How has (have) your week(s) been? Mine seems to have disappeared in a flash. A bit like the weekend, even if I did have Friday afternoon off and am probably still in bed as you read this. Assuming you can read this … Will be trying my best to maintain my current OTT blogging schedule but with one small hitch. The lovely folks at Twitter (read EM) have decided to make life exceedingly difficult for sharing (unless you pay the mega bucks) and my posts are no longer going to autoshare from the blog. Pain. In. The. Arse. I’m trying a few other solutions to avoid having to remember to manually post, but if you spot gaps in my bloggage, it’s probably because the posts got trapped somewhere and I am too busy to a) notice or b) chase a solution.
I’m not going to lie. Love the blog. Love the people I have met as a result of blogging. But, by heck, it’s getting harder and harder to remember why I am doing this. ‘Pissing in the wind’ and ‘shouting into a void’ are two phrases which spring to mind right now, and the only people who are really affected are the publishers whose work I am trying to wax lyrical about. I gain zero revenue from the blog – it is a hobby. Just a very stressful one these days. And I actually PAY for the privilege of being stressed as I pay for hosting, web address etc, as well as the various book events and books I buy to keep this all going. I am pretty sure this is what is referred to as ‘madness’. Good job I love books, right?
Anyhoo. Back to the important bit – books. Wacky week this week. Some book post. Some books buys. A Netgalley approval I forgot I had requested but was happy to receive and an unexpected entry for which I have auto approval. And I even read some stuff, so that’s nice …
Book post this week was very intriguing. I received copies of Cleaner by Brandi Wells (31 August) courtesy of Wildfire, including a office survival pack (dry shampoo, post its and a snack bar) and One by Eve Smith (20 July) from the lovely Orenda Books. I also received my pre-order of Killing Jericho by William Hussey from Bert’s Books. Lovely stuff.
Order wise, I appear to have gone a little mad again. I preordered a few – The Opposite of Lonely by Doug Johnstone (14 September), the next Skelfs book; The Bay by LJ Ross (03 August) from her Summer Suspense series; Inspector McLean 13 (as yet untitled) by James Oswald (15 February); Swiping Hearts by Jeffery Deaver (26 September), a Lincoln Rhyme short story. The last two are so hot off the press, they don’t even have covers. Staying on the Short story theme, I bough The Spendthrift and the Swallow by Ambrose Parry (available now for free on kindle) and Sparring Partners by John Grisham. I have John Grisham books on my tbr shelf, but have never read any and I always think short stories are a good route in.
My Netgalley approvals were Robert Bryndza’s Fear the Silence (o6 July), and Ann Cleeves new Two Rivers book, The Raging Storm (31 August). So excited for both of those.
Because it is also the end of the month, or rather the start of a new one, I am able to claim my reads for April. I’m quite impressed with what I achieved in the mont, even if it is bulked up by two short stories. Can’t complain at this awesome list of books, and some new to me authors in the mix there too! Love it.
The One That Got Away – JD Kirk (25 May)
The Fallen – John Sutherland (08 June)
The Seventh Victim – Michael Wood (30 May)
The Fall – Gilly Macmillan ( 25 May)
The Doctor – Annie Payne (25 May)
We Can Be Heroes – Paul Burston (01 June)
The Devil’s Playground – Craig Russell (08 June)
The Silence – Katerina Diamond (08 June)
A Fatal Crossing – Tom Hindle
Voice of the Dead – Ambrose Parry (15 June)
Deadly Fate – Angela Marsons (25 May)
The Trial – Rob Rinder (22 June)
Conviction – Jack Jordan (22 June)
Picture You Dead – Peter James (11 May)
The Interpreter – Brooke Robinson (01 June)
Surprise Ending – Jeffery Deaver
Killing Moon – Jo Nesbo (25 May)
The Spendthrift and the Swallow – Ambrose Parry (24 April)
No Sweet Sorrow – Denzil Meyrick (01 June)
Books I have read
Picture You Dead by Peter James
Discover the darkness that lurks around every corner in the latest instalment of Peter James’s award-winning detective series, which is now a major ITV programme starring John Simm as Roy Grace.
Detective Superintendent Roy Grace finds himself plunged into an unfamiliar and rarefied world of fine art. Outwardly it appears respectable, gentlemanly, above reproach. But beneath the veneer, he rapidly finds that greed, deception and violence walk hand-in-hand.
Harry and Freya, an ordinary couple, dreamed for years of finding something priceless buried amongst the tat in a car boot sale.
It was a dream they knew in their hearts would never come true – until the day it did…
They buy the drab portrait for a few pounds, for its beautiful frame, planning to cut the painting out. Then studying it back at home there seems to be another picture beneath, of a stunning landscape. Could it be a long-lost masterpiece from 1770? If genuine, it could be worth millions.
One collector is certain that the painting is genuine. Someone who will use any method he can to get what he wants and will stop at nothing.
And Harry and Freya are about to discover that their dream is turning into their worst nightmare. . .
The Interpreter by Brooke Robinson (01 June)
The most dangerous person in the courtroom isn’t the killer. . .
Revelle is a court interpreter and knows the power of words. She spends her days translating for other people; murderers, fraudsters and their victims. She speaks their words. Only she knows exactly what they’re saying.
When she spots an injustice is about to take place, and a guilty man about to be labelled innocent, she has the power to twist an alibi to get the verdict she wants. The verdict she believes is correct. She’s willing to risk it all.
But someone knows what she’s done.
And they want justice.
Surprise Ending by Jeffery Deaver
The number one priority for Bradley Reynolds of Maryland’s Organized Crime Taskforce is Andre Hector Federico. The mob boss is old school—a devoted family man, treacherous as hell, and paranoid enough to have escaped Reynolds’s sting. Now Reynolds has a new plan: enlist prize-winning crime novelist Alan Seybold to concoct a foolproof chapter-by-chapter scenario on how to lure Federico out of his safe zone and collar him. There’s just one condition: Seybold has to play by the rules of real life. Beyond that, the king of bestselling page-turners can have all the fun he wants. But as skilled as Seybold is, even he can’t foresee where this thriller is headed—or just how dangerous its plot twists can be.
Killing Moon by Jo Nesbo (25 May)
This killer will get inside your head.
Two young women are missing. Strangers to each other, but last seen at the same party. When the body of one of them is found with fresh stitches along her hairline the hunt is on to find a murderer with very particular tastes.
Catching this criminal calls for a detective with a very particular mind
Only Harry Hole can stop this ingenious psychopath. But Harry is gone: struck off the force, down and out in LA. It seems like nothing can entice him back to Oslo. Until someone close to him comes under threat.
But there is more to this case than meets the eye and the clock is ticking down to find the other missing girl, before the body count rises.
This killer has got inside Harry’s head. And now he’s coming for YOU.
The Spendthrift and the Swallow
Edinburgh, 1853.
In a city where reputation is everything, it doesn’t take much to destroy a man.
When Cora Carlton, socialite and wife of a free-spending entrepreneur, dies suddenly on New Year’s Eve, the knives are out for her physician, the esteemed Dr James Young Simpson.
Determined to separate medical fact from malicious rumour, Simpson’s protégé Dr Will Raven and aspiring medical practitioner Sarah Fisher traverse the heights of society and the depths of the underworld to uncover a grisly truth.
In this digital exclusive short story, wander through the dark alleys of Victorian Edinburgh with Raven and Fisher, and listen/read on for a sneak preview of Ambrose Parry’s new novel Voices of the Dead.
No Sweet Sorrow by Denzil Meyrick (01 June)
A potent new drug has hit the streets of Kinloch, and DCI Daley and Scott are struggling to catch the notorious gang behind this evil trade.
After a party of Oxford students arrives in town for a camping trip before a Himalayan expedition, one of the group seeks out an illegal high and is violently assaulted. However, these students are well connected, and this brings further unexpected problems for Daley. Ultimately, he and Scott will discover crimes as disturbing in nature as anything they have ever confronted.
Don’t get too excited. Two of them are short stories and I’ve been using them to prop up my kindle reading tally while I’ve been focusing on tree books. 250 weeks and 285 days and counting (previous record was 297 days so i’ve a few more days to go to beat that.) Busy enough time on the blog – recap below:
#Review – The Guilty Couple – CL Taylor
#Review – The Fall – Louise Jensen
#Review – The Acapulco – Simone Buchholz
#Review – Eighteen Seconds – Louise Beech
#Review – The Vanishing Triangle – Claire McGowan
#Spotlight Post – Conviction – Jack Jordan
#Review – A Summer Surprise at the Little Blue Boathouse – Christie Barlow
The week ahead is busy again. Not as busy, but full enough for a working week. Two blog tour posts this week. Skin Deep by Antonia Lass tomorrow and Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai on Thursday.
I hope you all have a lovely week. I’m only in work three days this week then another long Bank Holiday weekend awaits (hallelujah). Hopefully b=my blog posts post and you see this. If so, I’ll see you in a week. If not, I’ll still be here in a week’s time, just mostly invisible.
Happy Reading all
Jen x
Jen Med's Book Reviews 