City of Silk won the Debut Author Over 50 award in 2023. Frankly, I think it deserves to win any award it’s entered for. But I should mention that I knew the author when we were teenagers, and a mutual
Book Review | City of Silk by Glennis Virgo
Book Review | Tales of the Captain Duke #1-4
Tales of the Captain Duke is a series of four short books, novella style, by Rebecca Diem. I read them consecutively on two evenings and thoroughly enjoyed them. Tales of the Captain Duke by Rebecca Diem 1. The Stowaway Debutante
Book Review | Untamed Shore by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Untamed Shore came to me in a Storybundle. I usually get scifi or fantasy, and sometimes expand my mind a little by getting collections from international authors. So when I started reading this book, I was expecting something like Mexican
Book Review | The Shadows of London by Andrew Taylor
The Shadows of London is book 6 in the Marwood and Lovett series. This is confusing, because it’s been Marwood and Hakesby for some time now. I have jumped books 2 to 4, thanks to ARCs from the publishers and
Gilbert White House and Garden; plus the Bug Hotel #30DaysWild
Gilbert White, the 18th century naturalist, lived in Selborne, about 20 miles away from me in Hampshire. His house and garden was my first 30DaysWild excursion this year. I set off in the fourth day of wall-to-wall sunshine (as forecast),
Book Review | The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
The Rose Code is a story involving the code breakers at Bletchley Park, during World War 2. I have always been enthralled by the wartime history of Bletchley Park. It’s now due for publication on March 18th. This book came
Book Review | Erebus: The Story of a Ship
Erebus; a ship that had a notable adventure in Antarctica. I saw an advert for Michael Palin’s new book, added it to my TBR, and saw it in my library’s ‘new books’ section. Reader, I borrowed it. Erebus: the story of
Book of the Year 2019 – the long list!
My Book of the Year for 2019 is… one of the following. Book of the Year 2019 long list I long list nearly all of those I’ve given five stars on Goodreads during the year. So those are (links to
Book Review | The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge
The Lie Tree was a non-winning nomination in our Great Middle Grade Reads Book of the Month last year. I thought it sounded good so I added it to my TBR. Then I saw it in the library…. This one
Y is for The Yellow Admiral #AtoZChallenge2018 Book Review
The Yellow Admiral is the eighteenth book of the Aubrey-Maturin series. These are the books on which the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World was based. The sequel was never made because, despite worldwide popularity, box-office
Book Review Round-up
I raced through a few books at the end of the year (well, I didn’t race through all of them) that I didn’t get time to review, and which for various reasons I don’t feel like giving a full review
Book Review | The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict
This was a book that floated across my ‘recommended’ selection on Netgalley, and the blurb intrigued me. I’d never much thought about Einstein having a wife (in fact he had two), and although he was one of the most celebrated scientists
Book Review | The Boundless by Kenneth Oppel
This was the Great Middle Grade Reads group’s Book of the Month for March, and I read it in two sittings over Easter, with a paperback from my library. The Blurb (from Goodreads) “She’s the most powerful steam engine in
Book Review | The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Happy Easter! Today is book review day as usual, and I’m doing one that is a far cry from Easter celebration, being set in 17th century Amsterdam, mainly in the winter, where it’s cold and damp. In fact, the cold
Double Book Review | The Cuckoo’s Calling and See Delphi and Die
The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith I think one should read books without knowing the author’s little secrets, and when one of my bookclub tried to tell everyone who the author really was, I tried to stop her. But then