My Year in Books 2023: January

I'm posting this a little late, but it's time for the first of this year's blog posts with mini-reviews of the books I read for pleasure (so, not including the ones I read for review or research this month). I read six novels in January, almost all of which were library books. That became a bit of a trend in 2022, so let's see how long that carries on this year!

Here are the books I read in January...

White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi (2009)

Things got a bit jumbled at the beginning of the year. I started a book in December that I’d intended to finish in January, but then someone recalled a library book I’d borrowed so I had to set the first book to one side so I could return White is for Witching on time! Oyeyemi’s novel is a slim but incredibly rich book that’s part ghost story, part coming-of-age tale, and part allegory (with political themes that are explicit in places, and unsettlingly implicit in others). Miranda Silver is a teenager who suffers from pica – an eating disorder that causes suffers to crave things that aren’t food (in Miranda’s case, it’s chalk). Miranda lives in a house (the ‘Silver House’) in Dover that’s open as a Bed and Breakfast, with her father and twin brother, Eliot. Miranda and Eliot’s mother died when they were sixteen, causing Miranda to have a breakdown and spend several months in a clinic. When she returns, she becomes inextricably linked to the Silver House, which – as we find out from the novel’s prologue, is sentient and, as we find out from subsequent events, vilely xenophobic. The novel has two parts – one set before Miranda goes away to university, and one that takes place after she gets a place at Cambridge – and the storytelling style switches perspectives and styles to create a fragmented, but captivating, narrative. It’s not the most subtle book you’ll read, but I read this in a single sitting and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Black Lake Manor by Guy Morpuss (2022)

After I finished White is for Witching, I went back and finished the book I started in December. And I’m very glad I did! I got Black Lake Manor in one of my Abominable Book Club parcels late last year. It promised to be a ‘time-bending murder mystery’ like ‘Agatha Christie on steroids’. I think I prefer the first description to the second. The book’s protagonist is Ella Manning, a part-time constable with the RCMP who has to solve the murder of her childhood friend, billionaire Lincoln Shan, who has been killed in a locked room after a storm has cut off his mansion. Wait – rewind. This isn’t quite how the book pans out (although it sort of is). We don’t actually meet Ella Manning until a few chapters in. The first thing we read is a description of a shipwreck in 1804, off Vancouver Island. The next thing we read is a description of a party in 2025, at which a young Lincoln Shan exercises a peculiar power, the power to turn back time by several hours. And then we meet Ella! The murder mystery element of the novel is set in 2045, when Lincoln has grown rich as a result of his actions two decades earlier. He throws a party to show off a new innovation his company has created, but is found murdered in very strange circumstances that night. I can’t say much more without giving things away, so I’ll just say this is a strong recommendation!

Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi (2020)

Eight Detectives has an intriguing premise… Thirty years ago, Grant McAllister, a maths professor, wrote a collection of short stories to illustrate his thesis that there is a mathematical formula behind all mystery stories. Now living a reclusive life in the Mediterranean, he is tracked down by editor Julia Hart, whose publishing company is looking to release a new edition of McAllister’s stories. The book also has an intriguing format… the chapters alternate between scenes in which Grant and Julia discuss the stories and the stories themselves, so there’s seven detective stories (mostly in the Golden Age vein) and an eighth narrative that frames them. Before I started, I was expecting something like Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveller… crossed with Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale. Perhaps it’s because I really like those two books, but I felt that Eight Detectives didn’t quite live up to its promise. The seven stories are definitely fun to read, and I enjoyed Grant’s elucidation of his ‘formula’ (it isn’t anything a mystery fan wouldn’t know, but it was fun to see it described in mathematical terms, and it does make you think about things a little differently). The disappointing bit, for me, was the framing narrative. Don’t get me wrong, the way the details are drip-fed is well done, but it was a little bit predictable in the end. Still, Pavesi’s writing style is very engaging and Eight Detectives is a fun read, so I think it’s still a recommendation.

Kingdomtide by Rye Curtis (2019)

I’ve built up quite the pile of library books, so I’m trying to make a dent in it this month. The next book I read was a book I borrowed ages ago, and I’m not sure I should keep renewing it! Like the last book I read, Kingdomtide also has an intriguing premise (not a coincidence, of course, as I’m generally drawn to books that are a bit off-beat or unexpected). The book begins with an older couple, Cloris Waldrip and her husband, taking a small plane over the Montana mountains. The plane crashes, killing Mr Waldrip and the pilot, and seventy-two-year-old Cloris is left stranded in the wilderness. The story then alternates between chapters (told from Cloris’s first-person perspective) about the older woman’s survival, which includes help from an unlikely source, and third-person chapters about Debra Lewis, an alcoholic park ranger who becomes fixated on finding Mrs Waldrip. Kingdomtide is incredibly readable and compelling – if a little strange and grim in places (I genuinely squirmed at the bits describing Lewis’s interactions with a search-and-rescue officer). Cloris’s narration is almost mesmerizing, and I really enjoyed the way we slowly learn about her pre-crash life, as well as her ‘present day’ tribulations in the wilderness. Lewis is somewhat less well-rounded, perhaps because we never get her narration of events, and so we never get to know her quite as intimately as we know Cloris, but she’s still a pretty memorable character. I was absolutely gripped from the start with this one.

The Searcher by Tana French (2021)

And it’s another library book now! I’m a huge fan of Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad novels, a series that ran for six novels. Her two most recent books (The Wych Elm and The Searcher) are standalone novels that are, in many ways, quite different to the Dublin Murder Squad novels, in terms of both plot and style. They’re also quite different to one another, which seems to suggest that French is moving away from being a ‘series author’ and becoming a bit more eclectic in her output. That said, The Searcher is still a mystery novel, and it does bear some comparison with her earlier work. The main character is Cal Hooper, an American ex-police officer who has moved to a remote Irish village to enjoy some rural seclusion in his retirement. As he’s working on renovating the old house he’s bought, he’s approached by a kid called Trey, whose brother has gone missing. Word has got round that Cal used to be a detective, and so he is reluctantly drawn into the mystery of Trey’s brother’s disappearance. The story unfolds at a slow pace, and the mystery here is quite as intricate as some the Dublin novels (particularly In the Woods and The Likeness), but – as in French’s other work – there’s a real focus on character and relationships. In many ways, the real draw of this book is the developing relationship between Cal and Trey, and how this fits with the claustrophobic village in which they both live.

Home by Amanda Berriman (2018)

And another library book (though this one’s from a different library for a bit of variety)! Home has something of an unusual first-person narrator, in that Jesika is four years old.. I have to admit, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get through a whole book told by a four-year-old, and the first page had me doubting whether I could handle the style and vocabulary of Jesika’s narration. It’s amazing how quickly those doubts went away. I was sucked into Jesika’s story by about page 3! As you might imagine, Berriman tells the story by showing us how Jesika interprets events, relying on the adult reader to understand what is actually happening. And it’s not the most cheerful set of circumstances that we discern. Jesika lives in a rented flat with her mum and her baby brother. The landlord isn’t a very nice person, and the flat is in disrepair. Jesika’s mum and brother fall ill from breathing in mould, and the family is facing eviction. Jesika also makes a new friend, Paige, who is hiding an awful secret. It’s testament to Berriman’s writing that this isn’t trivialized or obscured by Jesika’s own concerns, like what games will be played at preschool and which of the local shopkeepers are her friend. Nevertheless, Jesika is the hero of the story, and the climactic events – in which she steps up to be a hero (within the limits of being four years old) – are incredibly moving and powerful.

My Year in Books 2022: December

It's my final book review post of the year, and - as quite often happens with December - it's a long one. I took a lot of books away on holiday in December, and then I read quite a lot in the week between Christmas and New Year. As you'll see, my December habit of reading either festive books or murder mysteries was strong this year!

In case you're interested, here are my other posts from 2022: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November

Villager by Tom Cox (2022)

I’ve read a bit of publicity for Villager, so I knew it was Cox’s debut novel, his previous writing being non-fiction, memoir and short stories. I was a bit surprised when I started reading it, though, as it felt (at first) more like a collection of short stories, loosely linked by a sense of place. And, in some ways, that’s what Villager is. The place is a fictional Dartmoor village called Underhill. Each chapter is a snapshot of Underhill at a particular time (each is subtitled with a date, from past to present to future). Alternatively, each chapter is a standalone story about a particular resident of Underhill, told in first-person from multiple perspectives. Nevertheless, this is very much a novel. There’s an overarching story linking the stories together – that of the land itself and the way it is both changing and unchanging over time (and one of the narrators is the land itself) – but there’s also a very human story about the ways in which the lives of the various narrators intersect and coalesce around the life and music of folk musician R.J. McKendree. I really enjoyed the quirky way the stories gently and gradually came together, and I also really liked the different storytelling styles used to conjure the world of Underhill, particularly the use of diaries and (at one point) an online messageboard that was so convincing it made me laugh out loud. An idiosyncratic tale that really does justice to the landscape that has inspired it.

Violet by SJI Holliday (2019)

The next book was one I stumbled upon when I was researching content for my radio show, and it looked like it was right up my street. And, on the whole, it was. Violet takes place during a journey of the Trans-Siberian Express. Two women meet up and travel together, but one of them isn’t who she says she is. Intriguing. Holliday’s book begins with Violet finding herself alone in Beijing after falling out with her boyfriend in Thailand. She meets up with another solo traveller, Carrie, who was meant to be on the holiday of a lifetime with her best friend, but her travelling companion broke her leg shortly before they were meant to make the trip. Violet and Carrie agree to travel together, but – as I’ve said – one of them isn’t being honest about who she is. To be brutally honest, it is pretty obvious from the start which one of them isn’t being honest. Violet has strong shades of another book that I’m worried about mentioning for fear of spoilers (though at least one of the blurbs on the cover namechecks it), and once you have that in mind, you can work out exactly what’s going on. Nevertheless, the book makes up for the rather obvious plotline with some wonderfully evocative descriptions of the journey Carrie and Violet take through Mongolia and into Siberia. I particularly enjoyed the first half of the book, which really focuses on the way the two women’s relationship builds as they travel.

Don't Look Back by Ben Cheetham (2018)

I bought this one ages ago, but I saved it for our pre-Christmas holiday to Cornwall, as it’s set in Lizard (and that’s where we were going). Cheetham’s novel is about Adam Piper, a writer who, at the beginning, is living in London with his wife Ella and their twin sons Jacob and Henry. In the first chapter, a horrific accident kills Jacob and almost kills Henry, leaving Adam grief- and guilt-stricken. The next chapter picks up nine months later, when Ella spots a strange advert in the paper. A woman named Rozen Trehearne is looking for tenants for her house (Fenton House) in Lizard. Prospective tenants are asked to complete a questionnaire and, not only with the successful applicant secure tenancy of Fenton House, but they will also live their rent-free for the rest of their lives. Adam completes the questionnaire and is surprised to be offered an interview with Miss Trehearne. He’s even more surprised when his family is offered the tenancy. Is Miss Trehearne’s offer too good to be true? Well, yes, of course it is (otherwise it would have been a very short book). It’s not long after the Pipers move into Fenton House that strange (and quite unsettling) things start to happen. I have to say, the ultimate explanation stretches incredulity a bit, but (as with Violet) the book makes up for it with its description of location. I particularly liked the depiction of Lizard Village on the day of the Pipers’ interview – very memorable!

Stay Another Day by Juno Dawson (2021)

This next one is a book I talked about on my radio show last Christmas, but I didn’t get chance to read it for fun until this year. Stay Another Day (as the title might hint) is a Christmas book. The McAllister siblings (twins Fern and Rowan, and younger sister Willow) are back together in the family home for Christmas, but secrets under the surface are threatening to spill out all over the turkey. Fern and Rowan have been living away from home for the past year, and they’ve each returned with a new friend/partner and a new sense of their own identity. Willow has been at home, as she’s recovering from an eating disorder, and isn’t looking forward to a big family Christmas. What I enjoyed about this book is that it’s sort of the literary equivalent of a Christmas film – not the sort of thing I’d choose for most of the year, but just right for the festive season. Obviously, I’m reading as someone older than the target audience, but that really didn’t matter. There’s a lot for the forty-something reader to enjoy in Stay Another Day, as the affectionate (but gently critical) portrayal of the newly independent nineteen-year-old twins bursting back into the family home with their ‘adult’ identities will evoke plenty of nostalgia (and cringe) in those of us looking in the rear-view mirror (or is that just me?). Ultimately, the book is both joyous and honest about Christmas, and I really enjoyed it for that.

The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz (2019)

I’m reading this series out of order, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I read A Line to Kill, the third in the series, back in May, and I really enjoyed it. This month, I read The Sentence is Death, which is the second in the series. (I still haven’t read the first one, by the way.) Have to say, I have no idea why it’s taken me so long to read this series. I fell in love with this book from the very first page – I think I liked it even more than A Line to Kill. The premise of the series is that ‘Anthony Horowitz’ (the fictionalized version of the author who serves as the series narrator) teams up with a former police officer called Hawthorne to solve puzzling crimes. The series is very meta – in the second book, ‘Anthony Horowitz’ is in the process of writing the first book in the series – and chock-full of references to Horowitz’s actual writing career. This book starts with a just beautiful description of filming of an episode of Foyle’s War that’s a treat for fans of the series (like me!). But, the series is more than just a gimmick. These are really good murder mysteries, with great clues and some wonderful red herrings. In this book, Hawthorne and Horowitz have to solve the baffling murder of a high-profile divorce lawyer. There are some very clever touches here, one of which made me shout out loud when realization hit. Highly recommended!

The Gift by Louise Jensen (2021)

This is one that I picked up on the charity bookshelf at my local supermarket. I’m not sure why I added it to my festive reading pile (as it was quite clear from the blurb that the titular ‘gift’ was definitely not a Christmas present). I think I just knew that I’d want a bit of a change of pace at some point during our holiday. Jensen’s novel is a domestic thriller. The protagonist is Jenna, a young woman who is given a heart transplant. Against all instructions, Jenna makes contact with the family of the donor, who she discovers was a woman called Callie. Jenna comes to believe that Callie’s death – supposedly the result of a car crash – wasn’t an accident at all, and that there’s something suspicious going on behind closed doors in the family, particularly with Callie’s sister Sophie. This was a pretty quick and easy read, but I don’t think it’s one that’ll stick with me. The pacing and style are just right for the genre, but the story itself is pretty overblown and implausible. Character behaviour and motivation is generally hard to swallow, and the overall plot relies on a fairly ‘out there’ theory and a hefty dose of cliché. As a result, it’s quite difficult to really get behind Jenna’s story, or even to really connect with her as a character. It’s not a bad book by any means, and Jensen’s writing really isn’t bad. However, I’m not sure it was really for me.

Murder on the Christmas Express by Alexandra Benedict (2022)

This is a book I talked about on my radio show Christmas Special this year, but I wanted it to read it for fun as well. On the surface, this book looked like it was tailor-made for me. A locked room murder mystery set on a train that gets stuck in a snowstorm at Christmas? Sounds perfect. It also sounds a lot like a mash-up of Murder on the Orient Express and Mystery in White, so I was curious to know how Benedict managed the balance of homage and originality. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t really live up to its promise. The mystery here is the death of an influencer (and then a subsequent murder that I won’t spoiler here), who is a passenger on board a snowbound sleeper train to the Highlands. Fortunately, one of the other passengers is a recently retired police detective, Roz Parker, so at least there’s someone there who can manage the crime scene until help arrives. The problem, for me, was that the mystery is actually quite insipid. There are a few decent clues, but comparisons to Agatha Christie are overstated. The Christmas and train angles are also downplayed, as most of the interactions between passengers take place in the ‘Club Car’, which could just as easily be a bar. Overall, Murder on the Christmas Express focuses on personality, character and motive, rather than means (there’s a handwave of the ‘locked room’ element later on), and so the puzzle itself didn’t really work for me.

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz (2016)

Back in August, I read Moonflower Murders, and loved it. I don’t know what it is with me reading Anthony Horowitz’s series out of order, but Moonflower Murders is actually the second book in a series, so I thought I should probably go back and read the first one. As with the Hawthorne and Horowitz books, there isn’t a massive problem with reading the series out of sequence, as the later books don’t have too many spoilers for earlier instalments, though if you’ve read Moonflower Murders then you’ll know what the case is in Magpie Murders. Susan Ryeland is an editor, working on the latest (and last) murder mystery novel by the somewhat difficult author Alan Conway. Susan reads the manuscript, but the final chapter is missing. Before she can get hold of it, the author is found dead. Conway’s death is ruled a suicide, but Susan begins to suspect there’s something fishy going on. As with Moonflower Murders, this is a story-within-a-story; the reader gets to read Conway’s manuscript in full as Susan reads it. Not only are we invited to solve the puzzle of Conway’s death, but we also have the puzzle of his novel to ponder as well. I fell in love with this novel – I think I enjoyed it even more than Moonflower Murders (though it’s a close thing). It’s such a perfect piece of mystery writing, with spot-on clues and a reveal that made me laugh out loud. Highly recommended, particularly for Agatha Christie fans.

Gifts by Laura Barnett (2021)

Time to switch from murder mysteries back to Christmas books. The next book I read was another one I talked about on last year’s radio show, but that I wanted to enjoy properly afterwards. I didn’t get chance to read this one last year, so I saved it for this Christmas instead. Gifts is set the year it was published, 2021, and it is quite direct about its context. The Christmas described is the first Christmas after lockdown, as people were tentatively trying to rediscover normality in the COVID19 pandemic. The book’s conceit is that twelve people are looking to buy the perfect Christmas present for someone in their life. Each chapter is a near-standalone short story, in which the gift-giver reflects on their relationship with the receiver, and the reasons why they are choosing them a gift. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the ‘gifts’ of the title aren’t really the main focus. While there are a couple of chapters that dwell a little more on the search for a specific item to be bought (and the shopping that takes place), the stories generally focus on far less materialistic concerns. It’s the relationships between people that matter here – whether it’s a newly divorced father and his teenage daughter, or a carer and her client, or old friends reunited and tentatively considering romance – Gifts offers a series of vignettes that underscore the need to recognize and value those arounds us. As such, it’s pretty much a quintessential Christmas book!

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (2020)

Okay, so this wasn’t the plan at all. I bought The Ink Black Heart as soon as it came out (in fact I pre-ordered it), but then never quite got round to reading it. My plan was to read it in the week between Christmas and New Year. But then, feeling tired after an epic Boxing Day walk, I decided to watch the new TV adaptation of Troubled Blood. It was great – I love the Strike TV series – but it really hit me how much they’d had to cut out or streamline to fit the story into the TV format. I expected that, of course. The book’s over 900 pages long, so there was no way the whole thing would fit into the TV format (even with the extra episode this story has). It’s hard to explain, but I really missed the things that had been cut for TV, and before I knew it I’d decided to reread the book again. And I’m glad I did. It’s by far my favourite of the Strike novels – although I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of them. The cold case storyline means that there’s a different sense of pace to this one, and the clues are expertly done. Even having read it before and watched the adaptation (so the killer was by no means a surprise), it was a joy to reread this one. It’s such a rich and complex murder mystery, and I actually felt sad when I finished it (for the second time!).

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith (2022)

After I finished my reread of Troubled Blood, I went straight into The Ink Black Heart. I read them both in under a week, so it’s safe to say I couldn’t put either of them down. The Ink Black Heart is even longer than Troubled Blood, but I’m in two minds as to whether it sustains its long length as well as its predecessor. It’s also a very different type of story from the rest of the series. Robin Ellacott is approached by the creator of a popular YouTube/Netflix cartoon, Edie Ledwell, who wants her to investigate the identity of a prolific and abusive internet troll. Robin turns the case down, but shortly afterwards Edie is murdered, and Robin (and Strike) are hired by other interested parties. The main reason this book feels different from the other Strike novels is that the reader is party to certain information that the detectives never see. The story is peppered with transcripts of chatlogs from an internet game, a fandom-produced response to Edie’s cartoon, which was co-created by the notorious troll at the centre of the case. Having a head-start on the detectives feels weird, and the world of anonymous trolling means there are some reveals that we would never have worked out, no matter how many clues we had. Nevertheless, this is a fun read – Galbraith (aka Rowling) paints an unsettlingly plausible online world, and the ultimate reveal of the murderer has a beautifully Christie-esque quality that I wouldn’t dream of spoiling.

My Year in Books 2022: November

Time for my penultimate book review post of the year. I'm a little bit last posting this, but at least there's a healthy number of titles on this month's list. As you'll see, most of them are library books, so maybe that's what has got me out of the cycle of short posts!

In case you're interested, here are my posts for the rest of the year: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October

Silverweed Road by Simon Crook (2022)

The first book on this list should really have been on last month’s, as it was one of my Halloween books. I didn’t quite finish it before I posted my October list, so I’ve included it on November’s instead. I got a copy of Silverweed Road as soon as it came out, because it looked like it would be a proper Halloween read. And it was! Although it’s a novel, it’s got the feel of an anthology horror film. Each chapter is a self-contained story, and each one is about a household on the eponymous cul-de-sac. The framing narrative is a blog written by a former police officer, recounting the mysterious occurrences on the road, as well as his failure to solve them. The reason why the book works so well is that each of the twelve chapters is a different kind of story, employing different horror tropes – this is what creates the anthology horror feel. So, we start off with a classic ‘don’t mess with jackdaws’ suburban horror, but elsewhere there’s some folk horror, a few ghosts, a very Tales of the Unexpected-esque story about a disreputable antiques dealer, a Faustian deal, a house that defies explanation, and so on. The novel draws on a lot of inspirations (some clearly stated, others more implicit), so it’s a fun read for genre fans. Ultimately, there is an explanation given, and I would probably have preferred a more open ending, but other than that, this one was perfect for the season!

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North (2014)

The next book on this month’s list was a library book. I read another book by Claire North this year (84K), and I really enjoyed it, so I had high hopes for this one. But I was also a bit trepidatious. It was clear that The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August shares a premise with Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, a book that I absolutely love. That premise is that the protagonist lives the same life over and over again – i.e. when they die, they immediately return to the time and place of their birth. Given how much I like Atkinson’s novel, I was worried North’s might not measure up. But I needn’t have worried… the two books (for all their shared premise) are very different. Atkinson’s novel is a character study, with its protagonist being an unexplained oddity who never quite gets to grips with her unusual version of immortality. North’s novel, on the other hand, is an adventure story. Harry August is not the only immortal person (called kalachakra or ouroboreans) in this world. There are clubs full of them, and (unlike Atkinson’s protagonist) they generally carry memories of previous incarnations through their subsequent lives. When Harry gets a message from the future (the mechanics of this make sense – don’t worry!) that the world is ending, he’s drawn into a plot to wipe out the kalachakra, which throws him into the path of someone that will become his nemesis for many lifetimes. I loved this book!

Jasmyn by Alex Bell (2009)

And another library book now (this is very much the theme of this year, isn’t it?) Jasmyn is a bit of an unexpected read. As the foreword warns, it really doesn’t develop in the direction you might be expecting. The eponymous Jasmyn is a young widow. Her husband Liam has died of an aneurysm, and when we first meet her she’s lost in the rawness of grief. However, some strange things have started to happen. The bodies of five black swans fall on Liam’s coffin at his funeral, and before long a strange (and rather threatening) man turns up at Jasmyn’s door. And that’s not to mention the unexplained feud between Liam and his brother Ben, which no one around Jasmyn wants to talk about. The book begins with hints of something potentially supernatural surrounding Liam’s life and death, and I guess that is what transpires. But the sort of ‘supernatural’ here isn’t quite what I was expecting. When the blurb says it’s a ‘magical story’, that really is what you get from Jasmyn. Without giving too many spoilers, this is a book where magic and fairy tale intrude into the contemporary ‘real’ world. Bell works a fine balance between the fantastic and the realistic – we’re supposed to believe in Jasmyn as a person who exists in our world, but we’re also asked to accept the existence of folkloric and fairy tale creatures. On the whole, this works really well, and the result is a compelling and quite charming tale.

The Dinner Guest by B.P. Walter (2021)

The next book – you guessed it – was another library book. This one was a bit more of straightforward domestic thriller, which is a genre I have very mixed feelings about! Charlie is a well-to-do (very well-to-do) Instagram influencer, who is married to Matthew and has an adopted son called Titus. One night, as they’re eating dinner, a woman who they barely know arrives at their house, stabs Matthew through the heart, calls the police and confesses to the crime. This is where the book starts, by the way – it’s not a spoiler! This premise was intriguing enough for me to put aside my reservations about the genre and give the book a go. Straightaway, I enjoyed the fragmented way the story unfolds. Chapters are told from different perspectives, and they jump back and forth between incidents before and after the murder, sometimes showing the same incident from different points-of-view. It’s quite clear from the start that Rachel (the mysterious dinner guest) might not actually have committed the murder, and it’s also quite clear that the men’s friendship with her might not be quite as it seems (but that’s probably a given for this type of novel!). Admittedly, the characters are incredibly posh, to the point of almost being unrelatable, and some of their motives are a bit hard to believe (some of the ‘reveals’ towards the end are a little difficult to swallow). But ultimately Walters’s storytelling style is interesting and entertaining enough to keep you reading until the end.

The Lie of the Land by Amanda Craig (2017)

And the next book was another library book (as if you needed telling), and a bit of a change of pace. The Lie of the Land is part thriller, part dark comedy, part slice-of-life tale of well-to-do middle class Londoners moving to Devon after losing their well-paid city jobs. Quentin and Lottie are getting divorced as a result of Quentin’s infidelity, but neither of them can afford to buy out the other’s half of their London home. They decide to rent the house out until they can find a buyer, and move to Devon while they wait. Lottie’s son (Quentin’s stepson) Xan gets a job in the local pie factory, and the couple’s two daughters join the local school. Quentin (a journalist) gets a gig writing a regular column about what it’s like moving to the countryside from London, and Lottie (an architect) tries to find work with local firms. The family have moved to an old farm house on the grounds of a manor house owned by world-famous rock musician, Gore Tore, but they soon find out it was the site of a grisly murder not long before they moved in. There’s a lot going on here, and it doesn’t always gel together perfectly. The grislier elements – and the melodramatic resolution of the murder plot – seem to belong to a different novel to the depictions of rural life and musings on the London housing market. It’s well-written, with some interesting elements, but it’s a bit inconsistent in its storytelling.

Things in Jars by Jess Kidd (2019)

And finally… it’s another library book! I picked this one up as I read another novel by Jess Kidd earlier this year, The Hoarder, and I really enjoyed it. I knew Things in Jars was a bit of a different type of story (and not necessarily the sort I usually read), but I liked Kidd’s writing style in The Hoarder, so I was hoping for more of the same. And that’s what I got! The book is set in the Victorian period (mostly in the 1860s, but with some flashbacks to the 1840s). Bridie Devine is an unconventional investigator, part consulting detective (working with Scotland Yard in an almost Holmesian way) and part forensic scientist (she uses techniques she learnt while apprenticed to a surgeon as a child). She is accompanied on her pursuits by a ghost of a boxer who she picks up in a graveyard one night, and her housekeeper/companion, the seven-foot-tall former circus performer Cora Butter. Bridie ends up on the trail of a missing child, who may well be something out of the ordinary. The novel takes in the grand macabre of Victorian London – sinister circuses, psychopathic surgeons, cabinets of curiosities and resurrectionists – with a stylish mixture of ghoulishness and whimsy. Kidd’s writing keeps things moving at a fair pace, pulling off the impressive feat of being both chilling and charming in equal measure. And some bits are incredibly chilling! (And some incredibly charming!). This one is a real page-turner, and a strong recommendation from me.

My Year in Books 2022: October

It's a little late, but here's my list of books I read for fun in October. I've decided not to include the books I chose for my October readalong and story-a-day, because I feel like I talked about them a lot throughout the month! And I haven't included the Halloween book that I started in October, but didn't finish till the first week in November (that one can go on next month's post). That leaves three novels to talk about in this month's post.

In case you're interested, here are my posts from the rest of the year: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September

The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue (2020)

The first one on this month’s list is another library book. Again, this is one I picked because my quick glance at the blurb was intriguing (I didn’t know anything else about it before I started). Donohue’s novel is told through two different narrators and times. In the present, a journalist begins to investigate a twenty-five-year-old disappearance. And then in sections set twenty-five years earlier, we see events that led to that disappearance. Louisa is a scholarship pupil at a prestigious Catholic boarding school. Although she doesn’t fit in well with her fellow pupils (or the nuns who teach them), she immediately falls into the orbit of an enigmatic girl called Victoria and a charismatic teacher called Mr Lavelle. As we know from the start, Louisa and Mr Lavelle are going to disappear (the ‘vanishing’ of the title), and Victoria is going to be left with unresolved issues (is it guilt? or heartbreak?) as a result. I have to say, though the book is well-written, the story isn’t particularly original. There are shades of a lot of other poor-student-at-an-elite-school fiction here, and the revelations that come at the end aren’t a huge surprise. I guessed quite a bit of the ending early on. That said, I enjoyed the character of Victoria and the explanation towards the end as to what was really going on with her was plausible in a kind of chilling way. Overall, this one is readable and quite enjoyable, but it didn’t set my world on fire.

Slade House by David Mitchell (2015)

Aside from the books I chose for my October readalong and my story-a-day, I had two books lined up for Halloween reading this month (though I only finished one in October… the other will have to wait until November’s post, as I didn’t quite finish it before the 31st!). I can’t remember how I stumbled on Slade House, as I’ve not read any of Mitchell’s other fiction, but I think it probably popped up on a list of suggested seasonal reading somewhere. The book begins in 1979, with a young boy called Nathan Bishop being taken to attend a party at the eponymous house by his mother. As soon as they arrive, it’s clear that there’s some off about it all, and we fall Nathan’s perspective as he falls deeper and deeper into a bad thing. The book then moves to 1988, and then 1997, and so on, giving us short little stories about the various people who have visited Slade House and encountered the bad thing. I have very mixed feelings about this one. In places, the writing was just so good, and I found myself completely immersed in the prose. On the other, it doesn’t really work as a ‘horror’ novel (despite having all the trappings of one), as the bad thing never really grabbed me, and it certainly never scared or unsettled me. The other frustrating thing, for me, was that the antagonists had a Bond-villain tendency to give lengthy exposition to their victims before dispatching them.

A User's Guide to Make-Believe by Jane Alexander (2020)

This next book was another library book, and for once I’m pretty sure I know why I picked this one! The blurb suggests a sort of Black Mirror-type tale about virtual reality gone band. And that’s exactly what it is! Alexander’s novel follows Cassie, a former employer of Imagen, the tech company behind the wildly popular VR experience ‘Make-Believe’. At the novel’s opening, Cassie is persona non grata at Imagen, as she has misused her Make-Believe account (breaking the strict user limits on how much time can be spent ‘Believing’). She attends an addiction support group, where she meets a fellow Make-Believe ‘addict’ – Lewis – who starts to convince her that there might be something going on with Imagen and their VR programme. What follows is an investigative thriller, with Cassie desperately trying to get to the truth (and there’s a very personal motivation to her quest, which I won’t explain here as it’s a bit of a spoiler). A User’s Guide to Make-Believe is definitely very readable and the pacing is spot on. Cassie’s character is interesting. I found her frustrating at times, but that’s mostly because she makes some questionable choices. And, given what she’s done to her own mind, that’s not exactly implausible! But the thing I really liked about this book was the way the more sinister side of Imagen is handled. Alexander avoids heavy-handed dystopia clichés in favour of a much more insidious and unsettling quality that feels worryingly believable. Overall, I really enjoyed this one.

My Year in Books 2022: September

So, I didn't read as many books in September as I did in August, but I'm definitely back on track after a couple of months where I struggled to read anything for pleasure. Weirdly, everything I read this month was from the local library (despite me having far too many unread books of my own). I don't know if that's what's got me out of my slump this time. Whatever it is, I've read some good stuff this month (as well as a couple of less good things!).

In case you're curious, here are my posts from the rest of the year so far: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August

The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing by Mary Paulson-Ellis (2019)

Another library book to start this month. As is a bit of a habit, I only skim-read the blurb first. I knew it was about a man called Solomon Farthing who makes a living tracking down inheritances, and that a WWI soldier would be a significant part of the plot. Haha… I wasn’t prepared for this book at all! And, as usual, I regret nothing! Solomon Farthing is an ‘Heir Hunter’ – he makes a shady living by tracking down long-lost next-of-kin for unclaimed estates (for a ‘finder’s fee’, of course). When he is asked to do a favour for a police officer of his acquaintance, Solomon finds himself tangled up in a mystery that goes back the WWI, and which will touch on his own life in very unexpected ways. The story is told across multiple timelines – Solomon’s ‘present day’ quest in Edinburgh and beyond (set in 2016), the story of a small band of soldiers seeing out the final days of the war in a French farmhouse (in 1918), and others that I won’t spoil here. I was sort of expecting this to be a straightforward mystery with some historical vignettes thrown in, but The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing isn’t like that at all. It’s off-beat and quirky, told with in a vivacious and ‘shaggy dog story’ style that is really quite charming. I loved the character of Solomon Farthing as well – a really memorable creation with a more complex backstory than you might expect. Definitely recommend this one.

84K by Claire North (2018)

The next book I read was another library book. I’d renewed this one a couple of times, and I didn’t want it to go overdue, so I thought I should crack on and read it quickly. Turns out, the library deadline wasn’t really relevant, as I genuinely couldn’t put this one down once I’d started it! I read it in a couple of sittings, because it was just that compelling! 84K is a dystopian tale, set in a near-future (and it’s terrifying how ‘near’ it feels) version of Britain. Privatization has given way to full-scale commodification – towns are sponsored by companies, health and care are run through insurance companies, and all of these companies are owned by other companies that are owned by The Company (who also own the prisons, tax service, etc.). A man who goes by the name of Theo Miller works in the Criminal Audit Office; his job is to assess crimes and work out the ‘indemnity’ due by the perpetrator. If the perpetrator can’t pay the indemnity, they face being sentenced to the ‘patty line’ – indentured labour to pay off the debt to society. This vision of the future is stark and, like all good dystopian fiction, the plot is kicked off by the protagonist realizing (à la Winston Smith) that he can’t be part of this system anymore. However, the storytelling style elevates 84K into a different league. It’s almost hypnotic in its fragmented, lyrical style, but still with a plot that’s an utter page-turner.

Quarter Past Two on a Wednesday Afternoon by Linda Newbery (2013)

Looks like it’s going to be a library-heavy month for me… this next one is also from my local library. Newbery’s novel is Anna and her sister Rose. At a quarter past two on a Wednesday afternoon in August, young Anna leaves the house to go to the shop. When she returns, her older sister Rose has disappeared without a trace. Twenty years later, Anna still doesn’t know what happened to her sister. As she reaches something of a turning point in her life (a relationship getting more serious, a new job offer), Anna begins to wonder if she’ll ever find out the truth. Quarter Past Two moves at a slow pace, but I’m not sure this always works to its advantage. There’s a lot about Anna’s relationship with her (in my opinion) rather unlikable boyfriend and his ex-wife, Ruth. This is interspersed with vignettes from Anna’s relationship with Rose, and from the aftermath of the disappearance. There are also some sections from another character’s perspective, but I’ll leave you to discover for yourself who that character is. In the end, though, the disappearance itself is remarkably easy for Anna to solve and a bit of an anti-climax. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy this one, but I found it difficult to really engage with the characters in any depth. Most of them make decisions and choices that are hard to understand, and their motivations aren’t always convincingly explained. It’s not a bad novel, but it isn’t mind-blowing either.

Little Sister by Gytha Lodge (2022)

It’s library books all the way down this month… I’ve read one of Lodge’s other novels before, She Lies in Wait, and I remember that I quite enjoyed it. I didn’t realize when I started Little Sister that the detective in She Lies in Wait (DCI Jonah Sheens) became a series character for Lodge, and so I was actually jumping back in at book No. 4! This isn’t too much of a problem – and I don’t think it would be a problem if you haven’t read any of the books in the series – as there are plenty of recaps to catch you up on the lives of the detective and his team, and there aren’t any spoilers for the previous three books. In Little Sister, Sheens is confronted by a teenager, Keely Lennox, emerging from the woods near a pub with blood on her hands and clothes. Keely, it transpires, was reported missing from her care home a few days earlier. Her younger sister Nina went missing at the same time, but Keely has turned up alone. As Sheens tries to find out what happened, it becomes clear that Keely is more interested in playing mind games than telling the police what happened to her sister. But as the detectives investigate, a story emerges that’s disturbing in ways you might not expect. I have to admit, I did see most of the ‘twists’ coming with this one, but Lodge is an excellent writer, and Little Sister is a gripping read.

The Man on Hackpen Hill by J.S. Monroe (2021)

Ah… it seems me run of great library books has come to a bit of an end with this next one. This isn’t going to be a strong recommendation, unfortunately. And I think I’m going to have to give a couple of spoilers in order to explain. So, this was another library book, and I did read the blurb this time. The Man on Hackpen Hill is described as a thriller. The story – as hinted in the blurb – is about crop circles. A particularly mysterious example is discovered on the eponymous hill in Wiltshire… but there’s a body in its centre. Some of the (generally very short) chapters are from the perspective of DI Silas Hart, who has responsibility for investigating the murder, and then investigating two subsequent crop circles/murders. Other chapters are told from the perspectives of Jim – a young man who works at Porton Down, who believes he can reveal the truth about the crop circles – and Bella – a young woman who has just started working at a newspaper after finishing university. Now, here comes the spoiler: this book isn’t really about crop circles and secret experiments at Porton Down. The big reveal is that this is a story about mental illness and, specifically, psychosis and antipsychotics. And it’s one of the most egregious depictions of psychosis I’ve read in a long time. Not only is the presentation of schizophrenia and its treatment utterly unrealistic, the idea of psychotic delusions is romanticized to an extent that’s almost distasteful.

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce (2017)

Even though I didn’t really enjoy the last one, it’s another library book next! I’ve read (and enjoyed) two of Rachel Joyce’s other books – Perfect (the first one I read) and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (her debut novel and her most famous one) – so I had an idea of what I might be getting with The Music Shop. What I loved about the other two novels was the way Joyce combined an off-beat tale of eccentric and flawed, but ultimately hopeful, characters with a harder core, exploring themes of mental illness, grief and lost time. The Music Shop has a lot of this too. The story begins in 1988, in the music shop of vinyl-loving Frank. Frank is a typical Rachel Joyce character: an eccentric oddball with a sad backstory but a strong connection to other people, or rather to other people’s stories. Frank’s world is disrupted by Ilse Brauchmann, an enigmatic woman who faints outside his shop one day. In many ways, though, Frank and Ilse’s scenes are stolen by the setting and the glorious supporting cast of characters. Frank’s shop is on a vividly-evoked near-abandoned street (Unity Street) in a run-down city, alongside an undertaker, a tattoo parlour and a religious gift shop. Although there’s a cruel blow at the end of the book’s first half, The Music Shop doesn’t quite have the punch of Perfect or Harold Fry. But it’s still a moving, funny and compelling story, and the ending made me cry a little.

My Year in Books 2022: August

Well... here's a turn of events... after months and months of reluctantly publishing posts with a single book on them (two at most), my August post has TEN titles! Famine or feast, I guess. By way of explanation, I had a week off work in August, and I'd planned to just spend it at home, recharging my batteries. Also, five of the books on today's list were rereads. But then again, five of them weren't!

In case you're interested, here are my posts from the rest of the year: January, February, March, April, May, June, July

And here are the books I read in August...

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas (2020)

I borrowed Catherine House from my local library last month, but I only finished reading it this month. The blurb for this one is cryptic, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. And even now that I’ve read it, I’m not sure what genre I would say it is. The eponymous Catherine House is a prestigious – though somewhat secretive – university that selects its students carefully and makes them an offer they can’t refuse (namely free tuition and accommodation for the three years of their degree). In return, Catherine House asks its students to give themselves entirely to their studies, not leaving the university at all during their time there and renouncing everything from their former lives, including their friends and family. The protagonist is Ines, a troubled young woman who is running away from some pretty dark experiences, but who has no real inclination towards the idiosyncratic courses of study. I’ve read a few other books that use ‘archaic place of learning hides sinister secrets’ as a premise (most recently Madam by Phoebe Wynne), but Catherine House was quite different. I enjoyed the slow-burn descriptions of the university itself, as well as the claustrophobic intensity of Ines’s experiences. The devil is really in the detail here, and Thomas uses some subtle techniques to develop the madness of Catherine House (hint: watch the descriptions of food as the book progresses!). Catherine House is off-beat and sinister in all the right ways, and its ending is… well… let’s just say questions remain!

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz (2020)

This next book was also from my local library. Despite being a fan of his television work (Foyle’s War and Poirot specifically), I only read my first Horowitz novel earlier this year. I saw this – which is a bit of a hefty tome – and thought it might be a good one to read on my week off. And wow – I was so right about that! Moonflower Murders is the follow-up to Magpie Murders, though you don’t need to have read the first book to enjoy the second (and there aren’t any spoilers for the previous book, as far as I can tell). Editor Susan Ryeland has left the publishing world and now runs a hotel in Crete with her partner. Out of the blue, a couple (also hoteliers) ask for her help with a mystery. Several years earlier, there was a murder at their hotel. One of the staff was arrested, but they now suspect the police got the wrong man. A novelist – Susan’s star novelist who was murdered in Magpie Murders – wrote a book that their daughter believes reveals the true killer’s identity. But their daughter has disappeared without revealing what, exactly, she read in the novel. What I loved – loved – about this book is that you follow Susan’s investigation up until the point she decides to reread the novel, and then you read the entire fictional novel yourself to find the clues! As ‘story-within-story’ novels go, this one is incredibly ambitious, beautifully written and a lot of fun.

Six Stories by Matt Wesolowski (2016)

If you’ve read some of my previous review posts, you might have seen me talk about Wesolowski’s Six Stories series. I’m a big fan of this series, so I was delighted when I got the sixth book, Demon, in one of my monthly Abominable Books subscription boxes earlier this year. I’ve been saving Demon for a treat, and since I was on holiday for a week (and it was my birthday), it seemed like the perfect time to read it. But then I decided I should reread the other five books first… so the next few reviews are of rereads before I got to Demon. Six Stories is the first book in the series, and so it’s the one that introduces the concept and style that I love so much. Six Stories is a fictional podcast, hosted by the enigmatic Scott King, which looks at cold cases. Each of the podcast episodes covers a different ‘story’ connected with the case, and then at the end Scott King asks listeners (meaning that Wesolowski asks readers) to make up their own minds about what might have happened. In the first book, the case is the death of a teenager a couple of decades earlier. The body of Tom Jeffries was found at an outdoor pursuit centre a year after the boy was reported missing. Scott King speaks to six witnesses (or does he? there is a bit of a twist with this one) to hear their stories and piece together the truth.

Hydra by Matt Wesolowski (2017)

Continuing with my series reread… Hydra is possibly my favourite one of the series, and it has a bit more of a punch to it than Six Stories. The first book introduces the overall concept – including the way possible supernatural explanations will be woven into each of the ‘episodes’ – but it’s really with Hydra that the series properly finds its feet. I was totally blown away by this one when I first read it, and fortunately it did hold up to a reread. The case in this one is that of Arla McLeod, a young woman who brutally murdered her family several years earlier. At first glance, it might seem like this is an open-and-shut case – there is no question that Arla committed the murders, and the explanation for her actions appears to be ‘paranoid schizophrenia’ – but there is so much richness to the story that unfolds, it’s hard to do it justice in a mini-review. Taking in various odd niches of internet culture (including Korean and Japanese challenge games, and old-school trolling), plus moral panics about dark music (via Wesolowski’s fictional ‘bad boy’ musician Skexxixx), Hydra handles its subject material with sensitivity and nuance that’s really second to none. When it comes to the Six Stories series, I came for the quirky format and unreliable narration, but I stayed for the depth and complexity of the explorations of darkness. Although Six Stories hints at some of the series’ underlying concerns, Hydra expands on these in original and thought-provoking ways.

Changeling by Matt Wesolowski (2018)

The next book in the series is Changeling, which goes in a different direction (though still exploring some of those underlying concerns). This time the case is that of a missing child: Alfie Marsden was seven years old when he disappeared from his father’s car one Christmas Eve, and no trace of the boy has been found since. Scott King is contacted by someone claiming to be a ‘friend’ who encourages him to feature the case as one of his podcast series. His coverage begins with interviews with people who knew Alfie’s parents before the boy’s disappearance, and when I first read the book I had an almost instant distrust of the narrative that was being told by the interviewees, which was heightened by being ‘primed’ not to take things at face value by the previous books in Wesolowski’s series. Obviously, on rereading, you go into knowing what you should and shouldn’t trust, but this just makes the story being constructed in the initial interviews feel that much more painful. As with Hydra, there’s a real punch to Changeling. Yes – there is the story of Alfie Marsden (and the resolution of that element made me cry both times I read the book), but there’s also another story, related to the missing child, that lingers with you for longer. Again, the sensitivity and here is really what holds your attention. Life – in all its dark, murky complexity – is far more unpleasant, and far more compelling, than anything the supernatural can offer.

Beast by Matt Wesolowski (2019)

On to Beast now, which is the one I read most recently as I originally read the series slightly out of order. In many ways, this is familiar territory if you’ve read the previous three. Scott King takes on another case – the death of an up-and-coming YouTube star in a small town in north-east England. As in Hydra, the case in Beast isn’t actually a cold one. Elizabeth Barton was found dead in a derelict town (known as the ‘Vampire Tower’) on the edge of the town in 2018. Her killers were immediately apprehended and are serving life sentences for her murder and the mutilation of her body (which was decapitated). Once again, this feels like an open-and-shut case, but Scott King is determined to see it through, to see if he can uncover an explanation for why the young men would do something so macabre. The book weaves together vampire folklore, socio-economic commentary and some internet and urban legend touchstones (I particularly enjoyed the ‘Who put Lizzie in the tower?’ graffiti that echoes ‘Who put Bella down the Wych Elm?’), but ultimately – as we’ve come to expect from the series – the underlying themes start to emerge. There’s a bit of bleakness to the end of this one, particularly in the case of one character (no spoilers!) who, it would seem, never really stood a chance. But as well as the bleakness, there’s more Gothic wildness to Beast than the previous instalments, including some wonderfully evocative descriptions and set pieces.

Deity by Matt Wesolowski (2020)

Deity was the book that originally introduced me to the series. I remember when I got it as the featured book in one of my Abominable Book boxes – I knew straightaway that this was the series for me. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this a million times before, but I’m a sucker for unreliable narrators and narratives, and so I was instantly intrigued by the series concept. Rereading the series in order this time, I’m not sure Deity has the same sort of punch as Hydra and Changeling (or, to a lesser extent, Beast), but it’s still got a lot to hook you in. Scott King investigates the case of legendary pop star Zach Crystal, who died in 2019 in his enigmatic mansion in the Highlands. Part of the fun of Deity – even more so than with the other books in the series – is spotting the pop culture tales that may have inspired the fiction. I also enjoyed the return of Skexxixx, and the development of this character, which (thankfully) moves him further away from the real-life ‘shock rocker’ who I’ve no doubt was an initial inspiration. As with Beast, there are some fabulous descriptions of place here, but that’s really something that’s run through the series since Six Stories. The juxtaposition of unimaginable wealth and fame with the struggling families of Zach Crystal’s fans is very well done too. In the end, there’s more of an ‘urgh’ than an ‘ouch’ at the end of Deity but variety’s no bad thing!

Demon by Matt Wesolowski (2021)

And so to Demon… Another thing you may have noticed if you’ve read my other review posts is that I sometimes don’t read blurbs before I start books. Sometimes I think it’s just better to go in without any preconceptions. Given how much I love this series, and how excited I was to read Demon, it probably goes without saying that I didn’t read the blurb or any of the marketing beforehand. So I was totally unprepared for where this one was going to go. The case in Demon is the murder of a child in the 1990s. The boy was killed by two other children, who were sent to secure units to serve out their sentences before being granted lifelong anonymity on their release. It has to be said, this is a pretty bold move from Wesolowski. The fictional case covered in Scott King’s podcast bears some similarities to the real-life inspiration (which, I’m sure, can be in no doubt), but it’s also substantively different in a lot of ways, and I think this was a sensible move. It allows Wesolowski to create a fiction – one which includes his now-trademark supernatural elements undercut by sensitive social commentary – without accidentally romanticizing what is still a very raw and painful story. However, it has to be said that Demon differs in some significant ways from the rest of the series, particularly in the ending. No spoilers, but it’s a very good conclusion, and really the only one that could be reached.

The Appeal by Janice Hallett (2021)

Demon left me a bit reflective, so I wanted something a little lighter next. I borrowed The Appeal from my local library, and (as is sometimes my way) I didn’t read the blurb properly. I got the impression it was a straightforward murder mystery, possibly with a courtroom element, and so I felt like I knew what I would be getting. I was wrong! And I’m very glad about that, because The Appeal is an absolute joy, and it was great to be surprised. This is a great one to go into without any prior knowledge, because then your experience of reading mirrors the experience of Femi and Charlotte, the two characters through whose eyes we see the story unfold. Femi and Charlotte are law students, and, as we discover in the WhatsApp messages and email at the beginning of the book, they’ve been given a bundle of documents to read by their supervisor. The students are given no information as to what the documents relate to (and so neither is the reader), they’re just ask to read through them and work out what’s going on. It turns out, the documents are (mostly) a series of email exchanges between various members of an amateur dramatics society. What’s the story behind the emails? And what can this have to do with a legal case? Ah well… that’s what Femi and Charlotte (and you, the dear reader) have to work out. Ambitious, original, very entertaining, and a great companion to Moonflower Murders.

The Cottingley Cuckoo by A.J. Elwood (2021)

The next book I read this month was from my Abominable Books box back in December. I didn’t realize until I started to read it that A.J. Elwood is also Alison Littlewood, and so I have read one of the author’s previous novels (Mistletoe). To me, it is quite clear that Mistletoe and The Cottingley Cuckoo were written by the same person, so I’m not totally sure about the distinction between pen-names. But this isn’t a criticism! The things the two books share were all the things I really liked about Mistletoe, particularly the slightly uncanny narrative voice and the deceptively-domestic-but-actually-quite-horrifying storylines. The main character in The Cottingley Cuckoo is Rose, a young woman who dropped out of university when her mother became ill, and who now works in a residential care home for older people. One of the residents is an enigmatic and unsettling woman named Mrs Favell. The other staff leave Rose to deal with Mrs Favell, who begins to draw her into a story of fairies and changelings. I loved the way the horror – and make no mistake, this is a horror novel – grows at a slow, claustrophobic pace, almost to the point that it becomes unbearable. I also very much enjoyed the use of fairies as horror in the book. It’s not easy to do (given the twee, cute character of modern ideas of the fair folk), but it’s done exceptionally well in Elwood’s book. No spoilers, but I absolutely loved the book’s ending as well.