50 Books a Year - The 2025 Challenge

Book 8
The New Wife - J P Delaney
A quick read, ok, nothing special.

According to my kindle I read 63 books during 2024 but I also read 12 books from my book club.

I have just finished reading North Woods by Daniel Mason.
A fascinating story of a house through several centuries.
It was recommended to me by a member of my book club and was a change from the psychological thrillers I have been reading lately.

#7 The Book Keeper Sarah Painter.
The second in the Unholy Island trilogy. Unholy Island is a mysterious magical tidal island off the coast of Northumberland. Visitors are welcome to come across the causeway but they can only stay for two days before leaving and forgetting about the island as a result of wards maintained by the Island's witch Esmay. If you need sanctuary and the island needs you then you can become a resident. Luke came in search of his missing twin and is now the proprietor of the strange almost sentient bookshop and as well as selling the usual titles found in a book shop is the keeper of Unholy Island's written knowledge and more unusual books. A responsibility that brings danger. I enjoyed this book and will be looking out for the sequel. There are other residents whose back stories I want to learn.

Book 3: Maxwell's Return by M. J. Trow
Book 4: Murder in the New Forest by Carol Cole

For a change I am enjoying reading spy books by Daniel Silva and have just finished The Kill Artist (my book #8)

My son and I are both into them and enjoy discussing the plots.

An Israeli spy, Gabriel Allom, is the central character in several of the books, but he is no James Bond in personality. He's quite a deep thinker whose much-loved wife and son were blown up by Arab terrorists, and he misses them dreadfully.

He is now an art restorer living a solitary life in Cornwall while trying to deal with the painful memories of the loss of his family, having left the Israeli secret services, but is called back to deal with one more case.

I give it 10/10 and spent yesterday afternoon lying on the sofa reading the last 150 pages because I couldn't put it down.

#13. House Of Lies by DS Butler.

My last book was We Solve Murders by Richard Osman.

Wouldn’t recommend it. To me, very similar style, unsurprisingly, to the Thursday Murder Club books.

Uninteresting characters and too many of them, couldn’t keep up with who was who, totally far fetched plot, just plain daft really.

Looked like it was to be the first in a new series,

Won’t be holding my breath.

Book 11, Our Kate, by Catherine Cookson. I haven`t read her for quite a while, so this made a nice change. The Kate in the title is the author`s mother.

I read Crow Lake years ago, can’t really remember a lot about it, but know I enjoyed it, as I’ve enjoyed all of her books

AliBeeee Thank you re Sunburn. My son is reading it now and enjoying it too.

I’m getting a feeling of Deja vu OTMG about Crow Lake. I bought it on kindle and didn’t get the message ‘you bought this book in such & such a date’. So have I read it as a paperback? I’m not far in and loving it already but something is snagging at my memory….

I missed out book 5 - Murder on the Downs by Julie Wassmer

@ Fried Green Tomatoes- I read Crow Lake last year. I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember the story, but looking at my reading record list I gave it a score of 4.5 out of 5 which means I really enjoyed it.
# Book 6 - The Doctor by Lisa Stone

Book 7
The Christmas Appeal - Janice Hallett

It was a very quick read, probably no more than a couple of hours.
A follow on from The Appeal, which I had really enjoyed, but this didn’t really do it for me, all a bit silly

TerriBull 🩷 that!

Book 10, Midnight Fugue, by Reginald Hill. Yet another Dalziel and Pascoe story, quite good, actually.

That's all very well FGT personally I find the mind of a cat is very easy to read and I aspire to live my life in accordance with the thoughts of catfucious

“Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.” – Groucho Marx

Will do Terribull 😁
That said I plan to read a couple of novels before that one as I like to read BC reads fairly near to our meet ups (otherwise I forget my review of it).

Strange Sally Diamond was one of my best reads from last year, FGT, do let us know what you think of it when you've read it.

Hellogirl1

Book 9, Strange Sally Diamond, by Liz Nugent. A strange book, didn`t think at the beginning that I was going to like it, but am glad I persevered.

Actually this is our next book club read for March Hellogirl!
Someone in our group asked a friend in another book club what they considered was their best read in 2024 and this one was definitely their top read!

Hmm.

I finally read ‘The Whalebone Theatre’. I was delighted (prose) and exasperated (theatrical nonsense which I found irritating and could have skipped without it affecting the story as a whole) in equal measure. Loved the last 25% of the novel. The author’s description of abject grief at a death was gut wrenchingly portrayed and I truly sobbed my heart out.

Next novel for me is ‘Crow Lake’ by Mary Lawson. My own choice not a book club read. Anyone read it?

#12. We Solve Murders by Richard Osman.

Book 6
The Raging Storm - Ann Cleeve
Very much enjoyed this, it features her new detective, Matthew Venn, and is again, set around the north Devon coastline.
The local coastguard respond to a call, only to find a dead man in an anchored boat. The dead man is identified as local celebrity Jem Roscoe
It’s a good story, I know this part of Devon well, so that was an added interest, definitely recommend

Yes I do agree AliBeeee it took a little while to get into it. I think I took the recommendation for it from Sparklefizz, it's good when those are passed on.