Tag: New books

Book of the Week, new releases, romance, women's fiction

Book of the Week: Sunset in Central Park

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This week’s BotW is Sarah Morgan’s latest book – Sunset in Central Park.  This is the second book in her new series – about three young women who leave Puffin Island (the location of her previous series) for the bright lights of New York and a career in events management.

This is Frankie’s story – and Frankie is extremely wary of relationships after watching the fallout from her parents’ divorce when she was a teenager.  She avoids emotional attachments to anyone except her two closest friends – who she works with – and garden designer Matt, one of her friend’s brothers and the owner of the brownstone where they all have flats in Brooklyn.  She’s determined to keep their relationship strictly platonic, even though he makes her insides feel a bit odd, because all relationships end and she wants to keep him in her life.  But what she doesn’t know is that Matt’s been crazy about her forever, but has kept quiet because he knows how fragile she is.  But as he finds out more about her hidden depths as they work together on a project, the sparks fly.  Will he be able to convince her to take a chance on what they have?

This is romantic, fun and satisfying.  You know where it’s going, but it’s so much fun watching the characters work through all their issues to come to a happy conclusion.  Sarah Morgan has created a great group of strong competent women and is busy pairing them up with the men they deserve – equally strong and competent, and who compliment the girls – who definitely don’t need a man to complete them or fix their lives.  They can fix their own lives and problems, but the men will support and help them as they do it.  I did want to give Frankie a bit of a slap at times, but I always understood why she was behaving the way that she did.  I think I preferred the first book in the series slightly* – but that’s because I’m more of a Paige than I am a Frankie.

Copies of two Sarah Morgan books
I don’t have a paperback copy of Sunset in Central Park, but I do have other Sarah Morgans!

If you asked me, I would probably tell you that I don’t like contemporary romances, but that’s because when people say contemporary romance I think of billionaires and secretaries, doctors and nurses, nannies and lonely widowers, secret dukes and princes, secret babies and accidental pregnancies – none of which float my boat. I like smart heroines getting a happy ending – and if the books have a touch of humour, so much the better.   Thinking about it – and looking at the downstairs keepers bookshelf – there’s a lot of contemporary romance there – the sort of books that 10 years ago would have been called chick lit.  I don’t like chick lit as a term – but women’s fiction is too broad a description – so they probably would fall under the contemporary romance banner.

I only started reading Sarah Morgan because I met her at Sarah MacLean’s London tea-party and got given a free copy of one of the Puffin Island books (although I then went out and bought the first in this series and read that first after hearing Sarah Morgan talk about it on Smart Podcast, Trashy Books at the end of May) but it turns out that her latest books are exactly what floats my boat.  There was a sampler for Eva’s book at the end of this one and it left me desperate to read a Christmas-themed book – in July.  And you know my feelings on starting to read about Christmas too early.

My copy of Sunset in Central Park came from NetGalley – but you can get a copy from Amazon and Kindle (actually cheaper in book form at the time of writing) and I suspect possibly in supermarkets and other bookstores.  Don’t be put off by the Harlequin logo on the spine – if you are, you’ll be missing out.  I’m off to mine more of Sarah Morgan’s back catalogue – although I’ll never get through all of it and some of them are medical romances…

Happy reading!

*I read Sleepless in Manhattan the same week that I read The Rogue Not Taken or it would probably have been BotW that week.

American imports, Book of the Week, new releases

Book of the Week: The Tumbling Turner Sisters

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Sometimes I sit for ages and think about what I’m going to pick for my Book of the Week, but sometimes I just know.  This week is one of the latter – by the time I was halfway through The Tumbling Turner Sisters I was fairly sure it was going to be this week’s pick. And that was on Tuesday.  Sure enough, here it is.

It’s 1919 and Gert, Winnie, Kit and Nell end up performing a vaudeville gymnastics act to try and make ends meet after their father injures his hand and is unable to work as a boot-stitcher.  As they travel around the US they experience the highs and lows of show business, make new friends, encounter prejudice and the seedier side of life.  Told by Winnie and Gert, you see them grow up as well as their differing perspectives on life on tour.

I love historical novels and I’m always looking for new authors who write good ones.  I’ve never read any of Juliette Fay’s books before – although reading the blurbs for them on Goodreads, this looks like it’s not precisely like any of her previous books anyway. This reminded me in some ways of Laurie Graham – who I love – it’s not laugh out loud funny as her characters often are, but there’s a similar tone and slightly sardonic world view.

I  really enjoyed this and although I had a few reservations about the end – which I won’t go into here because spoilers – they weren’t enough to annoy me and drive my overall impression of the book down.  I’ll be looking out for more from Juliette Fay – and maybe working my way through some of her back catalogue too.

You can get The Tumbling Turner Sisters from Amazon – but it’s only in hardcover and it’s not on Kindle at the moment, so I suspect it’s an American import.  Sorry. I try not to do this, but I really did enjoy this so much I wanted to write about it.  I’ll try and pick something easy to find next week!

 

Book of the Week, historical

Book of the Week: Jane Steele

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This week’s BotW is Lyndsay Faye’s Jane Steele, which is billed as a gothic retelling of Jane Eyre, but is a bit more loosely related to Bronte’s book than that might suggest. I heard a lot of buzz about this before it’s release – Deanna Raybourn wrote about it in her newsletter and some of the book podcasts I listen to talked about it too, so when I spotted it on NetGalley I was already intrigued enough to request it.

Jane Steele’s favourite book is – and her life has some parallels with Charlotte Bronte’s heroine – she’s orphaned, she’s sent to boarding school, she becomes a governess and is attracted to her employer.  But there’s a key difference – Ms Steele has a bit of a murderous streak.  This Jane has a few more trials in her life than Bronte’s – but she’s not going to take them lying down.

Despite her killings, Jane is an attractive and appealing heroine with reasons (mostly) for acting as she does.  I was concerned before I read this and early on in the book that I wouldn’t be able to get past the fact that she was killing people, but it really wasn’t an issue.  Jane’s actions are (mostly) quite understandable – and not without consequences for her.  She’s fairly self-aware – although the reader suspects she’s not as well informed about some things as she thinks she is – and chafes at the restrictions and limitations places on her by Victorian society.  She’s smarter than most of the men around her during the first half of the book and it’s interesting and entertaining watching her work out how she can extricate herself from the situations she is forced into.

Considering I read Jane Eyre for the one and only time when I was about 9 and – whisper it quietly – have never read Wuthering Heights*, I seem to have read a lot (proportionally) with Bronte re-tellings or influenced books (and I have The Madwoman Upstairs sitting on the to-read pile so it’s not over yet!).  And while I didn’t love this the way I love Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair** it is really good fun.  I liked the portion of the book before Jane arrives back at Thornfield the best – possibly because it’s quite hard to keep up the fast-paced, wise-cracking action when you introduce a love interest and try to work out a resolution where the problem of your heroine being a murderess isn’t an issue!

Not quite as brilliant as you expect from the first 50 pages, but nonetheless pretty darn good, Jane Steele is out in the UK in what I suspect from the price is the giant airport sized paperback and in the US in hardback.  A cheaper (smaller?) paperback edition is due in the UK in November Get your copy from Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles, Kindle or Kobo.

* I do know what happens though.

** But Thursday Next is a very high bar and has a lot more going on than just Jane Eyre.

Book of the Week, new releases

Book of the Week: Somewhere Inside of Happy

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A paperback copy of Somewhere Inside of Happy
This week’s attempt at an artistic photo has floorboards and sheepskin

There were two strong contenders for this week’s BotW crown – the latest Daisy Dalrymple mystery (which I’ve only just got around to) and Somewhere Inside of Happy, but as Anna McPartlin’s latest was released last week (I was lucky enough to be sent an copy in advance) and I really did love it, the funky yellow book takes home the prize.

Somewhere Inside of Happy starts with Maisie Brennan standing on a podium, about to address an audience on the twentieth anniversary of her son. Then we go back in time to find out what happened to her beloved Jeremy, as well as what her life was like before he disappeared.

You may remember that The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes reduced me to tears on a train, so this time I took precautions while reading this – no public transport.  However it did leave me in tears (subtly I hope) in my youth hostel dorm room as I finished it.  This is a tear-jerker in the very best sense.  You go into this knowing that Jeremy is dead – it’s on the back cover – but you desperately don’t want it to be true.  Watching how the story unfolds is a total rollercoaster as you get to know the characters and their backstory and their close family unit.  I was alternately desperate to know what had happened to Jeremy and desperate not to know because once you know then he is definitely dead and the family will never be the same again.

But don’t go thinking that this book is a downer. It’s not. It is funny and warm and life affirming. It shows the power of love and what people can achieve even in the face of great adversity. It shows the importance of family – whether it’s the one you’re born with or one you find and make for yourself. I may have an aversion to sad books and be devastated that Jeremy died, but I’m so glad I read it and I know I’m going to be recommending it to so many people. It’d make a great holiday read – as long as you have some big sunglasses to hide your tears behind!

Get your copy from Amazon, Waterstones or Foyles – but I’d expect this to be front and centre in the supermarkets and WH Smith stores – on on Kindle or Kobo.

Book of the Week, Children's books, detective, new releases

Book of the Week: Nancy Parker’s Diary of Detection

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Oh I do love a good children’s detective yarn – and I had two to pick from when I was selecting my BotW this week.  I went with Julia Lee’s latest – because it’s out on Thursday and doesn’t feature any murder – so I think I can give it to my 7-year-old niece who has the right reading age, but who can’t cope with too much peril!

Nancy Parker's Diary of Detection
Perfect reading for the train to work ahead of a nightshift!

Nancy Parker is 14 and has just left school.  She gets her first job – as a housemaid to the  rather glamorous Mrs Bryce. It’s not her dream job (who dreams of cleaning at 14!), but its more exciting than she expects as soon the whole household is living in a rented house at the seaside.  There are parties, talk of movie-making, a reputed air-ace but also a cook who seems to be hiding a secret, a string of burglaries and chores – lots of chores.  Nancy teams up with two other children from the neighbourhood to try and work out what is going on.

The book made up of a combination of extracts from Nancy’s journal (given to her as a leaving gift by her school teacher) and a third person narrative – which covers what the other children are up to.  It’s fun, engaging and fast-paced.  As someone who loved all of Enid Blyton’s mystery series (but particularly the Five Findouters) this really worked for me and filled that gap.  And unlike those Blyton stories, this books shows the range of experiences in the 1920s – Nancy would only have appeared in one of those as the maid providing the picnics for the other children.  And there’s also nice nods to the other realities of the 1920s like shortages of men for women to marry and women having to give up their jobs to returning soldiers.

As an adult, I figured out what Mrs Bryce was up to quite early on – but that’s because I’ve read a lot of the grown-up versions of this sort of story, but I think for a young reader it would be a fun, thrilling and non-threatening mystery.  I love Robin Steven’s Wells and Wong series and also enjoyed the second book in Katherine Woodfine’s Clockwork Sparrowbook last week (the other BotW contender) but they are definitely a level up from this in the scares and peril – which isn’t a bad thing, but it does mean that you need to be  bit more mature to be able to cope with them.  I’m desperate to give my niece Murder Most Unladylike – but murder is quite a big deal for a 7-year old – at 10 I was terrified by some of the Miss Marples*.   But Nancy Parker’s adventure feels like a new equivalent of a Secret Seven or a Famous Five – which is A Very Good Thing.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on an advance proof – but you can get your copy from Amazon, Kindle, Waterstones or Foyles.  I don’t know if it’ll be in the supermarkets – but it feels like it might as the Katherine Woodfine was.  Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, fiction, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: The Glittering Art of Falling Apart

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This was a tough choice.  A really tough choice.  I had two contenders for BotW this week and it was so hard to decide.  In the end I went for Ilana Fox’s The Glittering Art of Falling Apart – as comes out on February 11th.  I’m not telling you what my other option was, because it’s part of a series and can’t help but feel that a blog post may come on it further down the line…

The Glittering Art of Falling Apart is a timeslip novel set in the 1980s and the present day.  And there’s a country house involved. And as regular readers will know, this is just the sort of thing that I love.  The present day heroine is Cassie – obsessed with trying to keep the abandoned Beaufont Hall in the family, despite her mother’s reluctance to talk about her childhood there.  Tenancious Cassie wants to know more.  Back in the 1980s, Eliza is breaking free from her family for the bright lights and glamour of Soho.  But will it bring her the future that she craves or is the price to heavy?

If you’ve read a few timeslip type novels you will probably have a few ideas about where this story is going (I certainly did), but this is so well put together, that it doesn’t matter.  Often in books like this a location is a character in the book – I was expecting Beaufont Hall to take that role, but actually it’s Soho that is the start location in The Glittering Art of Falling Apart.  Ilana Fox paints such a vivid picture of this patch of London in the 1980s you can almost smell it.  And there’s also a really clever use of music to help create the atmosphere as Eliza tries to make her mark on Soho.  I had OMD’s Enola Gay stuck in my head for two days but the lovely people at Orion have pointed me at the playlist that Fox has put together for the book which has given me some ideas for a bit more variety!

I haven’t read any of Ilana Fox’s novels before, but from reading the descriptions of them it seems like this may be a bit of a shift.  If you like books like Harriet Evans A Place for Us or Rosanna Ley’s The Saffron Trail, this may be the book for you.  My copy came from NetGalley*, but I think this should be fairly widely available when it comes out – it feels like it might be the sort of book that goes into the supermarkets (and I hope it does) – but here are some links if you want to pre-order (or buy if you’re reading on Thursday or later) Amazon, Foyles, Waterstones, Kindle and Kobo.

One final note – at time of writing this, I spotted previous BotW The Astronaut Wives Club on a deal on Kobo for 99p – which is a total bargain – and Kindle seem to be price matching it. Go forth and purchase!

*And this seems like a good point to remind everyone of my standard disclaimer –  I review everything I read over on Goodreads but I only recommend stuff here that I genuinely like. The books I read are a mixture of books that I’ve purchased myself, books that I’ve been given and e-proofs via NetGalley.  I try to acknowledge where the books that I review here come from in the interests of transparency, but being given a book for free doesn’t influence the review that I give it – I’m always honest about my thoughts.

American imports, Book of the Week, new releases, reviews, romance

Book of the Week: Anything For You

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This week’s BotW is Kristan Higgins’ latest romance Anything For You – which in a stroke of serendipity is out today!  For those of you who are all Christmas’d out, this would make a great break from the festivities.  It has a winery, some star-crossed lovers and a whole lot of fun.

Anything For You tells the story of Connor and Jessica.  They’ve been hooking up in secret for years and now Connor wants to take it public – and make it official.  But Jessica thinks things are fine as they are – and she has her brother to look after, her brother who really doesn’t like Connor.  So with Connor down on one knee and telling her it’s all or nothing, how sure is Jessica that marriage isn’t for her?

This is such a good read.  Jessica and Connor have such a tangled backstory – which is explained really well in a series of flashback-type sequences in the aftermath of the proposal.  They are both really complicated, well thought out characters.  Connor has quite a privileged background (I mean he’s not a billionaire or a billionaire’s son, but there’s some money there) but a difficult relationship with his parents.  Jessica has dragged herself up from a trailerpark whilst bringing up her little brother in the process – she’s got trust issues, abandonment issues and a bit of an inferiority complex.  Watching them work out their problems is a really engrossing read.

And they are proper problems that need a proper resolution.  I’ve read a lot of romances where the obstacles keeping the hero and heroine apart aren’t really obstacles – or are easily resolved.  But these two have something real and tangible to work out.  And the resolution is really well worked out – it doesn’t involve one of them suddenly doing an abrupt character change or an about face.  They work out their problems and grow and mature to a solution.

And if that sounds too serious – don’t worry!  There’s plenty of humour here too – Connor has a fabulously funny relationship with his twin sister Colleen (aka Dog Face) and the two of them have some great sparky exchanges.  And Con and Jess have their moments too.  Add to that a very stabbable events planner and some meddling friends and the angsty bits are well balanced out.

This was my first Kristan Higgins – but I’ve already found another one in the Kindle backlog pile so that may well have jumped its way closer to the top.  My copy came via NetGalley, but you can get yourself a copy from Amazon or Amazon.com – although it doesn’t seem to be available on Kindle in the UK or the US at the moment.

Book of the Week, books, new releases

Book of the Week: Bricking It

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This week’s BotW is Bricking It by Nick Spalding. I read a lot of books last week, many of them good but Christmas-themed – and of them more in the next few days. But Bricking It made me laugh despite the tonsillitis so it was an obvious choice for my non-festive Book of the Week!

Bricking It tells the story of Dan and Haley Daley, who have inherited a run-down farmhouse from their grandmother and decide to do it up to make some extra money. And of course the road to profit does not run smoothly.  There’s an eccentric architect, a gang of builders, a TV crew and a few skeletons in the cupboard.  Oh, and a bit of sibling rivalry too!

I thought Bricking It was a bit different from the usual run of house renovation stories. Haley and Dan both have their issues to deal with and that gives the book a great heart as well as a lot of jokes. If you’re off work for Christmas but not feeling in the mood for a Christmas-set book, this may well be the perfect solution to read curled up in front of the Christmas tree after you’ve finished wrapped (or unwrapping) your presents!

Get your copy from Amazon or on Kindle.

books, Gift suggestions

Buy Me a book for Christmas: Gift Ideas

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So, after gifts for him, her and children, for Part Four of my Christmas book recommendations, I’ve come to books I want for Christmas.  As you know I read a lot of books and have a big backlog anyway, but this is my wishlist.  Perhaps it’ll give you some more ideas for gifts – or maybe it’ll give you some ideas about what to ask other people to get you!

Fiction

I’m hoping to find some Deanna Raybourn in my stocking.  I’ve really enjoyed her Lady Julia Grey series, and I’m hoping that Santa will bring me some of her standalone books – which are more expensive over here as they’re US Imports – like Night of a Thousand Stars, City of Jasmine or A Spear of Summer Grass (which after months of being c£7 for Kindle has dropped to £2.99 at time of writing, but I now can’t buy because I might be getting it for Christmas!) or the first book in her new series A Curious Beginning.

Another American import on my Christmas list is The Lure of the Moonflower – the final book in Lauren Willig‘s Pink Carnation series.  I’m desperate to know what happens – I have the second last book sitting on my shelf ready to read, but I don’t dare start it because I know as soon as I read it I’ll want to read the last one *now* and then i’ll end up buying it before Christmas comes!

I’ve seen glowing reviews, but heard mixed word of mouth on Elena Ferrante‘s Neapolitan trilogy, so I’m curious to read them but can’t justify buying them myself with the to-read pile in its current state. So if anyone fancies buying me My Brilliant Friend, I’d really appreciate it!  I’m also after the last in the Tales of the City series – The Days of Anna Madrigal.

Regular readers will know of my love of detective stories and cozy crime, so I’d be delighted if the latest Grantchester novel from James Runcie turned up on Christmas Day – Sidney Chambers and the Forgiveness of Sins is in a rather expensive US paperback edition or hardback (which would match the ones I already own better) at the moment.  I’d also be happy to find the next book (that I don’t own) in the Tasha Alexander‘s Lady Emily series (Dangerous to Know), or one of Catriona McPherson‘s Dandy Gilvers that I haven’t read (like …and the Reek of Herrings),

Non Fiction

I don’t tend to buy myself a lot of non fiction, what with the pile being so big and so much of it coming out in hardback first, so Christmas is a a really good opportunity for me to get a few things that I can’t justify buying with the to-read pile in its current state!

I mentioned in my Gifts for Her post that I’m not big on Roman history, but I do quite fancy Mary Beard‘s latest SPQR, but hardbacks do tend to linger on my shelf somewhat, so perhaps her Confronting the Classics might be a better choice and likewise fill in some gaps in my education.  Also on the history front, I really want to read Anita Anand’s Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary, especially after seeing the documentary based on it on BBC One a few weeks back – which is still on iPlayer for a few more days.  I’m a big fan of Helen Rappaport‘s books (she’s a great speaker too) and I’d quite like her Four Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses, even though I usually find the Russian Revolution too unbearably depressing!

From this year’s crop of celebrity autobiographies and memoirs, my picks would be Sue Perkins‘ Spectacles and Drew Barrymore‘s Wildflowers or maybe Grace Jones‘s I’ll Never Write My Memoirs which is about an era which I’m fascinated by and was hoping that The Boy would ask for, but he hasn’t! She’s not a celebrity in the traditional sense, but I’m an occasional reader of The Bloggess and Jenny Lawson‘s second book Furiously Happy is on my want list – I’ve read the kindle preview and am really interested by it.  It’s only in hardback at the moment, but as I still haven’t got her first book, Let’s Pretend this Never Happened, I would be happy to receive that instead/as well!

Those who know me in real-life know that I don’t wear a lot of make-up. But despite this, I do watch a lot of YouTube make-up videos. And Lisa Eldridge is one of my favourites.  Consequently I’d really like her history of make-up Face Paint, but can’t justify buying it for myself. Hint. Hint.  At the quirky end of the book spectrum, I’ve got a fancy for How to Climb Mount Blanc in a Skirt, and either of Shaun Usher‘s Letters of Note books – the new one sounds fabulous

On the aspirational home front, I’d really like Marie Kondo‘s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying because I am a bit of a hoarder – even when it’s not books!  I’m sure The Boy would be delighted if I could find away of jettisoning some of my stuff happily, although obviously he’d be even happier if I could stop acquiring the clutter in the first place!

Miscellaneous

I know my reading habit can intimidate people and scare them off buying me books (in case I already have it or have read it) but I’m always delighted to get a book voucher – be it a National Book Token or a Kindle voucher and I try to spend them on something I consider a treat – like a nice hardback or an ebook that’s over my usual price limit.  After chortling over their Bad Sex Awards for years, I’ve been eyeing up a subscription to Literary Review but can’t really justify buying myself it!

What don’t I want?  No cookery books please (unless it’s a Mary Berry I don’t already have) as I still haven’t worked my way through everything I want to cook from the ones that I already have and the cookery book shelf is getting full.  Don’t buy me the Booker shortlist – I’ve got so much to read already, I’ll never get around to them – as my attempts to try and improve my award-nominated book hit rate show!

And finally, if you really want me to love you forever, you could pre-order me a copy of The Rogue Less Taken from Sarah MacLean – one of my favourite purveyors of smart, funny and sexy historical romance – and do it from her local Indie bookshop Word in Brooklyn, because I really want the US version (the UK one doesn’t match my collection, but I’ll link you to it anyway in case you want it for you), and Word will send it to me signed and with bonus goodies.  But even nightshift brain can’t really justify spending $22 shipping a $7.99 book to the UK.  Even if I did do it for Never Judge a Lady by her Cover last year – which is also not as nice in its UK edition, which is something I never though I’d say about an American edition of a romance book.  But if you do, let me know, because I may yet weaken and buy it anyway, and it would be stupid for two of us to do it….

Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover
Finally something I can take a photo of! And US romance authors don’t really do UK signings!

So there you go, Books for Him, Books for Her, Books for Kids and Books for Me.  And still to come from me before the big day will be a round-up of Christmas-themed reading.  I know. I’m spoiling you.

books, Gift suggestions

Buy Her a Book for Christmas: Gift Ideas

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After the Books for Men extravaganza yesterday, here’s the books for Her post.  My mum and my sister both get books from me as part of their Christmas present, and it’s often tricky, because I pass them my favourite books through the year so I have to try and find something different!  As with yesterday’s post, my links are to Amazon, because lots of these are 3 for £10, or reduced in some way – thus freeing up more money to spend on yourself other presents.

Fiction

I find fiction recommendations easiest, but some of this is depending on what sort of present your buying the book as. Most of my book purchases are as stocking fillers or extra presents, rather than the whole present – so I give a lot of “lighter” fiction.  My mum’s asked for Anne Tyler‘s A Spool of Blue Thread for her Christmas book (I’m sure she won’t mind me telling you) and tells me that she just loves her other books, so if you know someone who’s read her Booker nominee from this year, it might be worth checking out the back catalogue too.

I’ve mentioned Beatriz Wiliams‘ A Hundred Summers in a BotW post and that’s definitely worth a look.  I also have her latest – Along the Infinite Sea – on my to-read pile, but I haven’t managed to get to it yet.

In a shameless plug for a friend, I loved Kirsty Greenwood‘s Vintage Guide to Love and Romance when I read it on holiday earlier this year (back in my early days of reviewing for Novelicious and before I’d met the lady herself).  Equally Lucy Robinson‘s The Day We Disappeared or Mhairi McFarlane‘s It’s Not Me It’s You would make great stocking fillers and although they came out earlier in the year (all on the same day in fact!) they aren’t summery books, so would be fine to give in December!

If you want to buy hardcover, I loved Laura Barnett‘s The Versions of Us (which I mentioned along with Vintage Guide in my Summer Recs list, but hey, when a book’s good, it’s good)- it’s Sliding Doors meets One Day and every bit as amazing as that sounds.  The paperback is out on December 31st.

Copy of After You in a Jiffy envelope
I liked After You so much I’ve posted it to a friend so she can read it

Also only in hardback or ebook at the moment is Jojo Moyes‘ much awaited sequel to Me Before You, After You.  I read this last week, and whilst I didn’t love it the way I loved Me Before You (see BotW squeals here), it’s still a good read – and would be a gift option if you know someone who cried their way through Lou and Will’s story and wants to know what happened next.  Another hardback option would be Paula McLain‘s latest Circling the Sun.  I’ve just lent my copy to mum – who has been raving about The Paris Wife, which she finished last week.

It’s nice to be appreciated!

Non Fiction

I always find non-fiction harder to recommend.  I’m a history graduate so a lot of my non fiction reading falls into that and I also find it easier to recommend fiction for women.  Probably because I read mostly fiction, but I’m sure someone will say this is unconscious bias, the patriarchy etc.  Still I’ll have a go.

Astronaut Wives Club
Finally a book I still have! So I’ve taken a fresh photo of it and everything!

You may remember this from a previous BotW post – but I need to give another mention to The Astronaut Wives Club, which would I think would go down well with loads of people – Mad Men fans, history fans, Americana fans etc.

The Roman Empire is not my period (I like my history modern enough that I can identify with the people, so usually post c1450) but I found How to Manage Your Slaves both funny and fascinating.  It’s got a lot of facts packed in there, but wears it lightly and is very readable.

Pretty Honest
And another one I still have! Hurrah!

I won a copy of Sali Hughes Pretty Honest last year, literally a day after I’d told my mum to buy it for me for Christmas.  I haven’t read it cover to cover, but I have dipped in and out repeatedly and found it really good.  I think this would work for a lot of people without being seen as being judgy.  And if if you have a teenage girl to buy for and you want to do more than just buy a make-up gift set from Boots or the current books from the latest YouTube sensation, this could be just the job.

Not That Kind of Girl
Boom. Three. Doesn’t this look well illustrated compared to the fiction section?

I have the paperback of Lena Dunham‘s Not That Kind of Girl sitting on my to-read pile, I haven’t read it yet, but I bought it because I’d heard a lot of good things about it.  And if you know a Girls fan (I don’t have Sky Atlantic) then this might make a good choice, but watch out, because it came out in hardback for last Christmas. Also out in hardback last year and in paperback all over the place now is  Amy Poehler‘s Yes Please which I really want to read and which might work if your giftee hasn’t already had it.

Miscellaneous

There are some people for whom a really pretty book is just the job.  Foyles used to have a helpful section of this sort of book in the front of their old Charing Cross Road store – I’m sure there’s an equivalent in the new store (even if I haven’t spotted it yet).  Virago’s VMC Designer Collection are great for this – they look gorgeous and the books are good too.  They started coming out a couple of years ago so some of my favourites – like Barbara Pym‘s Excellent Women – are harder to get hold of, but new ones are still appearing – like Daphne Du Maurier‘s The Birds and Patricia Highsmith‘s The Talented Mr Ripley.  Penguin also do a nice line in cloth bound classics – like this Sense and Sensibility.

VMC Designer Hardbacks
My OCD tendancies are yet to find a satisfactory order for these, but they’re so pretty I don’t care!

I also love Bookishly’s range of prints – their Pride and Prejudice one would make a lovely gift – if you’re buying for a friend, several of the quotations you can chose from are not romantic.  However exercise caution if you are thinking of getting someone an e-reader cover.  I’ve been caught out on sizes and variations before – all the various kindles seem to be subtly different.  There are some gorgeous ones out there though – I’ve bought one which looks like an actual book from Klevercase before, but check the model you’re aiming for very carefully.

So there you go.  Coming next: Children’s book recommendations.