Verity Reads Books (lots of them)
In which our heroine attempts to tame the to-read pile
In a touch of serendipity given this week’s BotW pick, I saw two Kate Clayborn books in the wild in the works last week, so as they’re now even easier to get hold of, I wanted to remind you all of Clayborn’s Chance of a Lifetime series – which are more straight romance or at least feature less complicated lives than The Other Side of Disappearing is. So head on over to my post from last year to find out more.
I’m reading this year’s Sarah Morgan Christmas book at the moment, so I’m using it to take the opportunity to remind you about her O’Neil Brothers/Snow Crystal books – which are pretty Christmassy all in – and a pretty decent price at the moment. In a slightly bonkers twist, the Kindle omnibus is more expensive than buying them individually, but if you just want the Christmas ones, you can do both of those for about £6.50 all in.
Happy Friday everyone
It was Halloween this week, so it seems an appropriate time to remind you all of one of my favourite universes – and one of the not many I read that feature the supernatural. I’ve mentioned my slightly iffy relationship with books with vampires, werewolves and the like before, and my total inability to work out in advance what sort of supernatural series I’m going to like, and which I’m not. But Gail Carriger’s Parasolverse is definitely in the like category. There’s loads and loads of detail in my original Series I Love post – from back in 2020 – but they’re steampunk Victoriana in three different series and three different generations. The Parasol Protectorate series were written first but chronologically come in the middle, and feature the adventures of Alexia Tarabotti, then The Finishing School series of Young Adult novels are about Sophronia Temminnick and are connected to Alexia’s story in a way I can’t reveal without giving major spoilers and then the final series written and chronologically are the Custard Protocol, which feature Prudence (also linked to Alexia’s story) and her band of friends and their airship. I would read them in the order they were written for maximum enjoyment, but you can really suit yourself. Generally they’re a lovely witty way to spend some time with a large dollop of adventure, peril and some romance too. Just lovely.
Have a great weekend everyone.
So, we’ve just passed the first anniversary of the death of Elizabeth II, and this week the third novel in S J Bennett’s Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series is finally published in the USA – so I’m taking the opportunity to remind you of my post about the series from November last year, which was when Murder Most Royal came out in the UK. When I wrote this series post, this was due to come out in the US in early 2024 – so there’s clearly been a delay on that, I’m not sure why – it could have been a knock on of the supply chain issues that pushed things like Sherry Thomas’s seventh Lady Sherlock book back from fall 2022 to early 2023, or maybe it was bumped back to avoid the Coronation? Anyway, if you’re in the UK, the paperback of this came out earlier in summer. The fourth book is due out here in February 2024 and is called A Death in Diamonds. It’s available to pre-order now, and judging by the blurb centres around a mystery set in 1957 – which if it is entirely set in 1957 will be a new departure for the series and might answer the question about what might happen with this series now the Queen is dead. I’m looking forward to reading it.
Look! Through the rain you can see the real Wild Cat Island – aka Peel Island on Coniston Water! Despite the terrible weather I had a wonderful long weekend in the Lake District the other week and our theme was Children’s literature – so we did the steam yacht on Coniston so we could see Wild Cat and get a bit of water time in a slightly more relaxing way than sailing a dingy like the Blacketts and the Walkers. And given the weather – which included a thunderstorm as well as the torrential rain you can see in the picture – that was probably a good idea.
We also went to Grasmere to see Wordworth’s grave, and we also got rained on there. But given that I really don’t like Wordsworth (thank you A Level English Literature) i was slightly less forgiving of the rain there than I was in Ransome country.
Anyway to mark the trip, have a throwback post to my Swallows and Amazons series post from last summer after I went to book conference. And yes it was some of my book conference gang that I was hanging out with!
The fourth in Richard Osman’s cosy crime series about a group of residents in a senior citizens complex came out yesterday. The blurb for The Last Devil to Die says that the gang start to investigate after an old friend in the antiques business is killed, which sounds intriguing and also a bit different from the last two. I haven’t read it yet – but I know I’m going to and probably pretty soon, so today I’m flagging my post about the series from just under a year ago, because I know that it is going to be everywhere in all the shops – probably on offer – and so will the previous ones. If you haven’t read any yet, they’re definitely a series that repays reading in order, and you should be able to get hold of the earlier books in the series pretty easily at this point – including in the second hand book stores and charity shops.
Have a great weekend everyone!
As Codename Charming came out on ebook on Tuesday, this week I’m taking the opportunity to remind you of Lucy Parker’s other series – The London Celebrities books. I wrote a whole long post about them just over a year ago now after I did a full re-read of the series – which are all basically enemies to lovers romances set in and around London’s West End theatre and TV circles. I love them, so do go and read them if you haven’t already. And don’t forget about Battle Royal either.
The latest book in the series is out this week – the brilliantly titled Birder, She Wrote so considering I did a complete reread of the series finishing earlier this great, how could I not point you at my series post for Donna Andrews’ brilliant Meg Langslow series today? Exactly. It would be criminal. Nb The Good, The Bad and the Emu may still be the best title.
Happy Friday everyone!
Ashley Weaver has a new book out this week in her new series, so it seems like a good time to remind people of her last series – the inter-war set Amory Ames mysteries. I wrote about them last summer – so you can see a bit more about them here, but they’re historical cozy mysteries with a romantic subplot to them. As I said in that post, the closest comparator is probably the Royal Spyness series – the romantic relationship at the centre of this gives you some similar vibes to the one in that, although Georgie’s Darcy is more mysterious behaviour open to misinterpretation than Amory’s Milo is. Amory is more worldly wise (in some ways at least) than Daisy Dalrymple, but not as genuinely open minded let alone as feisty and independent as Phryne Fisher. The first two are still in Kindle Unlimited, and they are the sort of series that used to show up at The Works so you have a fighting chance of finding them in the shops too. I still haven’t read any of Weaver’s new series, which are set in World War Two, but I’m sure I’ll get around to it at some point!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 