My Autumn Vintage Reading List

The nights have started drawing in here, and the weather has definitely had a more autumnal feel to it over the past few days (probaby something to do with the persistent North wind which is battering us at the moment).

I love this time of year though. To be perfectly honest, I love all times of year. I like the changes of the seasons and after a good hot summer this year I definitely feel ready for Autumn now. I love the idea of putting on my winter boots and a good warm jumper and curling up with some great books on the dark evenings.

I’m currently re-reading the Sookie Stackhouse books at the moment (don’t be fooled, they’re nothing like the TV series True Blood, they’re miles better) in preparation for reading the last in the series. But, if you’ve got any recommendations I’d love to hear them, I’m definitely on the lookout for something new to read.

Here are my top 5 vintage reads for this Autumn:

They aren’t in any particular order, I enjoyed each and every one of these books and would recommend all of them!

	Welcome to Rosie Hopkins’ Sweet Shop of Dreams Jenny Colgan Were you a sherbet lemon or chocolate lime fan? Penny chews or hard boiled sweeties (you do get more for your money that way)? The jangle of your pocket money . . . the rustle of the pink and green striped paper bag . . . Rosie Hopkins thinks leaving her busy London life, and her boyfriend Gerard, to sort out her elderly Aunt Lilian’s sweetshop in a small country village is going to be dull. Boy, is she wrong.
	The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows January 1946: writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger, a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. And so begins a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name.
	Astor Place Vintage Stephanie Lehmann Amanda Rosenbloom, proprietor of Astor Place Vintage, thinks she’son just another call to appraise and possibly purchase clothing from a wealthy, elderly woman. But after discovering a journal sewn into a fur muff, Amanda gets much more than she anticipated. The pages of the journal reveal the life of Olive Westcott, a young woman who had moved to Manhattan in 1907. Olive was set on pursuing a career as a department store buyer in an era when Victorian ideas, limiting a woman’s sphere to marriage and motherhood, were only beginning to give way to modern ways of thinking. As Amanda reads the journal, her life begins to unravel until she can no longer ignore this voice from the past. Despite being separated by one hundred years, Amanda finds she’s connected to Olive in ways neither could ever have imagined. Read my review of this book here.
	Rattle His Bones (A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery) Carola Dunn As a grey drizzle descends upon the damp errand boys and busy omnibuses of London, Daisy Dalrymple is feeling rather cheerful and excited to be showing her nephew and future stepdaughter the glories of Kensington’s Natural History Museum. But as closing time draws near, Daisy and Co. hear a tremendous crash and are horrified to discover one of the curators dead – horribly murdered – atop of a pile of dinosaur bones. Together with her fiancé, Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard, Daisy is soon investigating a baffling case of missing gems, dispossessed European gentry, fakery and fossils… and where professional grudges boil over into murder!
	Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains Catriona McPherson 1st May 1926 – Dear Alec, Just when those who should be working are all downing tools for this wretched strike (and I still can’t believe it – I mean to say: riots, Alec – in Edinburgh of all places) guess who is setting her virgin shoulder to its very first wheel? I am dressed in serge and sensible footwear, sleeping in an iron bed and dining off pickled tongue at six o’clock each day. I am, in short, that nice young Mrs Balfour’s new maid. But don’t worry, Alec dear: things haven’t got as bad as all that. It’s just that that nice young Mr Balfour is going to kill his wife. At least, she thinks so, and the more I hear about him from butler, cook and bootboy the more I’m inclined to agree. So I’m undercover, in disguise, bent upon foiling. And jolly hard work it is too – tomorrow is my half-day free if you’d care take me out for a restorative bun. (Every maid needs a beau to buy buns for her.) Yours, Dandy xx p.s. Ask for Miss Rossiter: below stairs I am she.