pickFor once I‘ve read a buzzy book ahead of its release here (with 2 hours to spare) and this is really good. Hard to explain without giving too much away but I think it will work for readers across genres as Curious Incident… and Where‘d you go Bernadette did.
All of my good resolutions about posting daily went out of the window over my birthday long weekend. Oopsies. But here I am with some champagne and a book I treated myself to!
I wrote a post on my blog this week about enemies to lovers romances and now I think I might need to reread this! And it seems to have a new edition in the UK with a swish new cover!
Bedtime reading!
pickI really enjoyed reading this – but it‘s so hard to explain why without revealing too much. I think it‘s fair to say that this departs a long way away from the actual facts of the Christie divorce fairly quickly. But the story sucks you in so completely that you end up googling to check which bits are real and which aren‘t. It‘s clever and enthralling and twistier than I expected it to be. Oh and there‘s more than one mystery!
pickWell this was a delight. I do like spending time with Georgie and Darcy, and now we‘re running towards the abdication crisis at some speed. Lovely stuff.
I‘m lucky enough to have an e-arc of this via NetGalley so this is my weekend reading!
pickGoodness me I love this series so much. This is another Christmas instalment and sees Meg with a house full of visitors - again - when Murder ensues. So much fun!
Hmmmmm. Maybe I‘m not done with Christmas Reading yet?!
Possibly my last Christmas read of the season…
pickOne of my favourite reads of last year - Boyfriend Material - in the midst of part of the Good Reads collage of my year in reading. This is a is missing the mystery portion of my reading life but romance and boarding school stories is quite fair!
I‘ve cut off the bottom shelf that I didn‘t fill… although I finished one book yesterday which started the bottom shelf, even if I can‘t finish it. So long 2021!
pickI‘ve been awol for a while. It‘s been a bit like that this year hasn‘t it? I‘ve basically spent the last four months listening to Gaudy Night on repeat. With a side order of Amelia Peabody and Inspector Alleyn, but mostly Gaudy Night. I wrote a whole thing about it on my blog, but basically my brain has decided that listening to Peter and Harriet work things out is about all it can cope with right now and I‘m sort of at peace with that.
pickThis is fun and sweet and was exactly what I needed. Alex is the hero equivalent of a big friendly puppy – maybe a golden retriever – who bounces around causing chaos with a flick of his tail. I didn‘t reread Spoiler Alert before I read this, but this is probably a little less… explicit than you might expect from that. But that‘s not to say it doesn‘t have any sexy times– it does, but it comes later in the story than maybe you would expect.
pickThis is really good: the two thirds is figuring out who the victim is - including a book within a book - and the final section is working out whodunnit. Really clever. I didn‘t want to put it down.
so-soSo there I don‘t like the way the main relationship in this is set up and the speed it progresses, but the actual mystery set up, small town and business premise is good. Not a whole hearted recommend but if the next one of these is in KU I will read it…
Latest mystery read!
Look what dropped on to my kindle yesterday? Am I already 150 pages in? Why yes, I am!
Latest non-fiction reading…
Some recent purchases… and some others. I‘ve given up on doing SPQR just via the audiobook - and it came around on a daily deal this week so maybe that will help…
pickFun Murder mystery set in a south coast town filled with rivalries and hidden secrets. I enjoyed it a lot. This is the first in the series and was recommended to me as a potential if you like, then… for the Thursday murder club and it does have similarities.
pickI love this series so much and I‘m so impressed that Andrew‘s manages to keep coming up with more scenarios for Meg and the gang. This time it‘s troupe of actors rehearsing Macbeth, some historical reenactors and the ongoing inter departmental feud at the college. Fun
pickThis instalment in the Littlejohn series sees the inspector flying back and forth between London, the Isle of Man, Dublin and the south of France as he tries to solve the murder of a film actor, just arrived on location on the island. The denouement is very tense. I liked it a lot.
pickThis is the first of the new series that follows on from the Sinclair mysteries and I really enjoyed it. My reading dates on this look long, but I actually started over and read it within 24 hours. It‘s a fun story - with a spy thread and a tiny monarchy in peril thread that has nods to Ruritanian royals of Girls Own stories gone by. Lots of fun.
pickThis is a fascinating read. Whatever you thought of the Duke and Duchess before - and my opinion of them was not high - by the end I‘m fairly sure you‘ll have discovered that they were even more awful than you knew. And not just because they were in cahoots with the nazis - and that would be enough - but also because they treat everyone around them so appallingly.
pickSkipping back in the series compared to where I‘ve been and this fills in some gaps. Kate is on holiday in a house whose former owner was convinced that the wrong person was convicted (and hanged) for a murder she witnessed. Kate feels called to investigate but also finds herself exploring a community that she could be a part of.
pickA satisfying fan service novella that tells you what happens to two of the Finishing School characters over the course of about forty years. This really will only work for you have read the Finishing School series, and if you haven‘t also read the Custard Protocol books you will get some spoilers, but if you have it delivers everything you want. It had me in a blubbery mess for the last few chapters, but I‘m a good way.
pickThe first Miles Burton I‘ve read, but it has a number of recognisable Golden Age crime tropes – east Anglia and its villages being a bit strange and the gentleman amateur detective. Merrion has a military background – but this time it‘s the navy, which is useful because there is a lot of sailing in this plot. It‘s a bit uneven in places but if you‘ve read a lot these sort of classic murder mysteries it‘s worth a look.
pickHow have I been gone for four weeks? Whoopsie Daisy!
Anyway: I‘d already read Billion Dollar Loser, which also covers We Work and yet I still got new perspectives from this. This answers some of the questions Wiedeman didn‘t – partly because it had more time to see what happened, but also takes a bigger look (I think) at how the financing of these sorts of companies is done and why investors went for unicorn start ups that weren‘t making profits.
Another murder mystery read!
Latest non-fiction reading!
pickWell this was good. Really satisfyingly disconcerting and complicated. I liked it a lot. And I continue to like this series a lot as long as I don‘t think about that age gap…
pickThe Chelsea Girls follows a twenty year friendship between Hazel and Maxine, which started with trauma in Italy. They‘re both engaging and intriguing characters and as the red scare comes to Broadway, they both find themselves in the spotlight. It‘s tense but also a wonderful portrait of the Chelsea Hotel – famously home to artists and bohemians, it becomes their refuge as they battle the forces trying to tear their lives apart.
Two bookshops visited, four books acquired… and yes, I know the photo is terrible. It‘s been one of those days!
so-soSo this has too much drama for me. Which I shouldn‘t be surprised abide because it has a Bollywood acting dynasty at the centre and too much drama is usually my issue with Alisha Rai, but every time I forget that! So, a not really for me but I know other people will eat it up with a spoon!
pickThis is the fifth outing for Danny and the gang and it‘s a good one. Farrell has taken Danny out of the Marq and put him into a country house murder mystery in the grand tradition of the genre. It‘s got everything you would expect from an Agatha Christie – but updated to the present day. But don‘t worry, there‘s still plenty of witty banter and oneliners.
pickA cleverly put together mystery with a victim with a double life and a horrible, horrible family. I enjoyed.
