books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: March 2 – March 8

I’m starting to thing that March might be the month of shows – I saw two shows last week, and I’ve got two more this week, and I’ve got another two booked for later in the month already. So on that basis, I’m still pretty pleased with the reading last week, even if I didn’t finish anything from that pesky still reading list. I will try again on that this week.

Read:

And The Crowd Went Wild by Susan Elizabeth Philips

Overture to Death by Ngaio Marsh

Murder at Gulls Nest by Jess Kidd

Murder in the Cathedral by Kerry Greenwood

Murder at the Tower by N R Daws*

Thunder in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters

The Bombay Prince by Sujuta Massey

Started:

Murder at the Spirit Lounge by Jess Kidd*

Death Waits in the Dark by Julia Buckley

Still reading:

The Corpse in the Waxworks by John Dickson Carr

Game Changer by Rachael Reid

Square Haunting by Francesca Wade

Ritual of Fire by D V Bishop

Pet Shop Boys, Literally by Chris Heath

Nothing bought. For once.

Bonus picture: What I saw on Monday – it’s really good, but it’s only on two nights a week and tickets are very limited so if you want to see it, move fast.

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

books, stats

Reading Stats: February 2026

Books read this month: 29*

New books: 23

Re-reads: 6 (5 audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 3

NetGalley books read: 11

Kindle Unlimited read: 9

Ebooks: 1

Audiobooks: 5

Non-fiction books: 1

Favourite book: Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter

Books bought: 9 books and 9 ebooks – it was all going really well until the last 10 days of the month when the Heated Rivalry books went on offer and then the damn burst on a bit of physical book purchasing too.

Most read author: hard to tell because it’s probably among the audiobooks – either Ngaio Marsh or Elizabeth Peters, because the Falcon at the Portal is now the longest book I’ve read this year and I’m a way through the next one too, but I’ve also done four Inspector Alleyns.

Books read in 2025: 58

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 599 – this is back a little again because I’ve added a bunch of the 2026 releases that I either want to read or have copies of via NetGalley. So hopefully that will come down again as I read them!

Firstly an apology that I’m posting this so far into March, but there were a few things that I wanted to talk about in the first week of the month that couldn’t really wait, and so this was the thing that got bumped. A pretty good month in reading to be honest. I’m pretty pleased with the number of books on the list from NetGalley, even if the to-read pile list is a bit shorter. I’m still some way off getting the list down to where I want it, but progress is progress.

Bonus picture: Unexpected stained glass spotted while wandering through Soho.

*often includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – 7 this month!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: February 23 – March 1

A pretty solid week, considering that it included a theatre trip, an art gallery trip and another evening out as well. However I seem to be developing a bit of an issue on the still reading shelf by starting books and then not finishing them when I already have a few on the go. So I need to work on that. But on the bright side, more than half of the things I did finish last week were from Netgalley, so that is something.

Read:

The Housekeepers by Alex Hay*

Death in a White Tie by Ngaio Marsh

Love and Other Brain Experiments by Hannah Brohm*

The Wedding Bait by Adele Buck

Death on the Lusitania by R L Graham*

Frozen Felonies by Patti Benning

Missing in Soho by Holly Stars*

Started:

And The Crowd Went Wild by Susan Elizabeth Philips

Murder at Gulls Nest by Jess Kidd

Still reading:

The Corpse in the Waxworks by John Dickson Carr

Game Changer by Rachael Reid

Square Haunting by Francesca Wade

Ritual of Fire by D V Bishop

Pet Shop Boys, Literally by Chris Heath

We are not talking about the purchases, because a fresh month of kindle deals started yesterday and I bought two more books in the week. Bad Verity.

Bonus picture: One of the most famous paintings from that art gallery trip. And underneath Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier dancing to a song about it…

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: February 16 – February 22

The Winter Olympics hangover starts here. How will I cope without a ready flow of (winter) sports to watch all day? It’s a whole month until the Figure Skating World Championships and my final skating fix of the season – but at least we have that, for a lot of the other winter sports their seasons ended in Milan-Cortina. What will I do? What’s that? The MotoGP season starts in Thailand on Sunday? Excellent. Anyway, also in last week was a trip to the theatre so I’m surprised I read as much as I did.

Read:

A Vintage Murder by Ngaio Marsh

A Rookie Mistake by Laura Carter

Hattie Brings Down the House by Patrick Gleeson

Artists in Crime by Ngaio Marsh

Falling for the Matchmaker by Jennifer Wick*

Edward VIII: The Uncrowned King by Piers Brendon

British Bulldog by Sara Sheridan

Started:

The Housekeepers by Alex Hay*

The Corpse in the Waxworks by John Dickson Carr

Still reading:

Game Changer by Rachael Reid

Square Haunting by Francesca Wade

Ritual of Fire by D V Bishop

Pet Shop Boys, Literally by Chris Heath

Restraint went out the window at the weekend, because Rachel Reid’s Game Changer series were on offer for 99p each on Kindle so I may have bought the lot, and on top of that, there was one of the Alexa Martin’s that I don’t own on offer too so I snapped that up as well as three secondhand books. Ooops.

Bonus picture: my set up on Monday night for the pairs free programme. If you haven’t watched Miura and Kiyahara’s routine, you should.

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

Book previews

Out this Week: Alexandra Vasti

I’ve got one for the historical romance fans this week, while you wait for the second half of the latest series of Bridgerton to arrive next week! This is a paperback release of the first two books in Alexandra Vasti’s Halifax Hellions series – In Which Margo Halifax Earns Her Shocking Reputation and In Which Matilda Halifax Learns the Value of Restraint – rather than something new-new, so serious fans may have read already. I have Vasti on my to-read-once-the-pile-goes-down list because so many people in the romance communities that I hang out in are huge fans of her books, and she’s also a really interesting interview, which is usually a good sign too. This is out in Kindle next week, but in the meantime Ladies in Hating, which came out in September is on offer on Kindle for 99p!

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: February 9 – February 15

As expected, I’m too busy watching the Winter Olympics (as well as a weekend away!) to get a lot of reading done, so this is a bit of a list dominated by novellas – although I did get two books finished. It could have been a lot worse. This week I have the Winter Olympics *and* a theatre trip so who knows if the situation will be any better come next Monday. I’m really enjoying the Games though and it will soon be over, so I’m not complaining at all.

Read:

The Falcon at the Portal by Elizabeth Peters

A Play for Love by Trilina Pucci

Death to Valentine’s Day by Catherine Cowles

The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts by Robert Thorogood*

Valentines Slay by Navessa Allen

Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett*

Buried Blooms by Patti Benning

Started:

Game Changer by Rachael Reid

Still reading:

Square Haunting by Francesca Wade

Ritual of Fire by D V Bishop

Pet Shop Boys, Literally by Chris Heath

One book bought, no ebooks

Bonus picture: A photo of a very young Kenneth Branaugh in Hamlet at the Birmingham Rep on Saturday night.

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

romance, series

Romance Series: Improbable Meet-Cute Second Chances

It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow and after 2024’s Improbable Meet-Cute series of Originals, Amazon are back with a second set themed around the idea of a second chance after a meet cute. nd I have read them all so you don’t have to. I was really optimistic after the first three, because I really liked all of them, but then it went downhill a little. So I’m going to focus on the ones that I really liked.

The Christina Lauren has a marketing consultant who ends up in the wrong zoom meeting and then gives a brutal critique of the presentation she sees. This leads the company boss to offer her a job, but their emails turn flirty and soon she’s torn between him and her hot but mysterious neighbour. This is a a wild premise, but the banter is good and I raced through it. I’ve mentioned before that Christina Lauren can sometimes come down the wrong side of my tastes when it comes to workplaces and professionalism, but this navigates the workplace romance dynamic neatly and has an actually competent heroine who is good at her job and flirting on the side. It also has just the right amount of plot for the length, which cannot be said for some of the others in the series!

Time Will Tell has a heroine who gets a letter from her deceased grandmother revealing a long held secret – and leading her to a time capsule and a lost love affair. This starts an email conversation with the grandson of her grandmother’s lost love all the way over in England. This is also just the right amount of plot for the length, and the main characters felt really three dimensional. It was my first time reading Hannah Bonam-Young, and I would definitely give something full length a chance on the basis of this.

In Second Act Romance, an emergency replacement is drafted in to play Bex’s leading man when the cast of the musical that she’s in comes down with food poisoning. But it turns out that he’s the same guy she shared some onstage fireworks with years before. Now they’re working together again, and can they work out the misunderstanding that stopped their first encounter going any further. I’m a bit mixed on Julie Soto, but her entry in this series is probably my favourite thing I’ve read of hers. It’s a bit bonkers, but I went with it.

Of the other three, Death to Valentines Day has far too much plot for the length that it is – a murder and and romance in less than 100 pages! – and that means that there’s not a lot of time for characterisation so everyone feels quite caricaturish and over drawn. Valentine’s Slay is (thankfully) not actually a vampire story, but it is the most outlandish in terms of plot. On the other hand, it’s also the spiciest so some may like it best because of that – although for me I’m not sure I’d be up for sex about an hour after waking up buried alive, but hey danger boner is a staple of romance novels so what do I know. Anyway, although I have some reservations, they’re all short and as they were in KU I didn’t have to pay for them, so all in all a nice way to read some romance before Valentines day and try out some new authors as four of the six were new to me.

Have a great weekend!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: February 2 – February 8

It’s day three of the Winter Olympics proper and I’m having such a good time watching it all I’m almost surprised I finished anything over the weekend. But I did, although it wasn’t any of the long runners that I’m meant to be targeting. Hey ho, onwards and upwards towards the ice dance, where the Brits have a chance of a medal if all the stars align for them.

Read:

The Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl by Sierra Simone and Julie Murphy*

Death in Ecstasy by Ngaio Marsh

Under Admiralty Arch by S J T Riley*

Familiar Ferocity by Patti Benning

Night Rider by Sloane Fletcher*

Off Script by Bianca Gillam*

Cyanide in the Sun ed Martin Edwards

Started:

n/a

Still reading:

Square Haunting by Francesca Wade

Ritual of Fire by D V Bishop

Pet Shop Boys, Literally by Chris Heath

One book bought in Waterstones Trafalgar Square

Bonus picture: the Coliseum on Wednesday night before some Gilbert and Sullivan.

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: January 26 – February 1

As I said yesterday, there’s a new Amazon valentines novella series and so there are a few of those on here. Otherwise I’ve nearly finished one of the long runners and so I’m getting there, despite a night out at the theatre in the week and a very busy weekend. Onwards into February.

Read:

Tide Up by Patti Benning

A Deadly Affair by Agatha Christie

The Future Saints by Ashley Winstead*

The Nursing Home Murder by Ngaio Marsh

Cross the Line by Simone Soltani

Accidentally Yours by Christina Lauren

Time Will Tell by Hannah Bonam-Young

Second Act Romance by Julie Soto

On Spine of Death by Tamara Berry

Started:

Night Rider by Sloane Fletcher*

Under Admiralty Arch by S J T Riley*

Still reading:

The Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl by Sierra Simone and Julie Murphy*

Square Haunting by Francesca Wade

Ritual of Fire by D V Bishop

Pet Shop Boys, Literally by Chris Heath

One book and one ebook bought.

Bonus picture: the Fitzrovia Chapel in almost daylight one day after work this week. It’s getting lighter everyone…

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

books, stats

Reading Stats: January 2026

Books read this month: 31*

New books: 26

Re-reads: 5 (all audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 5

NetGalley books read: 5

Kindle Unlimited read: 12

Ebooks: 4

Audiobooks: 5

Non-fiction books: 2

Favourite book: Meet the Newmans

Books bought: 4 actual books (3 of them in Sheffield), 1 pre-order placed, 5 ebooks

Most read author: Goodreads tells me that the Elissa Sussman is the longest book I’ve read this year so far so it must be that!

Books read in 2025: 31

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 597 (I told you I’d done a cull!)

January started well, but then sailed a little bit off course on account of that entire week of skating in Sheffield. Which was amazing and I regret nothing. The week of recovery I regret a little bit more, but hey these things happen. There are more novellas on this list than usual – because at times that was all my fried little brain could cope with, but also because Patti Benning writes annoyingly readable things and I kept going straight on to the next one but also because Amazon dropped another Valentines Novella collection with a bunch of romance authors I like and I ended up reading those instead of finishing off some of the things I had on the go. I’d like to think February will be a better month in reading, but the Winter Olympics start on Friday and we all know how much I love the Olympics. And given that I can only watch one thing at a time and I also have to work, the reading may get a little sidelined in favour of figure skating, skiing and sliding,

Bonus picture: Another picture from my fabulous week in Sheffield!

*often includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – 10 this month!