50 Books a Year - The 2025 Challenge

Sparklefizz I probably recommend Sunburn. I read it late last year and really enjoyed it, I’m glad you did too.

#6 was The Midnight News by Jo Baker, recommended recently here by TerriBull (I think). I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy it, it took me a bit to get properly into it, but I enjoyed it very much. Charlotte’s awful family and the consequences of their disapproval were desperate. 8/10

#7 was Wellness by Nathan Hill, which was also recommended here recently. This is a 600 pager and I’m afraid I gave up after 100. It started really well, but then I took a real dislike to the characters and the writing style, gave up and returned it to the library.

#11. The Sun Sister by Lucinda Riley.

This has been sitting on my book stand for ages, lent to me by a friend. Not a fan of this series, but have read all except this.

Started a while ago, then put aside. Found myself without anything else so have set to and nearly finished it.

The past story far more interesting than the present one.

9-Private Rome-James Patterson &Adam Hamdy.
Gave up on this one after 70pages as I was getting totally confused with all the Italian names, and the number of police and ex-police, goodies and baddies, muddled my brain.
As I get older I find this happens a lot, ha-ha!

stillawipp, I loved ‘The Collected Regrets of Clover’, as did the friends I recommended it to. But if you’re already half-way through and not enjoying it, maybe it’s not for you 🫤

8-A Death in the Dales-Frances Brody
Set in the 1920s a female private detective takes her niece on holiday near Settle. She discovers there had been a murder 10years previously and some of the village believe the wrong man was charged and executed.
This book is an insight to life in those times which opened my eyes to how my grandparents must have lived.

8. Stop Them Dead, Peter James

I was in the mood for another Grace book after enjoying One of Us is Dead, so downloaded this from the library, even though the subject matter hadn’t appealed in the past. I’m glad I did, I think it’s one of his best. It’s about illegal dog breeding and smuggling, and is a real eye opener - it also seems very well researched. There are one or two things that grate with me about this series though - there’s hardly a page goes by without someone calling their partner darling, or Norman Potting making yet another bad joke!

Terribull thank you for that description of Precipice. I don't think I'll read it, tho, as I find it quite upsetting to think of Asquith's power which he treated so casually while indulging himself in his affair.

Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans is a story of people putting their lives back together after WW1, commoners and 'gentry' alike.
Their various challenges are related quite matter-of-factly and I found it an absorbing read.

The Grandmother by Jane E James is a modern day tale which starts with 2 young girls whose mother has just been murdered. They are given a home with their estranged grandmother, whom they have never met before.
The story takes many twists as we find out the truth about several of the characters.

I think those are books 4&5 for me.

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.

Juno56

#6 The Last List of Mabel Beaumont Laura Pearson.
Mabel's husband of over sixty years Arthur loves lists. After his sudden death Mabel finds a list with just one item on it: Find D. She knows what this must mean, her best friend Dot left town with no warning before Mabel and Arthur's wedding and Mabel hasn't seen her since. In the days and weeks after Arthur's death she meets a group of women of different ages and circumstances and with their help she sets out to find her old friend. She also tries to help them (with mixed results) with their problems. This is a lovely book about choices made or not made, love in many forms but most of all female friendship.

Ohh, I loved this book - just finished it! Has anyone read 'The Collected Regrets of Clover" ? I'm halfway through & it's a bit morbid and depressing at the moment...does it get better?!

#5 is the next in the Boudicca series: “Dreaming the Bull”. Started it yesterday - 260 pages in already.

#6 The Last List of Mabel Beaumont Laura Pearson.
Mabel's husband of over sixty years Arthur loves lists. After his sudden death Mabel finds a list with just one item on it: Find D. She knows what this must mean, her best friend Dot left town with no warning before Mabel and Arthur's wedding and Mabel hasn't seen her since. In the days and weeks after Arthur's death she meets a group of women of different ages and circumstances and with their help she sets out to find her old friend. She also tries to help them (with mixed results) with their problems. This is a lovely book about choices made or not made, love in many forms but most of all female friendship.

Book No 5 The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.
This book is about Nora whose life is going from bad to worse. Then at the stroke of midnight on her last day on earth she finds herself transported to a library. There she is given the chance to undo her regrets and try out other lives she might have lived. Which raises the question with infinite choices, which is the best way to live.
I enjoyed this book, I found it uplifting ,full of warmth . A really nice tale .

TerriBull I found Precipice very interesting too as I knew nothing about that period except Asquith's name (and the war, of course.)

I have just finished The English Assassin by Daniel Silva which I've thoroughly enjoyed. I have recently got into spy books, and Daniel Silva is a brilliant author in this genre.

Art restorer and sometime Israeli spy, Gabriel Allon, is asked to visit Zurich to clean the work of an Old Master owned by a millionaire banker. But when he gets there, he finds the corpse of his client in a pool of blood beneath the masterpiece, and discovers that a secret collection of priceless paintings - stolen by Nazis in the war - is missing.

I found this book fascinating. I only had a vague idea of the part that Switzerland played in WW2 (mainly that it was a neutral country) but I didn't know that Swiss bankers stored much of the Nazi loot taken from Jews and that a good percentage of the loot has never been recovered and is still hidden in Swiss vaults.

The author has done a great deal of research on this subject, and this is a thrilling story about Israeli efforts to recover the artwork they used to own.

I would give it 10/10.

6 Precipice Robert Harris (Audible)

Very good, really enjoyed it. I knew nothing about Herbert Asquith he was merely a name of a PM from the early 20th century. I didn't know his tenure was during the time when Britain was teetering on the brink of the outbreak of WW1. He was a man, it seems in spite of being married craved the attention of younger women, and this book unfolds through his love letters to socialite Venetia Stanley, in which he is staggeringly indiscreet as to what he reveals in top secret government matters to her. He almost treats his war cabinet meetings as a somewhat annoying distraction in his main interest which is the pursuit of his love interest. He, during their trysts which often take place during motoring excursions is prone to tossing highly confidential telegrams out of the car window with the consequence of them being handed into Police stations. This results in a Special Constable named Deemer putting him under surveillance, and henceforth his letters being intercepted. The letters which could sometimes be as many as 4 a day, had as time rolls on, the effect of eventually becoming tiresome to Venetia, particularly when she enrols in training to become a nurse as a contribution to the war effort, and barely has time to draw breath let alone reply to Asquith's increasingly tiresome missives. I believe Robert Harris had access to the letters that have been meticulously maintained by the Bonham-Carter family, that name of course rang a bell, Asquith is Helena's great grandfather, his daughter married a Bonham-Carter, I wonder if she's read the book This was clearly a very distracted man at a time when Britain had been plunged into a very dangerous and awful war so many young men perished and it was thought that Asquith had in some way been responsible for those losses , The book concludes in 1916 at a juncture where the prevailing political mindset was that a coalition was needed and Liberal, David Lloyd-George, Asquith fierce nemesis, was appointed Prime Minister.

A really interesting book that evoked the period.

I’ve just finished two that I really enjoyed.

6. One of Us is Dead, Peter James

At a friend’s funeral, James Taylor notices a man a few rows in front of him who looks and moves just like his old school friend Rufus Rorke. The issue is, Taylor had given the eulogy at Rufus’s funeral two years earlier. So can Rufus really still be alive, and how can he possibly be connected to a spate of suspicious “accidental” deaths being investigated by DSupt Roy Grace?

7. The Rachel Incident, Caroline O’Donoghue
Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr Byrne, and her best friend James helps her plot to seduce him. But an unexpected development tests their friendship, and leads to their lives becoming entwined with the Byrnes'. It’s funny, sad and I feel will be memorable.

Book 5
Born in a Burial Gown - M W Craven
Only discovered this writer towards the end of last year, and he’s definitely becoming a firm favourite.

Set in Cumbria, a woman’s body is discovered on a building site, it appears to have been a professional hit

Our SIO is Avison Fluke, recently recovered from a very aggressive cancer, and his small team of detectives.

It’s fast paced, clever, and very readable, I really enjoyed it, and will definitely be reading more.

#10. With A Mind To Kill by Anthony Horowitz.

7-Chaff Upon the Wind-Margaret Dickinson
Set in 1910 this story of a maid falling in love with a harvest workman gives a real insight to life in that era. The upstairs /downstairs divide is very clear at that time, but how much will maid Kitty give up for her mistress? A lifetime of sadness?

#4 The Firemaker by Peter May

Book 8, A Killing Kindness, by Reginald Hill. Another Dalziel and Pascoe story.

#5 The Exchange by John Grisham. Predictable but gripping

#5 A Bachelor Establishment Jodi Taylor writing as Isabella Barclay.
Jodi Taylor is probably my favourite author and I loved this tongue in cheek homage to the work of Georgette Heyer.

Sparklefizz, I have added it to my never ending list as well