Review – Mr Collins in Love

Posted September 17, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Mr Collins in Love

by Lee Welch

Genres: Historical Fiction, Romance
Pages: 151
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
The year is 1811 and the new rector of Hunsford, Mr William Collins, must be above reproach. He must be respectable, pious, good at losing at quadrille, and disapproving of popular novels. Above all, he must obey his terrifying patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

When William’s boyhood friend Jem arrives, looking for safe harbour from the press-gangs, William’s ‘perfect clergyman’ disguise begins to slip. A farm labourer’s son, Jem is gentle and loyal, and being with him is all William wants. Soon, Jem and William renew their youthful intimacies—until Lady Catherine’s demands come between them.

Can William find a way to navigate the Regency marriage market without losing his beloved Jem?

This m/m historical romance is a Pride and Prejudice spin-off and features characters from the original novel by Jane Austen alongside original characters.

Lee Welch’s Mr Collins in Love is based around, yep, Mr Collins from Pride & Prejudice: the book is written from his point of view, and with empathy toward him. Here he’s coded as being on the spectrum, and powerfully concerned with keeping up appearances in order to be able to maintain the quiet home life he loves — which leaves him stuck between the problem of needing to marry to satisfy his patroness, while not wanting to bring home a young wife who will disrupt his household.

That need intensifies when a friend from his boyhood arrives and asks to be taken in. They aren’t of the same social status, but that never mattered when they were kids, and Mr Collins finds that it doesn’t matter when they’re alone together now, either, which becomes a powerful comfort to him.

The vibe here is really gentle, and it’s less about all-consuming romance than comfort and having someone you can be yourself with. Mr Collins loves Jem, undoubtedly, and he does say so, but it’s more about the companionship between them, and finding a way to continue the way they’ve been. They don’t kiss, they barely touch, and I can see why some readers don’t find it much of a romance, but relationships don’t all have to look exactly the same to be a real romance.

I did also enjoy the stuff that fleshed out Mr Collins’ everyday world — the work he does as a rector, the work he enjoys in the garden — and the practical arrangement he comes to with Charlotte Lucas, which promises another potential kindred soul, or at least the continuation of his quiet and peaceful world.

I think Welch did a great job; I’m not a Pride & Prejudice fan, nor a superfan of Austen in general, so maybe purists would hate it, or fans would want more of it to be explored, like Collins’ interactions with the Bennets (we only really see Mr Bennet). Personally I don’t think I’d have wanted much more of it (and I found the scene with Mr Bennet quite awful because he so clearly mocks Collins), so it seemed perfect to me. I might’ve liked a little more of the aftermath, with Charlotte Lucas moving into Collins’ home, but the promise of gentle contentment is enough.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, historical fiction, Lee Welch, romance

WWW Wednesday

Posted September 17, 2025 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?

Yesterday I finished up Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis and KJ Charles’ Copper Script. I enjoyed both, though I had a few embarrassment-squick moments with The Love Hypothesis, and thought that Copper Script ended maybe a bit abruptly.

Still, both of them made for fun reading on a long car drive (and in the case of Copper Script, when I didn’t feel like going to bed once I arrived home, heh).

What are you currently reading?

The only thing I’m very actively reading is a library book, Boria Sax’s City of Ravens. I’m — hm. A touch sceptical about the links between the ravens of the Tower and Bran the Blessed, I must admit. But I’m early in the book, and maybe it’ll get round to discussing more links and research rather than just “Bran was associated with ravens and some people say the location his head was buried was the Tower”. I’d need to see a link between the two in order to feel that the one almost-forgotten tradition influenced the other very new one.

Other than that, I actually focused on finishing a bunch of books over the weekend! I still have a couple that’ve been backburnered for a while, which I want to go back to, e.g. my ARC of Georgia Summers’ The Bookshop Below.

What will you read next?

Excellent question, who knows? I’ll probably focus on some of the books I have already on the go, mostly, though I’ll probably also read the British Library Crime Classic collection Blood on the Tracks soon, since it’s on my bingo card and, being a short story collection, good when I need something bitesize. Some of the books I have on the go — like Lucy Cooke’s Bitch, which is non-fiction about female animals — are quite dense, so that’d break things up nicely.

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday

Review – It’s The End of the World

Posted September 16, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

It's the End of the World: But What Are We Really Afraid Of?

by Adam Roberts

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 202
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
A trailblazing and highly topical look at how - and why - we imagine the world is going to end.

Are we doomed? Is an almighty power or an earth-shattering meteor waiting for us just around the corner?

In this thought-provoking book, Professor Adam Roberts explores our many different cultural visions of the end of the world - likely and unlikely, mundane and bizarre - and what they say about how we see ourselves and our societies. What is it is that we are really afraid of? An uncaring universe; an uncontrollable environment; the human capacity for destruction; or just our own, personal apocalypse - our mortality?

From last man and dying earth fiction to zombies swarming on screen and the ruined landscapes of immersive gaming, via sweeping contagions, invading aliens, falling bombs and rising robots, buckle up for the end of the world.

I felt like Adam Roberts’ It’s The End of the World: But What Are We Really Afraid Of? was less insightful than I’d hoped. It uses a few examples per chapter to discuss various kinds of apocalypse stories and why we’re fascinated by them, but it mostly seemed pretty obvious — though this might in part be due to my background in literature, so it may be more exciting/surprising to someone who hasn’t really explored the idea before.

I think Roberts should proooobably stay in his lane, though, since he opines on epidemiology without apparently doing any research, suggesting that globalisation reduces the risks of disease spreading:

As the global population increases, and as globalisation mixes up populations, epidemics have less bite, thanks to a better understanding of how to prevent the spread of disease, and the twinned healthcare countermeasures of immunisation and the improved treatment of those who fall sick.

The global population increase contributes to people being packed in closer together in cities, which makes epidemics more risky. The mixing of populations increases the risk of transmission between groups that wouldn’t have formerly come into contact. The expansion and mobility of the population encroaches further and further on the remaining “wild” areas, which lead to people being more in contact with animals who may harbour zoonotic diseases. We don’t have vaccines for diseases we’ve never encountered before, and those definitely still exist. We don’t have good treatments for many of the diseases we already know about, let alone ones we’ve never encounted or have never encountered at scale.

He’s just wrong in basically every way to say this, and he should probably stick to literary criticism rather than casually spread misinformation. He also later says that:

No plague will kill 4,999 out of every 5,000 humans — as we’ve seen [from SARS-CoV-2], even if the numbers are high, in terms of percentage of population it’s likely to be very low.

I don’t want to get on my soapbox for too long about a short chapter in a short book about science fiction, but I feel like this kind of pronouncement is so naive and such a threat that it needs calling out every single time. SARS-CoV-2 didn’t prove that there will never be a more dangerous pandemic. That we’ve survived this one doesn’t mean we’ll survive the next.

So, overall a bit disappointing, this one. By the nature of the beast, he also missed out many really great examples, but I wouldn’t ding him for that; mostly I just feel that it didn’t go very deep into this stuff, and that he should stay in his lane.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

Tags: Adam Roberts, book reviews, books, non-fiction

Review – R.U.R.

Posted September 15, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

R.U.R.

by Karel Čapek

Genres: Classics, Plays, Science Fiction
Pages: 73
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
R.U.R. - written in 1920, premiered in Prague in 1921, and first performed in New York in 1922 - garnered worldwide acclaim for its author and popularized the word 'robot'. Mass-produced as efficient laborers to serve man, Capek's Robots are an android product-they remember everything but think of nothing new. But the Utopian life they provide ultimately lacks meaning, and the humans they serve stop reproducing. When the Robots revolt, killing all but one of their masters, they must strain to learn the secret of self-duplication. It is not until two Robots fall in love and are christened "Adam" and "Eve" by the last surviving human that Nature emerges triumphant.

It’s always difficult (for me, anyway!) to review a classic like Karel Čapek’s R.U.R., because I usually rate on enjoyment of the story or quality of the book, but classics tempt me to rate based on significance as well. When I first read R.U.R. — which I’d actually forgotten that I had even read it before — I clearly didn’t really like it or get it, which is interesting.

This time… well, it’s still incredibly weird that all the main characters are in love with Helena, but other stuff stuck with me more, like this quotation:

“And that‘s not what your R. U. R. shareholders dream of either. They dream of dividends, and their dividends are the ruin of mankind.”

Oof. Just, oof.

In a way, it’s very predictable to the reader now, but also… unfortunately recognisable. That wasn’t the only bit that made me wince with recognition, for sure.

It’s also, of course, important for being the first use of the word “robots”, and there’s a line running through from R.U.R. to The Murderbot Diaries, even if it’s a long lineage. I’m glad I reread it and gave it some time again.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, classics, Karel Čapek, plays, SF/F

Review – The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter (manga), vol 3

Posted September 14, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter (manga)

by Kazuki Irodori, Yatsuki Wakutsu

Genres: Fantasy, Manga, Romance
Pages: 178
Series: The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter (manga) #3
Rating: three-stars

Synopsis:
Just the other day, an office worker was dragged through a portal to a fantasy world in a different dimension. He requests only one thing — a job. So began Kondou’s career as an accountant for the Romany Kingdom. However, when Aresh finds said bean counter in dire straits, the dashing knight captain takes it upon himself to care for Kondou. Soon after, Kondou catches the attention of the prime minister, resulting in his promotion to a middle management position. With his new title, Kondou finds his workload increasing along with the dangers associated with him. As a consequence, Aresh faces an entirely new obstacle — how to protect his bean counter from not only himself but the outside world as well…

NB: this review is actually from before I read the light novels, since I try to space out my reviews and provide some diversity! So now I know how the plot all turns out… but I didn’t bother editing this review, and it remains my first impressions.

The third volume of The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter certainly goes places! I found it a bit less light-hearted than the other volumes, since Seiichirou is violently beaten and left for dead, and then dragged into very certain danger for political reasons.

Aresh’s devotion to him continues to be somewhat sweet, though still rather controlling. And yeah, it’s to save his life — and yeah, Seiichirou is annoyingly careless and in fact actively endangering himself to no real purpose — but there has to be a place where it stops, and I’m not certain I believe Aresh knows that (and sometimes he crosses the line). It’s really clear that they need to have a conversation about Aresh’s feelings, though Seiichirou is pretty unreadable on that front, only seeming to think about what he owes Aresh.

I find it disappointing that the Holy Maiden is kind of oblivious. I wonder if she’ll become more of an ally to Seiichirou now, or whether there’s something deliberate and malicious under the girlishness. Her interest in Aresh is pretty annoying, but I find it uncomfortable that I’m annoyed about it — it seems like she’s set up to be hated for being interested in one of the (gay) male leads, a pattern I always hated in fic as a teen and actively avoid now.

Overall, curious where the plot is going, and where Aresh and Seiichirou’s relationship will end up, but I definitely need them to communicate and examine their own feelings (preferably in the reverse of that order).

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, Kazuki Irodori, manga, romance, SF/F, Yatsuki Wakutsu

Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post

Posted September 13, 2025 by Nicky in General / 20 Comments

As a head’s up, I’m away over the weekend, down in Wales for the interment of my grandparents’ ashes, and there’s no broadband connection at the house now. I will visit back and reply to comments as usual, but maybe not until Wednesday or so (it depends how long my phone’s data lasts me, and how much time I spend online). That doesn’t mean I’m not enthusiastic to talk books and see what you’ve been reading as usual!

Books acquired this week

I wasn’t expecting to have anything, but then I finished the last volume of Solo Leveling that I owned, and remembered I had a gift voucher… and also, my British Library Crime Classic subscription book arrived. So I ended up having some nice book post after all!

I dived on Solo Leveling right away, while waiting for everyone to be ready for the drive down to Wales. The story comes to a climax, and I was sooo eager to see what happens, and the books were the perfect length to finish up before we left… though I admit I hadn’t expected to have time to finish both of them.

I also grabbed a book from the library to read on the drive, since I’ve been curious about it a while:

I’ve read this already as well!

Posts from this week

A quick roundup of the reviews posted this week:

Non-fiction: 100 Dresses, by The Costume Institute (3/5 stars, “liked it”)
Graphic novel: Fence: Rivals, by C.S. Pacat & Johanna the Mad (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Fantasy: Into the Riverlands, by Nghi Vo (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Fantasy romance: Gwen & Art Are Not In Love, by Lex Croucher (2/5 stars, “it was okay”)
Non-fiction: Rebel Bodies: A Guide to the Gender Health Gap Revolution, by Sarah Graham (4/5 stars, “really liked it”)
Non-fiction: The Postal Paths, by Alan Cleaver (3/5 stars, “liked it”)

What I’m reading

I’ve been reading a lot this week, so hold onto your hats — here’s the preview of the books I finished which I plan to review on the blog!

Over the weekend, it’s likely that I’ll read quite a lot because of the lack of broadband. I actually set up a mini-bingo card to keep me occupied, so I guess my next read (and very appropriate too) will be focusing on finishing Tir: The Story of the Welsh Landscape. After that, probably The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry… but we’ll see! As ever, I’ll follow my whims.

Linking up with Reading Reality’s Stacking the Shelves, Caffeinated Reviewer’s The Sunday Post, and the Sunday Salon over at Readerbuzz.

Tags: books, Stacking the Shelves, weekly roundup

Review – The Postal Paths

Posted September 12, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

The Postal Paths: Rediscovering Britain's Forgotten Routes - And the People Who Walked Them

by Alan Cleaver

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 284

Synopsis:
'Seeing the hills, the crofts, villages and ruins only tells half the story. The people who worked, walked, lived and died here are the other half.'

Postal paths span the length and breadth of Britain - from the furthermost corners of the Outer Hebrides to the isolated communities clinging to the cliffs of the Rame Peninsula in south-east Cornwall. For over 200 years, postmen and women have delivered post to homes across Britain on foot, no matter how remote.

A chance remark by a farmer about a Postman's Path led Alan Cleaver on a quest to discover more about this network of lanes, short-cuts and footpaths in the British landscape. From the rolling fells of Cumbria to Kent's shingle coast, he walked in the footsteps of 20th Century posties. And what he found, through conversation and painstaking research, was not just beautiful scenery. It was an incredible, forgotten slice of social history - the tales and toil of rural postmen and women trudging down lanes, over fields, and even across rivers to make sure the post always came on time.

From women like Hannah Knowles, who began her job delivering letters in 1912 and would only miss three days through illness over the next 62 years of service, to a WW1 veteran who completed his 9-mile delivery route on one leg, Postal Paths paints a vivid picture of people who not only served communities but brought them together, one letter at a time.

Alan Cleaver’s The Postal Paths is a bit of a walking memoir, a bit of a history of the work of rural postal workers in the years before bikes and vans, when it was a long, long walking round and the postie often sold stamps along the way, popped in for a chat with farmers at isolated farmhouses, etc.

Cleaver is at pains to demonstrate the love their communities had for them, and often the love they had for the work, though this inevitably paints a rather rosy picture. He does discuss a couple of postal workers who advocated for better treatment, but even so, they were still dedicated postal workers — almost as though it was more a calling than a job. No doubt for some it was, and for some it wasn’t; the sources here are pretty biased, I’d say.

He discusses some of the routes, which are hopefully easier to follow by looking them up online; in this book there are no maps or simple directions, but rather long discussions of his thoughts and feelings while walking a particular route. At times he’s a bit sanctimonious about walking and handwritten letters, which grates as a reader who likes both but understands that there’s a lot of privilege in having the time, energy, physical fitness and money.

Still, the pleasure he takes in the research and the walking is clear, and those who enjoy walking memoir type stuff might enjoy it even without an interest in postal history. I’m not as sure the same is true the other way round; it felt like it leaned heavily toward the descriptions of walking the paths, at least in some chapters.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

Tags: Alan Cleaver, book reviews, books, history, non-fiction

Review – Rebel Bodies

Posted September 11, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Rebel Bodies: A Guide to the Gender Health Gap Revolution

by Sarah Graham

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 288
Rating: four-stars

Synopsis:
An inclusive and empowering manifesto for change in women's healthcare - exploring the systemic and deep rooted sexism within medicine, and offering actionable ways for women to advocate for ourselves and others and get the diagnosis and treatment we need.

Have you ever been to a doctor and felt like you were being fobbed off or ignored? Did they belittle or overlook your concerns about your health? Ever been told you're just 'hormonal'? You're not alone.

Women make up 51 per cent of the population and are the biggest users of healthcare services - for themselves and as mothers and carers. But all the research shows there are massive gender differences in men and women's healthcare. Our pain and suffering has been disbelieved; we are misdiagnosed and not trusted to make informed choices about our own bodies.

As women speak out about their experiences of gaslighting and misdiagnosis, health journalist Sarah Graham investigates what it will take to bridge the gender health gap. Meet the patients, doctors and campaigners who are standing up and fighting back, and find practical tips on advocating for your own health. Be inspired by stories that will incite and offer hope.

You're not alone, you're not going mad, and we believe you.

Sarah Graham’s Rebel Bodies is an inclusive discussion of the problems with gendered healthcare in the UK — not just the issues women face in receiving appropriate care, but also the issues for trans, non-binary and intersex people. In several instances she focuses on the specific issues for black women and people who don’t speak much English, as well, and includes the perspectives of a whole range of people.

It’s a really validating read if you’ve suffered similar — for example, like myself being treated with antidepressants for gallstones, and not being trusted to even manage my own asthma care (unlike most patients, my own experience of my asthma is routinely ignored, I am not permitted to have a peak flow meter to monitor how well my treatment is working, and I am not trusted to comply with my own medication) — and offers some resources and advice. If you’ve had cause to navigate the system already, there’s probably not a lot new here, but it’s still interesting and useful to be validated.

(It was a little less validating to read someone comparing endometriosis to asthma, suggesting that their asthma gets treated properly because it’s non-gendered, because that isn’t my experience. I recognise that they weren’t saying “female-bodied people never have trouble getting proper treatment for asthma”, but the comparison was still a little bitter.)

I’d say this is a good resource for people in the UK, but a lot of the discussion is very specific to the UK. There are absolutely parallels in other countries, and some of the ideas about self-advocacy are useful, but a lot of the problems discussed are reinforced (and sometimes created) by our health system, and as such isn’t applicable. I’d say it has much lower utility for people in other countries, which is worth bearing in mind.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction, Sarah Graham

Review – Gwen and Art Are Not In Love

Posted September 10, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Gwen and Art Are Not In Love

by Lex Croucher

Genres: Arthuriana, Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 419
Rating: two-stars

Synopsis:
Gwen, the quick-witted Princess of England, and Arthur, future duke and general gadabout, have been betrothed since birth. Unfortunately, the only thing they can agree on is that they hate each other.

When Gwen catches Art kissing a boy and Art discovers where Gwen hides her diary (complete with racy entries about Bridget Leclair, the kingdom's only female knight), they become reluctant allies. By pretending to fall for each other, their mutual protection will be assured.

But how long can they keep up the ruse? With Gwen growing closer to Bridget, and Art becoming unaccountably fond of Gabriel, Gwen's infuriatingly serious, bookish brother, the path to true love is looking far from straight...

I found Lex Croucher’s Gwen & Art Are Not In Love a bit… frustrating. The Arthurian references are a bit all over the place, and how it fits into a post-Arthurian world is very non-obvious (any explanation of the Catholics vs cultists thing takes forever, and also makes no real sense with most versions of the Arthurian legends). Gwen and Arthur are not that Gwen and Arthur, they’ve just been saddled with being named after them and engaged from a very young age to get married. Why you’d do that and not think about the mixed messages of naming a child very obviously after a very famously unfaithful wife, I don’t know.

There are aspects of the story I enjoyed, with Gwen and Arthur’s slowly evolving dynamic (and also Arthur’s friendship with Sidney), but I felt the actual romances were a little undercooked (particularly Arthur’s) compared to that friendship, and actual communication would really have benefitted everyone a very great deal, which… is always a frustrating read for me, personally.

It’s not that I’m a purist about Arthuriana, or at least I try not to be, but I like to understand what an author is doing, and, well, this really wasn’t clear. It sort of relied on “ambient knowledge that King Arthur is a thing, but I hope you don’t care about details”, and well, I do.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

Tags: Arthurian, book reviews, books, romance, SF/F

WWW Wednesday

Posted September 10, 2025 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

What have you recently finished reading?

The last thing I finished was John S. Tregoning’s Infectious: Pathogens and How We Fight Them. I didn’t really enjoy it; part of it is the fact that since I bought it, I’ve studied immunology (as part of my MSc), so the first part of the book was boring, leaving plenty of time for me to get annoyed by Tregoning’s sense of humour. The tone really, really grated; Tregoning thinks he’s hilarious, and it’s just cringe.

It might be better for a layperson, though of course, the humour wouldn’t improve.

What are you currently reading?

As ever, a few books at once, some of which I’m giving more attention than others. I’m most into Nine Times Nine by Anthony Boucher, at the moment, in the sense that I’m hoping to finish that today. The timing for reading it is maybe a bit stupid, because I read Boucher’s Rocket to the Morgue as we drove down to attend my grandmother’s funeral, and I’ve (totally without planning it) ended up reading this as I’m about to head to Wales again for the interment of my grandparents’ ashes. I can’t imagine I’m going to ever feel like reading Boucher’s work again at this rate, because there’s something about his style in this book that takes me very vividly back to reading Rocket to the Morgue. Oops.

That said, not a huge loss; I find it pleasant enough, but not something I’m wildly excited about.

I’m also reading Queer as Folklore, by Sacha Coward, which I’m finding interesting enough so far. Also The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry (David Musgrove & Michael John Lewis), which I’m enjoying, and Reignclowd Palace (Philippa Rice), which I need to give some more attention.

What will you be reading next?

I don’t know. I’d like to say I’ll read KJ Charles’ The Duke at Hazard, because a) I can’t believe I haven’t read it yet, and b) it’s the very centre of this month’s Litsy bingo card, but I don’t know. I’ve been weirdly resistant to starting it, even though I’m pretty sure I’ll enjoy it. I might just start something I have few expectations of, like Sidney J. Shields’ The Honey Witch — or focus on the other books I’m technically currently reading that have slipped onto the back-burner.

Tags: books, WWW Wednesday