after the Jacobite rebellion, False Colours has one twin pretending to be his missing brother and These Old Shades – one of my all time favourites has Leon the page who is actually Leonie. And that’s before you get to The Corinthian (girl runs away from home dressed as a boy and drops out of the window into the hero’s arms), and Arabella (heroine pretending to be a great heiress). Is it any wonder I love this trope so much?

Duchess by Night was my first Eloisa James – and I picked it up at the library because it mentioned the heroine in disguise. Now it’s much, much more steamy than Heyer – but as all you get in Heyer is a kiss, then that’s not a surprise. This’ll anyway, our heroine dresses up as a man to sneak into the house of a notorious rake to see what his debauched parties are actually like. You see where this is going (and why it’s not closed door!). Anyway, as an introduction to the series it was great – although I haven’t reread it in a few years so I hope it holds up!

I came to Eloisa James after discovering Julia Quinn and after James I moved in to Sarah MacLean who I have now written about a lot but has a secret identity type – but telling you what it is is a spoiler and a reveal and you need to have read the rest of the series to get the most out of it. I had to go back and read the Rules of Scandals series again after the shock twist at the end of No Good Duke Goes Unpunished because I was so convinced that MacLean must have slipped up at some point and she hadn’t. It is a master stroke.

Let’s go contemporary! And Jen De Luca’s Well Played which has a heroine who has been emailing back and forth with someone all year who actually turns out to be someone else. It just about manages to stay on the Cyrano side rather than the catfishing, the latter of which is the risk in all the modern day twists on this and obviously I love the Ren Fair setting because I made the first book in the series a BotW – and I read Well Matched (which is the third book) in two giant gulps last week. And maybe the aforementioned catfishing situation is why I can’t think of any other contemporaries to include here – it’s hard to come up with a twist on this that doesn’t create an insurmountable issue on the romance. Which is maybe why I was so impressed with Playing with Love! So please – if you have more, put them in the comments!

Happy hump day!

book round-ups, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Twists!

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So I started off trying to write a post about books with unreliable narrators, but even that seemed to give too much away. So I’ve refined it to books with twists in them – some of which may be unreliable narrators, some may not be. And I’m not telling you which and equally I’m not telling you which book that I’ve recently read that inspired this because: spoilers. Anyway, this little lot cover a range of genres so hopefully there’s something for everyone.

Anyway, I’m going to start with an all-time classic from the Queen of Crime, which is possibly the first of its type: Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. First published nearly 100 years ago, this was controversial when it was published – and has been described as breaking the rules of the murder mystery genre. If you’ve never read it, you really should – and don’t worry, the rules it break don’t include the one where you have to find out who did it! You could also add Murder on the Orient Express, The ABC Murders and And Then There Were None to the list as well – but I’m sure if you’re hanging around here with me you’ll have read at least one of them, if not all of them.

Also in the classic novel section (although not murder mysteries), are Daphne Du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel and Rebecca. They are varying degrees of Gothic and thrillers and both have both got under currents going on of various types. People will keep categorising both of these as romances, but do not be fooled – they are dark and creepy. They will leave you befuddled and wondering what just happened to you and how you feel about it all.

Next up Susanne Rindell’s The Other Typist. Set in 1920s New York, it’s about a young typist who works for the Police Department typing up confessions, and who is drawn into the underground world of speakeasies by a new typist who joins the pool. This came out in 2014 and was one of the most befuddling books I have read. Writing this has made me remember how much I enjoyed being perplexed – even if I didn’t love the ending, for reasons that I can’t go in to – so if I’m not careful I’ll end up buying some more of her books and adding further to the tbr pile!

Moving to something much less dark – and involving no murders – Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go Bernadette features teenager Bee discovering her mother’s past life after agoraphobic Bernadette disappears after a a school fundraiser goes awry. it’s funny and unpredictable and disconcerting and engaging and there is a trip to the Antarctic!

On top of these, there are also a few books I’ve written about already that might fit the bill: lets start with two by Taylor Jenkins Reid – both Daisy Jones and the Six and Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo have more going on than meets the eye. And more recently Rachel Hawkins’ The Wife Upstairs is Jane Eyre inspired, but still surprised me (a lot) when I read it last year.