Tag: Recommendsday

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: June Quick Reviews

veritywilde

Only three things to tell you about today, and one of them is a check in on something I mentioned on release day, but hey, here we go:

One Last Summer by Kate Spencer*

I read Kate Spencer’s In A New York Minute back in 2022 and enjoyed it so I was really excited to see what she had written next. This is about a group of friends who met at summer camp and have kept a tradition going of meeting up at that camp again into adulthood. But this summer is the last hurrah – because the camp is being sold. Clara our heroine hasn’t been on the last few reunions – but her boss has forced her to take time off so she’s back – and now has to deal with her former camp crush Mack. I really liked the premise, but I found Clara really hard to like and the one-upmanship vibe that her relationship with Mack has is just not my thing. It will be for some people – but it veered to close to the “I’m pranking you to show you I like you” vibe that can really get on my last nerve. It was also much closer to New Adult in feel than I was expecting. Not for me – but never mind, I know other people will really like it, which is why I’m including it here.

Truly, Madly, Deeply by Alexandria Bellefleur

I mentioned this when it came out, so now I’ve read it, it’s only fair I come back to report. I’ve got a longer summary of the plot in that last post – but it’s a jaded romance author and a family lawyer at the centre of it and a enemies to lovers plot. I’m sad to report that it didn’t really work for me – mainly because of some issues with the subplots that I can’t really explain without spoiling them completely. But I am finding a theme with the Alexandria Bellefleurs that I’ve read that I like the idea of them or the plot description more than I like the actual execution. Count Your Lucky Stars was a BotW – but I had an issue with the final act. I don’t ever hate them – because I keep coming back for more – I just don’t ever love them-love them if that makes sense!

Career Books for Girls by Kay Clifford

It’s only a month to go before Book Con 2024, so I’m having a quick check that I’ve read everything I bought home from Bristol two years ago (yes, I know, I know) and this was one of the ones I found. As the title suggests, this is basically an encyclopaedia of books aimed at encouraging girls into careers, or informing them about what was actually involved in careers, in the long first half of the twentieth century. I had read more of them than I was expecting – and I really liked Kay’s writing which wryly points out the issues with the world view of these books as well as telling you about them. It’s not meant to be read all at once, more a dip into type thing, but that didn’t stop me!

And that’s it for this month, a reminder of the Books of Week in June were: Summer Fridays, Summer Romance, The Formula and A Nobleman’s Guide for Seducing a Scoundrel.

Happy Humpday!

LGTBQIA+, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Non-fiction for Pride Month

veritywilde

It’s the final Wednesday in June, so for the last Recommendsday of the month I’m following on from last weeks’ fiction picks for Pride Month, with some non-fiction option.

Young Bloomsbury by Nino Strachey

Let’s start with something that I finished last week.This is a group biography of the second generation of the Bloomsbury Group, who joined in with the first wave in the 1920s when people like Virginia Woolf and Lytton Strachey were at the height of their powers and influence. There are a lot of people in this – many of them named Strachey – so it can some times get a little confusing, but it’s a very readable look at some of the lesser-spotted Bloomsburies and what they got up to. Very much an overview, and so I’m now off to see what there is on some of the more interesting figures in this that I didn’t already know about!

Wild Dances by William Lee Adams

This is a slightly strange one to write about – because William is actually a work colleague! As well as working with me, William is a massively popular Eurovision expert who runs a YouTube channel and blog. How did he get from small town Georgia (the US state, not the country) to here? His memoir will tell you and it’s quite the journey. Reading this was the first time I read a memoir written by someone who I know in real life, so that was slightly disconcerting experience. But the book is really powerful and worth reading even if you don’t like Eurovision.

I’ve already recommended a load of really good non-fiction that fits into their category too – like The Art of Drag – which you can see in the photo behind William’s book; Legendary Children – about RuPaul’s Drag Race’s first decade; Fabulosa – about the secret gay language Polari; and Harvey Fierstein’s memoir I Was Better Last Night. And currently on the pile waiting to be read, I have Queer City – about the history of gay London, The Crichel Boys – about a literary salon adjacent to the Bloomsbury group; and RuPaul’s memoir The House of Hidden Meanings. I’m also looking out for Bad Gays – looking at overlooked gay figures in history, and Hi Honey, I’m Homo – about queer comedy and the American sitcom.

Happy Wednesday!

LGTBQIA+, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Fiction for Pride Month

veritywilde

Now we’re through the quick reviews and the kindle offers, I thought I’d do this week’s Recommendsday with some fiction picks for Pride month. And it turns out, I’ve already read and recommended a lot so narrowing the field down was the tricky bit – but I’ve given it a good go.

Now a lot of the stuff I’ve read the most recently has been romance – and I’ve told you about loads of them already. But that’s not going to stop me from reminding you about some of my favourites. So there’s Alexis Hall’s Boyfriend Material, K J Charles’s Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen and the Bright Falls Series. And of course it’s just a few weeks since Cat Sebastian’s You Should Be So Lucky was Book of the Week.

Talking of recent books of the week – there’s Mona of the Manor and in fact the whole of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series. I struggle a lot with comps for these because they’re just so wonderful and the early ones uniquely capture the moment that they were written in – San Francisco in the mid-1970s. But another book that captures the moment that it was written in is Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin – a fictionalised version of the author’s time in Berlin in the dying days of the Weimar Republic. Written a couple of years after his return, it was published in 1939. If you’ve read many/any books set in 1930s Berlin then this is worth a read even if only to see how it was seen at the time.

I’m hopping around a bit, but I’m going back to YA for a second – as well as Heartstopper, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (which has a sequel) Red, White and Royal Blue, Our Own Private Universe and The Gravity of Us, there is What if it’s Us which I haven’t read yet, but which comes highly recommended by my friend Tom.

And that’s all I’ve got today – but have a great Wednesday!

books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: June Kindle Offers

veritywilde

Hello I’m back again to tempt you into spending more money on Kindle books to add your to-read piles, which I’m sure are already bulging, but we’re heading into summer holiday season, so if you needed an excuse to buy a book (or two) make this it!

There are a bunch of former Books of the Week on offer this month so lets start there. I mentioned The Dead Romantics in my Books with Ghosts recommendsday the other week, so it’s only fair to mention that this former BotW is 99p at the moment. Another is Cathy Yardley‘s Role Playing – I loved this so much this time last year – then there is also Forget Me Not by Julie Soto – who has her second book out next month. At the same price is A Very Lively Murder, the second Three Dahlias book – ahead of the arrival of book three next month.

The third Emmy Lake book is 99p at the moment – I reviewed Mrs Porter Calling when it came out last year, but it’s got a fresh cover (I assume for the paperback edition) in case that’s confusing you. I’m still hoping for a fourth in the series too, but no news yet and it’s usually two years between these so it’s not “due” until next year so I’m not worried yet. It’s got a new cover since I bought it, but K J Charles‘s The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting is 99p – the second in this series (although it will be standalone) is out next month as well.

Carley Fortune is a new to me author, but I’ve seen lots of good reviews of her other books and her latest This Summer Will Be Different is 99p at the moment – I bought this last month – but it’s still on offer as I write this. In other new books that I haven’t read yet, Sarah Morgan’s summer novel is 99p at the moment – it’s called The Summer Swap. And I mentioned Kirsty Greenwood’s new book in my Summer of Not Sequels post, so it’s only fair to mention that another of the Novelicious crew Cressida McLaughlin has a new book out this summer too and The Happy Hour is 99p.

We’re only on series three of Bridgerton, but book five in the series – aka Eloise’s story – is on offer at the moment. I really like To Sir Philip, With Love, but I know that it’s not everyone’s favourite and if you’ve watched the series before reading the books it may be a bit of a shock to you! In other TV tie-in news, we have The Magpie Murders at 99p – I loved the books, I loved the TV series and I’m on record as wishing Anthony Horowitz could write more of them. I’m almost embarrassed about how many times I’ve mentioned Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy now, but I did love it so much that I can’t really be sorry. It’s 99p, read it on the beach.

If you want some non-fiction, Jen Gunter’s The Vagina Bible is 99p -which I’ve read, and her Menopause Manifesto, which I haven’t.

My dad recently discovered that there was a Discworld book he hadn’t read – I wish I could have a similar moment but sadly I know I’ve read them all. But it’s that time of year again where I’m thinking about which Discworld book to re-read – and Guards! Guards! is always right up there and if I didn’t already own it, it’s £1.99 at the moment and is a great place to start the series. GNU Sir Terry and if you’re wondering, the one that Dad hadn’t read was Equal Rites. Talking of my family, Ralph’s Party by Lisa Jewell was one of my sister’s favourites back when we were teenagers, I thought it was new at the time – but doing the maths as it has a 25th anniversary edition out now, it really can’t have been!

The Convenient Marriage is this month’s 99p Georgette Heyer, both the first Poirot and the first Miss Marple books are 99p if you want some Agatha Christie, and The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford is also on offer if you want some Bright Young Things in action.

And surely that’s enough books now? It’s all you’re getting anyway – so Happy Humpday!

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: May Quick Reviews

veritywilde

As you may have realised, May has been a really busy month – and I’ve already written about a lot of the new-to-me stuff that I’ve read this month, so only two books here this month in the quick reviews.

Lips Like Sugar by Jess K Hardy

This didn’t make it in to the Summer of Sequels post, because it actually came out in February and it just took me a while to get to it. Also it’s not really a sequel because it’s a romance series so it’s a fresh couple that are linked to the one in Come As You Are. Anyway, we’re back in the same town in Montana – but this time our heroine is Mira, bakery owner and mum to a teenage boy. Our hero is Cole, grunge-band-drummer turned music-studio-owner. It starts as a fake date to Madigan and Ashley’s wedding, but obviously it turns into something more. It’s lots of fun and really easy to read – and hopefully setting up for a third because there’s a big old loose end dangling I think – although it’s would be a bit of a pivot for the series.

Cut and Thirst by Margaret Atwood

Every now and again, Amazon pops up with a new short story from Margaret Atwood and I rush out to read it. I have a somewhat mixed record with her novels but I really like her short stories. This one is about three older women who are plotting to take revenge on the men who did one of their friends wrong years ago. It’s just dark, and funny and delightful. If you’ve got Kindle Unlimited, then this is really worth a read.

And that’s it – like I said, only two reviews this month but hey, what can I do. There have been some other great books in May that I’ve already written about – so if you’re not caught up on my reviews of Happy Medium, Mona of the Manor, You Should Be So Lucky and The Reunion, go check them out as well as my Recommendsday post about Books with Ghosts.

Happy Reading!

Book previews, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Summer of Not Sequels

veritywilde

After last week’s post with the notable sequels this summer, it seems only fair to also do the other books I’m looking forward to this summer – or expecting to see all over the place – because it’s nearly June and a lot of them are about to appear.

Let’s start with Welcome to Glorious Tuga by Francesca Segal, which is out on June 6, has a tortoise on the cover and is about a zoologist who takes up a fellowship on a remote island ostensibly to study an endangered species, but actually also because she has a secret that connects her to the island. It has blurbs from Marian Keynes, Nick Hornby, Jessie Burton, Naomi Alderman and more so I feel confident in predicting you’ll be seeing this around a lot this summer.

Another book I’m confident to predict is going to be all over the place is the new novel from Kevin Kwan, the author of Crazy Rich Asians. Lies and Weddings follows a former model and future earl with a cash flow problem and on the hunt for a rich woman to seduce at his sister’s wedding to solve it. But nothing goes to plan and the write up promises money, murder, sex and lies in locations like Hawaii, Marrakesh and Beverley Hills. Expect to see this on a lot of sun loungers from late June.

Heading into July, I think Chris Brookmyre’s The Cracked Mirror might be the poolside book for the crime readers. The blurb promises a mashup of Agatha Christie and something more hard boiled as an elderly lady who solves murders in her village crossed paths with an LAPD homicide detective who will do whatever it takes to get to the truth. I’m interested to see this – although given my reading preferences I’ll need it to be closer to the Marple end of the gruesome scale!

In August we have a new Rainbow Rowell novel which is always exciting. Slow Dance is the story of star crossed best friends who everyone thinks should be together except each other. Emma Straub and Gabrielle Zevin have blurbed this one if that helps you figure out where we’re at – but it feels like it’s been a while since a proper Rowell adult novel so I’m excited.

And finally jumping back to the near future and something that I’ve already started, there’s a new novel coming from Kirsty Greenwood in late June. I used to review (occasionally) for Kirsty’s old site Novelicious in the early days of this blog, and she writes romantic novels that are also very funny. The Love of My Afterlife has a heroine who wakes up in the waiting room for the afterlife only to run into the most handsome man she’s ever met – and he seems to be into her. Then whoosh – he’s gone again and Delphie is offered a ten day return to earth to try and get him to fall in love with her and win a second chance at life. I’m about halfway through as I write this and it’s so much fun!

And that’s your lot – but I’m fairly confident that even if you don’t read them yourself, you’ll spot at least a couple of these four out in the wild over the next few months!

Happy Reading everyone!

books, books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: May Kindle Offers

veritywilde

When the month starts on a Wednesday it does mean the Kindle offer post comes around very quickly doesn’t it? Anyway, we did Quick Reviews last week, so it is time – and here are are this month’s offers. And it’s a real bumper month – so it’s been a lot of fun to pull it all together.

First of all, I mentioned To Woo and to Wed when it came out back in February, I’ve got the paperback sitting on my shelf waiting for me, but the Kindle price has done a big old drop to 99p at the moment. Also 99p is Katherine Center’s The Bodyguard, which is one of the celebrity and normal person romances that seemed to be everywhere last year! Ali Hazelwood’s Love, Theoretically is also 99p this month – I’m a little bit over Giant Men and Tiny Women, but this does have a good grovel in it if you want one of those at the moment. Side note: We’re just over a month away from this year’s Ali Hazelwood contemporary romance, Not In Love, which is out in mid June. It’s only a week or two since my post about the Bright Falls series, so it’s a good time to mention that Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail is 99p at the moment. Well Matched from the Willow Creek series is also on offer

I feel like I mention Curtis Sittenfeld’s Eligible every time it’s on offer, but I love it so much I’m not even sorry. I read The Other Side of Mrs Wood last year – if you like novels about mediums and spiritualism in the Victorian era, this might be 99p you want to spend. Also on the historical fiction front, there is Elizabeth Macneal’s Circus of Wonders, which was a Book of the Week back in 2021. Slightly more expensive, but there are quite a few of Susan Elizabeth Philips’s Chicago Stars series on offer at £1.99 at the moment – including the newest one Simply the Best which I really enjoyed.

On the mystery front, the second in Richard Coles’ Canon Clement series, A Death in the Parish is 99p, presumably because we’re less than a month out from the release of book three now. If you’re a Kindle Unlimited member, The Ashes of London and The Fire Court, the first two books in Andrew Taylor’s Marwood and Lovett series is in KU at the moment – I reviewed Ashes a year or two back.

On the non fiction front, The Radium Girls is 99p – it’s hard to read because of what happened to the women but it is a really interesting and readable book about a forgotten bit of history. Lucy Worsley’s Agatha Christie biography was in the Quick reviews last week and while that’s not on offer at the moment, a couple of her other books are 99p: Queen Victoria which I’ve mentioned before and A Very British Murder, which I haven’t read but I did watch the TV series that goes with it back when it came out. The Missing Cryptoqueen is 99p at the moment – I haven’t read the book but I’ve listened to the podcast series so if it’s anywhere near as good as that it’ll be a great read.

And in this month’s edition of books I bought while researching this post, we have: Truly, Madly – about Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier; Not Far from Brideshead – about Oxford between the Wars; Fallon Ballard’s Right on Cue – a second chance contemporary romance about a writer and a movie star; Barbara Pym‘s Some Tame Gazelle; Alexander McCall Smith’s The Sunday Philosophy Club and Ritual of Fire, the third Cesare Aldo book.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

books, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: Books with Farms or the countryside

veritywilde

Last week we said goodbye to one of my aunties. She spent her whole life living on farms and in the countryside, so it got me thinking about books set in farms or in the countryside, so that’s what I’m theming today’s Recommendsday around.

Firstly I’m going to mention an Enid Blyton book, The Children of Willow Farm, because when I read this as a child, it was how I imagined life on the farm my aunties lived on was like when they were little. I’m going to admit I haven’t read it as an adult, and I know that a lot of people say Blyton doesn’t stand up when you go back to it as an adult, but I don’t care.

Also in the same sort of era in terms of when they were written are the James Heriot books – that’s spawned the tv series All Creatures Great and Small. I’ve read or listened to a few of them and they are a glimpse into a Yorkshire of times gone by. Do note if you’ve seen the most recent TV series that it’s based on the characters not the plots once you get past the first couple of seasons.

You could also have Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm from this era – I really loved it – and it’s got a great TV movie adaptation featuring young Rufus Sewell in it that’s just been repeated on BBC Four and should be on the iPlayer if you want a dose of Sexy Seth. Even older is Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd, which has as its heroine a lady farmer. I read it back in my school days when I was assigned extra reading by by English teacher and I found it much less annoying than a lot of the rest of that list.

A few years before that particular bout of assigned reading I read Flora Thompson’s Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy which are all about country life at the end of the nineteenth century – and set not that far away from where the actual bits of my family who were farmers really were.

If you want countryside-set murder mysteries, then I’ve written a whole post about the Lady Hardcastle series – and I think we’re due another one in the not too distant future too. If you want romance, there are a good few of the older Katie Fforde’s and Trisha Ashley’s set in various parts of the English countryside – Ashley is usually Lancashire and Fforde the Cotswolds.

And that’s all I’ve got. But I’ve enjoyed thinking about options for this and it made me smile too which I needed

Happy Wednesday everyone.

books, books on offer, Recommendsday

Recommendsday: April Kindle Offers

veritywilde

It’s the second Wednesday of the month, and you know what that means, it’s time for me to tempt you to spend a whole bunch of money on cheap Kindle books!

In relatively recent picks, Come as You Are is 99p – this one was a BotW pick last year – and I think the price is down now because a second book in the series has just come out – and although that one is more expensive to buy Lips Like Sugar is also in Kindle Unlimited! Also 99p is Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, which is the first in Ashley Herring Blake’s Bright Falls series. As you know I’m currently reading the last one (when I can find the paperback, which I keep misplacing!) in this trio of romances featuring a friendship group in a small town. Alexandria Bellefleur also has a new book coming out this month and I think that’s why all three of her Written in the Stars series are £1.99 at the moment.

I’ve written whole posts about how much I love A J Pearce’s books about Emmy Lake, so it’s only right that I flag to you that the second in the trilogy (so far) Yours, Cheerfully is 99p this month – and the first one is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment as well. Double bonus. I read Alexander McCall Smith from time to time – and I think The 44 Scotland Street series is my favourite of his – and the first one of those is 99p at the moment. He’s definitely an author to read in order and if you binge too many in a row (like MC Beaton) you may notice patterns and trends and enjoy them less so pace yourself for best effect.

In older favourites, Jenny Colgan’s Little Beach Street Bakery is 99p. The heroine escapes a horrible relationship and does some healing through bakery, way before sourdough was the craze of the early pandemic. I have a special place in my heart for this book, because I won a competition when this came out and the prize was a new oven. I think enough time has passed now that I can admit that what I actually got was a stack of John Lewis vouchers to buy the oven – and as I didn’t need a new oven at the time, I held on to them and they bought new pillows and a new washer dryer when the one that I inherited from my grandpa gave up the ghost! Thank you lovely competition.

Another old favourite is Trisha Ashley – and her Wedding Tiers is 99p this month if you want to visit her Lancashire universe. We’re only a just over a month away from the first part of the third series of Bridgerton dropping on Netflix, but if you can’t wait (and bearing in mind everything I’ve said about the difference between the books and the series) then The Further Observations of Lady Whistledown is 99p – this is a collaborative effort with Julia Quinn and two other authors each telling a story in the Whistledown world.

This month’s bargain Georgette Heyer is Bath Tangle, which isn’t one of my favourites, but which I probably should re-read again to see if I’ve changed my mind on it, as can sometimes happen as I get older and wiser. This has a formerly engaged couple coming back into contact with each other when he is appointed her trustee after the death of her father. Devil’s Cub and An Infamous Army are among the ones at £1.99, There’s also a PG Wodehouse omnibus on offer for 99p if you want some Jeeves and Wooster.

I should probably mention some non-fiction too right? The Dress Diary of Miss Anne Sykes is 99p. I don’t recommend a lot of cook books, but when I do it tends to be Rukmini Iyer – I love her Roasting Tin series, and The Green Roasting Tin is £1.99 if you are someone who can cope with cook books on tablets.

And in books I bought while writing this post, there’s Genevieve Cogman’s Scarlet – I’ve read The Invisible Library and really liked it and this is French revolutionary vampires and comes with comparisons to Gail Carriger who you know I love. I’m excited to read it – and there is a sequel coming next month too. I also bought The Storied Life of A J Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, which was her big book before Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow went mega-huge. And finally I bought The Partner Plot which is the new book from Kristina Forrest, who wrote The Neigbor Favor which was a book of the week last summer.

Happy Humpday everyone!