The Quick and the Read

‘The Devil’s Due’ by Bonnie MacBird

I have a huge apology to make. This book has sat on my NetGalley shelf for a long time and I should have read and reviewed it much earlier. Not least because I have missed out on reading this until now. This book was published in 2019 by Collins Crime Club, part of Harper Collins.

This is the third in Bonnie MacBird’s excellent series featuring Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. I’ve now read all four books (the latest, ‘The Three Locks’, has just been published – you can read my blog tour review here). I think they can be read in any order as, although there are some recurring characters in the books aside from the expected ones, I don’t think there are spoilers.

‘The Inverts’ by Crystal Jeans

Happy publication day to this unusual tale of gay friendship!

I didn’t really know what to expect from this book, but the 1920s setting and the concept seemed interesting – two childhood friends, Bettina and Bart, decide to marry in order to hide their same-sex preferences from a disapproving world. They hope that marriage will bring them a respectability that will allow them to carry out their love affairs in private.

The story opens in 1921 when Bart and Bettina share a moonlit kiss that convinces both of them that their sexual preferences aren’t for each other! What follows is a story of a marriage that is a giant cover-up – although, to the outside world, it looks conventional and produces children. Instead, Bart becomes involved with a French lover, Etienne, and Bettina conducts her own love affairs. As the pair progress through the 1920s and 1930s and into World War II, neither have any sense of where their deceptions will lead them.

I think I had hoped that this would be a heart-warming tale in which the friendship between Bart and Bettina would mean that they have each others’ backs even through the tough times. It doesn’t exactly play out like this as both characters are spiky and tough so they do seem to spend a lot of the novel either not together or not liking each other – I thought this was a shame as it undermined what I hoped would be a message about the power of friendship. It just isn’t that sort of book!

Instead, it is funny and shocking at times and quite graphic – there’s no cosiness in this version of the past. In fact, it reads as quite modern in the social sensibilities and language used – occasionally jarringly so, but this may be because I am used to more conventional historical fiction. It is also quite sad in places, particularly the framing of the novel in more modern times.

This was definitely a novel that kept me reading – it moves through time and space at speed and there really isn’t a dull moment. I enjoyed the varied settings and the historical backdrop, from Hollywood glitz to the very unglamorous work of the Land Girls of WW2. Although I can’t say I liked either of the lead characters, their story was interesting and thought-provoking.

I’d recommend this to anyone interested in the sexual politics surrounding LGBT issues in the past – it certainly doesn’t hold back on the challenges that people like Bart and Bettina must have faced in a much less permissive society than our own.

If you’d like a copy of this book, please use my Amazon Affiliate link below – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases.

Header photo with thanks to Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash.

March 2021 Wrap-Up and April TBR

In the place of my usual WWW Wednesday post, I have my end of my end of month wrap up and a look at what is coming up in my bookish world in April.

Links provided are affiliate links – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases.

March Wrap-Up

It’s been a good reading month – I’ve read some great books, including a few outside my comfort zone! This month, I’ve read 13 books. I’ve struggled a bit with digital reading, so these have been mainly physical books – unusual for me and a lovely change.

My NetGalley is at 76% – this will be a focus for me in April as I really want to get back to that elusive 80%!

‘How to Live. What to Do’ by Josh Cohen

As soon as I saw the subtitle for this book – ‘In search of ourselves in life and literature’ – I knew I had to read it. Thanks to Sarah at Harwood PR for sending me a gifted copy in exchange for an honest review – opinions, as always, are entirely my own.

I love books about books and loved the sound of this one! Josh Cohen is a psychoanalyst and Professor of Literary Theory – there is genuinely no-one better suited to take the reader through the trials of human life while also offering up literary examples of characters who have suffered the same timeless conundrums.

Blog Tour: ‘Last Place You Look’ by Louisa Scarr

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘Last Place You Look’ by Louisa Scarr. This fab new police procedural will be published by Canelo Crime in paperback and digital formats on 8^th April 2021.

This tour is organised by Damp Pebbles. As always, thanks to the publisher, author and tour organiser for my gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

Blog Tour: ‘The Shadow in the Glass’ by JJA Harwood

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘The Shadow in the Glass’ by JJA Harwood.

This tour was organised by Random Things Tours. The novel was published in hardback on 18th March, 2021.

Thank you to the tour organiser and publisher for my review copy – this has not influenced my views and opinions are – as always – entirely my own.

WWW Wednesday – 24th March, 2021

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Taking on a World of Words. Anyone can take part and it is a great way of sharing what you have just finished reading, what you are currently reading and what is next on the TBR.

Blog Tour: ‘The Three Locks’ by Bonnie MacBird

Welcome to my stop on this blog tour for ‘The Three Locks’, a Sherlock Holmes adventure, by Bonnie MacBird.

This tour is organised by Random Things Tours. The novel was published on 18th March, 2021, by Collins Crime Club.

‘A Wedding in the Country’ by Katie Fforde

A new novel from Katie Fforde is always a treat – so much so that I don’t even need to read the blurb to know that I’ll like it!

Precisely because I hadn’t read the blurb, I was surprised that this book takes place in 1963 as I am used to Fforde’s contemporary romances. What a great setting! From early 1960s London – just about starting to swing – to the promised wedding in the country…this has interesting and engaging settings throughout.

The book is about a young woman, Lizzie, who moves to London to attend a cookery school. Once the course is finished, she cannot bear to think about giving up her new-found freedoms by returning home and so moves into a shabby but fabulous shared house in Belgravia with her new (clearly very wealthy) friends. This leads on to invitations to the country to stay in stately homes…and – before she knows it – her life has been turned upside down and will never be the same again.

Wow, it is hard to write about this book without giving spoilers!

I read Katie Fforde books precisely because nothing bad will happen and everything will work out fine – it is comforting and uplifting, even if it means slightly suspending disbelief at times that things can work out so fortunately. Lucky for Lizzie that one of her cookery course-mates has a huge house in Belgravia – just the first of many fortuitous events!

The characters are appealing and relatable – Lizzie is our fish-out-of-water in the setting of her wealthy friends, David is the gay character whose sexuality is closing doors to him in 1960s London, Meg is a hard-working and talented cook and Alexandra is wealthy but generous in sharing her shabby house with them all. The supporting characters are also generally nice, or at least see the error of their narrow thinking by the end of the novel – this was the 1960s, after all, so we can’t expect modern attitudes to various issues, something that sustains the main plot lines of the book,

The book is a romance and ticks all the boxes that you’d expect – misunderstandings, obstacles and delays abound. However, the love story actually takes a bit of a back seat as Fforde instead focuses on the themes of friendship, social attitudes and even class systems, although – as you’d expect from Fforde – always with a light touch and never preachy.

My only criticism is that the book was a little slow in places and it takes a very long time before the wedding in the country (promised in the title) appears on the horizon. This seems a bit like a spoiler or – at very least – a mis-titling of the book as it is about so much more than a wedding.

Overall, I’d recommend this to fans of Fforde’s contemporary fiction and anyone who needs a reassuring, comfort blanket of a read. It is definitely one to pick up for escapism – maybe something we all need right now.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

If you’d like a copy of this book, please use my affiliate link below – thank you for supporting my blog with any purchases.

Header photo with thanks to Jeremy Wong Weddings on Unsplash.

‘The Islanders’ by S V Leonard

This book was published on 11th March by Canelo.

I’ll admit that I was intrigued by the prospect of this book – a crossover of Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then There Were None’ and Love Island! The idea of a murder mystery under the all-seeing eye of a reality TV programme was definitely an attraction as I’d read and enjoyed ‘Dead Famous’ by Ben Elton on a similar theme many years ago.

This book centres on an ex-police officer, Kimberley King, who is invited to take place on a reality TV programme on a remote Greek island. The show – ‘LoveWrecked’ – is scheduled to have a number of young, beautiful people take part, but only a few make it to the island before it is cut off from the outside world. Along with the show’s producers and a cameraman, the contestants are pulled into a dark and disturbing situation when corpses start turning up with alarming regularity. Who is the Judge pulling all the strings and will anyone survive?

This was an engaging and fun read – I raced through it to find out what happened. It is cleverly plotted and fast-paced – I liked the fact that the narrative was broken up with chapters of news reports or social media feeds or emails. I also enjoyed the fact that – like Kimberley King – I was useless at working out the solution and was kept guessing to the end.

I found I didn’t have much sense of the characters as individuals, although I guess that is partly due to the reality TV element – how much do you really know about people just from watching them interact? The focus is mainly on Kimberley and you do get a bit more of a sense of her. I think I just accepted that the surface-level characterisation and back-stories were inevitable given the social media and reality TV premise.

Yes, some of it is far-fetched and perhaps doesn’t hold water entirely, but I’d recommend you suspend disbelief and just immerse yourself in the story. There’s certainly plenty to keep you reading – lots of dodgy characters to suspect, lots of twists, lots of deaths. It’s a lively story with a fun setting – so just enjoy!

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

If you’d like a copy of this book, please use my affiliate link below – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases.

Header photo by Raimond Klavins on Unsplash.