Weekly Reading Round-Up
Happy Friday, all!
With December upon us, it felt like time to break out the feel good holiday reads. I always find British chick lit/women’s fiction particularly soothing right around the holiday season. I wasn’t quite ready for my usual Trisha Ashley readathon, so I started with two new to me books by Beth Moran: Christmas Every Day, in which a woman whose life has fallen apart takes refuge in her grandmother’s abandoned and largely uninhabitable cottage near Sherwood Forest and quickly finds herself part of the life of the village, including the local book club, and Let It Snow, in which a local tv weather presenter finds herself on a crazy road trip to a new job interview with the man her parents always wanted her to wind up with– and just maybe they were right.
Which other British chick lit/ women’s fiction authors should I be reading? All suggestions welcome!
Meanwhile, with more plague in my household (thanks, kids), I’ve gone back to my usual sort of comfort read: very old mysteries. I’m currently in the midst of a Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Wall, which feels very much like many other Mary Roberts Rineharts I have read: the heroine is the scion of an old family that is no longer what it was but can still just afford to keep up two homes and four servants (hard times!). Suspicion is unleashed upon them when her brother’s divorced wife appears with demands for money only to be… murdered. I will admit, I’m genuinely not sure who dunnit yet, although I have some ideas.
What have you been reading this week?
p.s. in other news, if you wanted to order a personalized copy of Band of Sisters as a holiday gift, now’s the time to do it! I’ll be popping into Shakespeare & Co Lexington Avenue next week, so if you give them a call (212-772-3400) or leave instructions in the Comments box in their order form, I can make it out to the person of your choosing, and they can get it to you in time for festive joy.
I like Sophie Cousens and Jenny Bayliss too 🙂
I read Emily Henry’s “The People You Meet on Vacation” which was a little fluffier than I usually like. Also I don’t love it when there’s too much contemporary stuff like names of apps and current celebrities. If I pick up the book in 10 years, I don’t want to feel like it’s super dated. Yes, I’m picky. But anyway. I LOVED it. It was cute and happy and light enough. If it was a movie on Netflix, I’d happily watch it on a Friday night.
I finally read The Diamond Eye! I’d been saving it for November and I almost forgot to read it! Then I read Rules at the School by the Sea by Jenny Colgan, and then I started All the Queen’s Men by SJ Bennett. For Christmas books, I’ve been reading a lot of Jenny Colgan’s books: Christmas at the Island Hotel, Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery, and Christmas at Rosie Hopkins Sweetshop. I usually read some Trisha Ashley this time of year, too, but I wasn’t quite ready, either. If I were to recommend one to you, it would be Jenny Colgan’s The Christmas Bookshop. It’s really, really good! I’d also recommend Snowflakes at Mistletoe Cottage by Katie Ginger.
A Princess for Christmas by Jenny Holiday was also great (though not British).
Happy reading! I’m going to go check out Beth Moran. I don’t think I’ve read any of her books!
My book club is reading the first in the Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth, which is wonderfully space Gothic. And then I feel down the rabbit hole and continued with the next book in the series and am about to start the next… After that 100% my holiday reading will start with some good classic holiday murders!
Oooh, which holiday murders? Taking notes!
The best Christmas books I’ve read this year and last are:
The Santa Suit by Mary Kay Andrews.
The Holiday Swap by Maggie Knox
Carols and Chaos by Cindy Anstey
The Twelve Dogs of Christmas by Lizzie Shane
Lady Osbaldestone’s Christmas Chronicles (there are several books) by Stephanie Laurens.
I have just read the pink carnation series again for the second time and really loved it.thank you Lauren willig for writing the series.
Thank you so much, Irene!! That makes me so happy.