Not going to lie, I didn’t want to do this post because, well you’ll see. But I do try to be honest here and so here is some transparency…
We enter 2024 with the to read pile bigger than ever. I’d love to say that all the books in front of the shelves are borrowed, but they’re not. I’ve just expanded beyond the shelves – which I said I wouldn’t do. It’s been a little this way all year, but has got worse in the last few months as I’ve been away from home a lot and so reading off the kindle and not physical books, and while I was trying to finish off the 50 states. So my goal for this year is to try and get back into *just* having the bookshelf of unread books and not piles nearby too. Wish me luck everyone…
So I was about to say this is the last look back at 2023 post, but I realised that I would absolutely be lying because I can think of at least two more. Any how, this is my favourite new-to-me fiction of last year. Many of them you’ll always have heard me talk about, but hey I enjoyed them and they’re worth it.
So in keeping with the celebrities and normal people romances that have been a theme of the year, let’s start with one of those:Nora Goes off Script by Annabel Monaghan. And I think this might have been the first of the trope that I read last year and it was really good. Nora’s been dumped by her husband but has to keep writing screen plays for romance channel movies. But when her new script is picked up by a major studio, the sexual man alive walks into her house (literally) to star in it and then doesn’t want to leave. It’s wonderful and just writing about it makes me want to read it again!
Next up is one of the books that Nora was comped with and which I finally got around to reading this year – Beach Read by Emily Henry. This has got two rival authors living in neighbouring beach houses and struggling with writers block – until they challenge each other to write in their genre. So Augustus had to write something happy, and Janet had to write a Great American Novel. It’s a grumpy-sunshine delight – even if I’ve only just realised that he’s got the summery name and she’s got the wintery one!
More authors in pick three: The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley and Austin Sigemund-Broka. This has got estranged writing partners forced back together to complete their original book contract after his new solo effort doesn’t sell. It’s friends to enemies to lovers as you flash backwards and forwards between the two different trips to the same Florida rental house.
Ok, that all the romance done, let’s go for some mystery! And The Three Dahlias by Katy Watson was one of my post Christmas sale buys between Christmas and new year last year and I loved it. It has all the things that I like – Golden Age mystery stories and a modern day cozy crime murder on the set of an adaptation of the books. So much fun and something I’ve recommended a lot this year. I’m counting down to book three.
And finally, something a bit different – Acts of Violet by Margarita Montimore. This one’s a bit quirky – with a missing illusionist and a podcast at the centre of it. I didn’t fully love the ending, but I did love the rest of it. This is actually the only book here from the second half of the year, and I have had a think about that and a look at the stats – there were less five star picks in the second half of the year among the not-new fiction but quite a few four stars that I’ve only just written about, so maybe that’s what’s gone on. And I did read more new fiction in the second half of the year than the first and that played into this too.
Anyway, here’s to the books I’ll discover in 2024!
Well after a bumper week of reading last week to get the fifty states challenge finished, I’m starting the new year with a Kristan Higgins book for Book of the Week which wasn’t one of the missing states. Who could have predicted that!
If You Only Knew is a dual narrative story about two sisters who are both at turning points in their lives. Wedding dress designer Jenny is moving back to her home town to open a new storefront after her divorce in an attempt to get away from her ex and his new wife whose lives she’s still entangled in. Her sister Rachael has a seemingly enviable life – adoring husband and cute triplet daughters. Except Rachael’s just caught him sexting with a colleague and she’s not sure what what to do about it – she’s not sure she believes in second chances but she’s also not ready to give up on her family dream.
This is really readable – I read it across about 36 hours despite it being Christmas – I liked the mix of big city New York and small town New York State and it all works out alright in the end, despite my fears at various points while reading it. As always with stories like this I liked one side of the story better than the other – in this case it was Jenny I wanted more of, but maybe that’s because adultery plots are never really quite my thing and I loathed Rachael’s husband (although now I’ve finished the book I don’t think you were meant to like him but I wasn’t sure about that at the time) and wanted her to burn it all down straight away. That said I’m not sure Jenny’s strand of the plot on its own would have been enough to sustain a novel – and I definitely wouldn’t have read just Rachael’s – so it was probably the right decision to do both!
Anyway you can get this on Kindle and Kobo and it’s only £2.99! It does have a paperback version but as it’s a few years old now it may not be that easy to get hold of a physical copy – Amazon is certainly asking crazy money for it, but the ebook is cheap so that’s something.
Happy New Year! I hope 2024 is every thing you want it to be and more. I have a stack of new year content coming up as well as the last bits of looking back at 2023. And thank you for reading this blog – I don’t say it enough but I appreciate you all. Anyway, I finished off the year with a stack of books – including those last few states for the challenge and also a binge reread of Drina after I put the idea in my head!
Taking a break from my end of the year wrap ups to post my Christmas book arrivals – and they’re just what I wanted! However did everyone know what I was hoping for? Truly a Christmas miracle. I started Capote’s Women on Christmas Day, and will carry on with it just as soon as I’ve finished those last few states…
It’s that time of year again, where I’m rounding up the best things that I’ve read this year, and I’m starting with the new fiction because it has been a really good year for it.
As I’ve said already, in contemporary romance 2023 has been the year of the celebrity and normal person romance in my reading life. I’m still not sure if it’s an actual trend or if it’s just what the algorithm has been feeding me but I’ve really enjoyed it and the hardest part is how do I pick just one for this list? Well the answer is I’m not. I’m picking two: Romantic Comedyby Curtis Sittenfeld and Once More with Feeling by Elissa Sussman. Yes, they are two of the books that were on my half year favourites list, but I really did love them and they’re two of the books that I’ve recommended the most this year. Romantic Comedy is still the only book with the quarantimes in it that I’ve enjoyed and Once More with Feeling made me so happy for some bookish revenge on a Justin Timberlake type figure.
Also in contemporary romance is Lucy Parker’s Codename Charming – this was one of my most anticipated books of the year, and it lived up to my internal hype for it when it finally arrived in the autumn. Also excellent was Christina Lauren’s True Love ExperimentandRole Playing by Cathy Yardley, the latter of which has an older pairing than you usually see which was fun.
And finally it wouldn’t be one of my end of year lists without a Rich People Problems novel, and this year it isPineapple Street, which was also on the mid year list.
I realise now that there’s no crime on this list, which is a slight surprise to me given how much mystery I have read, but a lot of it was either not new or from long running series and you know my policy on that. I wonder what 2024’s fiction list will look like?
I’m already back at work, but as I’m still trying valiantly to cling to the Christmas spirit, for today’s recommendsday here’s what I’ll be reading (or listening to) between now and the end of the year – once I’ve got my fifty states challenge finished (why are West Virginia and the Dakotas always so hard?) and some ideas for you too.
If you turn on the TV in the afternoon at this time of year, chances are you’ll stumble across a movie version of an Agatha Christie novel – Death on the Nile was on on Christmas Day, Mirror Cracked this afternoon and Murder on the Orient Express is coming up too in the next day or too. And the novels make a pretty good choice for this time of year too – there are some Christmas-set stories, but my pick is always Orient Express – something about being stuck in a snow drift just makes it Christmassy to me.
You also could do worse than a Christmas Meg Langslow, the only reason I haven’t read the new one yet is because I haven’t read the summer one yet because the kindle edition is eye wateringly expensive and I’ve even reading them in order from the very start and I refuse to change that now after more than thirty books! There’s also a Christmas book in Jenn McKinlay’s Cupcake Bakery series that came out this autumn that I can’t read yet because: Reading in order and a book or two behind, but if you’re not bothered about reading in order they’re a pretty reliable series.
In fact most of my favourite series have Christmas books – I’ve mentioned most of them ad nausem (Royal Spyness, Daisy Dalrymple, Phryne Fisher etc) but I might actually reread one of my favourite Drina books this year – ballet at Christmas is such a thing and in Drina Dances Again she’s in Edinburgh, playing Little Clara in the Nutcracker (although not at Christmas!) and it’s a pivotal moment in the series for reasons that are a bit spoilery. If I want a boarding school story, the Chalet School series is full of Christmas plays – I usually pick one from the early days of the series so maybe I’ll go later this year.
Once I’ve got the last few states ticked off my 50 states challenge I’m planning on reading another of the Christmas stories from the British Library Crime Classics series – I think I have The Christmas Egg on the actual to-read shelf but there’s bound to be one in Kindle Unlimited too.
And finally, it’s not strictly festive, but I’ve been listening to the Radio 4 serialisation of Miss Buncle’s Book on BBC Sounds this week, and it’s just such a lovely cozy book, if you’ve never read it before, this time of year would be perfect to discover it for the first time. You can find my review of the trilogy here.
Happy Boxing Day everyone – if Boxing Day is a thing where you are. We’re on our way back home from the frozen North after a family Christmas at my sister’s house. However today’s pick is a non-Christmas book because I already told you about it in last week’s Recommendsday! The good news is that I got a stack of books that I wanted for Christmas so expect to hear more about them in the near future too.
The titular Maggie is a home renovation YouTube star. She buys houses, does them up, flips them and then moves on. Her latest project is in a small town in Idaho and it’s her biggest one yet. But she’s got a plan and she’ll be in and out in just a few months and on to the next thing. One of the things on her to do list is the gardens and grounds, so she sends for local landscapers to give her quotes for the work. One of them is Silas – a sexy local boy who sees her and decides that she’s the one for him. But Maggie’s time in town has an expiration date on it – and there’s no way it can be more than a casual fling, or can it?
So, first things first: Silas is the most alpha-y hero I’ve read in a long time and it was a bit jarring at first after a bunch of grumpy/sunshine romances to have this big hot guy fall in instantly-lust with the heroine and start trying to win her over. I was prepared to hate it, except that he does it with a smile and although he’s always telling her she’s his future wife he never actually pressures her to do anything. This has got a really nice found family sort of vibe to is as Maggie accidentally builds herself a community in Kinship and then has to work out if she wants to stay or go. This also means it has good cast of secondary characters for you to enjoy as well.
I read a Lucy Score and someone else romance as part of my 50 states challenge in 2021 and found it too New Adult for me, but this was much, much better. I do like a book with a house renovation at the centre of it – romances like The Honey Don’t List or cozy crimes like the Fixer Upper series so I like the concept of this as well as the romance. Basically it’s a nice fun read with a romance that doesn’t have an obviously cinnamon roll hero – although deep down he turns out to actually be a really champ.
Like a lot of Lucy Score’s books, this is currently in Kindle Unlimited – although I bought it this time last year when it wasn’t in KU, I suspect because I noticed it was set in Idaho which is always a tricky state in the challenge stakes!
Happy Christmas everyone! I hope you’re all having a delightful day filled with whatever you want to be doing and hopefully lots of lovely food. And that you got the books you wanted of course. I’ve checked off another four of my missing states so I may still get the list finished before the end of the rest! Wish me luck.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 