2026 - 50 Books a Year Challenge

8-Echo of the Dead-Alex Gray
This book took me back in time to the many holidays I've had in the Glencoe area of Scotland.
When DSI William Lorimer takes a colleague climbing they are shocked to find a body on the mountain, but when another body is discovered they are drafted in from their base in Glasgow to investigate. It's clear that a dark secret lurks beneath the wild beauty of this place. A great story, unputdownable!

Thank you to those who recommended The River Kings. Absolutely fascinating. I am a few chapters in and am hooked.

#8. What The Shadows Hide by MJ Lee.

Book 2: What To Do When Someone Dies by Nicci French. The author is the nom de plume of husband and wife Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. A gripping story about a wife who is told that her husband has died in a car crash, with a female passenger. Was he having an affair? Through her grief, she is determined to prove his innocence.
Book 3: We Are All Made Of Glue by Marina Lewycka. A story about a young woman who befriends an elderly, eccentric Jewish neighbour. Good story.
Book 4: They Thought I Was Dead by Peter James. The back-story of what happened to Sandy, the first wife of DCI Roy Grace. Couldn't put this down, so well written and full of suspense

7 Fox - Joyce Carol Oates Audible

Anyone who has discovered JCO will know she's a pretty amazing author who tackles uncomfortable subjects.

This one is no exception. The book opens with a dog walker on a hiking trail in New Jersey. The dog who is prone not to obey the owner, a headmistress of a school pivotal to the story, when it wanders off into the undergrowth to discover body parts. One consideration during the course of investigations is that they belong to a missing person, namely Francis Fox, a highly respected English teacher at a prestigious private school. Initially, for a large part of the book, the reader is unaware that the body is that of the central character. The investigation that follows tries to establish whether the remains of whoever the person happened to be had met with an accident, committed suicide before the final conclusion that this was a murder. Although as the investigation digs deeper into how Fox came to be missing what slowly unfolds through the various voices of those connected with the school, particularly some of the favoured pre -pubescent female pupils, their teacher was a master manipulator who had been beguiling his chosen few. Drawn to high achieving girls but slightly built, younger than their age in appearance they become drawn into his orbit through their susceptibility in having an absent father. A void filled by an attractive, enigmatic teacher who'd singled them out through his extraordinary interest in their potential during one to one after school tuition sessions. His opportunity to groom and abuse them through his modus operandi of offering them pastries laced with sedatives. The reader also retrospectively hears from Fox himself who has a warped mindset into how he justifies his perversions. The essence of the book is the knock on outcome to the wider community and the effects on some of the intertwined relationships beyond the school confines.

6 The Predicament William Boyd

A sequel to my previous book, Gabriel's Moon. I'm wondering if William Boyd has written both these books with an eye to developing a series. Gabriel Dax, travel writer and accidental spy who is increasingly finding himself drawn into the shadowy world of espionage. In this follow-up, the year is 1963, the place West Berlin where there is a plot afoot to assassinate JFK on his flying visit and where Gabriel has been sent to gather intelligence on his would-be assassin. Of course the outcome of that is a foregone conclusion nevertheless, the tension is still there where time is of the essence. I think these books need to be read in the right order to make sense of what is a continuing thread.

No. 5 Not a Happy Family by Shari Lapena

This book was unputdownable. In this family everyone is keeping secrets, even the dead.

In the quiet, wealthy area of Brecken Hill, an older couple is brutally murdered after a very tense Easter dinner with their 3 adult children and partners who, of course, are devastated.

Or are they??? Each stands to inherit millions. They were never a happy family thanks to their vindictive father and neglectful mother. Has one of them snapped? Or ......... ?

This book kept me guessing all the way through. Buckle up! I highly recommend it and give it 10/10.

SueDonim
That brings back memories of paraffin heaters too. Money was so tight when the children were small, so that was all we could afford. Sadly, my children tell me they were teased at school because their clothes smelled funny, which was no doubt the pong from the heaters we used. Thank goodness for modern heating !

7-E is for Evidence-Sue Grafton
A slow start for this one but I'm glad I carried on. Great ending.

4. Her Beautiful Life, Brianna Labuskes

One of the better Kindle freebies from my Prime membership. Journalist Holland goes to interview her old friend and room-mate Kat, now an internet famous trad wife and mother of six. It’s not long before secrets and lies from the past emerge, and someone dies…

#7. The Kill Call by Stephen Booth.

Book 10 A Mother for Christmas by Jackie Weger.
Next book is The House on Persimmon Road, by the same author.

Book 1: Margaret Beaufort Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker by Laura Johnson. This was a Christmas present which I have really enjoyed. This is a very readable biography which reveals Margaret as she really was. It brings her vividly to life and shows her in a different light to some historical novels.

Book 2: Murder in York by J R Ellis. The latest in this detective series set in Yorkshire. Enjoyable.

Sparklefizz

Book 4 All her Fault by Andrea Mara
This book was a Christmas present. It was OK but I really don't like it when, towards the end, authors have one character explaining the plot which is often implausible.

It started off very well but didn't live up to my expectations. 7/10

I just bought the series on Amazon Prime and have binged on it. It got a very good write up when released. I can't remember who originally screened it. I thought it was really good, lots of twists and turns, implausible, yes it was, but I hadn't read the book so I didn't know what was coming.

Book 4 All her Fault by Andrea Mara
This book was a Christmas present. It was OK but I really don't like it when, towards the end, authors have one character explaining the plot which is often implausible.

It started off very well but didn't live up to my expectations. 7/10

Allira - Kate Morton's one of my favourite authors, I like the fact that her books are thick, because often I don't want them to end.

On to another favourite author

5 Gabriel's Moon - William Boyd

I wouldn't normally go for a book about the CIA, MI5 and spies but William Boyd makes all his books, particularly the way he sets them against historical events, really readable. This was no exception.The setting is 1960, when the relations between the west and the Soviet Union are at an all time low. Gabriel Dax is a promising young travel writer who whilst researching in the newly independent Republic of Congo manages to secure an interview with the country's first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, later to murdered. That incident some 65 or so years really resonates today after recent events, as it was thought, once again this left leaning leader had been deposed by outside forces, the Belgians with the help of the CIA and a trail leading back to the then president, Eisenhower. Returning to London Gabriel finds that the recordings he has in his possession are highly sought after given their sensitive nature. Courted by intelligence officers he finds himself drawn into the world of espionage in covert missions that take him firstly to Franco's Spain and then behind the iron curtain. Intermittent visits to a psychiatrist relating to childhood trauma which relates to the title of the book are also pivotal to the narrative.

I loved it, I am now reading the sequel "The Predicament"

SueDonim

We had no CH heating, either. We lived in an old falling-down house with a coal fire in one downstairs room, where my granddad lived, a paraffin heater in the sittimgroom, that never went on until mid-afternoon, and in our bedrooms we had tiny greenhouse heaters, that looked like flying saucers and I think were also paraffin. I recall my mum getting sheets & towels in off the washing line. They were frozen stiff and she had to bend them in half and half again to fold them! I’d hate to go through that again.

SueDonim
That brings back so many memories. Our home in early married life was heated by paraffin heaters, until we got one of those electric log fires in the living room.

DH would put the paraffin heater on in the bathroom in the morning ready for a suite with that pink rubber tap attachment we called a shower, or in the late afternoon ready for bath time.

I love central heating.

We had no CH heating, either. We lived in an old falling-down house with a coal fire in one downstairs room, where my granddad lived, a paraffin heater in the sittimgroom, that never went on until mid-afternoon, and in our bedrooms we had tiny greenhouse heaters, that looked like flying saucers and I think were also paraffin. I recall my mum getting sheets & towels in off the washing line. They were frozen stiff and she had to bend them in half and half again to fold them! I’d hate to go through that again.

The descriptions of the snow and freezing temperatures of the winter made me feel chilly, I felt cold to the bone in real life and turned my electric blanket up.
I remember it well - and we had no central heating then. Trudged a long way to school in the snow which was hedge height in some places! The buses weren't running but school was still open.

3 Just finished Homecoming by Kate Morton. It's a very long book (about 650 pages, I think). Very enjoyable but there were a lot of characters and it was in two eras so I did have to refer back occasionally.
The ending was too abrupt, I thought, with some unresolved issues but otherwise I would recommend it.

6-The Toffee Factory Girls-Glenda Young
This was a delightful read. It is 1915 and in the County Durham town of Chester-le-Street, the famous Jack's Toffee factory owner is worried about the sugar rationing caused by the war. Three local girls start to work there and become very close friends, supporting one another through their ups and downs.
A heartwarming story, and I look forward to reading the next two books in this trilogy.

Just finished Raising Hare
Started Wintering
DNF The Glassmaker

Have just read The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden and The Farmers Wife by Helen Rebanks.
Very different books but enjoyed them both.

I enjoyed The Land in Winter, although I do agree there was certainly an odd quality about the characters.

I’m another who has only quite recently discovered Sue Gee, with Coming Home. I like her writing.

My No 3 is The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller. It’s a novel about two young couples living in the ?Somerset countryside. It’s set in the Big Freeze winter of 1962/3. I’m just about old enough to remember that, including the sea freezing! The issue of mental health hangs over the book all the way through, beginning in a psychiatric hospital, as it explores the lives of the two couples over the course of the winter.

The characters are certainly unusual, in fact almost everyone in the book seems odd in one way or another! The descriptive writing I thought was wonderful. There’s a Christmas party that was so excruciating I wanted to leave early despite the fact I wasn’t there! 🤣. The descriptions of the snow and freezing temperatures of the winter made me feel chilly, I felt cold to the bone in real life and turned my electric blanket up.

Having said which, I’m not sure I actually enjoyed the book, even though I appreciated it.

Thanks Allira I’ll have a look.