It’s the end of the year and there aren’t a lot of books being published at the moment, but Alexis Hall has a new one out this week so here we are. Something Extraordinary is the third in Hall’s Something Fabulous series and I have somewhat mixed views here. I really like a lot of Hall’s modern set books like Boyfriend Material but I really disliked the first in this series to the point where I nearly didn’t finish it. And o didn’t finish the follow up to Rosaline Palmer Takes The Cake. But these are now in KU and this one has a marriage of convenience (which is a trope I like) and Highwaymen (which I can also quite like) so I may give the series a second chance…
I was trying to get this finished in time for today, but I totally failed because: theatre and reading challenge completion attempts. But if you’re in the US, you can get your hands on this now. It’s comped as The Hating Game meets Beach Read, one of which I loved – the other triggered some of my issues with people behaving unprofessionally. So far this is skirting on the edge of them being too awful to each other for redemption, but I’m only a third of the way through. I will report back…
This is slightly early – because the official release date for this is Sunday, but depending on how you buy this, I think you might already be able to have The Dratsie Dilemma on your device. This is the latest in Gail Carriger’s San Andreas Shifter series – which features similar sort of supernatural creatures to her Parasol Protectorate and Custard Protocol series, but in modern day California and a very different type of world. It’s been four whole years since the third instalment so I’m really excited to see what next for the found family that we’ve got to know and love.
This is one of those Amazon collections that are free if you’re in Kindle Unlimited and features five novellas from some of the big name romance novels at the moment. So there are stories from Ali Hazelwood, Tessa Bailey, Olivia Dade, Alexandria Bellefleur and Alexis Daria all around a Christmas or holiday theme. Olivia Dade is one of my favourites – and I’ve written about Hazelwood and Bellefleur before, so I’m looking forward to reading these – hopefully at some point in the run up to Christmas – and I’ll try to remember to report back!
A step away from the Christmas themed-books today for a new historical mystery. It’s 1774 and Susan’s father is the Dean of Westminster. Life is pretty calm, until the Society of Antiquities arrives with a letter from the King demanding the opening of Edward I’s tomb. Then a ghostly figure is spotted and then a man is murdered. Susan’s father’s job is under threat so she decides to investigate. I do like a good historical mystery and this is recommended for people who like Andrew Taylor (among others) so I have high hopes!
You guys. It’s finally coming. I never thought it would. But it has a date now – an actual date, not just a year – and the date is on the publishers website as well as on Amazon. The eighth Thursday Next book is coming in 2025. And so before I start my re-read of the series ahead of the publication of Dark Reading Matter – “the eighth and last” in the series, I thought I’d remind you about them so you can join in too.
Back when I last wrote about the series, it had been eight years since book seven – it’s now been 12 and I had been thinking it might never happen – especially given that we’ve had a sequel to Shades of Grey from Fforde before we got another Thursday Next. And as ever I wonder how quick I am to spot this (see also yesterday’s post about the next H M The Queen Investigates) but I’m pretty sure this is pretty recent – Fforde’s own website isn’t updated with the release dates as I write this…
And if you want an explanation of the series, he has a good one on there which explains the fact that it’s a world where the Crimean war never ended, where time travel is possible as is entering a book and removing characters from existence. If you like books and reading, this is the sci-fi-fantasy-crime mash up for you. Also, it has this quote from Terry Pratchett.
‘Ingenious – I’ll watch Jasper Fforde nervously’
Terry Pratchett
As well as the Thursday Next novels, Fforde’s nursery crime series are set in the same universe so if you want to be a completist you can read those too. I probably will. Now the only question left is whether a) the cover of book eight will match and b) will I be able to cope with a hardback among my set of paperbacks. Who. Can. Tell.
It’s not that long since I wrote about Ashley Herring Blake’s Bright Falls series, so I wanted to mention that her new book (not set in Bright Falls) Make the Season Bright came out on Tuesday. This one features two exes who discover they are going to be forced to spend Christmas together after they are invited to spend it with a friend (the friends are sisters, the blurb isn’t clear on whether the sisters know that their friends are exes). I’m intrigued to see how this works out because the blurb says that Charlotte was left at the altar by Brighton and I’m not sure how you redeem that in romance terms.
Make the Season Bright now is out now on Kindle and Kobo and also in paperback- and all the Waterstones near me seem to have copies available.
This really is the weirdest time of year for book releases. We’re not past Halloween yet, but the we’re already into the Christmas-themed book releases. And yes, I’ve picked on today, I can’t help myself, because its the new book from Sarah Morgenthaler – after a four year gap since the end of her Moose Springs series.
The blurb for The Christmas You Found Me has a single dad answering an advert that was meant to be a joke and a fake marriage plot with a recently divorced ranch owner, so that he can prove that he has the money for the mediations his daughter will need after a potential kidney transplant. Which sounds like a lot, and a bit of a turn from the Moose Springs books which were unabashedly Grumpy-Sunshine romances, but I really liked Enjoy the View (it was a BotW after all) so I will keep my eye open for it for that, but also because it’s set in Idaho, which is traditionally one of the harder states to cover in the 50 States challenge! Morgenthaler in fact was my regular solution to Alaska, so I’ve had that as an issue the last couple of years. And this year in fact…
This week I wanted to highlight a book that might not be as obvious or prominent in the shops. Of course now I’ve said that, it’ll turn out to be everywhere but hey, here we are. I think you can tell from the cover but Sanaka Hiiragi’s The Lantern of Lost Memories is looking to appeal to people who have enjoyed Before the Coffee Gets Cold and its sequels. And I am one of those people, but I’m also someone who quite enjoys the fact that Japanese fiction is just so different from the rest of what I read so I’m prepared to risk tears and melancholy in it even when I’m not in anything else!
It’s about a magical photo studio where people go after they die to view key moments of their life and relieve one of them before they go on to the afterlife. You can see why I might be expecting some tears. Anyway, I’ll try and remember to report back when I read it…
You may recognise Jen DeLuca’s name from the Willow Creek Renaissance fair, but you can see from this cover that this is a new series and a bit of a new direction. The blurb seems to be promising ghosts (as is the cover if you look close enough) as our heroine, Cassie, moves to Boneyard Key and starts to investigate whether her new house is haunted with the help of local cafe owner Nick… I’m looking forward to getting my hands on this at some point when the pile isn’t quite as out of control as at the current moment!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 