Tag: reading

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.

books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: More Enemies to Lovers romances

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It’s nearly two years since my original Enemies to Lovers Recommendsday, and I’ve read a load more since, so today I’m back with another batch!

Lets start with The Hating Game by Sally Thorne I loved Thorne’s Second First Impressions and this was her debut novel (now also a movie) which features two rival PAs at a publishing company. I have a few issues with it but in the end they actually weren’t about what I was expecting – which was that their work rivalry would push my buttons for unprofessional pranks, but it actually didn’t because they didn’t sabotage each other. Lucinda does freak out a lot though and that did get on my nerves a bit so your mileage may vary, so generally for me – not as good as Second First Impressions, but still fun and worth reading.

In Beach Read by Emily Henry, Augustus and January are maybe more misunderstood rivals than they are enemies, because he is a Serious Writer of Proper Fiction and she writes best selling romances. They’re spending the summer living next door to each other at the beach and in an attempt to tackle both of their writers blocks, they challenge each other to switch genres… Anyway, there are complicated families and a warning for parental deaths in the backstories, but this is still a delightful feel good romance where two people discover that they really like hanging around with each other and that being together makes their lives better. Swoony. Oh and Henry’s Book Lovers would also fit this genre too.

Ali Hazelwood’s Love Hypothesis got a mention in the last post on this topic, but her Love on the Brain also fits this trope – the heroine of that finds that the downside of her dream job at Nasa is that she has to work with her grad school arch-nemesis. It’s another teeny tiny heroine and Great Big Hero, but your mileage on that may be different to mine, which I think is coloured by the fact that I’m 5’10! I will never be tired of competency porn though, and Bee (and Levi) are very, very good at their jobs. I was expecting one strand of the plot to be A Bigger Thing in the resolution, but actually the whole of the end wrapped up very quickly – but it was very satisfying.

And before I wrap this up, I want to give a mention to Mia Sosa’s Worst Best Man which I did also touch on in my romances with weddings post in the summer but would also fit for this.

Enjoy!

detective, Forgotten books, Recommendsday

Book of the Week: Somebody at the Door

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I know I mentioned a BLCC book in last week’s Quick Reviews so it’s two in a week, but I didn’t realise at that point that I was going to read another really good one so soon! Anyway, it is what it is – there were some fun books last week but a lot of rereads or authors I’ve already written about recently, so I’m just going with it…

It’s a cold evening in the winter of 1942. The blackout is in effect and passengers are stumbling their way towards the commuter trains home from London at Euston station. One of the passengers is Councillor Grayling, carrying £120 in cash that will be used to pay staff the next day. But after he gets off the train the cash goes missing and he ends up dead. But who did it? When the police start to investigate they discover that there are dark secrets among the passengers who he shared a train compartment with and that more than one of his fellow passengers might have wanted Grayling out of the way.

This is a really interesting mystery but it’s also a really atmospheric look at life on the Home Front during World War 2. First published in 1943 it’s another one of those war time books where the writers didn’t know who was going to win the war – and you can definitely feel that in the writing. There are lots of books set in the Second World War, but not that many of them (or not that many that I’ve read) where you really feel the uncertainty and fear of the population – that they really didn’t know how it was all going to turn out. There’s no hindsight or picking events because they foreshadow something else or because something is going to happen there (all the authors who send people to the Cafe de Paris I’m looking at you) – it’s just how things happened or felt at the time. The only other one I can think of that does this – although it’s not a murder mystery is Jocelyn Playfair’s A House in the Country – which also has a feeling of uncertainty going through it even more than this because at the end people are going back to the fronts and you don’t know if they’ll make it.

Anyway, that aside there are plenty of people who wanted Grayling dead as he’s not a particularly likeable sort of person and the book takes you around the carriage as Inspector Holly investigates the case and tells you the backstories behind each of them. I found myself having quite strong opinions on who I didn’t want to have done it which is always good I think. Raymond W Postgate didn’t write a lot of mysteries – in the forward to this it suggests that may be his first one, Verdict of Twelve, was so well received that it was hard to follow. I haven’t read Verdict of Twelve (yet) but if this is the less good second novel it must be really blooming good!

I read Somebody at the Door via Kindle Unlimited (which also includes Verdict of Twelve at the moment, so I think you know I’ll be reading that soon!) but as with all the British Library Crime Classics they cycle in and out of KU and when they’re not in they’re also available on Kobo. And they’re all in paperback, which you can buy direct from the British Library’s own online bookshop here. They do often have offers on the BLCC books (like 3 for 2), although they don’t seem to at the moment.

Happy Reading!

Book of the Week, books, romance

Book of the Week: To Swoon and to Spar

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It was a long list last week, and there were a couple of options for this post, but I settled on To Swoon and to Spar because it’s really fun and it’s been a while since I picked a historical romance!

Viscount Penvale has spent his adult life trying to buy back his family’s home in Cornwall. When his uncle finally agrees to sell it to him, there is one condition: Penvale must marry his ward Jane. The two meet and although first impressions aren’t the best, both agree to a marriage of convenience. What Penvale doesn’t know is that Jane has been spending months persuading his uncle that Trethwick is haunted so that he would move out, and she’s going to use the same tactics to try and rid herself of her new husband. What could possibly go wrong?

This is the fourth book in Waters’ Regency Vows series, and Penvale was a side character in the other book in the series that I’ve read and given how close he seems to his friends I assume also the two that I haven’t, so I suspect I’ve read the series you’ll have some feelings about him already. And of course the faux haunting made it a good book to read in the run up to Halloween. It rattles along nicely and the plot has enough turns to keep you wondering what will happen next. I had a few minor niggles with some of the language choices – at one point Jane is surprised Penvale is still hungry as he’s eaten “an entire rasher of bacon” at breakfast – and I’m not sure Jane really would be surprised that Penvale hadn’t read a novel, but I enjoyed it enough that I let it off. Although I suppose as I’m mentioning it here, I haven’t really have I?! Anyway, there is a fifth book in the series coming next year and I’ll keep an eye out for that, and if any of the two I haven’t read come my way I wouldn’t say no to reading them.

My copy of To Swoon and to Spar came from that trip to The Works, so it hasn’t even been on the pile for very long which is unusual for me, and means you should be able to get hold of the paperback fairly easily I think. And it’s also available in Kindle and Kobo.

Happy Reading!

bingeable series, series

Bingeable series: Aurora Teagarden

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It’s the run up to Halloween, so I was thinking that I probably ought to try and do a spooky or vampire-y series post at some point this month. Trouble is, I don’t read a lot of books with spooky or supernatural stuff in them. I’ve already written about Sookie Stackhouse (vampires! werewolves! all sorts!) and I’ve put more links to Terry Pratchett recently than I can shake a stick at (but I’ll throw you some more). But tangential thinking takes me to another Charlaine Harris series – albeit one that doesn’t have any supernatural shenanigans.

When we meet Aurora Teagarden in the first book, she’s a librarian in Lawrenceston, Georgia. Along with some of her friends, she’s part of a Real Murder club – who meet every month to discuss and analyse famous true crimes. Her mum doesn’t approve, but Aurora doesn’t see any harm in it until a member gets murdered – and the other group members are suspects. Of course she solves the murder, but it’s just the start because over the course of ten books she just keeps stumbling across bodies and murderers!

If you like cozy crime and you like Charlaine Harris, these will really work for you. I find Harris incredibly easy to read and her mystery plots are pretty solid. I can sometimes figure out who did it, but not always, and not usually particularly early in the book, and you can’t say that about everyone! Aurora is an engaging heroine and she manages not to fall into the too-stupid-to-live trap too often – and I like the slightly antagonistic relationship she has with the local police because it’s not *just* about the fact that she keeps poking her nose into their investigations – although that is also a factor. Sidenote: some series are better at managing the amateur and the police relationships than others – some go too cozy (why aren’t they bothered this person is inserting themselves?) or some too antagonistic (which is just anxiety inducing for the reader and not what I come to cozy crime for).

Anyway, I have one proviso to mention with this series; and that’s that the final two books were written after a considerable gap and are… perhaps not one hundred percent consistent with some aspects of the earlier stories but that’s probably only something oyu would notice if you really did binge-read these from start to finish. As to why there was such a big gap – or rather why Charlaine Harris came back to the series, well I would point the finger at the success of the Hallmark Movie versions of the books – which again, are not entirely consistent with the books but are among the better cozy crime TV adaptations that I’ve watched (and I’ve watched a few) and you can pretty much just see them as a separate thing.

They should be fairly easy to get hold of on Kindle, and there were definitely fairly comprehensive paperback releases of the first eight in the series (because that’s how i read them – from the works or the library) and the kindles have new covers now which suggests there may have also been a release at some point.

Happy Weekend everyone!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 2 – October 8

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Did I get distracted midway through the week by rereading the first couple of Mrs Pargeter books? Absolutely. Do I regret it? Not really! I also had a bit of a weed of the to-read pile on Sunday evening unintentionally because everything I started I didn’t like. Still every little helps doesn’t it.

Read:

Deeds of the Disturber by Elizabeth Peters

Ministry of Unladylike Activity by Robin Stevens

The Body in the Blitz by Robin Stevens*

Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang

A Nice Class of Corpse by Simon Brett

Three Times a Countess by Tina Gaudoin

Mrs, Presumed Dead by Simon Brett

Started:

Sweet Mercies by Anne Booth

Still reading:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Animal, Vegetable, Criminal by Mary Roach

One ebook and one preorder.

Bonus photo: I do love a good stat milestone, even if I am still annoyed that I missed a day 900 days ago…

*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, books

Book of the Week: From Dust to Stardust

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Back in old Hollywood for this week’s BotW. It might have taken me a couple of weeks to actually get time to properly sit down and get into this, but once I did, it was worth it.

As I mentioned in my post about this on release day, this tells the story of Eileen Sullivan who made her way to Hollywood via Chicago as a 14 year old chaperoned by her grandmother where she became a silent movie star with the stage name Doreen O’Dare. When the reader meets her, it’s the 1960s and she’s on her way to a museum in Chicago where a dolls house she created is on display. The model then jumps backwards and forwards between Doreen’s early life and film career and her conversations with the museum curator about her dolls house which she built during the Depression to house her collection of miniatures and toured it around the country.

Doreen/Eileen and her dolls house are based on the real life silent movie star Colleen Moore – at least in terms of the Hollywood career, dolls house and some aspects of her later life. I didn’t know anything about Moore before I read the book – and was astonished when I went to read up afterwards how much of the story was based on truth. This is my first book by Kathleen Rooney and I enjoyed the writing style as well as the Old Hollywood setting. It’s hard to tell how you’d find this if you did know more about stars of silent movies, but given that I’m fairly into stuff like this and didn’t know anything about her – despite the fact that it turns out that she’s credited with popularising the bob (and in the pictures it’s basically Phryne’s bob) – I reckon people who do know about her may be in the minority!

So I would rate this as well worth a read if you liked Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and want more movie stars – even if this has less twists and secrets, and is set in a different time. It also has the added bonus of being in Kindle Unlimited, although my copy came via NetGalley .

Happy Reading!