Tag: reading

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: December 25 – December 31

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Happy New Year! I hope 2024 is every thing you want it to be and more. I have a stack of new year content coming up as well as the last bits of looking back at 2023. And thank you for reading this blog – I don’t say it enough but I appreciate you all. Anyway, I finished off the year with a stack of books – including those last few states for the challenge and also a binge reread of Drina after I put the idea in my head!

Read:

If Only You Knew by Kristen Higgins

Rivers of London: Here be Dragons by Ben Aaronovitch et al

Faux Finished by Peg Marberg

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

Dakota Cowboy by Lisa Mondello

Drina Dances Again by Jean Estoril

Drina Dances in New York by Jean Estoril

Drina Dances in Paris by Jean Estoril

Lethal Bayou Beauty by Jana de Leon

Ghostland by Jean Hager

The Falcon at the Portal by Elizabeth Peters

Drina Dances in Madeira by Jean Estoril

Started:

Birder, She Wrote by Donna Andrews

Still reading:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Animal, Vegetable, Criminal by Mary Roach

Three ebooks bought – including the latest Veronica Speedwell which has dropped to a sensible price presumably because the new one arrives soon.

Bonus photo: end of year jigsaw update…

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

books

Books of the Year: New Fiction

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It’s that time of year again, where I’m rounding up the best things that I’ve read this year, and I’m starting with the new fiction because it has been a really good year for it.

As I’ve said already, in contemporary romance 2023 has been the year of the celebrity and normal person romance in my reading life. I’m still not sure if it’s an actual trend or if it’s just what the algorithm has been feeding me but I’ve really enjoyed it and the hardest part is how do I pick just one for this list? Well the answer is I’m not. I’m picking two: Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld and Once More with Feeling by Elissa Sussman. Yes, they are two of the books that were on my half year favourites list, but I really did love them and they’re two of the books that I’ve recommended the most this year. Romantic Comedy is still the only book with the quarantimes in it that I’ve enjoyed and Once More with Feeling made me so happy for some bookish revenge on a Justin Timberlake type figure.

Also in contemporary romance is Lucy Parker’s Codename Charming – this was one of my most anticipated books of the year, and it lived up to my internal hype for it when it finally arrived in the autumn. Also excellent was Christina Lauren’s True Love Experiment and Role Playing by Cathy Yardley, the latter of which has an older pairing than you usually see which was fun.

And finally it wouldn’t be one of my end of year lists without a Rich People Problems novel, and this year it is Pineapple Street, which was also on the mid year list.

I realise now that there’s no crime on this list, which is a slight surprise to me given how much mystery I have read, but a lot of it was either not new or from long running series and you know my policy on that. I wonder what 2024’s fiction list will look like?

books

Book of the Week: Maggie Moves On

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Happy Boxing Day everyone – if Boxing Day is a thing where you are. We’re on our way back home from the frozen North after a family Christmas at my sister’s house. However today’s pick is a non-Christmas book because I already told you about it in last week’s Recommendsday! The good news is that I got a stack of books that I wanted for Christmas so expect to hear more about them in the near future too.

The titular Maggie is a home renovation YouTube star. She buys houses, does them up, flips them and then moves on. Her latest project is in a small town in Idaho and it’s her biggest one yet. But she’s got a plan and she’ll be in and out in just a few months and on to the next thing. One of the things on her to do list is the gardens and grounds, so she sends for local landscapers to give her quotes for the work. One of them is Silas – a sexy local boy who sees her and decides that she’s the one for him. But Maggie’s time in town has an expiration date on it – and there’s no way it can be more than a casual fling, or can it?

So, first things first: Silas is the most alpha-y hero I’ve read in a long time and it was a bit jarring at first after a bunch of grumpy/sunshine romances to have this big hot guy fall in instantly-lust with the heroine and start trying to win her over. I was prepared to hate it, except that he does it with a smile and although he’s always telling her she’s his future wife he never actually pressures her to do anything. This has got a really nice found family sort of vibe to is as Maggie accidentally builds herself a community in Kinship and then has to work out if she wants to stay or go. This also means it has good cast of secondary characters for you to enjoy as well.

I read a Lucy Score and someone else romance as part of my 50 states challenge in 2021 and found it too New Adult for me, but this was much, much better. I do like a book with a house renovation at the centre of it – romances like The Honey Don’t List or cozy crimes like the Fixer Upper series so I like the concept of this as well as the romance. Basically it’s a nice fun read with a romance that doesn’t have an obviously cinnamon roll hero – although deep down he turns out to actually be a really champ.

Like a lot of Lucy Score’s books, this is currently in Kindle Unlimited – although I bought it this time last year when it wasn’t in KU, I suspect because I noticed it was set in Idaho which is always a tricky state in the challenge stakes!

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: December 11 – December 17

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Quite a strange week in books: I know I need to read Christmas books and books that will help me tick off the last few states in my 50 states challenge, and yet here I am reading hustorical crime and girl’s own. What am I like…

Read:

Cape May by Chip Cheek*

The Socialite Spy by Sarah Sigal

Murder in Williamstown by Kerry Greenwood

Murder on the Mauritania by Edward Marston

June Grey: Fashion Student by Lorna Lewis

Guns in the Gallery by Simon Brett

Started:

Tempest by Beverly Jenkins

Still reading:

Love in Winter Wonderland by Abiola Bello*

The Christmas Book Club by Sarah Morgan

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Animal, Vegetable, Criminal by Mary Roach

One ebook and one book bought. Restraining myself in the hopes of getting more books this time next week…

Bonus photo: the ice rink in Hannover square on Tuesday night – I didn’t skate, I just drank mulled wine and caught up with a friend while watching other people skate!

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: Cape May

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Yes, I’m cheating because I finished this on Monday, but as ever they’re my rules and I’m allowed to break them if I want and nothing else on last week’s list qualifies for a variety of reasons. So here we are.

It’s 1957 and Henry and Effie are on honeymoon in Cape May, New Jersey. They’re staying at Effie’s uncle’s house, where she spent some of her childhood summer holidays. Except the season is over and the place is deserted. Or nearly deserted. Staying at the house down the street is Clara, now a beautiful socialite but formerly one of the children Effie used to sometimes play with. With her are her lover Max and Alma, Max’s half sister. Over the course of their trip, under the influence of a lot of gin, Effie and Henry’s marriage will be tested and the pattern of their lives will be set as they run riot through the town, swept up in the glamour and decadence of their new friends.

This has been sitting on the tbr pile for some considerable time, but this weekend I felt in need of something a bit different. The cover has a blurb that compares it to The Great Gatsby, and I can sort of see why – Clara’s world is a heady alcoholic world of yachts by day, illicit wanderings by night and gallons of alcohol. Effie and Henry are the outsiders – from Georgia compared to the other three’s big city sophistication and the reader can see that they’re heading for trouble and heartbreak.

The narrative follows just Henry and his actions, which is a little frustrating because I wanted to know what Effie was thinking and doing, but given that the author is a man, possibly for the best as I didn’t always love the way the sex scenes were written as it was so maybe I would have liked the book less if I’d been given more of Effie’s inner life. So, not perfect but I still read it in just over 24 hours so it’s very readable despite that. It’s not really Rich People Problems, because Effie and Henry definitely aren’t rich, but it is Rich People Problems-adjacent – in that the rich people are the ones who are causing the problems!

This was Chip Cheek’s debut – and I’d read more from him if/when it appears. I had my copy of this in the NetGalley backlog (!) but it’s on offer on Kindle and Kobo for £1.99 at the moment which is a pretty good deal. I can’t say I remember seeing it in bookshops, but I’m also not sure I ever specifically looked for it and it’s had a couple of different covers now too. Anyway, worth a check if you’re at a shop with a fairly decent literary fiction selection.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: December 4 – December 10

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So this week is a weird mix of audiobooks, cozy crime and checking which states I’m missing on Read across the USA 2023… And of course we continue to gear up for Christmas and all that that entails. Can I get everything done in time? Will I prioritise reading over present buying? Who can tell…

Read:

Seeing a Large Cat by Elizabeth Peters

The Dumb Money by Ben Mezrich*

Bones under the Beach Hut by Simon Brett

Thanksgiving in Paradise by Kathi Daley

Rehoboth Beach by Michael Morgan

Pumpkin Everything by Beth Labonte

Maui Madness by Kathi Daley

Started:

Cape May by Chip Cheek*

Love in Winter Wonderland by Abiola Bello*

The Christmas Book Club by Sarah Morgan

Still reading:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Animal, Vegetable, Criminal by Mary Roach

Pre-ordered three – including the new Vinyl Detective! – and bought two ebooks and two book-books.

Bonus photo: I was staying down by St Pauls last week, so had a wander and enjoyed the Christmassy bits of things.

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: November Quick Reviews

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Well as you could probably see from the lists it was a bit of a re-read heavy month last month, but I’ve still got a couple of books to tell you about in the quick reviews before I go full on Christmas for the rest of December..

Luke and Billy Finally Get a Clue by Cat Sebastian

Cat Sebastian’s latest novella is a sports one and came out just as the baseball season was ending at the start of October. Luke and Billy have been team mates for years, but as the story opens Billy is worried sick about Luke who has gone awol after suffering a concussion during a game. But then Luke turns up at Billy’s cabin in the mountains and a storm rolls in trapping them there together. This is 100 pages of low peril romance as two people figure out that they’re both into each other. I wanted it to be longer, but that’s about my only complaint!

Captain Marvel, Vol 1: Higher, Further, Faster, More by Kelly Sue DeConnick et al

Making a rare foray into superhero comics, I read a Captain Marvel this month because it was in Kindle Unlimited and obviously there’s been another film featuring Captain Marvel come out recently and she’s on of the Marvel Universe that I know very little about. This is actually nearly ten years old (!) and sees Captain Marvel leave earth to try and return an alien woman to her home world and finding herself in the middle of the conflict with the Galactic Alliance. Not going to lie, I felt like I hadn’t read enough other Marvel comics to really understand all of the background to this – but the Guardians of the Galaxy showed up so that gave me enough context to be going along with. I did love the art though.

Fancy Meeting You Here by Julie Tieu

Cover of Fancy Meeting You Here

And finally, I gave this a mention in release week so I wanted to circle back around with an update now I’ve read it. And this has a people pleaser florist heroine who is basically incapable of saying no and setting boundaries with her friends and who ends up biting off way more than she can chew, and a hero who is her best friend’s brother and also a caterer. As you might be able to tell from that first sentence, I got a little annoyed that Elise was letting her friends put so much on her – and that they didn’t notice how over stretched she was – but the romance was actually pretty fun. I just wish people would have actual conversations sometimes because it would make life so much easier. But then it would also take away a lot of plot in books…

And that’s your lot, but a quick reminder before I go of the Books of the Month in November – which were Next Door Nemesis, Silver Lady, Devil in Winter and Somebody at the Door.

Happy Humpday!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: November 27 – December 3

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A much better week in reading I have to say – which may have been because I didn’t go to the theatre and I was commuting into work every day which gives me nearly two hours reading time (if I want it) on the train each day. And just a quick note to say that I’m messing with the usual schedule this month because Christmas is coming and I have a fair few things I want to post before it’s too close to the big day!

Read:

Next-Door Nemesis by Alexa Martin

Halloweeen in Paradise by Kathi Daley

Captain Marvel Vol 1: Higher, Stronger, Further, Faster More by Kelly Sue DeConnick et al

Blotto, Twinks and the Ex-King’s Daughter by Simon Brett

The Christmas Jigsaw Murders by Alexandra Benedict*

Private Lives by Noel Coward

The Shooting in the Shop by Simon Brett

A Night at the Tropicana by Channel Cleeton

Hello, Stranger by Katherine Center

Started:

Bones under the Beach Hut by Simon Brett

Still reading:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Animal, Vegetable, Criminal by Mary Roach

Two ebooks bought and three Girls Own…

Bonus photo: because e-scooters aren’t lethal enough, how is this for an invention…

Actually two bonuses this week because after I mentioned the Inn at Boonsboro in recommendsday last week, – link to this popped up in one of my Facebook groups!

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: November 20 – November 26

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Given that I went out three evenings last week – and had a busy weekend, I’m surprised the list is as long as it is! Anyway a fairly mystery heavy week of what there was. There’s less theatre and more train time this week, so we’ll see what that means for next week’s list!

Read:

False Colours by Georgette Heyer

He Who Whispers by John Dickson Carr

Puppies in Paradise by Kathi Daley

The Poisoning in the Pub by Simon Brett

Home Sweet Christmas by Susan Mallery

The Hippopotamus Pool by Elizabeth Peters

Started:

Blotto, Twinks and the Ex-King’s Daughter by Simon Brett

Still reading:

Next-Door Nemesis by Alexa Martin

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Animal, Vegetable, Criminal by Mary Roach

Three ebooks bought. Restrained…

Bonus photo: Christmas is coming and I have a tiny tree that came in the post as a gift!

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: November 13 – November 19

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Well, two nights at the theatre meant less time for reading, but I did finish a couple of things off and there’s an audiobook on there too as well as a comic, but actually it all worked out ok and I even think I have something to write about tomorrow!

Read:

Grey Mask by Patricia Wentworth

Photo Finish by Ngaio Marsh

Silver Lady by Mary Jo Putney*

The Stage Kiss by Amelia Jones*

Rare Flavours taster by Ram V et al

Fangirl: the Manga, vol 3 by Rainbow Rowell et al

Murder on the Caronia by Edward Marston

Started:

Next-Door Nemesis by Alexa Martin

Home Sweet Christmas by Susan Mallery

Still reading:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Animal, Vegetable, Criminal by Mary Roach

Two books and two ebooks and one ebook preorder

Bonus photo: Christmas decorations going up in Fitzroy square. What would Maisie Dobbs think I wonder.

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.