Tag: series

Authors I love, Series I love

Series I love: The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

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As promised, here is my love letter to the wonderousness that is Lauren Willig’s Pink Carnation series.  As a History and French Grad, who wrote my dissertation on the effect of the French Revolution on the nobility of the Touraine* I have a real affinity (if not always affection – see the footnote) for this period of history.  Add into that the fact that I love time-slip novels (you know, books with two connected narratives in two different periods), romances, thrillers and humour, and there’s pretty much everything that I like in these novels that you can managed to combine in the same book.

Pink Cnarnation books
My Pink Carnation book collection (there are more on the kindle) in Book Central

To set the scene: American Eloise Kelly is history grad student working towards her PhD.  At the start of the first book, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, she has arrived in England to research her dissertation – which is on British spies.  She knows all about the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian, but soon stumbles on a document that everyone has missed – one which contains the identity of the Pink Carnation – the most elusive and influential British spy of them all.  The books follow Eloise’s research as she uncovers nests of spies – on both sides – starting in 1803 and going all the way through til 1807.  The stories take in not just France and England, but Ireland, India and Portugal.  There are governesses, spy schools, double agents, triple agents, free agents, soldiers, privateers, ladies seminaries, exploding Christmas puddings, root vegetables, amateur theatricals, not so amateur theatricals, illegitimate children, drug smuggling, jewel theft, good poetry,very bad poetry and much, much more.

And then there’s romance, all types of romance: friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, employer/employee, (slightly) later in life romance, the list continues.  In fact I think the only one that is missing is accidentally/secretly pregnant – and that’s my least favourite trope, I’m good with that.  Although Eloise is always the modern day strand, the focus of the nineteenth century story changes each book – with the Pink Carnation hovering in the background until you reach the final book.  So if you don’t like one heroine, the one in the next book will be someone different (although you’ll probably have met her before).

Pink Carnation book covers
My distinctly non-matching collection (hardback, US & UK paperbacks) is hard to photograph neatly!

I’ve loved this series.  I borrowed the first book from the library, and, as is traditional, it sat in the library book bag for some time.  Then I read it and liked it, then the next and the next.  As the series has gone on, I’ve loved them more and more.  The early books got solid threes on Goodreads then it moved to fours, then fives.**

I don’t actually own the whole series at the current moment – the earlier books were published in the UK and I picked them up at the library or on Kindle.  Then they stopped and I started picking up the US editions because it was cheaper than the kindle editions (and we all know I love proper books).  So now I’ve read all of them, I want to go back and read again from the beginning and see if I can spot any clues more in the earlier books to what happens in the later ones – and I know they’re there, because I’ve read interviews with Lauren Willig where she says her subconcious puts bits in that she only realises later are key to later events!  But as I don’t own hard copies of them all (as you can see from the pictures) I can’t at the moment, so I suspect there’s some purchasing in my future!

Pink Carnation books in a pile
I tried to make a funky pile. It was harder than I expected. I’m not cut out for photography.

You can start your Pink Carnation journey with the first book on Kindle, Kobo or ePub, from Amazon or Waterstones or it may even still be in your local library. Foyles don’t have the first book – but they do have some of the later ones as well as Ms Willig’s standalone books. Go! Enjoy!  If you start this weekend you could be in Portugal in a few weeks…

* Using primary sources, spending weeks of the sunniest part of my year in France holed up in the departmental archive in Tours because I hadn’t got my act together to do the research earlier, and then discovering when I got home that really I could do with yet more information, not that I really knew where I would have found it or what to do with it if I had it. I still see my 2:1 as something of a miracle!

** It’s at times like these that I think I must either have been a really harsh grader back in the day, or I’ve got soft in my old age, or I’m reading more really good books.  In 2012, when I read the first Pink Carnation book I only gave out 7 five star ratings out of 205 books read (3 percent).  In 2015 43 from 368 – or 10 percent.  This bears investigation.  I smell a future post…

Authors I love, Book of the Week, Fantasy

Book of the Week: Manners and Mutiny

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Apologies for the late arrival of this week’s BotW post – I’d somehow convinced myself that I’d already written this piece because all I seem to have done this week is think about the end of the Finishing School series.  But no, clearly I dreamt it.  Anyhow, it’ll be no surprise to anyone who’s been following my social media in the last week that the BotW is Manners and Mutiny – the last book in the Gail Carriger’s Young Adult Finishing School series.

My Kindle tells you all you need to know about last week’s reading matter!

In book four, we find Sophronia back at school on board Madame Geraldine’s floating dirigible, but with a somewhat denuded gang.  No-one’s listening to her warnings about the Picklemen and she’s still not really sure where her future lies.  When danger threatens the ship and life as she knows it, she has to put all her training to the test as we what happened to make Sophronia’s world of mechanicals turn into the society we know from the Parasol Protectorate.

And that’s about all that I can say, without giving away big old spoilers. And even that last sentence is a bit of a spoiler, but I think Carriger readers have all been waiting since Etiquette and Espionage to see what on earth happened to turn one world into the other!  Or if you’re like me and E&E was your first Gail Carriger book and the gateway to the rest, to explain the moment at the start of Soulless where you were all “Huh?  Where did the mechanical servants go?”

So, it’s no secret that I’m a big Carriger convert, having basically read everything she’s written over the past year (see 2014 Discoveries post, my BotW posts on Timeless and Prudence and E&E’s mention in my YA Roundup) – and I was worried that this wouldn’t live up to the hype that I had set up in my head.  So many questions needed answering and it seemed like a bit of a mammoth task for one book to deal with.  I went so far as to re-read all three of the previous books at the start of last week so that I had everything fresh in my mind for the last book – and I can’t say that I spotted anything that wasn’t addressed or tied up (with a bow).  And it’s still a good read.  It doesn’t feel like a tying up the loose ends book.  It feels like Ms Carriger had a plan at the start of the series, and has executed it masterfully – leaving a trail of breadcrumbs through the books for us to follow so that in this last one it all slots together and clicks into place. And as you do this, you smack your head and wonder how you missed the clues.  So clever.

But I have to say that this is not the place to start your Carriger experience.  Do yourself a favour and start with the first book in the series.  Or if you’re not technically a Young Adult, start with Soulless and read them first and then come to Finishing School and see how clever it all is.  I’m so sad Finishing School is over, but it was a deeply satisfying series and never felt like it was going on too long.  If I hadn’t just finished listening to Soulless on audiobook, I’d be going straight on to read that again. As it is I’m halfway through the recording of Changeless, so I’m still in Carriger-land.  And I can’t wait for Imprudence.

Get your copy of Manners and Mutiny (if you’ve already read the others) in paperback or on Kindle.  Or start with Etiquette and Espionage – paperback or Kindle.  The complete-ist in me really wants to buy myself the paperback copies of all of them so that I can put them on the shelf next to the others, but as I’ve already bought two Carriger audio-books and the e-books of Soulless and Changeless this week (so I can read whenever I want…) I’m valiantly resisting for now.  Lets see how long that resolution lasts…

Book of the Week, reviews, Series I love

Book of the Week: Mary Ann in Autumn

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This week’s BotW is Armistead Maupin’s eighth book in the Tales of the City series – Mary Ann in Autumn.  I discovered the series last year as book nine came out and have loved every installment so far.

  In Mary Ann in Autumn our favourite characters have reached middle age with new challenges and old ones.  Mary Ann has never been my favourite character in the series, but in this she comes across as the most human and real that I’ve seen her.  It does make me sad that Mrs Madrigal is much older and frailer in this book, but that’s life and that’s aging.  And it means we get more of Jake.

I think it’s a real testament that Maupin has been able to keep the series feeling fresh and real and relevant 30 years after it started.  Not all authors would have been happy to keep bringing their characters up to date – and still less of them would have been able to do it and make it beliveable and true.  The “final” book in the series is just out in paperback and I need to get my hands on a copy asap.  Although with the current state of the to read pile I may try to hang fire on that for a week or two.

You should be able to get Mary Ann in Autumn from all the usual sources, but do yourself a favour and start from the beginning of the series. Even The Boy likes them!

American imports, Book of the Week, romance

Book of the Week: A Lady Never Surrenders

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I had trouble picking a BotW again this week – my top rated books of last week were Janet Evanovichs (and I can’t do another of hers for BotW or you’ll all think I’m insane) and a Nora Roberts that I’ve reviewed for Novelicious (I’ll post a link to the review when it goes up).  So, instead I’ve gone for the fifth in Sabrina Jeffries’s Hellions of Halstead Hall series –  because I’ve really enjoyed reading about the Hellions, and wanted to share it with you.

So, these are historical romances about the Sharpe siblings, whose parents died in scandalous circumstances when they were very young and who have issues tied up with that.  At the start of book 1, their domineering grandmother – who holds the purse strings – tells them she’ll disinherit them if they don’t all find themselves spouses with the year.  Over the course of the books we see them all find their happiness – and they investigate what really happened to their parents all those years before.

I suggest that you read the books in order – not because you’ll spoil who the other siblings end up with but because you’ll ruin the mystery plot if you don’t – and I don’t think it would be the easiest to follow that part of the book if you haven’t got the full backstory.

My favourites in the series were the first two books and I didn’t love book four, but as a whole the Hellions’ stories ticked a lot of boxes for me and gave me 10 (ish) hours happy reading – hence the BotW post on book five.  There is a sixth book in the series – featuring a secondary character from the previous five – which bridges the gap between this series and Jeffries next one – The Duke’s Men (which I’ve already read one of, out of order ), which I’m going to try and get my hands on soon.

So there you go.  An unusual BotW from me – and a reminder that I need to slow down on the Janet Evanovich’s to keep my reading material balanced….  You should be able to find Sabrina Jeffries’ Hellions series where ever you usually pick up your US romance novels – I read mine on Scribd, but you can also get them on Kindle and in paperback.  The first one is The Truth About Lord Stoneville – and I suggest you start there.

 

Blog tours, books, reviews

The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café (Blog Tour)

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Well here we are, in a first for Verity Reads Books, I’m part of a blog tour.  Isn’t this exciting!  Today I welcome Jenny Oliver to the blog.  She’s going to tell you why she loves the arrival of  Spring, and then I’m going to tell you what I thought about The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café – which is the first book in her new Cherry Pie Island series.  So, over to Jenny:

Hurray it’s Spring!

Every season I think, ‘This is my favourite season!’  So naturally, right now, I’m thinking that Spring is my definite fave. Here’s my rational…

1. What could be better than a bright yellow flower with a trumpet that costs less than a pound a bunch? They’re happiness in a vase. Right by my parents’ house in Cornwall there are daffodil fields and I think I’m right in saying they leave them to bloom the first year after planting. Last year it was amazing to see this huge yellow field of happy little flowers.

2. This is not to say that I don’t love winter food – stews and casseroles and lasagnes – but I really love a good salad. I’m talking about crispy lettuce, maybe a bit of rocket, and some tiny new potatoes, crispy bacon, feta and lemon juice. Eaten sitting on our back step (because we don’t have a garden) with a glass of really lovely white wine.

3. The smell of the air when you walk out the door in the morning. The warmth of the sun mingling with the cold of the night, the scent of cut grass and daffodils and the sound of birds and cars and people getting up and starting their day happy because it’s not raining or cold!

4.Not wearing a coat! Don’t get me wrong, I really like my coat but after months of wearing it non-stop it’s a pleasure to walk out the house in only a jumper.

5. The knowledge that summer is just around the corner…

Thanks Jenny!  Now on to my review…

Dandelion Café tells the story of Annie’s return to island that she grew up on to take over the family café.  Annie’s got some issues, and she’s not thrilled to be back on Cherry Pie Island where everyone remembers (and won’t let her forget) her youthful mistakes and misadventures.  But it does have the added bonus of Matt-the-millionaire (not the cliche that it sounds, trust me) who she had a massive crush on when she was at school.

Jenny Oliver manages to get a lot of plot into a short book, but it never feels rushed or forced.  I got swept away in the world of the island and was rooting for it all to turn out right in the end.  And for Annie’s brother to end up getting a dunking in the sea!

I read this on the way home from a nightshift (the last of three), desperately needing some light relief that wouldn’t overtax my frazzled, sleep-deprived brain.  The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café put a smile on my face (helping counteract the purple dark circles) and perked me up nicely.  It also didn’t send me into the simmering rage that some partworks/serialisation-y type things do by ending on a cliff hanger which I can’t find out the resolution to for weeks/months/years.

There are some loose ends left at the end of this book – don’t get me wrong – and I need to find out what happens to them, but the main plot of this part of the series is resolved at the end, and the next book in the series is set up neatly – with the prospect of keeping track of how Annie gets on as the next story unfolds.  And since reading Dandelion Café, I’ve been back and found a Jenny Oliver book that had been sitting in the Kindle backlog for a while (I’m not looking to see how long – I don’t want to know!) and read and enjoyed that too.

The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Cafe is available now from the usual e-book based outlets.  My copy came from NetGalley – but I liked it so much I’ve shelled out my own money to pre-order the next in the series!

 

 

historical, reviews

Review: The Storms of War

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Finishing off a busy week over here on the blog with a review of Kate Williams’ The Storms of War – which I started during #Sunathon and has taken me longer to read than you’d expect considering how much I enjoyed it – because of the fact that it’s a hardback and I can’t lug it around with me on the train.

Firstly, I love a good saga – I worked my way through Barbara Taylor Bradford’s Woman of Substance trilogy when I was 16 (back when it was still a trilogy!) and then moved on to Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet books, which I adored – so this looked just up my street, especially when you consider that I studied First World War Literature for my A-Level English Literature.

Storms of War
It’s a big hardback – but it’s got such a pretty cover

So, the plot:  The de Witts are an Anglo-German family, who, at the start of the Great War, are preparing for the marriage of their eldest daughter to a member of the English Nobility.  Rudolph, the father, is from Germany and has made his money through meat factories.  Verena, the mother, is the daughter of a lord and they have four children Michael, Emmeline, Celia and Arthur (who is away from home at the start of the war).  The book follows them through the war, as Rudolph suddenly becomes an outcast in the country he considers his home and the children face not only the consequences of that – but the effects of the war in general.

I really enjoyed this – as I’ve already said on Twitter – I would describe it as Cazalets do World War One, but with added tensions caused by the family’s German links.  The characters were interesting and engaging and having read a lot of books about World War One over the years, both novels and non-fiction, their experiences seemed realistic and rang true with what I have read – which to be honest is only what you’d expect as Kate Williams is a “proper” historian.  The fresh angle here is that Anglo-German twist that I’ve already mentioned – and I thought that was handled really well.  Book two is promised for next year – and I look forward to seeing how the family fares in the post-Great War world.  I foresee interesting possibilities – particularly as there are ends left untied here and a development at the very end of the book creates potential for fresh conflict within the family.

I’ve read some of Kate Williams’ historical biographies in the past – but it was a few years ago and I found the writing style a little harder to get on with than some others in that genre.  This, however is an absolute joy to read – and very difficult to put down (despite its size!) – and it has inspired me to bump one of her other books that’s still sitting on the to-read pile up to the top of the list.  The front cover has a quote from Alison Weir recommending it to fans of Downton Abbey and although I think that’s a bit of a simplistic view of the market for this book, I think that it is a great way of getting people to pick up what is a large and intimidating looking hardback.

There’s a wealth of books about World War One out there (and lots of new ones appearing at the moment because of the anniversary) so there are lots of other books to read if you like this – I’ve already mentioned the Cazalets which is a slightly later period, but is a similar sort of family saga – but there are also books like Pat Barker’s Regeneration and a wealth of accounts written by people who lived through the Great War – like Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front and Robert Graves’ Goodbye to All That.

Kate Williams’ The Storms of War should be in all good bookshops – as the phrase goes – and here are my traditional links to Foyles for the hardback and Amazon for the more portable Kindle edition. This is the sort of book I always want an actual copy of though – as I know I’ll want to lend it to my mum and sister if it’s any good.