Laura
Amelia & Emerson are persuaded by the widowed Lady Baskerville to dig at her late husband's site in Egypt. Rumours abound that a pharaoh's curse will strike anyone who enters the tomb, and indeed accidents and murders start happening. The Emerson's are followed by a keen, and impudent young journalist and a motley collection of characters from various countries.
Starts off good, and gets better. The story is set in the area around a small local library which is threatened with closure. Someone has left a short list of books for a few people to find. Two families are unhappy. The Patels have lost someone very dear, and the Thomas family are struggling with their mental health. There is unhappiness and tragedy in the story, but it is ultimately positive. You don't need to have read the books on the list, although it is enjoyable to remember them if you do know them.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Ben has been told that he has a very short time left to live . He bolts to London, determined to make the most of every second & meets Vita who was unwillingly made immortal by Leonardo da Vinci They fall in love and together they try to find a way to save him.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
If you love long drawn out angst where the hero spends most of the novel believing that he can never have the one woman that he has ever loved, this will be right up your street. As it's a Bridgerton story, their mutual sexual attraction eventually gets the better of them. This comes much later in the story than with other Bridgerton tales though. As ever, the wider Bridgerton family add humour and continuity to the story.
Francesca née Bridgerton has not long been married when her beloved husband suddenly dies . His cousin and their best friend, Michael, has been in love with her from first sight and cannot bear the guilt of inheriting John's estate whilst still loving Francesca , as if he has somehow wished this to happen. He goes abroad for several years, returning just as Francesca is ready to start looking for a second husband, only because she wants a baby .
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Entertaining heist/MM romance. Aristocrat and jewel thief with nothing in common. Alec, 2nd son of a duke, wishes for revenge on his father and asks jewel thieves to help him. The story covers the planning and execution of the heist, with them gradually finding common ground, and revealing more of their histories. But complete trust is never quite there, with consequences. Graphic sex scenes.
20 years ago, Alec's father murdered his mother in order to marry his mistress, who in turn murdered her own husband. Both are caricature baddies, with no redeeming features. Alec and his siblings have lived in comparative straitened circumstances after a final breach 10 years ago, when the duke's callous selfishness led to the death of Alec's sister. Alec asks Jerry and his partner to steal a diamond parure before it can be given to the duchess on her wedding anniversary. They get to know each other in order to be convincing best friends, and after some humiliating grovelling to his father by Alec, they are both invited to the fateful house party. Alec eventually tells Jerry about the murders, but doesn't tell him the big twist... it's all been a ploy to get the thieves to the house party in order to break a different safe than they have been planning, and get at proof of the murder of the duchess's first husband. It hits the fan when Alec fetches the private detective working in the house to Jerry's room to tell them what's really going on.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Beautifully atmospheric Oxford. The story does move on elsewhere eventually, but is the poorer for it. Still very good though. Paranormal creatures who are much less fantastical than in other works, so it's more believable that they get away with living in plain sight. A slow but, for me, fascinating start. There is scary action, but it's not mostly about that. It's more about the developing relationship between Matthew and Diana, meeting the other characters (mercifully, not a cast of thousands), and slowly revealing what is going on. Not much spice, even behind closed doors. In fact, I'm awaiting an explanation in the next book for why Matthew STILL won't consummate, even though she's taking birth control
Set in Oxford, where Diana first meets Matthew. As a witch & vampire they should be antagonists. She is researching in the Bodleian and requests a strange old alchemical manuscript. Suddenly all kinds of magical creatures are interested, and Diana is in danger from The Congregation, a group of 9 : 3 each of witches, vampires & daemons, who rule. They visit His 16thC home in Oxford, his mother in their French chateau (from whence Diana is kidnapped & tortured, & rescued), and Diana's family in the USA. Here their answer to the Congregation is formed - . a Conventicle of good guys . At the end D & M have Traveled back to 16thC England to find the original manuscript and find witches to train Diana
My favourite funny modern romance. The audio version is brilliantly narrated by Julia Barrie with a perfect down-to-earth Yorkshire voice. The romance itself is a good one, with an endearing heroine, who returns to the bosom of her very odd family after an unfortunate accident. But it's the eccentric supporting characters that lift this story above so many others. Some are charming, some very irritating indeed, but all are full of life.
Difficult one to rate because the writing standard is so poor in places. An editor should have fixed that of course. Jumbled sentences, 2D characters, amateurish. But the romance hooked me enough to keep me reading, after I had struggled past the first part. Very angsty. Hero suffering almost from the get-go, heroine unaware of this and hating him. Thrown together by a crazy bargain, falling in love, crisis caused by past problems. All standard stuff, but entertaining enough.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Much like the others in the series: fun mystery, set in pre WW1 England. Lively widow, Lady Hardcastle, and her maid Florence Armstrong solve another mystery for the police, who are all either bumbling or conveniently unavailable . Plenty of repeat characters, light hearted, good mystery - I guessed part of what was going on, but not all of it.
A group of film actors are unexpectedly staying with Lady Hardcastle. They have a new film to show and narrate, but several parties are not happy about the plan. Bodies start turning up, and are whisked away by the mortuary van before either the police or Lady Hardcastle have a chance to examine them. Then the mortuary is burnt down.
This was a 5* read for a while, but tailed off a bit at the end. The title and cover design suggest that it is light chick lit for older women, about a bunch of feisty older ladies confounding the expectations of the young and prejudiced. At first, that impression seems to be wrong. The moving descriptions of Janet's desperate loneliness and failings really got to me. I thought it was going to be a much deeper read than I had expected. Then it reverted to type, and the feistiness comes to the fore. It's still very good though. A really good story, with a good range of characters, beautiful descriptions, and some tense moments. I will want to read more by this author.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril! -
Janet, 72, lives alone, has no friends at all, no family. She assumes that any friendly overtures are pity. Her one solace is her allotment, where she tends her patch of rare and medicinal plants for a strict time period everyday. Her fellow allotmenteers mostly avoid her. Then disaster strikes the council announce that Japanese knotweed has been found on the allotments, and they are declared a biohazard and are to be closed. But all is not as it seems. Janet sets out to find out who is at the root of the dastardly doings, and prove it, unexpectedly aided by her neighbour, Bev, and her ex-GCHQ colleague, Glynis.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Based around what is known of the time spent at Godmersham Park, by Anne Sharp, friend of Jane Austen. The author explains in her note that her life before arriving at the house is fiction as nothing is known of it. But the facts of the GP period are correct, based on the diaries of Fanny and the letters of Jane and Cassandra Austen. Very well written, quite sad. Sobering to have the position of women illustrated as clearly as this. It's worth reading the author's note at the end, as it lets you know what happened in her later life.
Young Anne lives with her mother and father in comfortable circumstances, an indulged and beloved only child. The odd thing is that her father is away for most of then time . Her mother is desperate for Anne to marry for her own security, and produces a string of unpreposessing suitors. Anne turns them all down, believing herself secure as a wealthy man's daughter. But after her mother's death, she is cast adrift by her father with only a small annual allowance of £35. As a result Anne is forced to seek work as a governess. Eventually her faithful ex-maid Agnes finds out that Anne's father was never married to her mother and that he has another family, living comfortably and happily in London. . Anne remains at Godmersham for 2 years, during which time, she meets the Austen family, and comes to love both Henry and Jane. Jane Austen wishes for Anne to come and live with her mother, sister, friend and herself. But Anne cannot bear to share her as only a friend so says no . At the end Anne is dismissed from Godmersham for persisting in her Ill health and Henry asks her to be his mistress. She turns him down with some difficulty, and faces up to her future as single, working woman
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
2nd in a series, but the first that I have listened to. Excellent narration. Set in Manchester, with a British dark sense of humour, and gritty reality about it, which you don't often find in fantasy stories from other countries. Stranger Times is a magazine which publishes weird stories, I think conspiracy theories and supernatural reports. As a result of whatever happened in the first book someone is out to kidnap the powerful young woman who is hiding out in the magazines offices . They are doing this by getting a plumbing company to install a new bathroom with a hidden trapdoor in the shower . Also several young men are turning into vampires overnight, with no apparent cause. People are being killed, the public is getting restive, detective Sturgeon has both his boss and a shady and powerful “Concerned Citizen” on his back. He and the Stranger Times staff need to work out what's going on and fix it.
Excellent thriller, funny, clever. Really enjoyed it.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
More easy-reading shenanigans with Betsy the unconventional vampire queen, her fiancé and friends. As their wedding approaches and is then postponed again, Betsy and Eric fall out when he realises that she can hear his thoughts when they are having sex. Betty's half sister, Laura, is becoming less religious and more like her mother, the devil. A killer is on the loose, the driveway killer is abducting women from their driveway and killing them. Betsy, Laura and the ghost of one of the victims save the day
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Enjoyable, enemies to lovers story. Has some fantasy elements. Iris is left alone with her alcoholic motherwhen her brother leaves to fight for the goddess Enva in a war against the God Dacre Iris had to leave school early and work at a newspaper where she is vying with Roman for the position of correspondent . Roman gets the position and Iris' mother dies so she gets a job as war correspondent with a rival newspaper All along she has been unknowingly Communicating with Roman by magical typewriter . Both Iris and Roman end up at the battle front because he has followed her there to keep her safe. In the end Roman is gassed and almost dead and Iris is dragged away by her brother . Left as a cliffhanger, so one star removed as this is irritating.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
3rd in a series about a shifter/human town where local magic is getting out of control because there is a rift in the bayou which baddies have been trying to tear open. Sonya is an organiser for the magical community. Her love interest is Will, a Selkie shifter . The same evil doings are afoot, with slightly different evil doers. The baddy is easy to spot, and this one is a less fun copy of the previous two, but still enjoyable. Amanda Ronconi does an excellent job of narrating again.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
This is a fun, easy read. It is about learning to trust, and finding love, both romantic and family love. It is a cosy read, with lots of happy family interaction, spells and naughtiness.
Mika, a witch, was lonely throughout her childhood, and not much has changed. Like all other witches she lives separately from her kind and rarely sees them. Also, she does not trust non witches because whenever she has told them what she is, they have either been horrified or have used her. She accepts an offer to tutor 3 child witches, whilst their guardian, a witch called Lilian, is away. The children live with 4 adult non-witches out in the countryside. At first one of the children, and their handsome guardian, don't trust her. But gradually this changes, and things are going well until Mika finds out that once again she has been lied to all along. Lilian is dead and buried in the garden, her death concealed in any attempt to keep the children in their loving home.
One of a series. Old and new characters face challenges and mild peril, but all comes right in the end. The café comes under threat when a local criminal tries to force Holly to sell. New character Tori, has terrible relationships with both her boyfriend and family. Her story is a mix of the current time, and memories of childhood and earlier adulthood, showing the difficult times that she had. Her parents are authors and neglected her in some ways, seemingly through being self-absorbed, resulting in her being lonely and friendless . Her only childhood friendships fail when she makes a mistake, and she isn't able to get past it. As the story starts Tory and 2 of her friends are paddle boarding and are rescued by the RNLI, including Holly and Jake and they become friends.
Easy read, quite entertaining, but not especially memorable.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
The royal family are at Sandringham for the queen's winter break, when a severed hand is found washed up in a local beach. The queen recognises it, and despite trying to avoid involvement, she becomes involved again, more directly than in the previous two stories. The owner of the severed hand is a member of a local aristocratic family, well known to the queen, the St Cyrs (pronounced sincere). It turns out that the motive for the murder was revenge for the rape of the murderer's fiancée several decades before
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
A necromancer and Katy, his 10 year old feisty apprentice, are offered a pardon by a government bureaucrat if they carry out a few dangerous jobs for their country, which is under threat. They set out with the bureaucrat, and Katy's ninja rats. They meet a devious elf who can produce huge amounts of heat and fire, defeat her, and she joins them on probation. They defeat the titular army of golems and then move on to an even greater challenge, meeting the so-called “old man” on the way
Entertaining, and a different kind of fantasy novel. Less slick, with darker, more snarky humour, and absolutely no heroes.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
The main character has been keeping his awful family history and his half sympath nature hidden. He meets and falls in love with a nurse in Havers' clinic. He feels unworthy because in addition to the aboveHe is a drug dealer, a pimp and is forced to pay blackmail and sexually service his evil half sister . The heroine and her father used to be one of the glymera but were cast out when her father was duped out of his fortune, and her fiancé traduced her to excuse his dumping her. Her father now suffers from schizophrenia . Lash is back now that his biological father the Omega has made him a lesser of great power. There is a plot to Kill king Wrath
A rattling good read, easy to rip through the 700+ pages. As usual, the action jumps between several exciting plot strands.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Risa is searching for the 2nd of 3 keys to hell. It is currently held by an evil sorceress. Risa is reunited with Azriel . Several unsavoury characters want the keys and threaten her friends if she fails. Crazy head vampire, Madeleine Hunter has journalist Jak, Risa's ex, killed as an incentive. Risa's evil father puts a magic cord around Mirri's neck, which will throttle her in 48 hours . The Raziq also issue dire threats. In the end Risa fails to get the 2nd key, Miri is saved by her partner Illiana and other witches, Risa kills her father.
It passed the time, but my attention was wandering. It's much the same as the last one.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
More cosy doings in Thrush Green, a beautiful village in the Cotswolds.
The Hursts are away in America, and the people that let their house are young, rowdy and unsuitable
The vicar and his wife go away for a holiday and whilst they are gone the vicarage burns down. Eventually, Charles is given the amalgamated parishes of Thrush Green & Lulling, and the beautiful Lulling vicarage
Dotty Harmer has not been caring for herself and has a spell in the cottage hospital, followed by a stay with Winnie Bailey, and then her niece moves in with her when she returns to her cottage.
The school mistresses are planning to retire and look for a house to buy together by the sea
The miserly snobby trio of sisters are robbed of much of their silver
Albert piggot is getting too old to “care for” the church & grounds. He enjoys caring for Dotty's goat, and takes on more jobs with small animals
Molly & Ben Curdle have a daughter, name Anne after her grandmother
Very enjoyable cosy read.
I always include major spoilers (hidden), to help with my memory issues. Read them at your peril!
Mercy and Adam have Got married And gone away in a trailer for Their honeymoon To a campground near a river where a monster has been Tempting humans in to the river and eating them Assisted by The local 1st nation Americans, Coyote and others of his kind Mercy saves the world again. Not the best in the series, but entertaining enough.