Lots of stuff started, not as much stuff finished this week – mostly because I was at the theatre four evenings! I felt like a bit of a gadabout – but it was fabulous.
Read:
Shakespeare’s Trollop by Charlaine Harris
Shakespeare’s Counsellor by Charlaine Harris
Bad Bridesmaid by Portia MacIntosh
The Brandons by Angela Thirkell
Rock Courtship by Nalini Singh
Started:
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
Honeymoon Hotel by Hester Browne
The Constant Nymph by Margaret Kennedy
Still reading:
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
The bright side is that whilst I haven’t read a lot, I haven’t bought anything either after last week’s orgy of purchasing!
Another review of a new book – out today in Kindle, and later in the month in paperback (though I think it’s been available in giant airport size paperback for a few months) – it’s Claudia Carroll’s Love Me Or Leave Me. You’ll be pleased to here that it’s not one of a series that I’m coming to mid way through, or a serialisation that’s driving me to begging. I’m also well rested and hopefully coherent!
This is the third of Claudia Carroll’s novels that I’ve read – I have a fourth waiting on the Kindle for me to get around to it (quelle surprise!) and I’ve read a few of her short stories too. She’s one of a gaggle of Irish authors who I’ll always have a look at when I see that they have something new out, but won’t necessarily automatically buy.
Love Me Or Leave Me tells the story of Chloe – dumped at the altar and rebuilding her life – who takes a job as the General Manager of Ireland’s newest concept hotel – a divorce hotel. That’s right – you check in married and check out divorced (practically) as the hotel helps you untangle your life from your ex-spouse’s. But the book doesn’t just follow Chloe – it also follows three of the couples who check in for the hotel’s opening weekend.
I really liked the multiple Points of View you get with this novel – Chloe is a first person narrative – and the others are third person – which helps keep the focus on Chloe and her journey. But all the stories are interesting and having four means that there are enough twists and and turns to the novel to keep it pacey and interesting without it seeming forced or over dramatic – after all when your heroine’s been left at the altar at the start of the book, there’s not a more drama that can happen to her without it seeming like she’s being picked on by a higher power! I liked the little reveals of the secrets in the other couple’s relationships and I found myself rooting for different people and various different outcomes.
And for a novel about divorcing couples (and heartbreak) it’s actually a cheerful and up-beat read. And that’s partly because of that four-way narrative again – each couple’s story is well-fleshed out and feels real, but because there are three of them (and Chloe’s story) you don’t have to have 100 pages of each couple being miserable to set up the split and make you care about what happens to them. In fact I’d say Carroll’s done a great job of writing each story so that it grabs you and gives you definite opinions about the characters very quickly – without a lot of background waffle.
This is a lovely back to school read – it is romantic and chick lit-y but to me it doesn’t feel like a book for reading on a sun lounger. Perfect for a rainy Sunday afternoon as you curse the British weather – and the lack of an Indian Summer! Find the Kindle edition here or pre-order the paperback here or from Hive or at your bookseller of choice.
There’s a couple of short stories on the list this week, which make it look longer than it should. I spent Monday to Wednesday recovering from nightshifts (which finished at 6 on Monday morning) and catching up on housework so the reading got a bit left behind – though the slow trains home from my four late shifts at the end of the week helped redress the balance!
Read:
The Empress Chronicles by Suzy Vitello
Pomfret Towers by Angela Thirkell
No Weddings by Kat Bastion with Stone Bastion
Storm in a Tea Shoppe by Carola Dunn
An Unhappy Medium by Carola Dunn
The Lady’s Disgrace by Callie Hutton
Love Me or Leave Me by Claudia Carroll
Who Needs Mr Darcy by Jean Burnett
Started:
The Brandons by Angela Thirkell
Shakespeare’s Trollop by Charlaine Harris
Still reading:
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
I think we should skim over the number of books bought this week (6) as the arrival of parcels from previous weeks and from a publisher or two has already disturbed The Boy’s belief in my ability to reduce the pile. Still this week I’ve got much closer to up to date on my NetGalley backlog. Swings, may I introduce you to Roundabout.
Hopefully I’ll be asleep in bed when this posts recovering from round 2 of nightshift hell. Again, lots of nice light reading, with a side order in some of my NetGalley books.
Read:
Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris
High Heels and Bicycle Wheels by Jane Linfoot
A Difficult Term for the Chalet School by Lisa Townsend
A Place for Us (Part 2) by Harriet Evans
One Good Earl Deserves a Lover by Sarah MacLean
The Secret Paris Cinema Club by Nicolas Barreau
The Lost Staircase by Elinor M Brent Dyer
Started:
The Empress Chronicles by Suzy Vitello
Pomfret Towers by Angela Thirkell
Still reading:
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
I’ve bought two books this week – the next Meg Langslow as a treat for finishing nights and a “classic” American romance novel (of the Harlequin/Mills and Boon persuasion) for a book group.
Two pieces of housekeeping, firstly, because the start of the month falls on a Monday this time, August stats are going to be posted tomorrow. Stay tuned to see if I’ve done any damage to the to read pile. Secondly, I’ve got a rash of new release books that I’m going to review, so the posting schedule (Mondays, Wednesdays Saturdays) may be a little out of whack the next few weeks and there may be some more extra posts – because I do try to post reviews as close to the book’s release date as possible (I get very frustrated when I read reviews of books that I can’t buy yet, so I try not to do that to you!).
Nightshift hell. You’ll notice a proliferation of childrens/YA books and Golden Age crime and comedy. I managed a hundred or so pages of Elizabeth Gilbert on the way to my nightshift on Tuesday, but my brain was having trouble computing it, although I am enjoying it.
Read:
Not Quite a Wife by Mary Jo Putney
Death and the Dancing Footman by Ngaio Marsh
Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens
Colour Scheme by Ngaio Marsh
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me by Lucy Robinson
Summer Half by Angela Thirkell
The Summer of Love by Sophie Pembroke
Started:
Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris
Still reading:
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
Two books bought* – and a copy of the Secret Paris Cinema Club arrived for me from the lovely people at Quercus, so one book acquired too…
*And a couple of Chalet School ones which don’t count.
Nightshifts start today (Monday) so I spent this week concentrating on reading a couple of books that I have ahead of their release so that I can write reviews on them. I’m not good at reading anything complex on Nightshifts (see my post about Nightshift reading matter here) and they run right up until the books come out, so I couldn’t guarantee that I’d manage to read them during the nights. Plus I really wanted to read them!
Read:
The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House by Stephanie Lam
The Fortune Hunter by Daisy Goodwin
Pastors’ Wives by LisaTakeuchi Cullen
Beyond Seduction by Stephanie Laurens
August Folly by Angela Thirkell
Started:
Not Quite a Wife by Mary Jo Putney
Death and the Dancing Footman by Ngaio Marsh
Still reading:
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
I bought three books and a cook book this week. Managed to resist the lure of a second-hand book stall at a fair today – and am still valiantly resisting the urge to buy myself the next Meg Langslow book – perhaps I’ll treat myself at the end of nightshifts!
As you’ll have seen from Friday’s post, I’ve given up on Titus Groan so that has gone from the list. And I feel relieved. Considering Flappers is 500 pages (and worth it) I don’t think I’ve done too badly this week.
Read:
Deception by M C Beaton
Flappers by Judith Mackrell
Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase by Louise Walters
A Surfeit of Lampreys by Ngaio Marsh
Murder Underground by Mavis Doriel Hay
Started:
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
Beyond Seduction by Stephanie Laurens
Still reading:
n/a
Only one free Kindle book acquired this week – and the rest of my last orders all turned up too. I’m trying not to buy books because I know that I’ve got nightshifts coming up and they make me susceptible to buying stuff and I already have way too many books – even my sister told me the pile is out of control today!
A much more productive week than I was expecting – and some really good books in there – check out the reviews of American Blonde and The Storms of War. It’s also been a very early Twentieth Century week – Flambards in the pre-Great War period, The Storms of War covering 1914-18, Laura Lamont starting in the 1920s and going through to the 1970s and American Blonde set in the 1940s! And that’s before you get to the fact that I’ve started Flappers I also really enjoyed the Donna Andrews, the Meg Langslow series continues to provide me with a lot of laughs and it was great to fill in a gap in my Christina Jones back catalogue with Tickled Pink.
Read:
American Blonde by Jennifer Niven
Tickled Pink by Christina Jones
The Penguin Who Knew Too Much by Donna Andrews
Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures by Emma Straub
The Storms of War by Kate Williams
Flambards by K M Peyton
Started:
Deception by M C Beaton
Flappers by Judith Mackrell
A Surfeit of Lampreys by Ngaio Marsh
Still reading:
The Beach Hut Next Door by Veronica Henry
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
No books bought this week – so that’s progress of a sort. Still, not all of last week’s splurge have arrived yet…
Finishing off a busy week over here on the blog with a review of Kate Williams’ The Storms of War – which I started during #Sunathon and has taken me longer to read than you’d expect considering how much I enjoyed it – because of the fact that it’s a hardback and I can’t lug it around with me on the train.
Firstly, I love a good saga – I worked my way through Barbara Taylor Bradford’s Woman of Substance trilogy when I was 16 (back when it was still a trilogy!) and then moved on to Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet books, which I adored – so this looked just up my street, especially when you consider that I studied First World War Literature for my A-Level English Literature.
It’s a big hardback – but it’s got such a pretty cover
So, the plot: The de Witts are an Anglo-German family, who, at the start of the Great War, are preparing for the marriage of their eldest daughter to a member of the English Nobility. Rudolph, the father, is from Germany and has made his money through meat factories. Verena, the mother, is the daughter of a lord and they have four children Michael, Emmeline, Celia and Arthur (who is away from home at the start of the war). The book follows them through the war, as Rudolph suddenly becomes an outcast in the country he considers his home and the children face not only the consequences of that – but the effects of the war in general.
I really enjoyed this – as I’ve already said on Twitter – I would describe it as Cazalets do World War One, but with added tensions caused by the family’s German links. The characters were interesting and engaging and having read a lot of books about World War One over the years, both novels and non-fiction, their experiences seemed realistic and rang true with what I have read – which to be honest is only what you’d expect as Kate Williams is a “proper” historian. The fresh angle here is that Anglo-German twist that I’ve already mentioned – and I thought that was handled really well. Book two is promised for next year – and I look forward to seeing how the family fares in the post-Great War world. I foresee interesting possibilities – particularly as there are ends left untied here and a development at the very end of the book creates potential for fresh conflict within the family.
I’ve read some of Kate Williams’ historical biographies in the past – but it was a few years ago and I found the writing style a little harder to get on with than some others in that genre. This, however is an absolute joy to read – and very difficult to put down (despite its size!) – and it has inspired me to bump one of her other books that’s still sitting on the to-read pile up to the top of the list. The front cover has a quote from Alison Weir recommending it to fans of Downton Abbey and although I think that’s a bit of a simplistic view of the market for this book, I think that it is a great way of getting people to pick up what is a large and intimidating looking hardback.
There’s a wealth of books about World War One out there (and lots of new ones appearing at the moment because of the anniversary) so there are lots of other books to read if you like this – I’ve already mentioned the Cazalets which is a slightly later period, but is a similar sort of family saga – but there are also books like Pat Barker’s Regeneration and a wealth of accounts written by people who lived through the Great War – like Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front and Robert Graves’ Goodbye to All That.
Kate Williams’ The Storms of War should be in all good bookshops – as the phrase goes – and here are my traditional links to Foyles for the hardback and Amazon for the more portable Kindle edition. This is the sort of book I always want an actual copy of though – as I know I’ll want to lend it to my mum and sister if it’s any good.
Not a good week. I don’t know what went wrong. I was so excited about #Sunathon but somewhere in the week it all went off the rails. I had Monday and Tuesday off – and The Boy was off too so we had two lovely days together – but I didn’t do much reading. Then I was away for work for a couple of days – and couldn’t take the Kate Williams with me because it’s a hard back and just takes up too much space. Wednesday went really well though – as I read all of What Would Mary Berry do but on Thursday I was out at the theatre after work and didn’t read anything much at all. Then on Friday afternoon I got rained on in my lunchbreak and on my way to the station after work and ended up reading bits of several different things on the way home from work and not really making any progress much on anything. Then on top of that a busy weekend where I didn’t really read anything and this is where we’re at…
Read:
Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons
What Would Mary Berry Do by Claire Sandy
Started:
The Storms of War by Kate Williams
Tickled Pink by Christina Jones
The Beach Hut Next Door by Veronica Henry
Still reading:
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
American Blonde by Jennifer Niven
And as far as book acquisition goes, a copy of a book that I’ve won appeared in the post – and I’ve ordered a few more, but they haven’t turned up yet, so I’m not sure whether to count them in the total or not… Oh and the Christina Jones that I started was a Kindle Freebie this week. I’m trying not to think about the state of the July stats after this week. Here’s hoping this week coming (four day shifts, home every night) is better.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 