I love Cara Hunter’s police procedurals (featuring DI Adam Fawley) so I was thrilled to get my hands on ‘Murder in the Family’, Hunter’s first standalone novel.
Thanks to NetGalley for my review copy – opinions are entirely my own.
Continue reading Book Review: ‘Murder in the Family’ by Cara HunterI’ve hit a bit of a reading slump. It happens to the best of us – a run of good books but not peppered with the absolutely great ones. The ones you put down all other books for, ignore your phone and your family…yeah, those.
To find my inspiration, I had a look back at the books I’ve read this year and noticed that 10/73 had got my top mark of 5 stars on Goodreads. Now seems like a good time to revisit the top ten…in no particular order.
Turns out I really like crime fiction!
All links in this post are affiliate ones - thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases as it all helps with my running costs.Continue reading Ten books I should have shouted about before now!
A new Cara Hunter book is always a treat – and this is no exception. I read A LOT of crime fiction and think that Cara Hunter’s books are among the best.
This is the sixth book in the series featuring DI Adam Fawley and his team – although there are some plotlines that run across the books (mainly to do with the team’s personal lives and relationships), I think this could be enjoyed as a standalone novel.
Continue reading Book Review: ‘Hope to Die’ by Cara HunterIt’s been a weird month – Easter holidays (yay!) so lots of reading, followed by a school inspection (not so yay!) and no reading.
This month, I read 10 books – which puts me at 40/120 on my Goodreads Challenge. Exactly on target but not exactly racing through the reads…
All my reads this month were three or four stars – a good month. Keep reading to see what books I enjoyed in April and what I plan for May.
Continue reading April 2022 Wrap-Up and May TBRAnother month end – and thank goodness! We are one step nearer to Christmas and (more importantly) 2020 being over. This month has lasted approximately 9000 years so I am glad it is done.
I’m posting this a bit early as I have a blog tour lined up for the end of the month.
Affiliate links are provided – I do earn commission on any purchases at no extra cost to you, so thank you for supporting my blog!
What I read in November
Considering that November felt eternal, I only managed to read 9 books! However, this puts me on 109/100 for my Goodreads challenge so that’s fine by me.
I started this month with a NetGalley ARC that I was really looking forward to – Cara Hunter’s ‘The Whole Truth’. This is the fifth instalment in the excellent DI Fawley series of police procedurals and is due for publication on 25th February, 2021. The story starts with a sexual harassment allegation and then gets much darker and more twisty. I don’t think it is the best in the series but it is very engaging – I really like the police team and they are really relatable and real. My review will follow nearer publication.
Then I read ‘The Wrong Sort to Die’ by Paula Harmon for a blog tour. This is a very enjoyable historical mystery featuring a great female lead – Dr Margaret Demeray, a pathologist working in pre-World War I London. You can read my review here.
Next up was ‘How Love Actually Ruined Christmas (or Colourful Narcotics)’ by Gary Raymond for another blog tour. It’s basically a jaunt through – scene-by-scene – the 2003 film ‘Love Actually’ and all the reasons why it is so bad. Fans of the film won’t appreciate it all, but I loved it! This book made me laugh so much – my review is here.
Then I read ‘The Cousins’ by Karen M McManus for yet another blog tour – this one is up Monday. I don’t read a lot of YA books but I did enjoy this story of family secrets in a wealthy tourist spot in America. Check out my blog on Monday for my full review.
Then another blog tour book – ‘The Watchful Neighbour’ by Debbie Viggiano. This is a psychological thriller about a woman who worries that her Neighbourhood Watch man is just a little too watchful. It is tense and surprising – my review will follow in December.
It does seem that I’ve read a lot of blog tour books this month – the next was ‘Banking on Murder’ by J D Whitelaw, a cosy crime novel with a trio of sisters as investigators. I really loved the interaction between the three women – the review will follow in December.
After all the blog tour books, I returned to my huge NetGalley backlog and read ‘The Split’ by Laura Kay. This is a lovely, uplifting and funny read about how Ally puts her life back together after she is dumped by her girlfriend. Family, friends and running prove her salvation, even though she has a similar feeling about running as me (clue: not positive)! This is due to be published in March 2021 and my full review will appear nearer this date.
Another NetGalley read was ‘The Shape of Darkness’ by Laura Purcell. I was really looking forward to this historical Gothic novel which promised spookiness, murder and spiritualism – and absolutely delivered. This is due to be published in January 2021 so my review will be up then, but if you loved Purcell’s previous books then there is plenty to love here too.
Finally, the lovely people at The Write Reads and I finally finished our readalong of ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier. Having given up on this book on at least two previous occasions, I’m really glad I stuck with it – turns out it gets really good! Who knew?! I’ve loved reading with these lovely bloggers and their wild speculation, hilarious observations and brilliant (and sometimes odd!) ideas have been an absolute joy. My review will be up next week.
December TBR
After a month or two of being totally overwhelmed by the amount of books I have in the pile to read, I’ve narrowed it down to ones I want to read soon:
Who knows what I’ll actually end up reading, but that’s my best guess right now!
Hope you had a fabulous reading month in November and I look forward to reading your wrap-up posts and TBRs.
Header photo with thanks to Sincerely Media for sharing their work on Unsplash.
2020 has been an absolute bin fire, so it is definitely time to look forward to what is coming this way next year!
These are the 10 books that I’m looking forward to in 2021. Some I can’t wait to read and some I’ve read already (thank you, NetGalley!) and can’t wait for others to read so I can chat about how amazing they are.
As always, my genres are broadly historical and crime – I’m sure there are fabulous books coming on other genres but this is my list…
Amazon affiliate links are for pre-orders – thank you for supporting my blog with any purchases.
‘The Shape of Darkness’ by Laura Purcell (January 2021 – Raven Books)
I have really loved Purcell’s previous books – ‘The Corset’ and ‘Bone China’ are both creepily gothic and sinister in just the way I love! I haven’t read her first novel, ‘The Silent Companions’ (I know!), but am eagerly awaiting this one that tells a story wound up with elements of spiritualism and also the art of silhouette-cutting. I’m anticipating a strong female lead, lots of spookiness and a few murders along the way! Purcell can be relief upon for first-class historical fiction and I cannot wait.
‘Daughters of Night’ by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (February 2021 – Pan Macmillan)
Following on from the totally brilliant and immersive ‘Blood and Sugar’, this is another perfectly-pitched mystery set in Georgian London. Using some of the characters from the first novel, this one follows Caro Corsham as she investigates the death of a woman she finds dying in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. It is beautifully written and I cannot wait for its release so that more people can enjoy it – it was due for publication in 2020 but delayed due to the Current Awfulness (to use Caitlin Moran’s term!)
‘The Whole Truth’ by Cara Hunter (February 2021 – Penguin)
A new instalment in the DI Fawley series by Cara Hunter is always a cause for celebration – these are excellent modern police procedurals with plenty of twists and turns, plus a likeable and convincingly-portayed police team. This one takes a novel route through a sexual harassment case with a side of murder and no-one is safe from suspicion. There is so much I want to talk about with this one!
‘Nick’ by Michael Farris Smith (February 2021 – No Exit Press)
I’ve loved ‘The Great Gatsby’ since I first picked it up as a teenager back in the dark ages (OK, 1990s!) Something about the glamour, the decadence and the setting of 1920s America really appealed to me then, so I’m really excited for this new book about Nick Carraway, Gatsby’s narrator. It promises to tell his story before the events of F Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel – from the trenches of World War I to Paris and New Orleans. I love the sound of all this!
‘Hyde’ by Craig Russell (February 2021 – Constable)
I loved Russell’s previous novel, ‘The Devil Aspect’, and also am pretty familiar with the source text for this one, Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ (a favourite of GCSE Literature syllabuses). I’m intrigued by the idea of there being no Dr Jekyll to balance out the Hyde (in this story Captain Hyde) and can’t wait to get immersed in Victorian Edinburgh to find out what happens.
‘Lie Beside Me’ by Gytha Lodge (February 2021 – Michael Joseph)
This is the latest in the modern crime series starring DCI Jonah Sheens. I’ve read the previous books in the series and am eagerly awaiting this one – and early reviews suggest it is good. The case here is of a women who wakes up next to a dead man that she has never seen before. She becomes the police’s prime suspect, but nothing is quite as it seems…
‘Madam’ by Phoebe Wynne (February 2021 – Quercus)
I heard about this one from Quercus’ excellent preview evening in which they showcased some of their 2021 titles. Loads of them sounded brilliant, but this one is just my thing – a gothic tale of a remote girls’ boarding school and the young women that arrives to join the teaching staff. This one looks deliciously dark and has a feminist slant too – plus the proof looks fabulous!
‘Dangerous Women’ by Hope Adams (March 2021 – Michael Joseph)
I’ll admit, I was totally won over by the cover of this one (I know – don’t judge a book and all that jazz!) It’s a glorious image of an old-fashioned sailing ship on rough seas with an intriguing theatre curtain surround. Digging further into the blurb, it turns out to be an early Victorian story of female convicts on board a ship heading for the colonies when a murder takes place. How can you solve a crime on a ship full of criminals? I have no idea, but it sounds brilliant!
‘The Last House on Needless Street’ by Catriona Ward (March 2021 – Viper)
Anything marketed as ‘The Gothic Thriller of 2021’ totally has my attention! The blurb doesn’t really give anything away but mentions that it is the story of a serial killer, an average house on an average street and that it will not be what you expect…sign me up! Early feedback on this one seems to be really positive so I am looking forward to finding out what the hype is about.
‘Ariadne’ by Jennifer Saint (April 2021 – Wildfire)
I love a Greek myth retelling and this one looks amazing. Picking up the story of Ariadne (admittedly one I’m a bit hazy on the details of…), this promises a feminist slant on the Classical tale. I’ve seen such beautiful proofs of this one on Twitter that I am wondering who I need to grovel to for a copy!
So there you have it – 10 books that I cannot wait to read and share! What books are you eagerly awaiting from the 2021 crop?
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.
Links are provided for books already published – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases (at no extra cost to you!)
What have you recently finished reading?
I finished my audiobook of ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’ which was written and read by Bill Bryson. I really enjoyed this autobiographical tale of Bryson’s childhood in Des Moines, Iowa, in the 1950s and would recommend it.
Then I read ‘The Devil and the Dark Water’ by Stuart Turton which I LOVED! It’s a dark and twisty tale of murder and mayhem on a ship travelling between the Dutch East Indies and Amsterdam in 1634. My review is here.
Lastly, I read ‘The Whole Truth’, the new DI Fawley book from Cara Hunter which is due out in March 2021. What starts as a he said/she said investigation into a sexual assault becomes something much more deadly for Fawley and his team. Review will follow in the blog nearer to the publication date.
What are you reading now?
I’m reading ‘The Wrong Sort to Die’ by Paula Harmon for a forthcoming blog tour. This is about a female doctor in 1910, a pioneering pathologist and one making her way in a man’s world. It’s also a mystery story so it is keeping me guessing!
I’m still reading ‘Pandora’s Jar’ by Natalie Haynes – I really like it but it has been pushed aside for various blog tour books. I’m currently reading about Helen of Troy and it is very interesting to hear a different perspective to usual as she is normally portrayed quite negatively.
I’ve started listening to the audiobook of ‘Let’s Do It’ by Jasper Rees, the biography of Victoria Wood. It’s engaging so far and interesting to hear about the more private side of Wood, the shy perfectionist, rather than her on-screen persona. The cast reading this are absolutely brilliant so I’m glad I went for the audio version.
What do you think you will read next?
I am about to read ‘The Cousins’ by Karen McManus for a blog tour with The Write Reads. I’m looking forward to this one as it is a standalone mystery about secrets within a family and sounds very tense!
I am also determined to get to the books that are top of my pile on Netgalley – ‘The Shape of Darkness’ by Laura Purcell and ‘Hyde’ by Craig Russell. I’m so looking forward to these two above all others. I’m determined to make a dent in the NetGalley backlog so that will be the focus of the next month or so.
So that’s another WWW Wednesday done! This year is flying by and I’m on the countdown to Christmas now…
Header photo with thanks to Alisa Anton for sharing her work on Unsplash.
How is it that time again?! The end of another month and another step nearer Christmas (yay!) and the end of 2020 (*huge sigh of relief*).
This month I have read 11 books and hit my GoodReads Challenge target of 100 books for the year!
It’s been a funny month with some real reading slumps as well as some absolutely BRILLIANT books. So, without further ado, here’s what I read this month…
(Links to books already published are affiliate links – thank you for supporting my blog with any purchases).
October Wrap-Up
I started the month with the brilliant ‘More Than a Woman’ by Caitlin Moran – an often funny, fresh and brutally honest take on what it means to be a middle-aged woman. This was my first five-star read of the month – you can see my review here.
After this, I read ‘Jeeves and the Leap of Faith’ by Ben Schott, a new Jeeves and Wooster novel written with the blessing of the PG Wodehouse estate. Nothing quite hits the highs of Wodehouse’s original novels, but Schott has done a great job of the language and comic elements. You can read my review here.
Next up was a blog tour for ‘The Creak on the Stairs’ by Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir, a chilling and dark piece of Nordic Noir crime fiction. Set in Iceland, this follows Chief Investigating Officer Elma as she tries to solve a murder that is stirring up the unsavoury past of some people in the small town of Akranes. You can read my blog tour post here.
Then came ‘The Servant’ by Maggie Richell-Davies, a dark historical tale of a girl who has fallen on difficult times in Georgian London. This book won the Historical Writers’ Association award for a (then) unpublished novel and is definitely worth a read – my review is here.
One of my audiobooks (listened to in the car with my kids) this month was Roald Dahl’s ‘Boy’, read by Dan Stevens. We all enjoyed this one – a lively performance of a book that I’ve loved since childhood. It has been a joy to relive the experiences of Dahl at school at Repton, on holiday in Norway, with his eccentric family and upsetting teachers and sweet-shop owners alike.
Next up was ‘The Phoenix Project’ by Michelle Kidd for another blog tour in November. This was a fast-paced thriller with a wide scope – London, Paris, Africa, Russian spies and the British Government – and all very tense! Watch this space for my blog tour review.
Then I enjoyed Walburga Appleseed’s ‘The Princess and the Prick’, a short book with some very concise feminist retellings of fairy tales, myths and nursery rhymes. Beautifully illustrated, this managed to pack plenty of food for thought into a small space.
Another short but powerful book was ‘Essex Girls’ by Sarah Perry, a feminist celebration of the qualities of the Essex Girl stereotype. In Perry’s book, Essex becomes a state of mind rather than a geographical location and we are introduced to a host of fabulous women from history. My review is here.
Another of my five-star books this month was ‘Practically Perfect: Life Lessons from Mary Poppins’ by Katy Brand. Anyone with any love for the 1964 film should read this as it is fascinating but delightfully comforting. My review can be found here.
Then I listened to another audiobook, ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’, a charming and funny book about Bill Bryson’s experiences of growing up in the 1950s in Des Moines in Iowa. This one is read by Bryson himself and his dry wit really comes through in the recording.
Finally, I finished the month with ‘The Devil and the Dark Water’ by Stuart Turton, a historical crime novel that I absolutely loved. You can read my review here.
November TBR
I am absolutely awful at predicting what I will read in the future – I read according to my mood and who knows where that may take me!?
However, I do have a lot of NetGalley ARCs that I should read. Here is just a selection:
This is ignoring the huge stacks of books in my house and my jam-packed Kindle so we shall wait and see what I actually manage to read!
Header photo with thanks to Alex Geerts for sharing their work on Unsplash.
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.
Links are provided for books already published – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases (at no extra cost to you!)
Hurrah! The reading slump appears to be at an end! I’d not read much in the past few weeks, despite having excellent books (and ones I’ve really enjoyed).
No more! It is no coincidence that this coincides with half term holidays, but I’ve managed to read a lot this week and I’ve LOVED what I’ve read.
What have you recently finished reading?
My kids and I finished our ‘reading’ (via audiobook) of Roald Dahl’s ‘Boy’. They both absolutely loved the stories and the narration by Dan Stevens (who brings the anecdotes to life with some great accents and voices).
I have also just finished ‘The Phoenix Project’ by Michelle Kidd, the first in a series featuring DI Jack MacIntosh. It’s a page-turner of a thriller on a huge scale with twists that just keep coming! This is for a blog tour in November so keep an eye on the blog for my stop on the tour.
Next up was ‘The Princess and the Prick’ by Walburga Appleseed, a collection of feminist retellings of fairy tales, nursery rhymes and myths. It’s clever and funny, although I anticipated a few more words – each story is encapsulated in a few sharp and to-the-point sentences and accompanied by some brilliant illustrations. It’s thought provoking about sexism, dodgy moral codes and issues around consent among other things and definitely worth a read!
Then I read ‘Essex Girls’ by Sarah Perry, a book I was really looking forward to as I am an Essex girl by birth. It was exciting to read Perry’s comments on Chelmsford, my home town, which is where she grew up too. I loved the feminist take on the notion of the ‘Essex girl’ as someone who is outspoken and fearless and unconventional. At only about 80 pages, this is a short but fascinating read about some historical Essex girls and their impact on the world. You can read my full review here.
Finally, I read ‘Practically Perfect: Life Lessons from Mary Poppins’ by comedian Katy Brand. I read this in one sitting, absolutely loving the nostalgic tone of the writing combined with some really incisive ideas about the film and its messages. You can read my review here.
What are you reading now?
I’m still reading (or have started reading) an awful lot of books and I cannot decide what to finish first as they are all great!
I’m still reading ‘The Devil and the Dark Water’ by Stuart Turton, a fabulous historical murder mystery – I’m rattling through this now and it is gripping.
My reading of ‘Pandora’s Jar’ by Natalie Haynes is also still ongoing – I love the depth of analysis of the women from mythology.
I’m also nearing the end of my audiobook, Bill Bryson’s ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’ – this autobiography about growing up in 1950s small-town America is fascinating, funny and read by Bryson himself.
Finally, I’ve also started ‘Books for Living: A Reader’s Guide to Life’ by Will Schwalbe which someone on Twitter (sorry, I can’t remember who!) recommended when I wrote my post on The Best Books about Books. It’s very promising so far – I love reading about other people’s reading experiences.
What do you think you will read next?
As my book buying habits haven’t taken into account the reading slump, I have plenty of options!
I’m looking forward to moving onto the audiobook of ‘Let’s Do It’ by Jasper Rees, the biography of the late, great Victoria Wood.
I’m also hoping to clear some of the NetGalley shelf over half term – Laura Purcell’s ‘The Shape of Darkness’ and Cara Hunter’s ‘The Whole Truth’ still await, as does ‘Hyde’ by Craig Russell which looks amazing – I loved his previous book, ‘The Devil Aspect’, so I am looking forward to this.
I don’t know why I even try and predict what I’ll read next…I’m such a mood reader that it is impossible to tell where I’ll end up. I am quietly craving a vampire book though… (*buys ‘The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires’ by Grady Hendrix*)
