Verity Reads Books (lots of them)
In which our heroine attempts to tame the to-read pile
There are a few notable books out this week (like the new Emily Henry) but I wanted to flag the new book from Libby Page, which comes out today and is a follow up to The Lido, which I loved when it came out in 2018 so I’m looking forward to seeing where she’s taking it now.
We’ve been on holiday, but it was a sightseeing and doing things sort of holiday, not a lying on a sun lounger one, so the book list isn’t quite what you might expect from a holiday week. But I had a wonderful time and I don’t care. No idea what I’m writing about tomorrow though. I’m sure something will come to me though. It usually does. Given that Taylor Swift has a new album out I should probably have tried harder to finish The Breakup Tour right?
Read:
When in Rome by Ngaio Marsh
Busted in Boston by Patti Benning
The Lantern’s Dance by Laurie R King
They do it with Mirrors by Agatha Christie
The Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters
The Darkest Sin by D V Bishop
Started:
Diva by Daisy Goodwin*
The Mimosa Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu
Still reading:
Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz*
The Breakup Tour by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka
Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd
None. So that’s something right?
Bonus picture: Tuscany. Just wonderful
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
Last week we said goodbye to one of my aunties. She spent her whole life living on farms and in the countryside, so it got me thinking about books set in farms or in the countryside, so that’s what I’m theming today’s Recommendsday around.
Firstly I’m going to mention an Enid Blyton book, The Children of Willow Farm, because when I read this as a child, it was how I imagined life on the farm my aunties lived on was like when they were little. I’m going to admit I haven’t read it as an adult, and I know that a lot of people say Blyton doesn’t stand up when you go back to it as an adult, but I don’t care.
Also in the same sort of era in terms of when they were written are the James Heriot books – that’s spawned the tv series All Creatures Great and Small. I’ve read or listened to a few of them and they are a glimpse into a Yorkshire of times gone by. Do note if you’ve seen the most recent TV series that it’s based on the characters not the plots once you get past the first couple of seasons.
You could also have Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm from this era – I really loved it – and it’s got a great TV movie adaptation featuring young Rufus Sewell in it that’s just been repeated on BBC Four and should be on the iPlayer if you want a dose of Sexy Seth. Even older is Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd, which has as its heroine a lady farmer. I read it back in my school days when I was assigned extra reading by by English teacher and I found it much less annoying than a lot of the rest of that list.
A few years before that particular bout of assigned reading I read Flora Thompson’s Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy which are all about country life at the end of the nineteenth century – and set not that far away from where the actual bits of my family who were farmers really were.
If you want countryside-set murder mysteries, then I’ve written a whole post about the Lady Hardcastle series – and I think we’re due another one in the not too distant future too. If you want romance, there are a good few of the older Katie Fforde’s and Trisha Ashley’s set in various parts of the English countryside – Ashley is usually Lancashire and Fforde the Cotswolds.
And that’s all I’ve got. But I’ve enjoyed thinking about options for this and it made me smile too which I needed
Happy Wednesday everyone.
It appears that reading the Lucy Worsley Agatha Christie biography has started me on a Christie re-read/listen. And then having read one of the Ann Grangers I had in hand the other week, I then promptly mainlined the other two – there is another one coming out this year – but not until the autumn so now I have to wait. I did however make some excellent progress on reducing the long runner list – more than you would guess from the list too. I will get there in the end! Interestingly though, I still don’t know what I’m going to write about tomorrow. We’ll see what happens…
Read:
The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
Rooted in Evil by Ann Granger
The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie
Deleted in the District by Patti Benning
A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie
A Matter of Murder by Ann Granger
Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date by Ashley Herring Blake
How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang*
Started:
Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz*
Still reading:
The Breakup Tour by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka
The Lantern’s Dance by Laurie R King
Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd
One ebook (for little sister) and two book-books. Restrained!
Bonus picture: my new house plant. Aren’t these leaves amazing?
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
It’s the second Wednesday of the month, and you know what that means, it’s time for me to tempt you to spend a whole bunch of money on cheap Kindle books!
In relatively recent picks, Come as You Are is 99p – this one was a BotW pick last year – and I think the price is down now because a second book in the series has just come out – and although that one is more expensive to buy Lips Like Sugar is also in Kindle Unlimited! Also 99p is Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, which is the first in Ashley Herring Blake’s Bright Falls series. As you know I’m currently reading the last one (when I can find the paperback, which I keep misplacing!) in this trio of romances featuring a friendship group in a small town. Alexandria Bellefleur also has a new book coming out this month and I think that’s why all three of her Written in the Stars series are £1.99 at the moment.
I’ve written whole posts about how much I love A J Pearce’s books about Emmy Lake, so it’s only right that I flag to you that the second in the trilogy (so far) Yours, Cheerfully is 99p this month – and the first one is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment as well. Double bonus. I read Alexander McCall Smith from time to time – and I think The 44 Scotland Street series is my favourite of his – and the first one of those is 99p at the moment. He’s definitely an author to read in order and if you binge too many in a row (like MC Beaton) you may notice patterns and trends and enjoy them less so pace yourself for best effect.
In older favourites, Jenny Colgan’s Little Beach Street Bakery is 99p. The heroine escapes a horrible relationship and does some healing through bakery, way before sourdough was the craze of the early pandemic. I have a special place in my heart for this book, because I won a competition when this came out and the prize was a new oven. I think enough time has passed now that I can admit that what I actually got was a stack of John Lewis vouchers to buy the oven – and as I didn’t need a new oven at the time, I held on to them and they bought new pillows and a new washer dryer when the one that I inherited from my grandpa gave up the ghost! Thank you lovely competition.
Another old favourite is Trisha Ashley – and her Wedding Tiers is 99p this month if you want to visit her Lancashire universe. We’re only a just over a month away from the first part of the third series of Bridgerton dropping on Netflix, but if you can’t wait (and bearing in mind everything I’ve said about the difference between the books and the series) then The Further Observations of Lady Whistledown is 99p – this is a collaborative effort with Julia Quinn and two other authors each telling a story in the Whistledown world.
This month’s bargain Georgette Heyer is Bath Tangle, which isn’t one of my favourites, but which I probably should re-read again to see if I’ve changed my mind on it, as can sometimes happen as I get older and wiser. This has a formerly engaged couple coming back into contact with each other when he is appointed her trustee after the death of her father. Devil’s Cub and An Infamous Army are among the ones at £1.99, There’s also a PG Wodehouse omnibus on offer for 99p if you want some Jeeves and Wooster.
I should probably mention some non-fiction too right? The Dress Diary of Miss Anne Sykes is 99p. I don’t recommend a lot of cook books, but when I do it tends to be Rukmini Iyer – I love her Roasting Tin series, and The Green Roasting Tin is £1.99 if you are someone who can cope with cook books on tablets.
And in books I bought while writing this post, there’s Genevieve Cogman’s Scarlet – I’ve read The Invisible Library and really liked it and this is French revolutionary vampires and comes with comparisons to Gail Carriger who you know I love. I’m excited to read it – and there is a sequel coming next month too. I also bought The Storied Life of A J Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, which was her big book before Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow went mega-huge. And finally I bought The Partner Plot which is the new book from Kristina Forrest, who wrote The Neigbor Favor which was a book of the week last summer.
Happy Humpday everyone!
A new release pick this week and I think if you saw it on the list last week you might have predicted this because I do love Kate Clayborn.
The heroine of The Other Side of Disappearing is Jess. She’s been bringing up her half sister Tegan on her own for the last decade, since their mum ran off with a boyfriend she had only know for a few months. She’s also been keeping a secret – that her mum’s boyfriend was a con man who was the subject of a true crime podcast. At the start of the book she discovers that not only has Tegan worked out the secret, but she’s contacted the podcast’s producers and is planning to go and search for their mother. Jess isn’t going to let Tegan face whatever is out there without her, so she joins her on the road trip with the podcast host and her producer Adam. Adam is a former college football star and recent journalism graduate. He’s working on this podcast for reasons of his own, but when he meets Jess he has to rethink what he has planned.
This is a road trip book, but with a larger cast than you usually get on road trip romances. And it is still a romance, but this is probably edging closer to what you might call Women’s Fiction than Clayborn has before. Because as well as being the story of Jess and Adam it’s also about Jess and Tegan and their relationship, the way they have built their own sort of family together – and the damage that their mother’s disappearance has done to them. But now I’ve written that I realise that I’ve made it sound like it’s a sad and miserable book, but it’s not! It’s actually pretty uplifting and as well as the romance you’re dying to know what happened to the con man and if they’re going to find their mum. So that’s a romance, a mystery, a road trip and a side of self discovery. It’s a really lovely read.
My copy of The Other Side of Disappearing came from NetGalley, but it’s out now in Kindle and Kobo and I can see copies available for Click and Collect in most of the central London Waterstones stores too.
Well well well. I actually finished a non-fiction book in a reasonable time frame. Who knew I could do that? Certainly not the long runners list recently. Anyway, reading that and trying to make some more progress on that long running list along with a fun evening trip to a concert dominated my efforts this week. Let’s see if I can actually get the list shorter this week…
Read:
Death at the Dolphin by Ngaio Marsh
The Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn*
A Clutch of Constables by Ngaio Marsh
Mud, Muck and Dead Things by Ann Granger
Sabotaged in South Carolina by Patti Benning
Hitchin’ Up by Patti Benning
Agatha Christie by Lucy Worsley
Started:
The Breakup Tour by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka
Still reading:
How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang*
The Lantern’s Dance by Laurie R King
Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date by Ashley Herring Blake
Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd
Well I wrote the Kindle offers post so there were a few…
Bonus picture: the clocks have changed, the evenings are lighter and hopefully soon the mornings will be too when I’m getting up for the train. It definitely feels less awful being up before 6am when it’s light already!
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
Before you ask, I haven’t read this, but I have started to see this every where which is why I’m mentioning it today. This is a debut novel, with a heroine who realises her attic is creating an endless supply of husbands for her to try out. But how do you decide whether to stick with the one you have or keep going to see if you can find a better option? This has blurbs from Marian Keyes and Gabriele Zevin and is being comped with Really Good, Actually – so if you’re looking for a book at the airport in the near future and liked Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow this could be the one to pick!
I’m going for a new murder mystery novel this week – new as in not out until Thursday, so for once I’m ahead of the game. Mark your calendars, it’s not an April fool (that was yesterday!) and it may not happen again this year!
Daphne sends her family have left London behind and moved to Norfolk. Their new home is a a historic farmhouse in a seemingly idyllic village that even has a name to match – Pudding Corner. But when the primary school headteacher is found dead, Daphne realises that all is not what it seems. Daphne gets even more involved when one of her new friends is implicated – but Mr Papplewick was a on the verge of retirement after a career spent in the village – could some one from his past want him dead, or is it one of the other parents at the school?
I really enjoyed the setting and the characters, but I will say that I had the murderer pegged pretty early on, but I read a lot of murder mysteries and this is a debut. It sounds like they’re setting up for a series. So as I liked the premise so much, I will definitely comeback for more if more is offered to me. This is written by Paula Sutton, aka Instagram‘s Hill House Vintage and as well as the murder mystery this also has dollops of her vintage style. This has blurb comparisons to Richard Osman and Richard Coles and I think that’s pretty fair, but also some of the American cozies themed around hobbies and handicrafts.
My copy came from NetGalley, but is out on Thursday so you have a few days left to preorder a physical copy, kindle or kobo edition. As it’s not out yet and it’s a debut novel I V have no idea how easy it will be to get in the shops, but I will keep an eye out for it.
Happy Reading!
it’s April Fool’s Day, and I’m wondering if I’m fooling myself because I’ve started another non-fiction book that has potential to end up in on the long-runners list because it’s a hardback. But the documentary that goes with the Lucy Worsley Agatha Christie book was on TV the other day and it reminded me that mum has just read the book and said it was really good, so off I went. Anyway, beyond that I’m challenging myself to try and get a little ahead with the NetGalley reading, by which I mean I’ve started the April books already – because we all know that I’m way behind with the NetGalley reading in general! But hey, at least I got one thing off the long-runners list last week. This week I’ve got a couple of days off work but also a couple of days of rail disruption (engineering work *and* strikes) so less commuting time than usual so we will see what happens.
Read:
Hand in Glove by Ngaio Marsh
Nabbed in New Mexico by Patti Benning
Lurking in Louisiana by Patti Benning
Dead Water by Ngaio Marsh
The Last Action Heroes by Nick de Semelyen
Foul Play in Florida by Patti Benning
The Potting Shed Murder by Paula Sutton*
Started:
Agatha Christie by Lucy Worsley
The Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn*
How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang*
Still reading:
The Lantern’s Dance by Laurie R King
Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date by Ashley Herring Blake
Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd
One pre-order, one ebook, two second-handbooks. Posititively restrained
Bonus picture: Easter Saturday evening in All Saints, Northampton. I do love a bit of church architecture and I always forget how spectacular it is inside here – it looks like something from Mayfair has been transported out of London.
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 