Tag: new releases

Book of the Week, Chick lit, new releases, romance

Book of the Week: A Christmas Cracker

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It will be absolutely no surprise to you regular readers that this week’s BotW is Trisha Ashley’s latest – A Christmas Cracker. You can see my previous musings on her work here, here and briefly here. I’m not usually a Christmas book in October kind of person (although I seem to have read a few of them already this year) but I’m always read to make an exception for Trisha.  Her books are totally my catnip.  Warm and humourous, with heroines on journeys and a variety of different types of heros.  Her heroines have usually made had problems in their love lives before – whether through picking Bad Men or through mistakes and misunderstandings.  I always think of them as second chance romances (as in slightly older people, and not their first love affair), but I know that the “proper” definition of that trope is the “we met when we were young but it didn’t work out, but now we’re trying again” type of story, although Trisha has written a couple of those and they’re really very good.

Why can I never get a good photo of a book with foil lettering on the cover?
The heroine of A Christmas Cracker is Tabby.  She’s ended up doing prison time for a crime she didn’t commit, her fiance has dumped her and given her cat away, one of her friends lied about her in court and her life is generally in tatters.  Then she gets a second chance from Mercy.  She’s been working in Africa for years, but has retired and come back to try and rescue the family cracker business, which is floundering.  She thinks that Tabby could be the breath of fresh air that it needs to save it from the chop.  But Mercy’s nephew Randall think’s Tabby is a con-woman and out for what she can get – he’s got his own plans for Marwood’s Christmas Crackers and he’s watching her like a hawk…

I’m hoping that you’ve read that and thought – “Gosh that sounds generally delightful and festive too” – and it really is (if you didn’t, I’m sorry – I haven’t done it justice).  Tabby is a wonderful and relatable heroine.  I was initially sceptical about a lead character who starts off the book in the clink, but I shouldn’t have doubted Trisha – it’s a masterstroke.  Trisha Ashley’s books have a long history of giving us quirky/fun older/elderly lady characters too (Great Aunt’s Hebe and Ottie in A Winter’s Tale, Mad Aunt Debo in Creature Comforts, I could go on) and Mercy is another great addition to the list – she’s a bundle of energy in light-up trainers who sees the best in everyone and will give hospitality to anyone.

Honestly, I can’t say enough good things about A Christmas Cracker – I got an e-copy via NetGalley – but I went out at the weekend to buy myself an actual copy as well.  And not just because I have all her other books in paperback (and most of them in ebook as well) and I have a thing about sets and completion, but because I wanted to read it again, in a proper book, so I can pick out my favourite scenes so I know where they are in the book so I can go back and read them again.

If you only read one Christmas book this year (or before December at any rate) make this it.  It should be everywhere – Tesco were selling it for a very special price of £2 at the weekend (so cheap that I almost wanted to go and buy it somewhere else in case it meant the author royalties would be smaller) and I’d expect it to be all over the place in the other supermarkets and bookshops.  If I’ve sold it to you as being so good that you can’t wait to go to a shop (and you wouldn’t be wrong), the Kindle and Kobo editions are £2.99 at time of writing. Prices aren’t quite as special for the paperback at the online retailers, but here are the Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles links just in case.

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.

Book
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, Children's books, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: Arsenic for Tea

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I’m back in the children’s section with this week’s book of the week – embracing my long time (20-year plus) love of boarding school stories with Arsenic for Tea by Robin Stevens – the second book in her Wells and Wong series.

I mentioned the first book – Murder Most Unladylike – back in September and have been looking forward to reading the next one ever since.  In Arsenic for Tea, there’s a murder  at Daisy’s house, where Hazel is staying during the holidays.  Once again the Detective Society tries to work out who did it – from a cast of suspects including most of Daisy’s family.

When I started reading boarding school books – back in the early 1990s – the world that the girls at St Clares lived in wasn’t that different to the one that I was in.  They called maths arithmetic and the trains they travelled on were steam ones, but I could recognise their school life and identify it with mine. Since then, with computers, mobile phones, tablets and the like, school has changed a lot.  But Robin Stevens has found a way to write boarding school stories (yes this is set in the holidays, but it still counts) that still work for modern children.  By setting it in the 1930s, she can avoid having to include technology and things that may date very quickly, but she’s also included things that writers at the time didn’t talk about – but that children today can relate to and using Hazel as the principal narrator is a masterstroke.

Hazel is from Hong Kong – and this lends her narration a sense of detachment that works well.  She doesn’t fully understand this world either – so it makes sense for her to explain things that modern children might not quite understand but that would seem jarring if they were explained by Daisy who “belongs”.  Hazel also faces prejudice – and these are subtly dealt with, showing how unfair it is – in a way you never got in “old school” boarding school books, mostly because the cast was either all white – or because the author didn’t think that it was unfair (a sad commentary on a genre of books I love).

Daisy’s parents also have issues – their relationship is clearly… troubled and that forms part of the plot – which again you don’t have in books like Mallory Towers or my beloved Chalet School (where one doesn’t mention d.i.v.o.r.c.e or have any relationships that aren’t perfect.  Although there’s a high percentage of children missing one parent through death from TB or similar!).  This makes the book relatable – as well as making the plot make sense and hang together

I said in my mini review of book one that it’s like Mallory Towers crossed with Agatha Christie – and I stand by that.  There’s enough here for NotChildren like me to enjoy as well as the target audience.  In fact, it’s a bit like a good animated movie – there are bits that adults will love – nods to golden age detective fiction, etc – but that kids would pass straight over without realising that they were missing anything.  And Daisy and Hazel’s antics aren’t too outrageous – everything seems perfectly plausible for them to have been able to do, with enough peril to make it interesting, but not so much superhuman deduction that they don’t seem real.  In fact, part of the fun as a (supposedly) grown-up is the reading between the lines of what Hazel and Daisy don’t understand.

Arsenic for Tea is out on Thursday – you can pre-order the kindle copy here if you’re a grown-up, but I suggest if you’re buying for the 8 – 12 year old in your life and want use of your e-reader/tablet device in the near future, you buy the paperback – here it is on Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles or on my page at My Independent Bookshop – which gives money to one of my local indies.

books, new releases

Reminder: A Place for Us out today in Paperback

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Yes, I know, as if I haven’t gone on about Harriet Evans’ latest book enough already.  But for those of you who like a paperback in your hand – or who have a shelf of Harriet Evans they want to add to – A Place for Us is out today.

In case you missed my gushings about this already – it was on my Books of the Year List and I also did a bit of sleep deprived babbling about it after Part One and reviewed Part Two and Parts Three and Four too.

In case you can’t tell – I really liked it.  You should be able to get your copy all over the place – but here are some links: Foyles, Waterstones, Amazon and my page on My Independent Bookshop where you can also find various other books I’ve been raving about.

Book News, books

Upcoming Excitement

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Now seemed like a really good chance to mention a few books that I’m really excited to read over the next few months.  And also if I tell you that I’m going to read them over the next few months, then I might actually manage to do it!

Firstly, out this week just finishing, Laurie Graham’s The Grand Duchess of Nowhere.  I love Laurie Graham’s books – as I may have mentioned before, Gone with The Windsors is one of my all time favourites, so I’m always excited to read something new from her.  Grand Duchess has just come out in hardback, so it may well go on my Christmas book list if I don’t manage to resist snapping it up before then!

Coming out in November is the latest book from Marian Keyes.   I’m expecting The Woman Who Stole My Life to be one of the big books this Christmas and I’m excited to see what Marian has come up with this time.  She’s one of my favourite authors on Twitter (so funny) and her books are always the right balance of funny, sad and thought provoking.

Also on my watchlist is Mhairi McFarlane’s It’s Not Me, It’s You – which is out the same day as the Marian Keyes.  The blurb for this is totally up my street – a quest for the heroine’s real self with dodgy jobs, weird bosses and handsome journalists. Sounds perfect and I’m really looking forward to it.

Now there are a whole bunch of other books that are coming out soon that I’m hoping to read too – but they’re all themed around a major festival that happens in December and I refuse to start talking about that this early.  Having worked in a shop through sixth form and university I have developed an aversion to the countdown to that particular event starting too early.  But rest assured, I will be posting about books suitable for reading at that time of year in enough time for you to get them on your gift lists or to stock up for reading in front of roaring fires whilst you eat seasonally appropriate food stuffs.  Just not in early October. I can’t do it.

 

American imports, romance

New Romance Review Round-up

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It’s Read a Romance Month, so I thought I ought to do my bit for the cause – and review some romance.  I’m pretty much exclusively a historical romance reader when I read straight up romance, so here are two of the new ones I’ve recently read – both by authors new to me as I continue my quest to find new (to me) historical romance authors, having read everything from the people I like!

First up, and out this week in the US  (and in September in the UK) is How the Scoundrel Seduces by Sabrina Jeffries.  This is the third book in the series – and as per usual I’m late to the party and haven’t read the other two.  This wasn’t a problem though as I still enjoyed the book.  Some elements of the plot felt a little bit far fetched to me, but Jeffries carries it off – just.  My problems with US-written-British-set historicals usually come with the language choices and there were a few moments in this, but probably not any that would annoy an American reader.  I have a personal problem with “princess” as a term of endearment – makes me think of Eastenders and gangsters, but that’s just me!  The denouement seemed to happen very quickly – there seemed to be a lot of build up for not a lot of resolution, and there were a few revelations at the end that felt like they were late attempts to make the baddie more three dimensional and add a bit of depth to a character that we hadn’t seen in the flesh for a long time (I’m trying not to give plot points away here!).  I have another, older Sabrina Jeffries on the pile and there was certainly nothing here to put me off reading it.  If I was giving star ratings, it’d be 3.5 out of 5.

Out next week in the US (and at the start of October in the UK) is Not Quite a Wife by Mary Jo Putney.  Another book that’s one of a series that I haven’t read (sensing a theme here!), this is the story of Laurel and James – who are married but have been separated for 10 years after she witnessed him carry out a “shocking act of violence” (I’m trying not to give away the plot again) and are drawn back together after a chance encounter “turns passionate with consequences that cannot be ignored”.  Now the accidentally pregnant trope is not my favourite of the romance plotlines, but I’m always willing to give them a go – especially this one – as it seemed to promise a strong minded heroine.  However, once I’d read a little and discovered a bit more, the plot device separating them felt a little contrived and flimsy – Laurel knows that James is a spymaster when she marries him, and there’s a certain risk of violence attached to that.  She also lives in a time that was much rougher and she hasn’t exactly led a life sheltered form that since they separated and so I found some of her issues hard to believe.  But, just because a book isn’t really for me, that doesn’t mean that other people aren’t going to like it.  This has a strong Christian theme to it – and the characters have strong moral standpoints rooted in their beliefs so I’m sure that it’ll appeal to those who don’t like their romances to be filled with immorality.  It does have some sex scenes in it though, so it’s not for the very conservative end of the Christian reading spectrum.

So, there you have it – two reviews, neither of them the raves that I was hoping to be able to post when I was lining up romances to read in August for RARM.  So to counter act that, I’d like to point you in the direction of Eloisa James’ latest, Three Weeks with Lady X for a really good historical romance, and some really good non-historical not just a romances – like Jenny Colgan’s Little Beach Street Bakery and the recently re-issued Tickled Pink from Christina Jones.  There’s still some more romance waiting to be read on the pile – I’m hoping for more success next time!

My copies came from Netgalley – in return for an honest review – I’m assuming they’ll be available in all the usual places where you can find romances – but here are links to both on Amazon.com – How the Scoundrel Seduces and Not Quite A Wife

books, new releases, reviews

Review: What Would Mary Berry Do?

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Out today (that’s Thursday 31st July) is this great chick-lit novel by Claire Sandy.  If you’re a Great British Bake-Off fan, this may be the book for you if you’re getting panicky before the start of the new series next week.  And if you’re not a baker or a cook, What Would Mary Berry Do? may still be the beach book for you this summer.

WWMBD and other books
What Would Mary Berry Do? and some of my Bernadette Strachan collection…

So, first, the setup: After a disastrous school bake sale, Marie Dunwoody decides that by this time next year it will be different.  With a Mary Berry Baking Bible in hand, she sets out to conquer cakes – and change her outlook on life thinking “What Would Mary Berry Do?”  At the same time, husband Robert is struggling with office politics – where a muffin is worth more than sales figures and son Angus is struggling with problems at school – something his nine-year old twin sisters are determined to get to the bottom off…

I loved the cast of characters in this book – the Dunwoody family are a hoot and there’s a set of fully rounded supporting characters too, I particularly loved Marie’s employees at her dental surgery.  The different strands of the plot work very well – and whilst I was frequently laughing, I also had a tear in my eye at one point too.  You don’t have to be into making your own baked goods to enjoy either – the plot and characters are engaging enough to interest people who don’t know their Croquembouche from their Crème Anglaise.

The blurb says it’s ideal for fans of Jenny Colgan and I’d agree with that – but I’d also add that fans of Trisha Ashley and Alexandra Brown would probably enjoy this one too – and anyone who likes their chick lit with a dose of humour.  And as Claire Sandy is a pen name for the fabulous Bernadette Strachan, if you haven’t read any of her work, can I point you in the direction of my favourite of hers – The Reluctant Landlady – where you’ll find loveable characters (Bing! Bernard!), a great plot, lots of humour but a bit less baking.

I’m hoping you’ll be able to get hold of a copy of What Would Mary Berry Do at all good bookshops, but in case you can’t get to an actual shop, here it is on Foyles website and Kindle.  I’m hoping it will do really well – it’s my favourite book I’ve read this month.

books, fiction, new releases, reviews

Review: A Place for Us by Harriet Evans (part one)

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I am not a good candidate for serialisations.  I am your classic binge reader – find me something I like and I’ll gorge on it until there is nothing left.  I don’t like having to wait. Anticipation is not my friend.  I count myself as anticipated out after waiting to find out what happened next in Harry Potter for years at a time from the end of Chamber of Secrets onwards.

I’m writing this on my phone, on a train in the early hours of the morning because I’ve just finished the first part of Harriet Evans new book which I was pre-approved for on Netgalley and I need to know what happens next.  Now.  Preferably about 10 minutes ago.

Part one of this serialisation has set up a cast of characters designed to captivate, has dangled enough clues about secrets to tantilise and then FOUR sentences from the end dropped a great big enormous bombshell and then left me hanging. To quote one of my favourite TV shows (involving a Miss B Summers of Sunnydale, California) Inquiring minds need to know. And this one needs to know now.

A Place for Us (so far) is the story of three generations of the Winter family who have been summoned to the family home for Martha the matriarch’s 80th birthday party.  Previously very close, the family has fractured apart and during part one we get to know them – find out who they are and some of what they’re hiding, and guess at other secrets as yet unrevealed.  Then, at the end of Part 1, we find out the bombshell that is about to be dropped at the party (or at least I think we do, unless it’s a masterpiece of misdirection) and your brain starts frantically trying to work out what happens next – and whether this will bring them closer together or send them spiralling further apart – because although this secret is huge, there are lots of other things lurking beneath the surface too.

I’ve read a couple of Harriet Evans’ books before and enjoyed them. She mentions Georgette Heyer (always a good way to my heart) and I like her heroines.  This book has so many characters I don’t know who is my favourite yet, but I want to read more so I can decide!  (I hope my message is getting through, though I fear it may sound like the deranged rantings of a sleep-deprived woman, it’s not. Honest. I just Need To Know).  If the rest of the book lives up to this first part (of FOUR – how am I going to cope with this?!) I believe then it is going to be a great read (and possibly somewhat epically long) and deserves to be gobbled up by fans of Harriet Evans and new readers alike.

It’s Thursday morning and I’ve re-read my rantings from last night before publishing. I don’t think I sound too crazy. I’m hoping I sound enthusiastic and excited about the book rather than plain loopy, although I fear it’s a fine line.  But I didn’t want to alter too much of my post – because this was my genuine response to finishing Part One of the book. And it was 1am, on a train, at the end of a 10 hour shift and that sort of sleep-deprived creativity cannot be faked!