Category: Reviews, Thoughts & Notes

The Bride’s Fortnight in Review

More or less, including what’s coming up in what’s left of March.

Not a bad beginning to the month. I managed to finish two books and made significant progress on one other, a chunky non-fiction that I’ve been reading on and off for what seems like centuries, but I’m determined to finish it this month. Determined I tell you!

Books read:

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca

Sadomasochism. Obsession. Death. All of the above are included in this set of three long short stories. I absolutely loved the title of this collection, though interestingly the main story isn’t the strongest one for me – everything in it happens so quickly and for once the email/message structure isn’t the most effective, though the ending was very creepy. The other two worked better for me, especially You’ll Find It’s Like That All Over (another great title). I will definitely be reading more of this author’s work in the future.

Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind by Sue Black

Or Dame Professor Sue Black as I like to acknowledge. She is one of my absolute heroes and this book doesn’t disappoint. Working her way through the human skeleton from head to toe each section is a mixture of anthropological insights, personal experience and heaps of anecdotes, many from criminal cases on which she has worked. I learned such a lot from this book and my admiration for her keeps growing.

Currently Reading:

Three books currently on the go – Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz which I’ve kind of set aside for now but want to get moving on; ditto for Excellent Intentions by Richard Hull, a British Library Crime Classic by an author I don’t know and which I may have purchased because I really liked the cover; and Global Crisis which is a chunkster on 17th century world history and the impact of climate change during that period, which has popped up on this blog many times in the past and I WILL finish this month.

Coming up in March:

The TBR reduction challenge is to start a series I’ve never read before, with a stretch goal of completing the series this year. I’ve decided to choose the Love & Inheritance Trilogy by Fay Weldon, in honour of the fact that she died recently, starting with (obviously) book one Habits of the House.

Yes, it could be argued that a trilogy isn’t a series in the spirit of the challenge but I don’t care, I’m including it anyway. Don’t at me.

I also wanted to mention the passing of Christopher Fowler, author of the Bryant & May series, lots of creepy short stories and some fabulous standalone horror. I was lucky enough to meet him several times and he was a smashing person. He will be missed a great deal.

I have several books on pre-order which will be dropping into my reader this month:

  • Red London by Alma Katsu – Why? Female CIA operatives, Russian oligarchs and London.
  • Nothing but the Rain by Naomi Salman – Why? I’m from the west of Scotland where rain was a way of life when I was a child, so the idea that being out in the rain can wash away your memories sounds intriguing
  • The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear – Why? OK, it’s not a Maisie Dobbs story but it is about a female ex-spy, corruption in Scotland Yard and organised crime in London. There is possibly a pattern here…..
  • A House with Good Bones by T Kingfisher – Why? It’s a “haunting Southern Gothic” family saga.
  • Rubicon by JS Dewes Why? First line of the description: “Sergeant Adrienne Valero wants to die. She can’t.“
  • Games for Dead Girls by Jen Williams – Why? I love Jen’s work and this has urban legends, macabre secrets, and has been described as a propulsive read so I. Am. In.

That’s it so far!

The Bride looks back at February

It’s almost Spring, so we just need to hang on in there for a wee bit longer.

February was not a bad reading month. I had a bit of a gap in the middle where I didn’t make that much progress but it wasn’t a slump; I was enjoying what I was reading, I was just distracted by other things.

The Stats:

  • Books read = 6
  • Pages read = 1952
  • Progress against my reading goals = 13% (2 books ahead of schedule to meet 72 books read in 2023)
  • Progress against my TBR reduction goals = near miss 😦

The goal for TBR reduction was to read 28 short stories in February (ie one a day) and the stretch goal was to read 4 novellas (ie one a week). I managed to read 25 short stories and 2 novellas. Perhaps if I’d concentrated on the short stories I’d have been successful, but do you know what? I still got four items off my stack and that’s a win for me.

Don’t ask how many books came into the Bride’s collection during the month, though. Just don’t. 🙂

What did I read for the challenge?

The Talosite by Rebecca Campbell

It’s 1916, during the First World War, in an alternate world where resurrection is possible. Anne Markham, the daughter of a celebrated neurologist, is reusing the bodies of the dead, combining them into new forms and sending them back into combat, building creatures so complex, and so enormous, that they can encompass all of the fallen.

I loved this story, so grim but also beautifully written and deeply strange. Found myself trying to visualise the creatures being created and couldn’t quite get there. Will definitely be re-reading this story.

The Catch by Mick Herron

John Bachelor is the saddest kind of spy: not a joe in the field, not even a desk jockey, but a milkman—a part-time pension administrator whose main job is to check in on aging retired spies. Late in his career and having lost his wife, his house, and his savings after a series of unlucky choices, John’s been living in a dead man’s London apartment, hoping the bureaucracy isn’t going to catch up with him and leave him homeless. But keeping a secret among spies is a fool’s errand, and now John has made himself eminently blackmailable.

Another excellent addition to the Slough House world, this fits in to the series after Book 6, which I haven’t read yet but I don’t think it matters that I came to this out of order. I love this world so much.

The Best Horror of the Year Volume 14, edited by Ellen Datlow

Like all anthologies there are stories included that just don’t work for me, but it did include one of favourites from the last year – Shards by Ian Rogers which I had read as a standalone but was very happy to revisit (and will no doubt read again).

Some favourite authors included and confirmation that I will enjoy Eric LaRocca’s work.

Ghost 19 by Simone St James – classed as a short story for the purposes of this challenge

A woman moves to a town where she becomes obsessed with watching the lives of her neighbours while stuck in a house that refuses to let her leave

This story gave me very strong Rear Window vibes and I am not mad about that at all. Nicely creepy, and I really liked Ginette.I really must read The Book of Cold Cases……

I also managed to read a couple of other titles:

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallet

Open the safe deposit box. Inside you will find research material for a true crime book. You must read the documents, then make a decision. Will you destroy them? Or will you take them to the police?

Another nicely twisty novel by Ms Hallett, this is told through exchanges between two true crime authors forced to collaborate on the same story, that of the Alperton Angels, a cult who were convinced that the Antichrist had been born to a young woman within the group and that they needed to kill it. Clearly all is not as it appears and we watch the story unfold. I can’t resist anything to do with cults so enjoyed this very much (though I still think The Appeal is the best of her three novels so far)

Enemies Within: Communists, the Cambridge Spies and the Making of Modern Britain by Richard Davenport-Hines

I also can’t resist anything about the Cambridge Five in particular and espionage in general, so picked this up recently though I think it’s been out for a while. I found it really enjoyable to read (you should see the quotes I pulled for my reading journal – pages of them) because the author writes wonderfully bitchy pen portraits of almost everyone involved, however tangentially, but I was not entirely convinced by his thesis that it was less about class and more about the culture of masculinity, though that undoubtedly played a role. Not sure it had the impact on the “making of modern Britain” that he suggests, and his dislike of certain individuals comes across so strongly that I think it undermines his position, but I’m glad I read it.

So that’s it for this month. Hope you are all well and having a great almost the end of winter!

The Bride looks back at January

Ummm…… it’s been a while……

But here we are in 2023 and it’s already the end of the first month so time to look at what I’ve achieved so far this year!

The Stats:

  • Books read = 7
  • Pages read = 2199
  • Progress against my reading goals = 10% (1 book ahead of schedule) (my goal for this year is to read 72 books).

I’ll be adding a new stat at the end of February which will be progress against my TBR reduction goals. The prompts I’m using have been set by Womble over on Runalong the Shelves (the post with the year’s plan is here). The only real restriction is that all the books you choose should have been in your hands before midnight on 31 December 2022

January’s prompt was to read the last book you bought before the deadline. I started off by choosing The Vessel by Adam Nevill, but though it is definitely something I do want to read it was just a bit too grim for a dull and wet January and has been added to my Set Aside for Now shelf..

So, I opted for something much lighter, namely The Greyhound of the Baskervilles, which is a slight but sweet re-telling of Conan Doyle’s Hound from the perspective of Septimus, the greyhound belonging to Sherlock Holmes. Great fun.

For the stretch goal, which was to read the oldest book on my TBR, I bent the rules a little bit and decided to read the oldest piece of fiction on my Kindle app. This turned out to be Monster Love by Carol Topolski which I apparently bought in January 2011. I was gripped by this novel but I also have Thoughts, so I’m hoping to review it shortly.

January’s TBR reduction goals are met, and for February I will be reading 28 short stories (almost certainly all horror) and 4 novellas (one for each week). Come back next month and see how I did.

More about this month’s books read, apart from the two already mentioned:

The Ends by James Smythe – the fourth and final book in The Anomaly Quartet. I enjoyed this book so much and I really should write about what it felt like to finish the final volume of a series that I have loved so much.

London Rules by Mick Herron (Slough House #5) – Mr B and I have been happily devouring the TV adaptations of these books so it made sense to get back into reading them before AppleTV catches up. This is probably my favourite yet and I’m looking forward to reading #6 in the not too distant future

The Corpse in the Waxworks by John Dickson Carr – a British Library Crime Classic release, this has what it says on the cover – a case in which a body is indeed found in a Parisian waxwork museum. Failed to identify the killer, sadly (me that is, not the detective).

Murder by Matchlight by ECR Lorac – another BL Crime Classic, this is set in the London blackout during the Blitz. I really like Lorac’s Scottish police detective and the unusual background. I love her books. Worked out who the murderer probably was but had no idea of motive or means.

True Crime Story by Joseph Knox – a twisty thriller told through e-mails and drafts of a true crime book, this features the author as a not entirely sympathetic character in his own novel. Recommended – but I’m probably the last person in the world to have read it, so you might want to ignore my advice 🙂

So, I feel like I’m off to a solid start. What have you guys been reading in 2023 so far?

The Bride Looks Back at – November

The month started off fairly slowly on the reading front, but the attraction of several British Library Crime Classics in my virtual collection meant finishing three books in a week, which is pretty good for me these days.

But onto the stats….

  • Books read = 5 including one audiobook
  • Pages read = 967 plus 15.5hours of listerning
  • Goodreads progress = 62 of 65 finished, 95% of my challenge target

Books I read:

  • Cthulhu Resurgent by David Conyers – volume 2 of the collected stories of Major Harrison Peel; a very military take on the elder gods but still enjoyable if you like that sort of thing (which I do)
  • Death of Jezebel by Christianna Brand – published in 1949, a post-war London murder mystery with the equivalent of a locked room scenario. I thought I had guessed the murderer but talked myself out of it only to be proved right but for all the wrong reasons and with no idea of how it was done. Fiendish.
  • These Names Make Clues by ECR Lorac – published in 1937 this isn’t exactly a locked room mystery but does appear to be an almost impossible murder given the situations of the victim and the main suspect (I will say no more). A literary treasure hunt at a publisher’s London home with a real life detective as one of the guests, this was heaps of fun and is definitely my book of the month
  • A Surfeit of Suspects by George Bellairs – published in 1964 so only a couple of years younger than me, this is very much of its time – financial shenanigans, loose morals, potential corruption, shifty bank managers and a joinery company that explodes. Dated but still fun to read.

I also listened to an unabridged version of Dracula with Alan Cumming and Tim Curry. I will have a review of that soon, as I definitely had Thoughts.

Currently reading:

I started several books and set them aside as not quite what I was looking for at present, though I’m sure I will go back to them all at some point. I’m currently absorbed in two:

  • The Explorer by James Smythe – the final book in his Anomaly Quartet came out this year and I am planning to read all four volumes this December. This is the third time I’ve read this, the first book in the series, and at about a quarter of the way through its just as excellent as I remember!
  • American Sherlock by Kate Winkler Dawson – an audiobook read by the author who is one of my favourite podcasters, though I’ve sometimes taken issue with her books. Very interesting, but I’m always slow when listening to non-fiction.

Looking forward to in December, the start of a year-and-one-month low buy challenge for books, but lots of gifts to come (fingers crossed)!

The Bride’s Early Autumn Wrap-Up

My reading progress has been significantly better during September and October, so it seems like a good time to get back into blogging with some thoughts on how it’s all been going.

SEPTEMBER

  • Books read = 5
  • Pages read = 1739
  • Goodreads challenge progress = 75% of my target

Book of the Month:

The Quest for Queen Mary by James Pope-Hennessy as edited by Hugo Vickers.

Pope-Hennessy was commissioned to write a biography of Queen Mary in 1959, a book which I have read and enjoyed; beautifully written and very discreet. In writing the book, he travelled around the UK and Europe meeting friends and family and taking copious notes, most of which are included in this book and contain his own observations as well as a number of topics which he either hinted at or left out altogether. The question he seems to have been asked more than once was whether the Duke of Clarence was suffering from syphilis at the time of his death.

Favourite anecdote, from a dancing class Princess May (as she then was) attended:

One of the most embarrassing exercises was to go around the room alone in turn, making a curtsey. Princess May said “Well goodness, that’s one thing I shall never have to do.” She was told to think again remarked Lady Reid.

OCTOBER

  • Books read = 7
  • Pages read = 2254
  • Goodreads challenge progress = 88% of my target

I made myself a nice long spooky reading list for October, not because I thought I would read them all but to give me some options. I like to have options.

I re-read A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny because that’s what I do in October. It is still awesome and will be back next year.

Book of the Month

The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay. Not so much frightening as it is sad and moving, I became totally absorbed in this novel after taking a while to get into it. Once I was settled with the characters I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Favourite quote:

A book is a coffin because it holds a body, sometimes more than one, and we readers are there to witness, mourn and celebrate.

Currently Reading

What have you guys been reading lately?

Summer 2022 Report Card

Well, that was a long break from blogging, mostly because I hit a major reading slump and had nothing to say to anyone. At the risk of jinxing myself, September is already looking significantly more promising, in that I’ve already finished two books and am well on the way to finishing another two, so hopefully my slump is over.

Anyway, the stats…

20 Books of Summer

From my original reading list (which you can find here) I only managed to finish seven (dreadful) and started a further two which I have set aside for now but fully intend to go back to at some point.

Honourable mentions go to Claire North’s The End of the Day which I really enjoyed, and The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum which taught me much about the development of forensics in Prohibition New York. I also enjoyed rediscovering Tess Gerritsen’s Rizzoli & Isles series, picking it up again at Book 7.

I’m also certain that if I haven’t written a review already then it’s not going to happen; starting September with clean slate.

My reading stats

  • June – 5 books
  • July – 4 books
  • August – 2 books (and one of those was an audiobook which was my walking companion and I probably started in early July)

Things, I feel, can only get better 🙂

What I was watching

I watched ten films over the three months, all of which I enjoyed to some degree with a couple of disappointments (Jurassic World: Dominion, which was fine, and The Secrets of Dumbledore which I only watched because I can be a bit of a completist) and two that were sufficiently strange that Mr B gave them a body swerve and I watched alone – Everything Everywhere All At Once (Michelle Yeoh is awesome) and Alex Garland’s folk horror Men which is very much an acquired taste; I found it unsettling rather than frightening and have a suspicion that I didn’t entirely understand what he was trying to achieve.

I loved, loved, loved the Netflix adaptation of The Sandman; the casting was excellent to the extent that I may now have a crush on Boyd Holbrook’s Corinthian which if you know anything about the character is problematic at best.

And Only Murders in the Building continued to deliver in season two; am tempted to indulge in a rewatch just to tide me over until the next one.

So that was my summer. How has your reading been going?

A Life in Death by Richard Venables

A behind the scenes look at how victims of accidents and natural disasters are identified, from the perspective of a British police officer.

Detective Inspector Richard Venables has helped identify thousands of bodies all over the world, piecing together fragments from tsunamis, transport and other disasters to return victims to their loved ones.

I have a fascination with this subject matter which goes back many years to reading a book about facial reconstruction from skeletal remains, covering historical figures to the last unidentified person from the 1987 King’s Cross fire (finally given his name back in 2004). Of course not only can I not remember the name of the book, I can’t find it on my shelves so you’ll have to take my word for it that it was absolutely worth reading.

Anyway, I regularly pick up books on the subject whenever I see them, and was particularly interested in this one because of its focus on UK disasters as well as, of course, the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami which led to the deaths of an estimated 230,000 people.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book for me at least, was the amount of detail Venables goes into in recounting the development of DVI policies and procedures. I don’t know whether it’s because I was a civil servant for thirty years and heavily involved in writing guidance documents myself, but I appreciated his descriptions of how he and colleagues learned from each of the events in which they were involved, trying to make things more efficient and easier for the people involved in the DVI (Disaster Victim Identification) process, as well as the families who had lost loved ones. It wasn’t a perfect system but what is when humans are involved?

Some of the events he talks about hit home to me, especially the London bombings in 2005. One of my friends was on the tube train which exploded at Russell Square, and our office (which was within easy walking distance from that station and Tavistock Square where a double-decker bus exploded) was on lockdown for several hours. My friend was thankfully not physically hurt, and the impact on all of us lasted a very long time.

But the event that obviously had the greatest long-term effect on Venables was the tsunami. He worked in Thailand for many weeks on the difficult task of identifying people who had drowned in the disaster, with the heat and the effects of salt water on the remains adding to the difficulty of the task. His affection for Thailand and its people comes across very clearly.

I found it an informative read but a bit unbalanced, not sure how much of the author’s personal life to include. But I would still recommend it if this is a subject that speaks to you. Or is it just me?

This was my second read for #20booksofsummer20

Relic by Preston & Child

The first in the long-running and possibly still going Agent Pendergast series by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child.

The New York Museum of Natural History is built over a subterranean labyrinth of neglected specimen vaults, unmapped drainage tunnels and long-forgotten catacombs.

SOMETHING IS DOWN THERE…..

I remember watching the 1997 film adaptation of this book back in the day but despite having the same title (obviously) I didn’t connect the two, and therefore was able to come to the story relatively fresh. It’s an enjoyable, fast-paced thriller with a reasonable amount of blood and guts and a protagonist who is clearly extremely clever but manages not to be annoying.

Ask me if I still feel that way if and when I get to volume 21.

So the NY Natural History Museum is hosting an exhibition called Superstition with artefacts from many cultures including a relic (hence the name) found during a disastrous expedition to South America where nearly everyone died in various ways while still managing (eventually) to get their finds back to New York. But, did something dangerous come back with them?

Why yes of course it did.

Following the discovery of the mutilated bodies of two young boys in the museum’s basement, our hero, Pendergast himself, arrives from New Orleans to investigate because something similar happened down there. Is there a serial killer, or something more sinister?

If you voted for sinister you would be correct.

Is there a cover-up by arrogant senior museum officials who eventually get their comeuppance? Yes.

Is there a local arrogant and incompetent FBI agent who (a) doesn’t like our hero; (b) won’t listen to advice & (c) also gets what’s coming to him? Yes.

Is there a more than competent young woman researcher going through personal stuff who is dismissed by almost all of the men around her but is key to unravelling the mystery? Yes

Charming but cranky professor in a wheelchair? Check.

Does the mystery get solved by our team? Partially (but worry not, there is an epilogue).

I enjoyed this greatly, despite unfortunately positive mentions of big game hunting, which YUCK, so much so that I seem to have obtained the next five books in the series. What can I say, these things happen.

This was my first completed read for #20BooksofSummer22

My Week – 22 May edition

It has been a very quiet week chez Bride so not that much to report.

Books finished:

Only one this week, Girl 4 by Will Carver, the first of his novels to be published (I think) and definitely the first in his Det. Insp. January David trilogy. Serial killer. Visions. Family drama. Nefarious plan. All good (as you will see later). I love Will Carver’s work and am enjoying delving into his earlier stuff.

Currently reading:

Unmasked by Paul Holes – not made much progress on this but hope to get it finished this week. Not having any difficulties with it, just fictional serial killers are holding my interest more than real life murderers.

The Two by Will Carver – January David #2; more than one serial killer (probably). Even more visions. Wicca. Internecine rivalry within the police. Very good indeed

But mostly I’ve been focussing on my 20 Books of Summer reading list which you can find here.

New books:

  • The Light of Italy: The Life and Times of Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino by Jane Stevenson – 15th century Italy and my favourite of the many city states of the time. Federico has long interested me, and on my last trip to Italy I was lucky enough to make it to Urbino and to see some of the amazing works he collected, including paintings by Pierro della Francesca.
  • The Surrogate by Tania Carver – the first in her Brennan & Esposito series (he’s a police detective, she’s a psychologist, they have history) sees a horrendous double murder in Colchester.
  • Parallel Hells by Leon Craig – a debut collection of short stories with gothic and folklore-related subjects. I think I saw this mentioned on Twitter and was intrigued enough to buy; I really must get back into reading short stories, she said wistfully…..

Other stuff:

As I said not much is happening around these parts. I’ve been doing some work in our tiny wee garden; though I’m not very good at gardening, things are taking shape.

Friday nights have become Michael Connelly & pizza night. We are watching Bosch: Legacy and The Lincoln Lawyer TV series and enjoying them both a great deal. The Book God has read the novels (not all of them, I think, because Mr Connelly is very prolific) but I’m just along for the ride, enjoying the small screen adaptations.

Hope you stay safe and have a great reading week!

20 Books of Summer ’22

It’s almost June so that means 20 Books of Summer, hosted every year by Cathy at 746 books, is upon us once more. Despite my failures in previous years, I’m going to have another go but I have Purpose and A Plan this time round.

I have decided to use this pretty relaxed challenge to restart some of the series I have neglected over the past wee while and get back into reading them again, and to read more physical volumes than ebooks.

If you are interested in joining the challenge then the announcement post is here and Cathy’s own list is here.

But what about my list? Well, here we go…….

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry – yes, I know I’m way behind everyone else in getting to this, and I’ve had it for ages (I was gift for Christmas one year. Or my birthday. I forget) but I like to read the book before I watch an adaptation and one T Hiddleston is the male lead in this so what can you do?

Keeping the Dead by Tess Gerritsen – the seventh in the Rizzoli & Isles series; can’t remember when I read number six but we’ve been catching up on the TV series and although is hugely different it made me want to pick up the books again

Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovitch – depending on whether you count the novellas or not (for info, I do) this is either the seventh or eighth in the Rivers of London series (how many times do you think I can type the word ‘series’ in this post, I wonder?).I actually started reading this ages ago, got almost halfway through and then stopped for reasons I can no longer recall. Will start from the beginning once more

Dreaming Spies by Laurie R King – the Mary Russell series hits volume 13. I love her and want to get back into the swing of Holmes-related stories again

Bryant & May: Strange Tide by Christopher Fowler – I have been neglecting Mr Fowler over the past few years and will put this right by starting off with number 13 in a series I have been reading forever. Until I wasn’t.

A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear – Maisie Dobbs returns having headed abroad at the end of volume 10; one of my favourite fictional characters, now lurching towards the outbreak of WW2

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo – the first of the standalone reads, this is a reimagining of the life of Jordan baker, one of the characters from The Great Gatsby. Really looking forward to this one, might be reading this near the beginning of the challenge

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid – I’ve had this one on my TBR pile for ages, and as well as wanting to read it on its own terms, I’m hoping it will also lead me back into David Mitchell’s Utopia Avenue. I love rock band stories (the best being, of course, Espedair Street by Iain Banks. I will not argue about this)

Holy Terror: Stories by Cherie Priest – a bit of horror & creepiness in short form. I haven’t been reading a lot of short stories recently and this looks just wonderful.

The Poisoner’s Handbook By Deborah Blum – because it wouldn’t be a reading list of mine without death and destruction in a nonfiction form; pretty sure this will do what it says on the tin

A Life in Death by Richard Venable – nor is it a Bride list without something true crime adjacent; this is the story of Det. Insp. Venables, an expert in Disaster Victim Identification and a member of the UK Police’s Major Disaster Advisory Team

The Fall of Robespierre by Colin Jones – an hour by hour analysis of the last day of Robespierre’s leadership during the French Revolution. The only proper history book on this list; what have I become 🙂

Dreadful Company by Vivian Shaw – the second in the Dr Greta Helsing trilogy, our heroine is in Paris and dealing with vampires. Again.

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsin Muir – I loved Gideon the Ninth and don’t know why I’ve waited this long to read the follow-up; whatever the reason, encouragement has been provided by the imminent release of the next volume

A Line to Kill by Anthony Horowitz – the third in the series where Horowitz himself is the sidekick to the detective Hawthorne. I really like this clever series and am especially looking forward to reading this one

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers – the second Wayfarers book, where Lovelace, once a ship’s AI, wakes up in a new body and has to figure a lot of things out…

The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross – the eighth (I think) novel in the Laundry Files universe; another one that I started and set aside for a while but again I’m incentivised by having read one of the shorts in the same series and remembering how much fun these are. Sort of Lovecraft meets the civil service….

Business as Usual by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford – I mentioned this in my most recent weekly round-up. I do love an epistolary novel

The End of the Day by Claire North – I love Claire North’s work but have fallen a little bit behind in reading her books, so this challenge feels the right time to pick her up again. She is such an intelligent and talented writer.

Relic by Preston & Child – I remember seeing the film version of this many moons ago not realising that it was based on this novel, the start of a long and well regarded series featuring FBI Agent Pendergast. Hopefully the first of many.

And that’s it. Not a bad list I think, and we’ll see how I get on – watch this space!