Category: Reviews

Review – Cruel Winter With You

Posted December 17, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Cruel Winter With You

Cruel Winter With You

by Ali Hazelwood

Genres: Romance
Pages: 73
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

All newly minted pediatrician Jamie Malek wants is to borrow a roasting pan for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, that requires her to interact with Marc—her best friend’s troublemaking brother, who’s now a tech billionaire. He’s the one who got away. She’s the one who broke his heart. Outside, a howling blizzard. Inside, a crackling fire. Suddenly, being snowbound with the man she never expected to see again might not be such a bad way to spend a winter’s night.

Ali Hazelwood’s Cruel Winter With You is a short seasonal romance, set around Christmas. Marc and Jamie have known each other since they were kids, and Marc’s had a crush on Jamie for about that long — even if he hasn’t always been a perfect angel to her, teasing her throughout their teenage years.

If you examine the scenario, this does come across as quite creepy: he dedicates basically his whole life to becoming rich so he can take care of her and give her anything she wants, he collects photos of her, and sets a photo of her as his lockscreen. He is obsessed. It’s otherwise thin on characterisation as well, which doesn’t help, since most of the page count builds up events where they were both present, rather than developing each as a character.

That said, Jamie doesn’t seem to mind what he’s done, so if you take it at face value it’s pretty cute, and you can really feel the tension and longing. The misunderstanding seems a touch contrived (voice mails aren’t that unobtrusive, in fact phones usually nag you to listen to them quite a bit, in my experience), but you can kind of believe it.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – The Secret Adversary

Posted December 16, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – The Secret Adversary

The Secret Adversary

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 268
Series: Tommy & Tuppence #1
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Set in 1919, young couple Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley form a partnership, hiring themselves out as "young adventurers." Their first case, however, is more of an adventure than they expect -- working to find documents that, if they were known to the general public, would fuel a communist revolution in Britain.

Agatha Christie’s The Secret Adversary has aged fairly badly in a number of ways, with her right-wing politics on display and various classic stereotypes. It’s the first Tommy and Tuppence book, and it was interesting to read it in light of the biography of her I read recently: written during her first marriage, Tommy and Tuppence have elements of Agatha and Archie.

The more of Christie’s work I read, though, the less I seem to like it… The plotting just isn’t as good as people would lead you to believe. Could I do better? Probably not, but I can point to a number of writers who could. It’s entertaining, and I can understand people who get attached to her characters, but it leaves me cold. Once she’s tricked you once, it’s easy to see through her other misdirections; even if you don’t quite know where things are going to land, you can at least say “nah, that’s just a red herring”.

So overall, it was alright, but I think I’ll wrap up my reading of Christie’s work once I get to the end of the ones available in Serial Reader, at least for now.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Dead of Winter

Posted December 15, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – The Dead of Winter

The Dead of Winter: The Demons, Witches and Ghosts of Christmas

by Sarah Clegg

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 208
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

As winter comes and the hours of darkness overtake the light, we seek out warmth, good food, and good company. But beneath the jollity and bright enchantment of the festive season, there lurks a darker mood - one that has found expression over the centuries in a host of strange and unsettling traditions and lore.

Here, Sarah Clegg takes us on a journey through midwinter to explore the lesser-known Christmas traditions, from English mummers plays and Austrian Krampus runs, to modern pagan rituals at Stonehenge and the night in Finland when a young girl is crowned with candles as St Lucy - a martyred Christian girl who also appears as a witch leading a procession of the dead. At wassails and hoodenings and winter gatherings, attended by ghastly, grinning horses, snatching monsters and mysterious visitors, we discover how these traditions originated and how they changed through the centuries, and we ask ourselves: if we can't keep the darkness entirely at bay, might it be fun to let a little in?

If you’re more into Halloween than Christmas, Sarah Clegg’s The Dead of Winter might bring you some joy. It’s all about the ghosts, witches and monsters of Christmas: we’re not talking Dickens here, but the Mari Lwyd, Krampus, Perchta, the Wild Hunt, and seeing premonitions of your own death.

It’s a relatively short book, but seems pretty well researched, and there are sources listed after each chapter. (Unlike, say, Judith Flanders’ book on Christmas traditions, it at least spells “Mari Lwyd” correctly, and doesn’t pretend it’s exactly the same tradition as  the Klapperbock and similar.) Clegg discusses various customs and how they’re related, and also joyously participates in some of them herself. It’s fascinating how creepy she found some of them (and how well she described that sensation of fun-with-an-edge-of-unease) — definitely wouldn’t catch me doing some of these things!

The book could’ve done with some editing, however, at least in the ebook version: there were at least two sentences that had either no beginning or no ending. The format on Kindle is also kind of annoying, because you have to tap the footnote symbol to go to the footnotes page for that chapter, where all the footnotes are denoted by symbols. I’m not very visual, and it was maddening to try to tell myself what symbol I was looking for to read the corresponding footnote, only to be stymied by the fact that they’re not that visually distinct.

Still, the content was interesting!

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Bookshop, The Draper, The Candlestick Maker

Posted December 13, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Bookshop, The Draper, The Candlestick Maker

The Bookshop, the Draper, The Candlestick: A History of the High Street

by Annie Gray

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 416
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

What makes a high street? It's certainly not just about the shopping; these thoroughfares are often the beating heart of our towns and cities and, by extension, of the people who use them. As spaces where local life and culture unfolds, our high streets can be playgrounds of personal indulgence and community spirit, or sites of contentious debate and politicking.

Historian Annie Gray takes us down the street and through the ages, from medieval marketplaces to the purpose-built concrete precincts of the twentieth century. Peeping through the windows of tailors, tearooms and grocers, we explore everything from the toyshops of yesteryear - where curiosities were sold for adults, not children - to the birth of brands we shop at today.

Vibrant and enticing, The Bookshop, The Draper, The Candlestick Maker is an essential reflection on how we shopped and lived in days gone by - and what the future may bring.

It’s pretty well-established by this point that I love a book that does a deep-dive on a highly specific subject, so obviously I was very tempted by Annie Gray’s The Bookshop, The Draper, The Candlestick Maker, a history of the high street. It starts with a chapter about shopping prior to the 1650s, and then discusses some broad eras from there, with the conceit that we’re going shopping with a certain level of means and a certain shopping list.

I wasn’t always in love with that conceit, I must admit; I wanted less about how “probably you’re quite tired by now and could do with a pick-me-up”, and more just facts. I get other people find that dry and boring, but I find the imaginative flourishes often just act like padding, and obscure the information that you’re reading for. I wonder if another format might’ve worked better, like chapters themed around types of shops (drapers, for instance) or a type of shopping (confectionary, menswear, etc) in order to really highlight how that changes over time.

Regardless, I did find this really fascinating, and it was interesting to reflect on my own experiences of high streets. Cardiff’s is definitely still alive, for instance, and apparently got the top spot in a consumer survey very recently. But where I grew up in Wakefield feels a bit more lacklustre, in part because of the semi-recent Trinity Shopping Centre built a few streets away, obviously designed to draw the life of the town there.

Annie Gray has a surprising optimism about the future of the high street. Certainly I’ve found myself both using my local high street more, coincidentally about the time I started reading this (grabbing stuff from Boots and Superdrug rather than online, for instance, and heading to a local bike shop instead of Halfords when I needed bike accessories), and being frustrated by the shops that have closed and gone away (I’d have patronised an M&S in person if they hadn’t moved to a spot outside of town). As someone returning to cycling, the local high street (such as it is) is somehow a lot more tempting now, especially with the library now sited much closer to it.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 3

Posted December 12, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 3

A Side Character's Love Story

by Akane Tamura

Genres: Manga, Romance
Pages: 158
Series: A Side Character's Love Story #3
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

It's summer, and through sheer determination, Nobuko's achieved a small miracle: she can finally have a normal conversation with her crush. She hopes things can continue on like this forever, but her junior coworker Abe-san imparts a warning about trying to "keep things the same" when it comes to love. Could this fellow side character's love story be a glimpse into Nobuko's future?

In volume three of Akane Tamura’s A Side Character’s Love Story, the slow burn continues, but both Hiroki and Nobuko are starting to admit their feelings and take a few brave steps closer together. There’s some really cute moments between them, and like in book two, we get some glimpses into what Hiroki is thinking as well. Abe and Kaneko also give them some very good advice and a little push — I love that their relationships with the people around them, like their coworkers, get as much “screen time” as their relationship with one another.

They both remain really shy, and unsure of what they’d even like to do together, but they end up going for a trip to the zoo and having a good time.

The special chapter at the end kind of spoils the flow into the next volume, but it’s also cute.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Wood at Midwinter

Posted December 10, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Wood at Midwinter

The Wood at Midwinter

by Susanna Clarke

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 64
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

‘A church is a sort of wood. A wood is a sort of church. They’re the same thing really.’

Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scot is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees—and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods.

One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst—and the path of her life is changed forever.

Featuring gorgeous illustrations truly worthy of the magic of this story and an afterword by Susanna Clarke explaining how she came to write it, this is a mesmerizing, must-have addition to any fantasy reader's bookshelf.

In the afterword to The Wood at Midwinter, Susanna Clarke mentions that she sees this as part of the world of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and I agree that it probably would have made a fun footnote there. And as a physical volume it’s quite attractive, with a pretty cover, lovely illustrations, etc.

However, there’s basically nothing here but heavily Christian vibes and some pretty descriptions of the wood in winter. The main character, Merowdis, is a saint (because we’re told that everybody says so), and in this story she gets granted a vision of her future, which is to raise a bear-cub as her own. She’s positioned as a sort of Virgin Mary type figure, but to redeem the relationship between humans and animals, and… mostly it just comes across as very churchy, and mostly just vibes.

It’s still an attractive little volume, but I wasn’t in love with the story (inasfar as there was any). I found the afterword, in which she discusses her writing process and some of her influences, almost more interesting than the story!

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Murder in the Bookshop

Posted December 9, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Murder in the Bookshop

Murder in the Bookshop

by Carolyn Wells

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 256
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

A classic locked room murder mystery which will have a special resonance for lovers and collectors of Golden Age detective fiction. Includes a bonus murder story: 'The Shakespeare Title-Page Mystery'.

A successful poet and children's author, Carolyn Wells discovered mystery fiction in her forties and went on to become one of America's most popular Golden Age writers. Penning 82 detective novels between 1909 and her death in 1942, she was mourned in 1968 by the great John Dickson Carr as one of mystery fiction's 'lost ladies now well lost', and remains undeservedly neglected 50 years later. Murder in the Bookshop is a story laced with criminality, locked rooms and bookish intricacies that any bibliophile will find irresistible.

This Detective Club hardback is introduced by award-winning writer and authority on Golden Age detective fiction, Curtis Evans, and includes 'The Shakespeare Title-Page Mystery', a murderous tale of literary shenanigans that was one of the last pieces of detective fiction which Carolyn Wells ever published.

I picked up Carolyn Wells’ Murder in the Bookshop because 1) bookshop, 2) classic mystery, and 3) female author name from whom I hadn’t read anything yet. It’s American rather than British, which is part of why I hadn’t come across the author before. This volume also contained a short story, “The Shakespeare Title-Page Mystery”.

As far as the setup goes it’s fairly typical, with various hallmarks of the genre: a controlling husband, a younger wife who has developed a relationship with someone who works for her husband, the murder of said husband, a private detective, and of course, suspicion of the wife and the employee. In addition we have the stolen book, and various legit-sounding details around rare books and the rare book trade.

It falls down on inconsistency, though. One moment Fleming Stone says it’d be dangerous for the young wife and her lover to seem close, and the next (without any debate or comment) he’s talking to the police about it quite casually. “I’m not going to show this to her,” he says, only a couple of pages before he promptly does so. It just feels like a bunch of steps are being missed out — things there might be reasons for, but which you need to hear the reasons for before they make sense.

In addition, the ending is very, very rushed, and suddenly you no longer see any of the moving parts. It’s also one of those mysteries that keeps key info from the reader, which is a pet peeve for some.

It’s a shame, really, but I don’t think I’d read anything by this author again — it was too unsatisfying.

Rating: 1/5

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Review – All the Violet Tiaras

Posted December 8, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – All the Violet Tiaras

All The Violet Tiaras: Queering the Greek Myths

by Jean Menzies

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 88
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

For a period in time that gave us Sappho, and the love affair of Achilles and Patroclus, the Ancient Greek relationship with queer folk is a lot more complicated than at first glance. Myths were altered and adapted throughout antiquity to reflect the values and issues of the day. All the Violet Tiaras navigates queer reimaginings, explorations of gender, and more.

Jean Menzies’ All The Violet Tiaras is quite short, more a long essay than a book really, which means it doesn’t waste much time, plunging straight in to discussing the modern takes on Greek myths, and the way that queer people in particular have adopted and adapted them, seeing ourselves in them, etc.

Menzies discusses some books/stories I was aware of, and some I wasn’t, which means I now have a little wishlist of books/stories I want to look into (oh no). I think she handles well the line between what we think of as queerness now and how identities worked in Ancient Greece, without trying to project that kind of thing backwards.

It’s a minor point, but it is a bit weird to have a book that so relies on Twitter/X as being an institution that eveeeeryone uses that @usernames are included just like that (not “@username on X”, just “@username”). It feels especially weird for a book published in 2024, as X crumbles and every week there’s a new spurt of users heading off to Mastodon, Bluesky, and other alternatives. This might look very strange in a couple more years. It already feels weird to me; not having used it for two years makes me very conscious how inessential it actually is. The book could also use a solid proofread.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 2

Posted December 6, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – A Side Character’s Love Story, vol 2

A Side Character's Love Story

by Akane Tamura

Genres: Manga, Romance
Pages: 158
Series: A Side Character's Love Story #2
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

This side character's love story is rapidly unfolding... Emotions are running higher in volume 2, as we finally see things from the perspective of Irie-kun, who's fallen for Nobuko. Little by little they grow closer, and each gesture is leading up to something special. Everyone's cheering this couple on in the eagerly-awaited second installment!

Volume two of Akane Tamura’s A Side Character’s Love Story continues to be very cute but a slow burn, following the main character (the “side character” of the title!) as she navigates her growing feelings for a co-worker, and hesitant steps toward a relationship. Her anxieties and hesitancies about speaking up are maybe a little too real, as in the first book.

What’s nice in volume two is that we do get more of a view of what Hiroki’s thinking and feeling, where the first volume just followed Nobuko. Like her, he’s never really been interested in someone before, and he clearly overthinks things somewhat as well, but he’s a bit steadier.

There are some really sweet moments during their not-quite-date, particularly Hiroki noticing that her shoes hurt and giving her a blister plaster — he comes across as so sweet and earnest.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Wormwood Abbey

Posted December 5, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – Wormwood Abbey

Wormwood Abbey

by Christina Baehr

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction
Pages: 200
Series: The Secrets of Ormdale #1
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

As a Victorian clergyman's daughter, Edith Worms has seen everything -- until a mythical salamander tumbles out of the fireplace into her lap. When a letter arrives from estranged relatives, Edith is swept away to a crumbling gothic Abbey in the wilds of Yorkshire. Wormwood Abbey isn't just full of curious beasts and ancient family secrets: there's also a tall, dark, and entirely too handsome neighbour who is strangely reluctant for her to leave. An unexpected bond with her prickly cousin Gwendolyn gives Edith a reason to stay in this strange world -- especially when it turns out that Edith herself may have a role in guarding her family's legacy. But not all of the mysteries of Ormdale are small enough to fit in her lap...and some of them have teeth.

Christina Baehr’s Wormwood Abbey is a short historical fantasy that kicks off a series of five books (with the final book releasing in November, so it’s out now as this review goes up on my blog). It’s a pretty quick read, following Edith as she and her immediate family (her father, step-mother and half brother) arrive at the titular Wormwood Abbey to sort out the family affairs, now that all the male heirs except her father (originally disowned) are gone. There she meets her cousins Gwendolyn, Violet and Una, and… honestly doesn’t make much headway with them at first.

Oh, and there are dragons. Okay, that isn’t immediately obvious, but the cover makes it pretty clear, if you weren’t tipped off right away by names like “Wormwood” and “Ormdale”. Edith takes a while to get with the programme, even when she’s raising a baby salamander.

It’s a little slow to start, I think, but as things progress there’s a bit of adventure and tension (and some indication that there’s more to come) and perhaps a hint of romance, though Edith’s not really interested at this stage. I’m not sure how I feel about the romance yet; it feels a bit inevitable narrative-wise, but the characters don’t seem to have a lot of interest in one another.

As for Edith herself, she doesn’t quite match up to Isabella Trent (of Marie Brennan’s series), but she’s fairly practical, curious about things, and has a certain amount of courage. She’s also a writer of detective novels, which made me smile. I’m hoping her character will develop further.

Overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit, and decided to pick up the next two books in the series to follow it at least a little further — I’m definitely curious about the revelation near the end of Edith’s abilities, and where the whole thing is going other than “the Worms family protect dragons and try to prevent them impacting on local people”. I imagine the world is going to intrude rather more, as you’d expect in that era when linkages between places became more common and travel more likely.

It is worth noting that Edith’s father is a clergyman, and there’s a good amount of discussion of Christianity. I hadn’t thought about that very much myself, given the time period it’s set in, but I noticed another review that was pretty uncomfortable about it, and it’s true that there’s a fair amount of it, along with some period-typical antisemitism as well that comes up due to Edith’s birth mother being Jewish. So that’s useful to know.

Rating: 3/5

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