NetGalley

[Susan]

You can wish for Tombland on NetGalley and request Dissolution the first in the Shardlake series. One of my real favourite series - definitely top three. I know that a few of us will be keen to get our hands on the latest, so I wish you luck!

[Susan]

Found this on NetGalley Stone Free: Jimi Hendrix in London, September 1966-June 1967 which I thought looked very interesting.

A compelling portrait of rock's greatest guitarist at the moment of his ascendance, Stone Free is the first book to focus exclusively on the happiest and most productive period of Jimi Hendrix's life. As it begins in the fall of 1966, he's an under-sung, under-accomplished sideman struggling to survive in New York City. Nine months later, he's the toast of Swinging London, a fashion icon, and the brightest star to step off the stage at the Monterey International Pop Festival. This momentum-building, day-by-day account of this extraordinary transformation offers new details into Jimi's personality, relationships, songwriting, guitar innovations, studio sessions, and record releases. It explores the social changes sweeping the U.K., Hendrix's role in the dawning of "flower power," and the prejudice he faced while fronting the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In addition to featuring the voices of Jimi, his bandmates, and other eyewitnesses, Stone Free draws extensively from contemporary accounts published in English- and foreign-language newspapers and music magazines. This celebratory account is a must-read for Hendrix fans.

[Susan]

For anyone, like me, who likes Liane Moriarty her latest, Nine Perfect Strangers, has popped up on NetGalley.

[Susan]

Just picked this up on NetGalley.
Murder by the Book: The crime that shocked Victorian literary London

Early in the morning of 6 May 1840, on an ultra-respectable Mayfair street, a footman answered the door to a panic-stricken maid from a nearby house. Her elderly master, Lord William Russell, was lying in bed with his throat cut so deeply that the head was almost severed.

The whole of London, from monarch to street urchins, was gripped by the gory details of the Russell murder, but behind it was another story, a work of fiction, and a fierce debate about censorship and morality. Several of the key literary figures of the day, including Dickens and Thackeray, were drawn into the controversy, and when Lord William's murderer claimed to having been inspired by the season's most sensational novel, it seemed that a great deal more was on trial than anyone could have guessed.

Bringing together much previously unpublished material from a wide range of sources, Claire Harman reveals the story of the notorious Russell murder case and its fascinating connections with the writers and literary culture of the day. Gripping and eye-opening, Murder by the Book is the untold true story of a surprisingly literary crime.

It's published by Penguin, if anyone is interested.

[Roman Clodia]

Susan wrote: "Just picked this up on NetGalley.
Murder by the Book: The crime that shocked Victorian literary London"

Me too! Look forward to comparing notes, Susan.

[Susan]

Hurrah! Book twins ;)

[Susan]

Thought this might interest some of us. Currently on NetGalley:

Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver

By the bestselling author of Dark Matter and Thin Air, an outstanding new piece of story-telling, a tale of mystery and imagination laced with terror. It is a masterwork in the modern gothic tradition that ranges from Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker to Neil Gaiman and Sarah Perry.
"Something has been let loose..."
In Edwardian Suffolk, a manor house stands alone in a lost corner of the Fens: a glinting wilderness of water whose whispering reeds guard ancient secrets. Maud is a lonely child growing up without a mother, ruled by her repressive father.

When he finds a painted medieval devil in a graveyard, unhallowed forces are awakened.

Maud's battle has begun. She must survive a world haunted by witchcraft, the age-old legends of her beloved fen – and the even more nightmarish demons of her father's past.

Spanning five centuries, Wakenhyrst is a darkly gothic thriller about murderous obsession and one girl's longing to fly free.

[Roman Clodia]

I've just approved for this - have enjoyed Paver's last two books so fingers crossed for this one.

[Susan]

Let's hope its good, RC!

[Susan]

The new Denise Mina Conviction has appeared for request on NetGalley.

[Nigeyb]

Thanks Susan - will make a request

[Roman Clodia]

The new James Ellroy This Storm the second of his planned Second LA Quartet has appeared on NetGalley - hurrah! It sounds frenzied and wonderful. I must re-read Perfidia before getting to it.

[Susan]

Thanks for posting, RC. I was just going to, but you beat me to it. I am dithering over whether to read this, as I would also have to re-read Perfidia and I am not sure I have time...

[Roman Clodia]

I sympathise, it's a long book. I rushed it at the time as I had a lot of reviews due so am pleased to go back to it. Two Ellroys back to back may be a bit of a hard ask though, he's so unrepentantly grim ;)

The new Bernie Gunther is also on NG, Metropolis.

[Susan]

Metropolis is also showing on NetGalley - I know we have read it, but I think Nigeyb will want to request it.

[Nigeyb]

Certainly will - and have

[Roman Clodia]

Have you also requested the Ellroy, Nigeyb? And have you read Perfidia?

[Nigeyb]

No, and no. I really should read Perfidia - I'm sure it would tick most if not all of my boxes. Thanks for the prompt Roman Clodia

[Susan]

I came across this on NetGalley, which looks fun:

The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective: Secrets and Lies in the Golden Age of Crime

Maud West ran her detective agency in London for more than thirty years, having started sleuthing on behalf of society’s finest in 1905. Her exploits grabbed headlines throughout the world but, beneath the public persona, she was forced to hide vital aspects of her own identity in order to thrive in a class-obsessed and male-dominated world. And – as Susannah Stapleton reveals – she was a most unreliable witness to her own life.

Who was Maud? And what was the reality of being a female private detective in the Golden Age of Crime?

Interweaving tales from Maud West’s own ‘casebook’ with social history and extensive original research, Stapleton investigates the stories Maud West told about herself in a quest to uncover the truth.

With walk-on parts by Dr Crippen and Dorothy L. Sayers, Parisian gangsters and Continental blackmailers, The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective is both a portrait of a woman ahead of her time and a deliciously salacious glimpse into the underbelly of ‘good society’ during the first half of the twentieth century.

[Lady Clementina]

Susan wrote: "I came across this on NetGalley, which looks fun:

The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective: Secrets and Lies in the Golden Age of Crime [bookcover:The Adventures of Maud West, L..."

I just saw this on NG as well- it does sound interested.

There is also a bio of Cadbury to wish for which sounds good too.

[Susan]

Oh, OK, I'll have a look, Lady. Thanks.

[Lady Clementina]

It's here: https://www.netgalley.co.uk/catalog/b...

[Susan]

I have resisted temptation, as I am a little overwhelmed with NetGalley book at the moment, but was approved for the Maud West book.

[Lady Clementina]

Susan wrote: "I have resisted temptation, as I am a little overwhelmed with NetGalley book at the moment, but was approved for the Maud West book."

Looking forward to your review!

[Susan]

Thanks, Lady. I need to read NetGalley books in order of publication, so currently reading Wakenhyrst and You Will Be Safe Here. Do you have a NetGalley book on the go at the moment?

[Lady Clementina]

I just finished one (review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
Have a couple of my own TBR books on the go at the moment: and
This month I'm reading Young Adult books from my TBR.

From NetGalley I plan to pick up next

[Susan]

The Catherine Howard Conspiracy is currently 99p on Amazon. I have debated reading it - let me know how you get on.

[Lady Clementina]

It's still available on NetGalley, if you're interested.

[Susan]

Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee

This looks intriguing and has just appeared on NetGalley:

The stunning story of an Alabama serial killer and the true-crime book that Harper Lee worked on obsessively in the years after To Kill a Mockingbird

Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell’s murderer was acquitted – thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the Reverend.

As Alabama is consumed by these gripping events, it’s not long until news of the case reaches Alabama’s – and America’s – most famous writer. Intrigued by the story, Harper Lee makes a journey back to her home state to witness the Reverend’s killer face trial. Harper had the idea of writing her own In Cold Blood, the true-crime classic she had helped her friend Truman Capote research. Lee spent a year in town reporting on the Maxwell case and many more years trying to finish the book she called The Reverend.

Now Casey Cep brings this story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South. At the same time, she offers a deeply moving portrait of one of the country’s most beloved writers and her struggle with fame, success, and the mystery of artistic creativity.

This is the story Harper Lee wanted to write. This is the story of why she couldn’t.

[Susan]

Came across this on NetGalley:

The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury

The Rattenbury case of 1935 was one of the great tabloid sensations of the interwar period. The glamorous femme fatale at the heart of the story dominated the front pages for months, somewhere between the rise of Hitler and the launch of the Queen Mary.

With painstaking research and access to brand new evidence, Sean O’Connor vividly brings this epic story to life, from its beginnings in the south London slums of the 1880s and the open vistas of the British Columbian coast to its bloody climax in a respectable English seaside resort.

The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury is a gripping murder tale and a heartbreaking romance, as well as the biography of a vital, modern woman trapped between the freedoms of two world wars and suffocated by the conformity of peacetime. A startlingly prescient parable for our times, it is the story of a protagonist who dared to challenge the status quo only to be crucified by public opinion, pilloried by the press and punished by the relentless machinery of the British legal system.

With a wealth of fascinating period detail, from its breathtaking opening to its shocking conclusion, The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury is a true story as enthralling, provocative and moving as any work of fiction.

Author Sean O'Connor also wrote Handsome Brute: The Story of a Ladykiller, which some of us read.

[Nigeyb]

Susan wrote: "Author Sean O'Connor also wrote Handsome Brute: The Story of a Ladykiller, which some of us read"

I really enjoyed Handsome Brute: The Story of a Ladykiller

Augers well for The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury

Thanks Susan

[Susan]

Yes, me too, Nigeyb. I have been approved too, which was very quick!

[Susan]

How Was It For You?: Women, Sex, Love and Power in the 1960s

Description
"A feeling that we could do whatever we liked swept through us in the 60s..."

The sexual revolution liberated a generation. But men most of all.

We tend to think of the 60s as a decade sprinkled with stardust: a time of space travel and utopian dreams, but above all of sexual abandonment. When the pill was introduced on the NHS in 1961 it seemed, for the first time, that women - like men - could try without buying.

"It was paradise for men... all these willing girls..."

But this book - by 'one of the great social historians of our time' - describes a turbulent power struggle.

Here are the voices from the battleground. Meet dollybird Mavis, debutante Kristina, Beryl who sang with the Beatles, bunny girl Patsy, Christian student Anthea, industrial campaigner Mary and countercultural Caroline. From Carnaby Street to Merseyside, from mods to rockers, from white gloves to Black is Beautiful, their stories throw an unsparing spotlight on morals, four-letter words, faith, drugs, race, bomb culture and sex.

This is a moving, shocking book about tearing up the world and starting again. It's about peace, love, psychedelia and strange pleasures, but it is also about misogyny, violation and discrimination - half a century before feminism rebranded. For out of the swamp of gropers and groupies, a movement was emerging, and discovering a new cause: equality.

The 1960s: this was where it all began. Women would never be the same again.

'One of the great social historians of our time. No one else makes makes history this fun' Amanda Foreman

'Intimate, immersive, often moving, How Was It For You? subtly but powerfully subverts complacent male assumptions about a legendary decade' David Kynaston

'An absorbing study of an extraordinary age. Beautifully written and intensively researched' Selina Hastings

'Every baby boomer should read this great and wonderfully revelatory book if only to shout, "Ah yes, that's exactly what it was like for me!"' Anne Sebba

'Virginia Nicholson is the outstanding recorder of British lives in the twentieth century... and this account of the 1960s is the most vivid and moving of all her works' Carmen Callil

'Essential reading' Marina Lewycka

'A dazzling kaleidoscope of facts, feelings and observations' Juliet Nicolson

'A hugely ambitious, kaleidoscope of a book' Richard Vinen

'Makes it feel like the Sixties have never been away' Hunter Davies

'I was there, and she's right' Valerie Grove

'Sparklingly readable . . . Having read Nicholson's magisterial and sensuous overview of the decade, I feel I'm floating above the Sixties (a bit like Lucy in the Sky) and looking down on them with a new understanding ' Ysenda Maxtone Graham, The Times

'The stories are terrific' Rosie Boycott, Financial Times

'Sparkling . . . there is a wonderfully diverse range of voices . . . we have a long way to go, but reading this book made me grateful for how far we have come' Daisy Goodwin, The Sunday Times

[Susan]

Joe Country has appeared for request on NetGalley:

'We're spies,' said Lamb. 'All kinds of outlandish shit goes on.'

Like the ringing of a dead man's phone, or an unwelcome guest at a funeral . . .

In Slough House memories are stirring, all of them bad. Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Louisa Guy is raking over the ashes of lost love, and new recruit Lech Wicinski, whose sins make him outcast even among the slow horses, is determined to discover who destroyed his career, even if he tears his life apart in the process.

Meanwhile, in Regent's Park, Diana Taverner's tenure as First Desk is running into difficulties. If she's going to make the Service fit for purpose, she might have to make deals with a familiar old devil . . .

And with winter taking its grip Jackson Lamb would sooner be left brooding in peace, but even he can't ignore the dried blood on his carpets. So when the man responsible breaks cover at last, Lamb sends the slow horses out to even the score.

This time, they're heading into joe country.

And they're not all coming home.

I have it on pre-order, but have requested. I know it is going round Vine too, RC, but they never seem to offer me many books. Anyway, good luck if you request and I suspect that several of us will!

[Nigeyb]

How exciting. Off to request this very instant. Thanks Susan.

[Roman Clodia]

Susan wrote: "Joe Country has appeared for request on NetGalley.

I know it is going round Vine too, RC, but they never seem to offer me many books."

Hurrah, I just got approved on NG!

And how irritating, Susan, that the one Vine reviewer who got it so far has never heard of Herron, never read the other books and just didn't gel with this one - when Viners like you and me who have read and reviewed the others don't get offered it :( I can't imagine the publisher will be particularly happy...

Anyway, fingers crossed that you and Nigeyb and any others on here get it from NG.

[Nigeyb]

Roman Clodia wrote: "I just got approved on NG! (for Joe Country)"


Well jel

[Susan]

Let's hope we get approved too. Don't tell us who bites the dust, RC!

[Roman Clodia]

Haha, my lips will be sealed, I promise!

I'm in the middle of Berta Isla but don't think I can resist making a start on Joe Country. Here's hoping you'll be joining me soon...

[Susan]

Well, I have 2 NetGalley books I am trying to read before publication. One is Conviction] which I recall that Nigeyb was approved for very quickly, whereas I was only approved a short while ago. The second is Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee which I am really enjoying. NetGalley is a wonderful resource, but it can be frustrating sometimes, as so many books are released on the same day and I find they sometimes approve you for a request you have forgotten about, only to discover the book is out in a week or so... I know I shouldn't complain, but it is quite random sometimes.

[Diane S ☔]

I read Furious Hours and thought it was well done. Very interesting.

I did get Conviction.

[Susan]

The first Stuart MacBride novel is on NetGalley. Cold Granite

Great crime series - quite gory - but lots of humour. If anyone hasn't read it, highly recommended.

[Nigeyb]

This could be just right for me Susan, especially as I look to plug the imminent Horowitz/Herron sized hole* in my reading enjoyment

*Two magnificent books that I have on the go

[Susan]

Let me know if you do read it, Nigeyb. It's a series I love, so would be interested to hear your thoughts.

[Susan]

The publishers Unbound (well known to Nigeyb through his favourite podcast!) have some new books on NetGalley. I thought this looked interesting:

The Deaths and Afterlife of Aleister Crowley

I have requested, but, to be honest, I am so over-whelmed at the moment, that is often a relief not to hear back from NetGalley! Unless, of course, I am desperate to read something, as with the latest Mick Herron...

[Nigeyb]

Thanks Susan - you inspired me to ask for it, and a book about Laurie Cunningham: Different Class: Football, Fashion and Funk – The Story of Laurie Cunningham

[Nigeyb]

Susan wrote: "The first Stuart MacBride novel is on NetGalley. Cold Granite


Great crime series - quite gory - but lots of humour. If anyone hasn't read it"

I've just got approved

I'm a bit confused about why the publisher is promoting a book published in 2005 though

Worried about the gore element too.

[Nigeyb]

Gore is right. Most unpleasant opening 😕

[Susan]

Yes, he is quite violent. Very in places and I do always say that in reviews. However, the characters really make the series work for me. I hope you enjoy it too, but, if not, maybe just skip the gory bits and finish it quickly :)

[Nigeyb]

Thanks Susan. That's helpful. That opening murder is as grim as it gets. I often wonder why so much crime writing is obsessed with violence and murder against children and women.

Murder is still fairly rare relative to the overall population and, of those murdered, about two thirds of all victims in the UK are men. The numbers of children murdered is very small (and most of those are murdered by a parent or step parent). Just a bit of a bugbear - sorry!

All that said, I am starting to like the investigators.