The third Theatreland mystery featuring stage manager Hattie comes out today and the fact that I’ve picked this to highlight this week should probably not be a surprise to you as the first book was a BotW back in February and the second one was one of my favourite new books of last year. According to the blurb, Hattie Breaks A Leg sees Hattie struggling to find work because of all the enemies she’s made. And that’s why she finds herself working on a one night only vanity project. But when a friend comes looking for help to escape serious trouble, she finds herself sucked into a cat and mouse game with some shady types. I really enjoyed the first two books and I’m really looking forward to reading this when my preorder arrives (hopefully today). And because I think it’s a bit under the radar I’m happy to keep banging on about these because I think they deserve it
Hattie Breaks a Leg is out today in paperback, on Kobo and in Kindle Unlimited. I’m hoping that it will relatively easy to find in bookshops too – I’ll be keeping an eye out and reporting back!
It’s Thursday and I’ve got another book for you that is out today (in the UK). Murder at the Hotel Orient is set in modern day Vienna at an (in)famous hotel where cameras are forbidden, guests use aliases and lovers can enjoy a night of debauchery. But when two people are found dead after a party, concierge Sterling Lockwood has to work out who the killer is in order to clear her name. This one is on my virtual to read pile and yes, I know I said I was getting a bit ahead on some of the NetGalley reads, but no, this wasn’t one of them. I don’t know why, it just wasn’t. But I will get to it…
After a three year break, there is a new Perveen Mistry mystery out this week. These are murder mysteries set in 1920s India and our heroine/detective is Perveen, who happens to be Bombay’s only female solicitor. This new book is called The Star from Calcutta and sees her securing her biggest client yet – a Bollywood studio. She’s meant to be helping an actress who owns the studio with her director husband, who is caught up in a breach of contract dispute, but a body is found after a screening and the actress goes missing. I’ve read the first two in this series and really like Perveen as a character and the whole setting and set up and as you know I love a 1920s-set mystery. I have the third one waiting to be read, and as you know I try to read things in order so it may be a while before I get to this one, but if anything was going to tempt me to get going on the series it’s the prospect of a Bollywood-set book because I love a Hollywood-set book, particularly in the early years of the movie industry so this is right up my street.
It’s the first Thursday of February, and I wanted to mention that there is a sequel out today to one of last February Quick Review books, Murder in the Dressing Room. The sequel is called Missing in Soho and has a missing photographer and an attack on a private detective. As I wrote in that review of the first book, there is was a big hanging plot thread left in that one, so I’m intending to read this one to find out what happens next. I will try and remember to report back! It also should be noted that that first book has had a bit of a cover redesign since last year so don’t be confused if you spot the paperback in the shops and it looks a bit different to the one from last year.
Happy Thursday everyone, and I have another new book out today that I wanted to talk about. So we have a big trend of Cowboy and ranch romances at the moment, but Night Rider is adding in the famous person and normal person trope in this case a a cowboy and a Hollywood starlet. But. But. Look at this cover: Pastel colours, illustrations. Yes there is the word suspense in the Bailey Hannah quote, but does this look like a romantic suspense novel? Because this is the final line of the description:
But that dream is threatened when Nina’s past catches up with her. And when an unlikely predator strikes, she and Maverick must make a choice: to let each other go or face the world together.
So. I have a copy of this via NetGalley because I am behind with the Cowboy/Ranch trend and I wanted to get in on it, but when I was picking it out, I didn’t really peg it as being as Romantic Suspense as the Amazon page says it is. So I’m going to read it, and see how romantic suspense it is, and then go and find some more cowboys to see if they’re all actually romantic suspense and cover signalling has gone even more out the window than I previously thought!
This is the very final start of year post, I promise. But after the theatre lookahead yesterday, today there are a few bits and bobs that are happening this year that aren’t plays or musicals that I wanted to mention.
Obviously we are less than a month away now from the Winter Olympics, which are happening in Milan and Cortina. I am very, very excited about this, but at the moment I’m even more excited about the fact that the European Figure Skating Championships is happening in Sheffield this week coming, and even better: I’m going. It is not very often that we get an international figure skating competition here – but when they do come it’s usually in Sheffield and I go! I was at the Grand Prix a couple of years ago, and I was also at the Europeans last time they were here – all the way back in 2012.
Also happening in the UK (but that I don’t have tickets for) this year we have the Commonwealth Games which are back in Glasgow because all the other host options dropped out and the European Athletics Championships which are being held in the UK for the first time, at the Alexandra Stadium where I went to see the Commonwealth Games Athletics four years ago. It’s also the men’s World Cup football this summer which has more countries taking part than ever before and is also being staged across three countries for the first time in the USA, Canada and Mexico. This means that for a few weeks this summer, the nation will be gripped with hope that one of our teams will win. This feeling will be fleeting.
Away from the sport to something else that’s actually in the ticket box and this year I’m finally going to see Rufus Wainwright’s Judy Garland concert. This is based on the 1961 comeback concert series that Garland did. I’ve owned the CD of the Rufus version for about 15 years now, and didn’t think I would ever get the chance to see it live, but to mark the 20th anniversary of his original run of it at Carnegie Hall, he’s doing it at the Royal Albert Hall. For those of you who are counting, this will be my fourth or fifth time seeing Rufus – depending on if you count the two Proms on the same day in 2023 separately or not!
Rufus is actually my only musical event in the box at the moment, because the Boyzone reunion concert is happening on a weekend that really doesn’t work for me (and they didn’t add any other dates beyond the first two) and I’ve already seen Take That more than once. But we don’t have the line up for the Proms this year yet, and that’s often where a lot of my concerts come from. And I’m also eyeing up some comedy. As you may know we are deep in Taskmaster at the moment, and several of the comedians that we have really enjoyed on that are on tour this year and coming near us so bookings are definitely possible!
There are a couple of art exhibitions that I really want to see too. There’s a Seurat exhibition at the Courtauld. I have a real soft spot for Seurat and this is the first dedicated exhibition to him in the UK in 30 years. And looking right ahead to the end of the year there is a Renoir exhibition at the National which also falls squarely into my favourite bits of painting. So I’m already plotting when to go to both of those. This summer National Portrait Gallery has got a Marilyn Monroe exhibition to mark the centenary of her birth. The V&A has got a Wallace and Gromit exhibition coming to the Young V&A and a Schiaparelli one at the main museum. Sidenote: I still haven’t been to the new V&A Storehouse and really want to, but the David Bowie archive is already booked out, so I may wait for some availability there before I go there. Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of his death so combined with the fact that it’s only just gone on sale, I’m not surprised it’s popular!
Yes, I know, you thought that I was done with the start of year posts, but no. One of the other things you hear a lot about from me on here is theatre, so here is what’s coming up this year in the theatre.
I’m going to start with the things that I’ve already got in the ticket box. Firstly in May I’m off to Essex to see Thespians, Mischief’s first musical. This is set in Ancient Greece and is about the invention of acting and the world’s first play. As you know, I have such a soft spot for Mischief – I wrote about Christmas Carol Goes Wrong just a couple of weeks ago and I’ve seen so much of their other stuff too and I can’t wait to see what they do with a musical.
Also in the (virtual) ticket box is Jesus Christ Superstar. This is a revival and also a restaging – it’s the Regents Park production of a few years ago that I didn’t manage to get to see, but at the London Palladium this summer and starring Sam Ryder as Jesus. This is the last of the Andrew Lloyd Webber mega musicals that I haven’t seen live in the theatre (although I have seen the early 2000s DVD version quite a few times) and although it’s not my favourite musical, after missing out on the hot tickets that were Sunset Boulevard and Evita revivals the last two years this time I’ve decided to go for it!
Talking on missing out and Evita, I’ve already missed out on tickets for the Last Five Years concert perfomances (also at the Palladium) starring Rachel Ziegler and Ben Platt which are happening in March and were gone in the blink of an eye. Even sooner that that though is the Cynthia Erivo one woman Dracula. That starts in early Februrary and is by the same production team who produced the one-woman Picture of Dorian Gray with Sarah Snook that won a bunch of Oliviers and Tonys.
We’ve also got the London premiere of John Proctor is the Villain, which I’ve been reading about on the various theatre forums for a couple of years at this point. It’s play about a group of high school students studying Arthur Miller’s The Cruicible and got seven Tony nominations for the Broadway production last year, which starred Sadie Sink. No news on the cast for this transfer at the Royal Court, but it’s a Sonia Friedman production (like Merrily) so it could be pretty good on that front too.
Another Broadway transfer is Beetlejuice, which premiered on Broadway back in 2019 and I suspect would ahve been in London sooner but for the pandemic and all that malarkey. There are quite a few plays transferring into the West End from other theatres too – there’s Shadowlands with Hugh Bonneville, which started at Chichester; Grace Pervades starring Ralph Finnes and Miranda Raison coming in from Bath; and Rosamund Pike in Interalia which is coming in from across the river at the National. Talking of the National, they’ve got a revival of Les Liasions Dangereuses, starring Lesley Manville and Aiden Turner.
And finally I’m totally fascinated to see the revival of Avenue Q. You might remember that I went to one of the anniversary performances in 2024 and although I still adored it and the original cast, there are definitely things that haven’t aged well and I wonder how it will hit for new audiences who haven’t got the fond memories of the original that I do. I haven’t booked yet, but I’ll definitely be there at least once!
Now we’re into December the new releases have really slowed down because all the stuff that was hoping for big sales in the run up to Christmas is already out there and we’re now into the counter programming. For context, the list that I usually look at for new releases has December bundled in with November instead of having a separate page. And most of them are November books, believe me, I checked. So today I wanted to mention a new book from an author that I really like, but in a series of hers that I haven’t read: Catriona McPherson’s Last Ditch series. I’ve read McPherson’s Dandy Gilver books and one of her 1950s set Helen Crowther books, but not any from this contemporary and (mostly) California set series with a Scottish Heroine. Scots Eggs has some missing tourists and a potential double murder and the whole series sounds a lot of fun. Don’t be surprised if you see the first in the series pop up on the reading list in a few weeks, just as soon as I’ve got the Dakotas sorted out on the 50 states list…
I’ve written about G M Malliet’s Max Tudor series before, but this week she has a new book out in her St Just series. I’ve read the first three in this series, but hadn’t realised that there had been more since then and this is actually book seven. This sees a film crew visiting Cambridge and the star of the movie turning up dead. It’s been a long time since I read those first three, but I have this one from NetGalley and I would say I will report back but that’s always tricky with later books in series so I can’t promise anything, or at least not necessarily in the immediate future!
I’m a big fan of Sherry Thomas’s Lady Sherlock series, so it would be remiss of me not to mention that Thomas has a new book out this week, even if it’s not another instalment in the adventures of Charlotte Holmes. The Librarians is a neither historical nor a romance – per the cover it’s “A Novel”. Those words can sometimes strike terror into my heart when it’s an author that I’ve enjoyed in other genres, but the blurb is promising. It’s set in Austen, Texas with four librarians whose secrets are threat to come out into the open when two bodies are found in the library after a murder mystery themed games night. This one looks like it’s only out in hardback in the UK, no Kindle version, so I may have to wait a while to read it, but I will be keeping my eyes peeled for it in the shops.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 