Tag: books

books, books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: April Kindle Offers

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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!

books

Book of the Week: The Other Side of Disappearing

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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.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: April 1 – April 7

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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.

Book previews, books

Out today: The Husbands

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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!

Book of the Week, cozy crime, new releases

Book of the Week: The Potting Shed Murder

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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!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: March 25 – March 31

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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.

books, series

Mystery series: Max Tudor

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Happy Friday everyone! Here in the UK it’s a bank holiday for Good Friday so I’m taking the opportunity to write about a murder mystery series featuring a vicar!

Max is a former MI5 agent turned vicar, who is now parish priest in an idyllic village on the south-west coast of England. He was hoping to escape his past, but he’s still attracting more attention than he would like from his female parishioners. The ex-spy situation gives Max a really good reason to be involved in investigating deaths, including ones where he doesn’t stumble across the body himself. Across the course of eight books Max has found his place in the village and started a family of his own, which poses its own challenges too.

I really like Max as a character and the options for stories that his backstory provides. Plus the secondary characters are interesting and the setting is charming. They’re often a little darker than some other cosy mysteries, but there’s the solutions aren’t usually as unexpectedly dark as, say, the Dandy Gilver series often turn out to be. I haven’t read the latest book because, well you’ve seen the state of the tbr pile, and I haven’t seen it in a store yet, and you all know that’s when I find it hardest to resist buying books!

If you want more cosy crime mysteries that are vicar adjacent, you might want to check out the ministry is murder series, although they added a little harder to get hold of than Max Tudor is, as the latest Max book came out last year. And they don’t have vicars, but G M Malliet has a couple of other series that you can check out too.

Have a great weekend!

Book previews

Out Today: The Good, the Bad and the Aunties

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The third book in Jesse Q Sutano’s series that started with Dial A for Aunties is out today. I’ve got a copy to read – and I’m hoping it will be a return to what I loved about the first book, rather than the second which I found disappointing as the things that I had liked less about the first book were the things that had been increased and the cringe factor was just too much for me. But as we know, I am very bad with cringe and second-hand embarrassment. Cross your fingers, and I’ll try and remember to report back, but what ever happens, I have loved the covers for this series – the UK versions and the US ones are so pretty.

Also – before I go, Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy, which was one of my favourite books of last year is out in paperback today too and is really, really good.

books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Books set in Italy

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It’s Easter this weekend, and so I’m going with a slightly tangential theme for this week’s recommendsday – books set in Italy, as that’s where the Pope hangs out, and you know that’s enough for a link for me at the moment!

Let’s start with Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, which is about the childhood of two friends in Naples in the 1950s. The identity of the author is a mystery and many say that’s because the book seems so real it must be autobiographical. It’s the first of four books – I have the others still to read and I really must try to get to them soon. The Naples of this book is the opposite of the glamorous Italy you often see in films but it’s fascinating and engrossing.

Talking of the glamorous romantic view of Italy, that’s exactly why the women in The Enchanted April go to Italy in Elizabeth von Arnim’s 1920s novel. I’ve written about it before because it’s right in my wheelhouse, with a medieval castle and four very different women decamping from their normal lives looking for a change in a holiday to the Italian riviera.

Talking of medieval, and another book I’ve mentioned before – Umberto Eco’s In the Name of the Rose which is a murder mystery set in a monastery with a legendary library. I read it as part of my degree, and you should all be glad that I’m recommending this and not Machiavelli’s The Prince, which I also read as part of the same module! Catch-22 was assigned reading for another module but again I really liked it (I did not like the Seven Pillars of Wisdom which was another assigned book for that one) although Heller’s novel is more about the madness and tragedy of war and just happens to be taking place (mainly) in Italy.

I read this a very long time ago, and haven’t been back since, but I’m still going to mention Anthony Capella’s debut, The Food of Love, which is a Cyrano de Bergerac sort of twist about an American woman visiting Rome and falling in love with a man who cooks for her. Except who is really cooking the food?

I’ve been trying to think if I have read any romances set in Italy but my mind is inexplicably blank, so if that comes back to me, I’ll do a follow up I guess. I do have a bunch of books set in Italy on the tbr pile – including some murder mystery and a few historical fiction novels too.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books

Book of the Week: When Grumpy Met Sunshine

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A big old stack of reading last week because: holiday, so a few things to chose from, but this was easily my favourite – although I have one reservation if you read on!

As the title suggests, this is a grumpy-sunshine romance, where the sunny half of the couple is ghost writer Mabel and the grumpy is her latest subject, former footballer Alfie who has been persuaded to write his memoirs. Except that he doesn’t want to reveal anything about himself and he doesn’t do emotions. So Mabel’s job isn’t going to be easy, but she tries and they start snarking and squabbling as they try to get something down on paper. And then they’re spotted together in public and the press decides that Mabel and Alfie are a couple. And of course the first rule of ghost writing is that no one can know that you’re a ghost writer so they pretend to be in a relationship. Except that there is a lot of chemistry going on and Mabel is in very real danger of catching feelings for Alfie. But he couldn’t really be interested in a girl like her, could he?

And therein lies my problem with this book. Because it is absolutely clear that Alfie really does have feelings for Mabel and he has them from quite early on, and she is just the most obvious person that was ever oblivious not to see it. And obviously that’s how she has to be for the plot to work, and Charlotte Stein does make a good attempt at trying to give a reason why Mabel might not think he’s into her and it does make his grand gesture at the end very grand but still. For a smart woman, Mabel is very stupid when it comes to noticing how into her Alfie is. But the banter was so fun and it was so funny I forgave it because it really was a lot of fun. And it is also really quite steamy during the fake relationship portion of it – I had to put it down while I was on the plane home because I was worried the person next to me was going to read it over my shoulder and then I would have died of embarrassment!

This is the first Charlotte Stein novel that I’ve read – and from what I can see it’s her first novel in this sort of area – she’s written a couple of dozen romances before but the rest of her back catalogue seem to be in the ménage/erotica end of the genre which is not really what I read, so I will be keeping an eye out for what she writes next if there is going to be more like this!

I’ve seen When Grumpy Met Sunshine in the shops all over the place – and of course it’s on Kindle and Kobo too.

Happy Reading!