Tag: New books

Authors I love, Book of the Week, Fantasy, new releases, reviews, Series I love, Young Adult

Book of the Week: The Shepherd’s Crown

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Crivens! This week’s BotW will come as no surprise – it’s the final Terry Pratchett novel, the 41st Discworld book and the fifth to feature Tiffany Aching.  I managed to force myself to read it slowly (for me anyway) and made it last a week. I’m already listening to the audiobook on my walks to work.

 

As you can see I have the others in the series in paperback, but I wasn't prepared to wait this time.
As you can see I have the others in the series in paperback, but I wasn’t prepared to wait this time.

In the Chalk, something is brewing.  Tiffany can feel it coming, the Kelda can feel it coming. An old enemy is gathering strength.  To quote the back of the book, Tiffany stands between the light and the dark, the good and the bad.  And there will be a reckoning.

And to be honest, that’s about all that I can say about the plot of The Shepherd’s Crown without giving too much away. I encountered a massive spoiler in the Audible sample a week before the book came out – and my sister ran into the Guardian review which reveals the same Major Event – and I’ve become really concious of the fact that I  don’t want to ruin the story for anyone reading this the way that plot twist was spoilt for me.

What I can say about the book is that it made my cry, repeatedly.  But it’s not a sad book.  As the back cover says, it is a time of endings and beginnings, and they’re handled beautifully.  It is a Young Adult book and there are Serious Issues in there, but it deals with them very well, with Sir Terry’s trademark wit and warmth.  I laughed and smiled and really enjoyed Tiffany’s adventure.

I wish there were going to be more. But as I said earlier this year (in this post), we knew that the end was coming sooner than anyone could have wished for.  I still want the Moist the Tax Collector book.  I am greedy for more from the Discworld.  And the afterword in Shepherd’s Crown drops tantalising hints about what could have been.  But I absolutely respect (and agree with) Rhianna Pratchett’s decision that if her father is not here to write them, there will be no more new Discworld books.

And if the end had to come, The Shepherd’s Crown is a very good place to finish.  There are plenty of old favourite characters and there are some new favourites too.  Of all the Discworld regulars, Mistress Tiffany has more life ahead of her than the others (unless you count Young Sam Vimes) and so it seems fitting that she is the centre of the last book.

The Shepherd’s Crown doesn’t feel like a goodbye, like a world is coming to an end – it feels like the Great A’Tuin is still out there, swimming through space with the elephants and the Disc on his back, it’s just that we won’t get to hear about the goings on there anymore.  And maybe that’s Sir Terry’s greatest achievement – he’s created a fantasy world so real that we can’t believe that it could stop.

The spines of the 5 Tiffany books
It’s not as if I had a matching set to start with, so I’ll cope with the non-matchingness.

I’m planning to re-read the whole series.  If you haven’t discovered Tiffany yet, start with The Wee Free Men and enjoy her whole journey.  If you are a Discworld fan, who’s been hesitant about reading this, don’t worry.  I don’t think this will be a disappointment to you.  It is safe to read it.  It feels right.  You should be able to get hold of a copy of The Shepherd’s Crown anywhere which sells good books – but just in case: Amazon, Kindle, Foyles (sadly no discount), Waterstones.

Enjoy it. Make it last. Raise a glass to it’s creator. And mind how you go.

 

Authors I love, Book of the Week, Chick lit

Book of the Week: A Very Big House in the Country

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As promised last week, here’s a link to my review of The Spider in the Corner of the Room on Novelicious.  I’ve read some more stuff for Novelicious this week – and you’ll see links to them in future BotW posts.  Now to business.  This week’s BotW is Claire Sandy’s latest A Very Big House in the Country.  I was so excited when this appeared in the post* – after all I raved about What Would Mary Berry Do? last summer.  You may have noticed that this was on the reading list for a couple of weeks – and that is because I forced myself not to gobble this up in one sitting.**

The Herreras, the Littles and the Browns are sharing a massive Devon mansion for two long hot weeks of the summer holidays.  There are secrets. There are romances. There’s something lurking in the bushes – and it may not just be the Herrera’s dog on the pull.  There’s step-sons, trophy wives, a glamourous (and possibly slutty) nanny and an outdoor pool.  And gallons of wine.  Tongues will loosen, inhibitions will fall away and people may get a little too honest.  When everyone packs up and heads out at the end of the summer will they all still be friends? And will everyone be going home in the same car they arrived in?

Ok.  I know, there’s not a lot of plot in that little summary, but I think it gives you a flavour of the book.  It’s warm, touching and funny, with a bit of a sarcastic edge.  The house may be luxurious, but the book is very down to earth. You’ll probably recognise things from your own families and group holidays in this.  Summer may be ending, but grab hold of its coattails and recapture the hot weather after a particularly wet bank holiday weekend with one last sun-lounger read.

  
This one is all up in the supermarkets – so you shouldn’t have any problems getting hold of it next time you happen to accidentally on purpose walk through the book aisle as you arrive in TescAsdWaitburys.  But in case you can’t wait, here’s an Amazon link and a Kindle one and a Foyles one.

 

* My copy was sent to me by the author – but as per usual, my reviews are honest and BotW goes to my favourite book I read the previous week and this. was. it.

** I’m currently doing the same thing with The Shepherd’s Crown, because once it’s gone there Is No More New Pratchett and I don’t want it to be over yet.

Book of the Week, new releases, Young Adult

Book of the Week: Fire Colour One

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This week’s BotW is Jenny Valentine’s Fire Colour One.  I do try to mix my choices up a bit – although when I go on a massive reading jag of one author that doesn’t help – so here’s some new YA fiction.  I got my copy via NetGalley and raced through it in two train journeys.

Iris likes lighting fires.  She doesn’t like her mum – or her mum’s boyfriend.  She’s lost touch with her best (and only) friend Thurston. Then the dad that she hasn’t seen for years gets in contact to say he’s dying.  Her mum is delighted – she wants Ernest’s art collection to fund her lifestyle. Iris is angry.  But her dad has things he wants to tell her.

Now, it took me a while to warm to Iris.  She’s a bit difficult to like at first, but then you see what she’s dealing with.  And she’s dealing with a lot.  Her mum sees her as an inconvenience and really isn’t on her side.  Her mum’s partner is the most narcissistic guy I’ve come across in a book this year.  Iris can control the fires.  She can’t control her life, or stop her dad from dying (and she’s not sure she wants to either).

Death is such a theme in YA literature at the moment, that I was worried that this book was going to leave me miserable and upset*, but I got to the last page with a tear in my eye and a smile on my face.  Then I went back and read the last chapter all over again.  I can’t really say much more about why the end worked for me, without giving it away and that would really spoil the book, but it’s clever.  Really clever.  And I’m desperate to know what Iris does next.

So, I didn’t read a lot last week, but I’m still thinking about this one – and I’m wondering if there are any teenagers in my life that I can buy it for (I’m not sure there are).  I know that I’ll go back and read it again too, which is unusual for me and YA fiction that’s not boarding school stories.  I’ve added Jenny Valentine’s other books to my to-read list too

Fire Colour One came out last week – get your paperback from Amazon, Foyles, Waterstones or on Kindle or Kobo.

 

* A la the 3am Fault in Our Stars crying jag.

Book Club, Book of the Week, reviews

Book of the Week: The Sudden Departure of the Frasers

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This week’s BotW is Louise Candlish’s The Sudden Departure of the Frasers – which was my Curtis Brown Book Group book for April, but which didn’t get finished until last week because that was when the discussion was.

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This has such a striking cover I know I would have looked at it in the shop, I’m not sure if I would have bought it without the Book Club

The Sudden Departure of the Frasers tells the story of Christy and Joe Davenport, who have just bought the house of their dreams in a leafy London area they never expected to be able to afford.  The previous owners, the Frasers, renovated the house and then abruptly disappeared.  As the Davenports settle in to their new home, Christy becomes obsessed with why the Frasers left and particularly what happened to Amber – beautiful, popular, charming and the centre of the social whirl – and why the atmosphere on the street is so tense.

This is another book that I probably wouldn’t have picked out for myself – but ended up really enjoying* – in fact, I read the vast majority of it across the course of one afternoon and evening because I got sucked in and then I Needed To Know.  It’s one of those books where you can’t put it down because your brain is frantically trying to work out what has gone on and you just need to read one more page/chapter/section because then you might be able to figure it out.

One of the reasons this book worked so well for me is that the setting and the characters seem utterly believeable.  I’m sure I’m not the only one who has had the fantasy that one day the dream home that you’ve always wanted will pop up on the market miraculously in your price range despite being worth oh-so-much more usually.  And then obviously the old adage about “if it looks too good to be true, maybe it is” springs into your mind.  Now scenarios like this usually lend themselves to horror or ghost stories (definitely not my thing) but this is neither.  It’s a gripping little thriller, which will mess with your head but not leave you with nightmares about blood and gore and ghosts.**

Now I am breaking one of my own rules in writing about this now – because The Sudden Departure of the Frasers doesn’t come out until the 21st.  But after a long deliberation I’ve put it up as this week’s BotW – because a) it was really good, b) if I didn’t BotW would probably be another Janet Evanovich (the obsession continues) and c) it will be a really, really good beach read, so preorder it for your holiday and you’ve one less thing to worry about!

You can pre-order The Sudden Departure of the Frasers from all the usual outlets – here is a selection of links – Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles and Kindle – and I suspect that when it does come out it may pop up in your local supermarket as it’s being published by Penguin.

* Which illustrates why I have such a massive to-read pile.  I like so many different books. And if I had bought myself this, it would probably have sat of the shelf for years because of the backlog because it’s not obviously a book that I’d like.  Then you’d get another of my patented posts saying that I loved it and I can’t believe how long it sat on the shelf and why didn’t I read it sooner.  I know.  I’m a nightmare.

** I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that there isn’t any blood or gore or ghosts.  It’s not that sort of book.  But you know what I mean.

Book of the Week, Fantasy, new releases, reviews, Uncategorized

Book of the Week: Prudence

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This week’s BotW is Gail Carriger’s latest – Prudence – and you can’t say that I didn’t warn you that this might happen.  Because I did, even if it’s a few weeks later than I thought it might turn up here.  And that’s because I took an executive decision to save it for my holiday book – for our trip (to Vienna in the end) to mark a Significant Birthday for The Boy.  A holiday book should be a treat, preferably something that you know you’re not going to hate, and as it was already on the to-read pile, saving this meant I didn’t incur the wrath of The Boy for buying books again…

Gail Carriger's Prudence
I really like the purple and pink theme. And I’m not usually a pink person…

Anyway, Prudence is the first book in Carriger’s new series – the Custard Protocol.  Set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate and Finishing School books, there are some familiar faces, not least Prudence herself – last seen as a toddler in the Parasol Protectorate series. When Rue is given a dirigible, she names it The Spotted Custard and heads for India on a secret mission.  But the situation there is not as simple as she had been lead to believe (and that wasn’t that simple to start with) and before long she’s dealing with dissidents, kidnappings and a pack of Scottish werewolves and it will take all her metanatural skills to deal with it.

Now, I’ve read all (I think) of Carriger’s other series, but I don’t think it would spoil your enjoyment of the book if you haven’t read them* as Carriger has been very careful not to give away too many spoilers for the plots of her previous books.**  However, for those of us who have read the previous books, you get the delicious enjoyment of being better informed about the past than our heroine, and equally delightful anticipation of confrontations and revelations yet to come.

When I read Timeless, I spotted a few dangling threads left that I hoped were teasers of stuff yet to come – and I was on the right track.   Again, my spoiler policy makes it difficult to be more specific than that, but I really like the direction that this series looks to be heading in.  The only problem with having read Prudence in fact is that I now have to wait (probably) a year to find out what happens next in Imprudence – and it’s still more than six months until the final Finishing School book – Manners and Mutiny – where I finally get to find out how Sophronia’s world became Alexias.

You can buy Prudence from all the usual sources – like Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles and Kindle.  I’ve also spotted it in  my local library already – which I haven’t seen before – and is brilliant, because hopefully it’ll introduce more people to Gail Carriger and then they can fall in love with her world like I have.

* Although the Parasol Protectorate is the more relevant to this book if you want somewhere to start

** Although the identity of Rue’s parents is a bit of a spoiler for Souless, there’s no way to avoid that!

Blog tours, books, reviews

The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café (Blog Tour)

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Well here we are, in a first for Verity Reads Books, I’m part of a blog tour.  Isn’t this exciting!  Today I welcome Jenny Oliver to the blog.  She’s going to tell you why she loves the arrival of  Spring, and then I’m going to tell you what I thought about The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café – which is the first book in her new Cherry Pie Island series.  So, over to Jenny:

Hurray it’s Spring!

Every season I think, ‘This is my favourite season!’  So naturally, right now, I’m thinking that Spring is my definite fave. Here’s my rational…

1. What could be better than a bright yellow flower with a trumpet that costs less than a pound a bunch? They’re happiness in a vase. Right by my parents’ house in Cornwall there are daffodil fields and I think I’m right in saying they leave them to bloom the first year after planting. Last year it was amazing to see this huge yellow field of happy little flowers.

2. This is not to say that I don’t love winter food – stews and casseroles and lasagnes – but I really love a good salad. I’m talking about crispy lettuce, maybe a bit of rocket, and some tiny new potatoes, crispy bacon, feta and lemon juice. Eaten sitting on our back step (because we don’t have a garden) with a glass of really lovely white wine.

3. The smell of the air when you walk out the door in the morning. The warmth of the sun mingling with the cold of the night, the scent of cut grass and daffodils and the sound of birds and cars and people getting up and starting their day happy because it’s not raining or cold!

4.Not wearing a coat! Don’t get me wrong, I really like my coat but after months of wearing it non-stop it’s a pleasure to walk out the house in only a jumper.

5. The knowledge that summer is just around the corner…

Thanks Jenny!  Now on to my review…

Dandelion Café tells the story of Annie’s return to island that she grew up on to take over the family café.  Annie’s got some issues, and she’s not thrilled to be back on Cherry Pie Island where everyone remembers (and won’t let her forget) her youthful mistakes and misadventures.  But it does have the added bonus of Matt-the-millionaire (not the cliche that it sounds, trust me) who she had a massive crush on when she was at school.

Jenny Oliver manages to get a lot of plot into a short book, but it never feels rushed or forced.  I got swept away in the world of the island and was rooting for it all to turn out right in the end.  And for Annie’s brother to end up getting a dunking in the sea!

I read this on the way home from a nightshift (the last of three), desperately needing some light relief that wouldn’t overtax my frazzled, sleep-deprived brain.  The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café put a smile on my face (helping counteract the purple dark circles) and perked me up nicely.  It also didn’t send me into the simmering rage that some partworks/serialisation-y type things do by ending on a cliff hanger which I can’t find out the resolution to for weeks/months/years.

There are some loose ends left at the end of this book – don’t get me wrong – and I need to find out what happens to them, but the main plot of this part of the series is resolved at the end, and the next book in the series is set up neatly – with the prospect of keeping track of how Annie gets on as the next story unfolds.  And since reading Dandelion Café, I’ve been back and found a Jenny Oliver book that had been sitting in the Kindle backlog for a while (I’m not looking to see how long – I don’t want to know!) and read and enjoyed that too.

The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Cafe is available now from the usual e-book based outlets.  My copy came from NetGalley – but I liked it so much I’ve shelled out my own money to pre-order the next in the series!

 

 

Book of the Week, fiction, new releases, reviews, Uncategorized

Book of the Week: Midnight Crossroad

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I really struggled to pick a favourite book from last week.  Not because I didn’t like anything, but there wasn’t one book I really wanted to shout about – except my book club book – and that’s not out til next month, so I’ll tell you about that when you can actually buy it!

In the end, I have settled on Charlaine Harris’s Midnight Crossroad – which I got through NetGalley*.  It’s the first book in her new series (I think it’s pegged at three books) – and her first post-Sookie creation.  I’ve now read all of the Southern Vampire series, all of the Harper Connelly series, all of the Lily Bard series – and three of the Aurora Teagardens** so I guess you could say that I’m a fan.  I find her books really easy to read, her world building ticks my boxes and although each series clearly does have a formula, they are original enough that they don’t seem like the same book with new names if you know what I mean.

So Midnight Crossing is the convergence of the supernatural world of Sookie – and the worlds that we’ve seen in her other series – and to me it seems to try to root them all firmly in the same universe – which is something I’ve always wondered about.  There are some familiar faces from the previous series – and I’ve had trouble writing this without giving you spoilers.

The residents of Midnight might look normal (mostly), but they’re all hiding something.  Manfred has just moved to town and is about to discover that still waters really do run deep.  Ummmm.  And that’s about all I can say without giving too much away.  The story has multiple points of view, which can be a bit confusing at first, but it does work to establish the different characters and set up the town from the inside out as well as Manfred looking in.  But that’s not to say that by the end of the book you’ll know all the answers.

It’s not perfect, it’s not the best thing I’ve ever read – but it really is a nice way of passing an afternoon, especially if you’ve read the previous series.  It’s not the same genre really as the True Blood books – but it’s closer to them than any of her other series are.

As I said, my copy came from NetGalley – in advance of the UK paperback release on April 9 – you can pre-order that from Amazon or Foyles.  I can hear you pointing out the contradiction in not having my Book Club book as BotW because it’s not out yet – and then reviewing this which isn’t out for another week, and to that I offer you the Kindle link (and for the US readers, the amazon.com link because the paperback is already out there!) – although I’m sure the price will drop once the paperback comes out.  But you can get a sample now to see if you like it, while you can’t even get a sneak peak of my Book Club novel yet – it’s not out for three and a half weeks (or indeed the end of May in the US).  And it’s cruel to recommend something and make people wait that long!

* Having been reading the Dear Author palarva over the weekend, I’ve resolved to make sure I’m even more upfront about where my books come from – I already say on Goodreads if my copy was from NetGalley or similar, and I try to here, but I’m redoubling my efforts.  Transparency is key…

** I’ve bought book four after reading Midnight Crossing.  I suspect the second Omnibus is in my future…

Book of the Week, books, Chick lit, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: Creature Comforts

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Regular readers to the blog will be unsurprised to discover that this week’s BotW is the new novel from Trisha Ashley.  The first review on this blog (and one of the earliest posts) was of her last book Every Woman for Herself  and I’ve been waiting eagerly for Creature Comforts ever since. And I managed to control myself – and read the book across three days, rather in one sitting.

Creature Comforts tells the story of Izzy, who returns to her childhood home of Halfhidden, after years travelling around the world.  She’s just broken up with her fiancé Kieran and is looking for answers about a tragic accident she was involved in as a teenager.  On top of that, she’s starting a new business and helping her friends with a plan to regenerate the village by getting more tourists in.  And her aunt’s dog rescue centre is in a spot of bother – with money and with the new owner of the estate that owns the land…

I love the corner of Lancashire that Trisha Ashley has created – and Halfhidden is a great addition to it.  I liked the dynamics of Izzy and her gang of friends – and there’s some fun supporting characters (as usual) who are quirky in a non-irritating way.  The plot’s a good one too – as Izzy tries to discover what happened that fateful night.  Trisha’s heroines always have a bit of baggage behind them to overcome – and I liked that Izzy’s wasn’t a husband/ex-partner as it so often is with books in this sort of genre.  I also really empathised over her ex-fiancé – who reminded me of one of my ex-boyfriends* with his attitude towards her and her life.

As usual, after reading on of Trisha’s books, I wanted to go back and read the earlier ones – this is partly because there are always little references to them, enabling you to catch a glimpse of what’s going on with some of your old friends, and reminding you how much you enjoyed reading about their lives.

Creature Comforts is Trisha’s first book to get a hardback release – you can buy it on Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles and hopefully in stores too.  The Kindle edition is available too and you can pre-order the paperback too if you can control yourself and wait until June.

 

*Although my exboyfriend didn’t cause me any of the trouble that Kieran causes Izzy!

Book of the Week, books, Chick lit, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: Three Amazing Things About You

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This was so nearly last week’s book of the week – except that it didn’t get finished in time – and I can’t write a BotW post on something that isn’t over – after all it could all have gone terribly wrong in the last 100 pages.  But it didn’t and it was still the best thing I read last week, even if I did finish it first thing on Monday (!) so here were are.

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Such a pretty cover. I do love blue

Jill Mansell’s latest book tells the story of Hallie, Flo and Tasha.  At the start of the book we learn that Hallie has Cystic Fibrosis and is on the way to London for a possible transplant that could save her life.  Hallie runs a website where she answers people’s problems – like an agony aunt (but in a good way) – and her correspondents tell her three things about them before they tell her their dilemma.  As she travels to the hospital, she’s writing her three things –  an explanation – revealing her identity and her situation, in case she doesn’t make it.  Then we jump back to find out how we got to here…

The three stories intertwine in a way that I don’t really want to explain, except to say that it really works.  I loved all the characters in this book.  It made me laugh and it made me cry* and I think it may be my favourite of Jill Mansell’s books that I’ve read.  It’s definitely an evolution from her novels that I’ve read – and its a really good evolution.  I know I haven’t written a lot here – but I don’t want to give too much away.  But if you like smart, funny books with a heart, then this may well be for you.

Three Amazing Things About You is out now in hardback and ebook.  You can pick up a copy at all the usual place – and the supermarkets too – or if you can’t wait here are some links – Foyles, Waterstones, Kindle or my shop in My Independent Bookshop (which send money to my local indie)

* Luckily I have learnt from the Rabbit Hayes experience, and I did my crying on the sofa at home, not on the train!
Book of the Week, books, Chick lit, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes

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What to say about this.  Really I should have been reading between Christmas and New Year – but as it had potential to be a weepy, I thought mixing it with nightshifts was a bad idea.  I had a meltdown over a relationship break-up at the start of a book during some nightshifts, so I thought I ought to avoid a book about a woman dying of cancer!  So, well rested and as emotionally stable as I ever get (that is to say, prone to tears when sad things happen or when people die in documentaries, even when I know it’s coming) I started in on this on commute to work.  And it nearly had me crying on the train not once, not twice, but three times.  On three separate train journeys.

Now I know what you’re saying: “Verity, why didn’t you stop reading the damn book on the train?” And the simple answer is that I couldn’t.  I had to know what happened next – how it all worked out for Rabbit and her family – and as I was on late shifts, the train was the only place where I was going to get a chance to do that.  But I did learn something – by the third train journey I’d scaled back the eyeliner and switched to waterproof mascara!

To go back to the beginning – The Plot.  Rabbit Hayes is dying.  She has cancer – it’s terminal – and the end is rushing towards her faster than anyone wants.  What will happen to her daughter Juliet? And to the rest of her tight-knit family?  But even though her mum and dad are still searching for a miracle, the reader always knows what’s going to happen to Rabbit.

Now I know that makes the book sound like a real downer – and like I said, I was in tears in places – but here’s the thing.  It’s not.  It’s funny and it’s rude and, most importantly, it’s life-affirming.  By the time it’s over, Rabbit may be gone – but you know that it’s ok and it’s going to be ok for everyone else too.  She was the glue that held her family together, but she’s helped them find a way to make it work without her.  And I don’t think that’s a spoiler.  You might cry for Rabbit – and be sad that it ended this way for her – but you’ll come away better for having known her.

I don’t usually do weepies.  The Boy is still borderline grumpy with me about the 2am crying fit that ensued at the end of The Fault in Our Stars after I insisted on staying up to read it to the end (Me: “I’ll have horrible dreams if I leave them like this” Him: “I don’t think reading til the end will make your dreams any more cheerful”).  There are a few books that I’ve studiously avoided reading because I know that they’re sad – and although I’ll read pretty much anything, I’d rather twiddle my thumbs than read anything from the “Tragic Lives” section of the bookshop. But this had such good reviews – and people whose books I love had raved about it – so I took the plunge, and I’m so glad I did.  Perhaps there are a few more books out there that I’ve been avoiding that I should be getting involved with. But maybe not on the train!

You can buy The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes everywhere.  It’s in Richard and Judy’s latest Book Club picks, so it’s in the Buy 1 get 1 for £1 promotion in W H Smith (or at least it was on Saturday), I’m expecting it to be all over the supermarkets and the high street book shops, but if you can’t wait or can’t be bothered to leave the house, you can buy it from Foyles or Waterstones or Amazon or Kindle or Kobo or my page on My Independent Bookshop (which gives money to my local Indie).