Stacking The Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Marlene of Reading Reality. It is all about sharing the books that you have recently added to your bookshelves. These books can be physical books, ebooks and of course audiobooks.
Hello!
This week has involved a lot of book shopping and a preordered book arriving. I can’t wait to get stuck into reading them all. I went to my favourite bookshops in Bath this week and had one delivery from Waterstones.
Persephone Books
I’m not going to do pictures of these books because they all have the same cover and are never very clear in the pictures. My dream is to own the complete set of Persephone Books and one day read them all.
Mariana by Monica Dickens
Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple
Fidelity by Susan Glaspell
Mr B’s Emporium
I’ve seen some interesting reviews of the Great Eastern Hotel by Ruchir Joshi so I thought I would purchase it and give it a read. The book is huge so it will take me a while.
Unfortunately She Was A Nymphomaniac by Joan Smith looks like a very different history of Rome’s Imperial women.
Toppings and Company Booksellers of Bath
I always try and add another Alison Weir book to my collection and I am thoroughly looking forward to reading Elizabeth The Queen because Elizabeth is my favourite monarch.
Phoenicia Rogerson is a new author for me but I am looking forward to reading her version of Aphrodite.
She Played and Sang by Gillian Dooley looks like a fascinating read about Jane Austen. As a musician myself I am looking forward to reading about Austen’s love of music.
Waterstones
This was my preordered book. R. F. Kuang is a bit of an auto buy author for me so I am very excited to read her new book.
The young Gascon d’Artagnan and the legendary musketeers Athos, Porthos and Aramis are ready to sacrifice everything for love, glory and the common good. The wicked machinations of Cardinal Richelieu and his accomplice, the magnetic Milady de Winter, propel the devoted friends across seas and battlefields from masked balls to a remote convent, in order to defend the honour of the Queen and the life of Constance Bonacieux, d’Artagnan’s true love.
Review
I absolutely love this book and have read it many many times. My original copy completely fell apart and I lost some of the pages so this read through was a different book and a different translation which threw me to start with but I soon got back into one of my favourite stories.
The main thing I absolutely love with this book is the amazing characters. Aramis is so unbelievably vain but always wants to appear holy and devout. Porthos is all about image, he must have the best of everything and he always makes me laugh with his antics. d’Artagnan is adorably frustrating, sometimes I want to smack him and tell him to be quiet and other times I wanted to hug him. Athos was a troubled man but the perfect guiding hand that d’Artagnan needed and the calming influence that Porthos and Aramis needed. Athos is my favourite character because of his calmness but also because of his eccentric behaviour. The scene where he locks himself in the inn keeper’s cellar for weeks and drinks all the wine and eats all the food is hilarious.
The other character that was impressive was Milady. Milady is a complete psycho! She has a poison ring, she seduces men who are meant to be impossible to seduce, she happily stabs herself to appear suicidal and she is always trying to kill the musketeers. I even think Cardinal Richelieu was frightened of her at times.
The story of The Three Musketeers is well known as it has been the focus of many films but these films will never be a patch on such a wonderful book. The storylines that are based on historical events and characters work brilliantly. The book is packed full of action, romance and humour. I give this book a massive 5 out of 5 Dragons and will be reading the next book in the series very soon.
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About the author
Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) was a French novelist and playwright. His works have been translated into many languages and he is one of the most widely read French authors.
When vandals destroy beach hut 512 on Brighton’s iconic seafront, they reveal a dead body that has apparently lain undisturbed for two months. But according to the hut’s owner, Sims, its locks rusted shut three months ago and she hasn’t had access to it since. So how could the man have got in, and why is there no evidence of the murderer?
Sims has spent the past three years recovering from the trauma of being targeted by a serial killer and narrowly escaping with her life. But this grim discovery feels like too much of a could the person who put the body in her hut be the same man who wants her dead? In a desperate race against time, can she uncover the truth behind beach hut 512 before a murderer with a chilling obsession strikes again?
Review
I got this short story on the Amazon Prime First Reads scheme and I’m really pleased I did as it was a good introduction to a new author for me.
I always struggle with short stories as I get frustrated when a story feels rushed and some authors are just not great short story writers but this was not the case with Koomson’s short story. This short story was brilliantly written and didn’t feel rushed or like details were missing. The story was well rounded and lacked for nothing.
The story goes between current events and past events. The past shows Sims as a Chemistry professor who was targeted by a serial killer but she survived. Sadly the serial killer escaped and is still on the run. The current events show Sims discovering her beach hut vandalised but what she didn’t expect was a dead body to be in her beach hut. She has no idea how the body got there as the locks on the hut have been rusted shut for 3 months and apparently the body has been in the hut for 2 months. Sims must work out what is going on.
At the beginning I did find Sims a little odd but once I realised her past trauma I understood her more and understood her actions. She really was a fascinating character. I also really liked the idea of a locked room (beach hut) mystery and it really reminded me of a Jonathan Creek episode.
I really enjoyed this short story and give it 4 out of 5 Dragons.
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About the author
Dorothy Koomson (born 1971 in London) is a contemporary British novelist of Ghanaian descent. She has been described as “Britain’s biggest selling black author of adult fiction”.
I hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. I’m still not doing very well with my blog but I am hoping to get back into routine soon and back to reviewing more regularly.
Stacking The Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Marlene of Reading Reality. It is all about sharing the books that you have recently added to your bookshelves. These books can be physical books, ebooks and of course audiobooks.
Happy Weekend Everyone!
This week I went to visit Ironbridge so that obviously meant a visit to Ironbridge Bookshop. The bookshop has recently extended and I was very excited to see how they had changed the shop. I absolutely loved the new layout and loved the extra space in the shop. I obviously bought myself a few books whilst there.
New Books
A Brief Guide to the Greek Myths by Stephen Kershaw
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
I’m very excited to read these books. I have only read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald so I’m looking forward to reading more of his work.
The year is 2322. Humanity has expanded into the stars, inhabiting over 100 worlds across a third of the galaxy. Though thriving as never before, they have discovered neither alien life nor the key to utopia. Earth struggles to retain authority over far-flung planets and free-wheeling corporations while an uneasy armistice with a breakaway federation hangs by a thread as the former rebels rise in wealth and power.
Alexis Solovy is Earth Alliance royalty, her father a fallen war hero and her mother an influential military leader. But she seeks only the freedom of space and has made a fortune by reading the patterns in the chaos to discover the hidden wonders of the stars.
Nothing about her latest objective suggests the secret it conceals will turn her life– not to mention the entire galaxy–upside down. But a chance encounter with a mysterious spy leads to a discovery which will thrust Alex into the middle of a galactic power struggle and a sinister conspiracy, whether she likes it or not.
Review
I am ashamed to say that I bought this book when I first bought my Kindle in 2018 and it has sat on there ever since. However, this year I rediscovered it and decided I would read it. I am now very annoyed that I hadn’t read this book earlier and got stuck into the series.
The story follows two main characters; Alexis Solovy who comes from the Earth Alliance and owns and captains her own starship and Caleb Marano who is from the Senecan Federation and is a special intelligence agent. However, the story also flashes to other characters in other parts of the galaxy to reveal more of how events unfold. As the story unfolds we begin to see how all these characters are subtly connected.
The story involves key people in military, politics, and the criminal underworld who are all pulling strings to manipulate the Earth Alliance and Senecan Federation into a war. While all this is happening Alexis and Caleb get thrown together in an unexpected turn of events which leads them to exploring a previously uninhabited region of the galaxy.
I loved the world building in this book and the detail it went into. Sometimes in science fiction books the author glosses over the more science based things but Jennsen goes into the detail and I found that really interesting. Some people might feel the beginning of the book is a little slow but I was glad of the details and background it gave as it helped me then enjoy the action more. The book is full of all these fab achievements and advancements of humanity but humanity is still plagued by people wanting more money and power.
Alexis and Caleb were both fascinating characters although Alexis did get on my nerves slightly at times. They both have their own issues but as the book goes on we learn more about their histories and how it has shaped their characters. I can’t wait to see how their characters develop in the next book.
I absolutely loved this book and bought the next one in the series straight away. This is definitely one of my top books of 2025 so far and I highly recommend it to all sci-fi fans. I give this book 5 out of 5 Dragons.
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About the author
G. S. Jennsen is a speculative and science fiction author, as well as a futurist, geek, gamer, programmer and editor. She has become an internationally bestselling author since her first novel, Starshine, was published in March 2014. She has chosen to continue writing under an independent publishing model to ensure the integrity of her series and her ability to execute on the vision she’s had for it since its genesis.
While she has been a lawyer, a software engineer and an editor, she’s found the life of a full-time author preferable by several orders of magnitude.
When she isn’t writing, she’s gaming or working out or getting lost in the mountains that loom large outside the windows in her home. Or she’s dealing with a flooded basement, or standing in a line at Walmart reading the tabloid headlines and wondering who all of those people are. Or sitting on her back porch with a glass of wine, looking up at the stars, trying to figure out what could be up there.
I hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. I am slowly getting back into my blogging but this week I need to make a big effort to catch up on my book reviews!
This post a little bit late this month but I haven’t been great with my blogging since been on holiday. I need to get back into the blogging routine.
Here are the books I am planning on reading this month.
The Cardinal by Alison Weir
Murder Most Royal by S. J. Bennett
The Mime Order by Sammantha Shannon
The Last Song of Penelope by Claire North
Hera by Jennifer Saint
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
I’m not sure if I will manage all of these books but I will give it a try as they have been sat on my TBR pile for way too long. I also need to start catching up on my reviews as I am very behind.
Lady Book Dragon 