We are nearly at the halfway point in the year, so I thought today I would take the opportunity to mention my favourite reads of 2025 so far. Now it should be noted that these are not all new books and I think principally that’s because I’ve had a few absolutely chronic binge reads that means that I’ve just read less other stuff all together so the mix of new to old is very much skewed in favour of the old at the halfway mark of the year.
I’m going to start with the not new stuff, because there is more of it. Lets start with the a murder mystery and A Case of Mice and Murder. This is an edwardian era mystery set in essentially a closed community – the barristers of the Temple. I loved it and have recommended it a few times now. The sequel is out next month and is just as good. Next up is Legends and Lattes, which is sort of Terry Pratchett-esque but with very low takes and a very cozy vibe. I still need to read the second book in the series, which is a prequel and there is a third book coming in the autumn. And then there is On Turpentine Lane a fun romantic comedy with a mystery subplot that had me smiling and laughing the whole way through. And obviously the main binge was that six week period where I read the entire Dr Ruth Galloway series, so I should really mention those as well.
On the new book front, my favourite is probably The Favourites, which is one of the better portrayals of figure skating in fiction. I’ve seen a lot of other skating fans who have enjoyed it too, but really is a melodrama about intertwined relationships that uses the sport as a driving factor – you definitely don’t need to know the difference between an axel and a salchow to enjoy this (particularly as it’s set in ice dance and they don’t do jumps!). I also really enjoyed Curtis Sittenfeld’s latest short story collection, Show Don’t Tell. I remain someone who prefers novels to short stories, but I like Sittenfeld’s writing and ideas so much and this is really good, especially if you’ve read Prep because you get to revisit the characters years down the line. There are a couple more new releases that I’ve enjoyed but that are later books in series which usually means I don’t review them because: spoilers. But the latest Vinyl Detective was a return to form and was a BotW pick and Murder Below Deck, the second Paul Delamere book was also a really fun read.
As ever, as well as reading a lot of new fiction, I’ve read a whole bunch of not new fiction that is still very good, and given that the non-fiction best of was a mix of new releases and old, it would be remiss of me not to complete the set with the old (so to speak) fiction. And I’m working from published longest ago to most recent for reasons that will become obvious very shortly…
Rivals by Jilly Cooper
Ok, I’m starting with the one on this list that I should absolutely have read before now, and which you’re going to have the least trouble getting hold of because the adaptation is (rightly) everywhere at the moment. As I said in my BotW review at the start of December the very 80s attitudes in the adaptation are there (and even more so) in the book. So if you didn’t get on with that aspect of the TV version (or don’t like books like that in general) than your mileage may vary. But I absolutely raced through it – Goodreads tells me it’s the longest book I’ve read this year (over 700 pages) and yet I read it in under three days. And only one of those days was a weekend (and that was the one where i only had about 100 pages to go and finished it on a plane) – so that’s fast even for me. Season Two has now been announced for the adaptation, and we can only hope that the scripts are already written (or at least part written) and so they can get on with filming it asap…
The Golden Hour by Beatriz Williams
Beatriz Williams’s 2019 novel fits neatly into a couple of my reading interests – fiction set in the first half of the twentieth century, Edward and Mrs Simpson-related fiction and spy and espionage stuff that’s not too, too terrifying. This has a split narrative between Nassau in 1941, where Lulu has been sent to write an article about the former King and now governor of the Bahamas and his wife; and a sanatorium in Switzerland atthe start of the twentieth century. The blurb majors on the Windsor connection, but they’re not really the centre – that’s Lulu. I continue to be about three books behind on Williams’ solo releases because they just seem to be harder to get hold of here, but whenever I read them I really do enjoy them.
A Murder Inside by Frances Brody
It’s the late 1960s and Nell Lewis has just been made governor of a new women’s open prison in Yorkshire. The job was going to be challenging enough before a body was found on the grounds and so Nell sets out to solve the crime and protect the women inmates from the suspicion of the local community. I really liked the set up and the 1960s setting – I haven’t read a lot of mystery series set in this time period, or at least not stuff that wasn’t contemporary to it when it was written. I’m not sure how many books it’s going to be possible to set around this one prison, but there are currently two of them we’ll see how the second ends when I get around to reading it. Frances Brody has published another in her Kate Shackleton series since this came out, so it may be that she’s going to try and run the two series in parallel to start with and see how it goes. I hope so, because I do like Kate, and I think there’s plenty more that she can investigate too.
Flying Solo by Linda Holmes
Laurie has just returned to her home town in Maine to sort out the estate of her 90-year-old aunt. She’s also recently cancelled her wedding and ended that relationship and is about to turn 40. Among her aunt’s possessions and mementos of travels around the world she finds a wooden duck and a love letter that references “if you’re desperate, there’s always the ducks”. And so Laurie sets out to discover the history of the duck – and in doing so gets caught up in antiques dealers and con artists and late night dates at the library with her high school boyfriend. This was Holmes’s follow-up to Evvie Drake Starts Over, and although both of them have A Novel written on the front, I would say this is further towards the Women’s Fiction end of the spectrum than the other one was. It has a satisfying ending, but it’s a grown up one – not a throw everything you know about yourself away and give yourself over to The New one. I really enjoyed it – and the only reason it wasn’t a BotW is because I read it the same week as The Rom-Commers (which is on the best new fiction list). Was my late November-early December holiday a real high point in my reading this year or is it recency bias – who can tell, but I did read a whole bunch of books I’d been saving on that holiday as a treat.
The Reunion by Kayla Olsen
Liv was the star of a hit teen TV show and grew up on screen. Twenty years on, a reboot is in the offing and she finds herself back on set with all her old castmates – including her former boyfriend. She’s built herself a new life since the show – but this is her chance to try and get closure on what happened with her on and off screen love interest when the show ended. Once they’re back on set together, they fall into old habits – but will this time have a different ending? This was released in January 2023 and is part of what is now a growing collection of novels set around nostalgia for TV shows or movies – whether it’s characters transported into them, or former stars of them involved in romances some how. I’ve read a few of them, with mixed success, but this is a really good one*. Like Flying Solo it has “A Novel” written on the front of it – and in this case it means that the novel is more about Liv finding herself than completely centred on the romance between her and Ransom. This one is harder to get hold of I think – I bought it in Foyles and it’s definitely an American paperback size, but if you do spot it, I think it’s worth it.
Have a great day everyone!
*so is yesterday’s BotW pick, but it is much more Christmas-themed and also a new release so doesn’t fit in to this post.
After the best new fiction on Friday, here I am with my favourite non-fiction books of the year, which is very much a mix of new releases and not new releases, but also features a suspicious number of books that fall into one of my favourite periods of history – aka the first half of the 20th Century.
Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell*
I think this is my favourite of the new non-fiction that I’ve read this year. I love a look at how women exerted power in male-dominated environments, and this re-examination of Pamela Harriman – who has previously just been dismissed as a femme fatale/grande horizontale who worked her way through all the men she knew – is a really interesting one. Purnell makes a strong case – and appears to have the evidence to back it up due to the amount of personal papers that she had access to. I was so pleased to see this prominently displayed in the bookshops this autumn.
Capote’s Women by Lawrence Leamer
Harriman is one of the women in the title of Lawrence Leamer’s book – and the other women were definitely among those who dismissed Harriman as a modern day courtesan – after all she had slept with several of their husbands (one of whom she later married). If you don’t want to commit to an entire book about Pamela (and Kingmaker is 500 pages long) then you can catch a glimpse of her war years and immediate aftermath in this book about Capote and the women who featured in his notorious Esquire article La Cote Basque, which blew up his friendships with them forever.
Murder by Kate Morgan*
If you read as much mystery fiction set in the past as I do, this might be right up your street. It’s an examination of the evolution of the crime of murder in legal terms in England. If you’ve ever wondered about how the differences between murder and manslaughter came about, or when various forms of insanity defences evolved, this is the book for you. It also covers some of the more recent developments in murder trials that have come out of tragedies like Aberfan – and whether or not they have worked as intended. And if you’re writing historical crime fiction this is probably a must read to make sure you’re getting the legal side of things right!
Going Infinite by Michael Lewis
Another of my areas of special interest in non-fiction (aside from interwar history) are spectacular flops/business disasters/con men. And the rise and fall of Sam Bankman Fried and his crypto exchange are among the most spectacular of recent years. Of course the challenge of such a recent scandal as this is being up to date and this was originally published in 2023 just as the trial was starting and the paperback edition that I bought (on the way to Malaysia and then mostly read on the plane) came out not long after the sentencing. But the big reason for reading this rather than listening to one of the podcasts about the story (which have the ability to add new episodes as things evolve) is that Michael Lewis was already working on a book about SBF when the implosion happened – and thus was on the scene in a way no one else was. And have a bonus podcast recommendation – Spellcaster from Wondery is my pick of the SBF specials, although The Naked Emperor series of CBC’s Understood is also good (and I have their series about Celine Dion waiting to be listened to as well).
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jenette McCurdy
It would be remiss of me not to include a memoir in this list – and this also fits into a special interest area: Hollywood. But Jenette McCurdy‘s memoir comes with some important caveats: this covers abuse of many different kinds as well as addiction and eating disorders. It is a tough read. A very tough read. But at the end it is hopeful that McCurdy – a former Nickelodeon child star – has come out of the other side, and not just because her mother is dead and can no longer emotionally manipulate and exploit her. I really hope that she is in a better place – this book really illustrates why so few child stars emerge from that early fame unscathed.
And I realise that’s a bit of a downer to end on. Sorry about that. But hey these things happen.
We’re nearly there. It’s nearly the end of 2024 – and with that, it’s time for me to take a look at some of my favourite reads of the last year. This year I’ve split it up across a couple of posts, and first up we have the best New Fiction that I’ve read this year.
The Other Side of Disappearing
Kate Claybourn’s new novel came out in March, and was a Book of the Week when I got around to reading it in April. And you can click the link to read the full review, but it’s a road trip novel, as a reluctant participant in a podcast goes with her sister to try and find their mother, with the production crew in train. I liked it because of the way it portrayed the heroine’s relationship with her sister as well as the romance, but also because it was more uplifting than I was expecting considering it had a heroine who had been parentified because of the behaviour of her mother even before she abandoned them both. There’s still no news on when Claybourn’s next book is due, but I hope that it’s going in a similar sort of direction to this one because it was a really delightful read.
Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell
This was a rare case of me reading a Kindle sample and then abandoning all my usual rules about purchase prices to buy the book because I was so desperate to read it. And I’ve since seen it in two for ones in Foyles and at a big discount on Kindle, so if I had waited I would have saved a whole heap of cash. But this made me so nostalgic for the rom-coms of my teenage years. I loved You’ve Got Mail when it came out (still do now to be honest) and the description of this as You’ve Got Mail for a new generation is pretty much spot on. As I said in my review at the time, some people are going to have an issue with the way that the couple get together (their respective partners are cheating on them with each other, but they’re not split up) which is why I count it as “A Novel” not a romance, but I really, really liked it. Suzanne Rindell seems to be on an every other year sort of publication schedule, and I hope that her next one is as good as this.
The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear
This is slightly cheating, and I’ve swapped it in since mid-year point where I picked Mona of the Manor instead. The Comfort of Ghosts is the last in a long series, and I try not to recommend books where you need to have read all the others to get the maximum impact from it. But it’s also rare for a series to finish so satisfyingly as the Maisie Dobbs one does. At the end of eighteen books, Maisie is sent off to a bright new future, all the loose ends are tidied up – including some that you had forgotten, but unlike some final books in mystery series, the mystery plot in this isn’t an add on to the rest, it’s properly thought out and integrated. It’s satisfying enough that although I’m sad that Maisie’s story is done, I’m happy to leave her at this point. Hopefully I’ll like Winspear’s next book as much, and if the White Lady is any indication I think I will
The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center
This is the first of two books in this list that I read on my late November/early December holiday and is that recency bias showing? I don’t know. But when I looked at all my top rate books these were the ones I wanted to include. And this is the second book in this list that gave me all the nostalgia for the movies of my teenage years. Charlie is a great hero – with the gruff and abrasive exterior hiding a soft and sentimental interior that he is trying his best to hide from everyone. The banter is great, the critique of the movie industry is also fabulous if you’re someone like me who wants to know where the (less problematic) successors to Notting Hill, Never Been Kissed and Two Weeks Notice are.
Birding with Benefits by Sarah T Dubb
And this is the only book on this list which wasn’t a Book of the Week – and that’s because I read it the same week as the Rom-Commers and there can only be one BotW each week. The heroine of Birding With Benefits is Celeste. She’s newly single and about to be an empty nester, so she’s trying to put herself out there and find some adventures of her own. So of course she says yes to a friend who asks her to help one of his friends out at an event. The friend is John, and it turns out the event is Tuscon’s annual birdwatching contest – which John wants to win to help him launch his own guiding business and to a lesser extent to show his ex-girlfriend that he’s just fine. And so the unlikely duo begin a fake relationship for the duration of the contest and it soon turns into something more than either of them expected. It’s charming and fun – and made me care about birdwatching, which is something I never thought possible. It deserves its spot on this list.
Here’s to as many good books in 2025 – and have a great weekend everyone!
So I was about to say this is the last look back at 2023 post, but I realised that I would absolutely be lying because I can think of at least two more. Any how, this is my favourite new-to-me fiction of last year. Many of them you’ll always have heard me talk about, but hey I enjoyed them and they’re worth it.
So in keeping with the celebrities and normal people romances that have been a theme of the year, let’s start with one of those:Nora Goes off Script by Annabel Monaghan. And I think this might have been the first of the trope that I read last year and it was really good. Nora’s been dumped by her husband but has to keep writing screen plays for romance channel movies. But when her new script is picked up by a major studio, the sexual man alive walks into her house (literally) to star in it and then doesn’t want to leave. It’s wonderful and just writing about it makes me want to read it again!
Next up is one of the books that Nora was comped with and which I finally got around to reading this year – Beach Read by Emily Henry. This has got two rival authors living in neighbouring beach houses and struggling with writers block – until they challenge each other to write in their genre. So Augustus had to write something happy, and Janet had to write a Great American Novel. It’s a grumpy-sunshine delight – even if I’ve only just realised that he’s got the summery name and she’s got the wintery one!
More authors in pick three: The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley and Austin Sigemund-Broka. This has got estranged writing partners forced back together to complete their original book contract after his new solo effort doesn’t sell. It’s friends to enemies to lovers as you flash backwards and forwards between the two different trips to the same Florida rental house.
Ok, that all the romance done, let’s go for some mystery! And The Three Dahlias by Katy Watson was one of my post Christmas sale buys between Christmas and new year last year and I loved it. It has all the things that I like – Golden Age mystery stories and a modern day cozy crime murder on the set of an adaptation of the books. So much fun and something I’ve recommended a lot this year. I’m counting down to book three.
And finally, something a bit different – Acts of Violet by Margarita Montimore. This one’s a bit quirky – with a missing illusionist and a podcast at the centre of it. I didn’t fully love the ending, but I did love the rest of it. This is actually the only book here from the second half of the year, and I have had a think about that and a look at the stats – there were less five star picks in the second half of the year among the not-new fiction but quite a few four stars that I’ve only just written about, so maybe that’s what’s gone on. And I did read more new fiction in the second half of the year than the first and that played into this too.
Anyway, here’s to the books I’ll discover in 2024!
So after yesterday’s fiction post, today I’m back with the other stuff. And actually I didn’t read a lot of new-new non-fiction this year, so this is a general best non-fiction post, rather than a specific new books one, but hey, I’m all about rule breaking!
So let’s start with the chunkiest book I read this year – Michael Cragg’s Reach for the Stars. My sister and I really enjoyed reading this history of a decade of pop music from the mid 90s. I was a consumer of pop music during this era so it gave me a lot of nostalgia but it also gave me some insights into what I was listening to at the time and the way that the bands involved were covered by the press. One of the bands in this – Girls Aloud – have announced they’re touring again next year, and another (S Club) were touring this autumn so the music and bands are really still out there.
Also in the pop culture sort of space but not new this year is Wild and Crazy Guys by Nick de Semlyen, which I read while I was on holiday this autumn. The Guys in question are the comedians of the early 80s whose careers launched through shows like Saturday Night Live and went on to dominate comedy movies for a decade or more – people like Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Dan Ackroyd and John Candy. I’m too young to to remember this all happening, but some of the movies that they made – Ghostbusters, Uncle Buck and Cool Runnings – were all over my childhood and some of them are still all over movies and streaming now – after all I’ve just binged Only Murders in the Building!
Also in the new to me not new new is Maiden Voyages by Sian Evans. This is a look at women on board the cruise liners during the Golden Age of ocean liner travel. It touches on some of the famous faces who travelled on the ships but mostly focusses on the women who worked on board and the opportunities that shipboard work offered them. I really enjoyed Evans’ Queen Bees a few years back and this is also a really good read.
And that’s the lot I think. I think one of my resolutions for next year is to read more non fiction – and I’ve certainly got a delightful selection to chose from to help me!
It’s that time of year again, where I’m rounding up the best things that I’ve read this year, and I’m starting with the new fiction because it has been a really good year for it.
As I’ve said already, in contemporary romance 2023 has been the year of the celebrity and normal person romance in my reading life. I’m still not sure if it’s an actual trend or if it’s just what the algorithm has been feeding me but I’ve really enjoyed it and the hardest part is how do I pick just one for this list? Well the answer is I’m not. I’m picking two: Romantic Comedyby Curtis Sittenfeld and Once More with Feeling by Elissa Sussman. Yes, they are two of the books that were on my half year favourites list, but I really did love them and they’re two of the books that I’ve recommended the most this year. Romantic Comedy is still the only book with the quarantimes in it that I’ve enjoyed and Once More with Feeling made me so happy for some bookish revenge on a Justin Timberlake type figure.
Also in contemporary romance is Lucy Parker’s Codename Charming – this was one of my most anticipated books of the year, and it lived up to my internal hype for it when it finally arrived in the autumn. Also excellent was Christina Lauren’s True Love ExperimentandRole Playing by Cathy Yardley, the latter of which has an older pairing than you usually see which was fun.
And finally it wouldn’t be one of my end of year lists without a Rich People Problems novel, and this year it isPineapple Street, which was also on the mid year list.
I realise now that there’s no crime on this list, which is a slight surprise to me given how much mystery I have read, but a lot of it was either not new or from long running series and you know my policy on that. I wonder what 2024’s fiction list will look like?
I mean this may be the quickest one of these that I have recently written – because actually the easiest thing may be to point you at the reviews I’ve already written for this year’s picks at the midway point! I don’t think it’s going to surprise you that two of the five are romances, then there’s one rich people problems and a non-fiction book. And so in no particular order my favourite new releases of the year so far are:
Let’s see what has been added to the list by the end of the year!
Still to come for the halfway point: how many states have I ticked off my read the USA challenge? How am I getting on with colouring the bookcase drawing in my journal? And of course my favourite not new books of the year so far.
Following on from Tuesday’s post about new release fiction, today I’m looking back at my favourite new non-fiction of the year, and this is a list that skews somewhat towards the memoir I’m afraid. But hey, there have been some really good ones this year, so sorry not sorry. Oh, and after all the success of my fiction picks matching up with the Goodreads picks, today we’re back to normal…
Stories I Might Regret Telling You by Martha Wainwright
This comes in the brutally honest confessional memoir category – as I said in my BotW review, possibly the most unflinching one I’ve read since Viv Albertine‘s. Martha Wainwright carries the personal revelations you’re used to in her music (Bloody Motherf*cking Asshole for example) into her look at her life so far. I saw her live in London this summer and she read a few excerpts from the book as well as singing songs from through her career and it was great. Anyway, if you haven’t listened to any of her music, but are interested in what it’s like to be an artist/creative type in a whole family of artists, this will still work for you.
A Pocketful of Happiness by Richard E Grant
This is another very raw book- Richard E Grant’s memoir about the loss of his wife and their life together. I read it on holiday and the showbizzy stories helped break up the sad bits and added up to something quite special. He’s very clearly still not over it, and maybe should have waited a little longer to write it, but his love for his wife and their wonderful marriage shines through it all. I hope writing it has helped him – and also that the reaction from readers helps too. You can see more about it in my BotW review.
Mean Baby by Selma Blair
Selma Blair’s memoir is another person looking back at their life fairly unflinchingly, perhaps unexpectedly if you only know about her from her movies. This is another book that featured in my Actor Memoirs post, and was nominated for Best Memoir or Autobiography in the Goodreads Choice awards – but lost out to Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died (which is also on my list). One of the fascinating things about this book is that despite some terrible behaviour at various times, Selma is clearly the sort of person that people want to be friends with because she’s managed to keep so many people in her life despite of the self destructive behaviour and alcoholism.
Get Rich or Lie Trying by Symeon Brown*
Finally something that’s not a memoir- right! Anyway this looks at the influencer economy and social media and provided me with plenty of food for thought. It was a BotW back in March and a lot of it has stuck with me. As I said in that review, I’ve got a long standing fascination with books and podcasts about scams, and this sort of fits into that in a weird way – it’s not one big con like Bad Blood or Bad Bets but it’ll give you a sense of all the sort of scams that the internet has opened up.
And an honourable mentions should go to Harvey Fierstein’s memoir I Was Better Last Night about his amazing life in showbizness. I told you it was a memoir heavy list!
We’re hurtling towards the end of the year, and so it’s time for my annual lookback at what I read this year and for me to try and pick my favourite things. Today we’re looking at the new release fiction that I’ve loved this year. And trust me when I say it’s been tough! And it doesn’t happen often, but for once some of the books that I loved have made it onto a bunch of best books of the year lists. Oh and I should add that this only looks at standalone books and not later instalments in series.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin*
I’ve already recommended Gabrielle Zevin’s novel to a bunch of people – and it’s been named Amazon’s Book of the Year, as well as being voted Fiction book of the year in Goodreads Choice Awards as well as Book of the Month’s favourite of the year in their vote and it’s on The Atlantic’s Most Thought-Provoking Books of the Year too. It’s a hard one to describe – even Zevins says she struggles! – although I did give it a go in my BotW review but it’s a story about friendships and opportunities missed and love all set in the world of computer games development. I think there’s something here for most people, even if they’re not expecting it. It’s being turned into a movie – so read it now and be ahead of the game!
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
And another of my favourites that other people are picking too is Bonnie Garmus’ novel about Elizabeth Zott. It also won a prize at the Goodreads Choice awards – this time best debut, but it’s also on the Good Housekeeping list, and she’s also Waterstones’ Author of the Year. Elizabeth is a chemist turned TV chef who uses her platform to try and improve women’s lives, all while bringing up her daughter alone. I read this the same week that I read The Unsinkable Greta James (see below) – so this ended up in Quick Reviews rather than as a BotW – but it was in my best books of the first half of the year – and I’ve kept recommending it since, but do please bear in mind the warning for sexual violence and death early in the book. This one is also getting an adaptation this time into a series – Brie Larson is starring in it and it’s going to be on Apple TV+ next year apparently.
Book Lovers by Emily Henry*
I’ve actually done quite well in the Goodreads Choice awards this year – because Book Lovers won Best Romance – beating out TikTok favourite Colleen Hoover, even if you add her two nominated books together! This is big city literary agent in a small town for the summer where she discovers a professional enemy is also in residence. It’s a delight – I love enemies to lovers romances as you know and add a twist on the small town trope and it’s just a delight.
The Unsinkable Greta James by Jennifer E Smith
Now this got a whole lot less attention than the picks above, which is a shame because I adored it. I picked it as a BotW over Lessons in Chemistry partly because it was lesser known, and it really annoys me that more people haven’t heard about it. Greta is an indie popstar with a problem – she has writers block after her mother’s death and a meltdown on stage. She finds herself accompanying her father on the Alaskan Cruise that he was meant to be taking with her mum and things happen. It’s wonderful if sad at times, but the ending is perfect.
Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn
Now this was nominated for Best Crime and Thriller in the Goodreads Choice, but lost out to Nita Prose’ The Maid, which I read at the start of the year and enjoyed, but I think this is more fun. It’s about a group of women who have spent their lives working for an elite agency of assassins, but upon retiring find that they are now the targets. If you like Raybourn’s historical mystery series, you’ll like this. And if you’ve read the Richard Osman Thursday Murder Club books and are looking for something sort-of similar (The Bullet that Missed was also nominated in the same category) this might well scratch that itch.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 