50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Three

<whispers> I really liked The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle <runs away>

@Philandbilli love reviews that tell it like it is, I wasn't being sarky

40 A Most Desirable Marriage - Hilary Boyd

From the front log. This was not good, I thought about DNFing but kept going.

Lawrence has just retired, at 60 something. And his nearly 60 author-wife Jo is looking forward to travel with him, now their DS and DD are grown up. It all goes a bit Pete Tong when Lawrence announced after the retirement party that he’s been having an affair with a male colleague and is leaving Jo.

We follow Jo as she takes this on board, dabbles with a much younger man, handles her kids and the sale of the FMH and tries to steer a new path with Lawrence. It was… meh. Not very believeable.

I began Seven Deaths….. thinking Oh, this is quite clever! @Philandbill but rapidly swung towards your opinion. Didn’t even play by its own rules, absolute bilge.

@WelshBookWitch I know that it's a rubbish review but I couldn't be doing with spending any more time on it! Not sure that I can even bring myself to put it in the pile for the charity shop..

Great review @Philandbill. I've not read it, but I think your feelings are similar to mine about the time I won't get back reading The Bee Sting

1. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton.

11.Rizzio by Denise Minna. A retelling of the murder of David Rizzio, private secretary to Mary Queen of Scots, and its immediate aftermath. Covering a time period of just three days, this was instantly gripping, gruesome and powerful. No one can trust anyone, creating a sense of peril and menace. My only complaint was that I would have loved a longer book, and I hope she attempts something else in this period in future.

Ditto, I was underwhelmed by the reveal, but I have to say that she kept me absolutely spellbound with setting the scene. Although tbh anything involving archives, papers, research and solving any kind of conundrum etc is like catnip to me so it was right up my alley.

My review of The Secret Rooms from 2013:

The Secret Rooms, billed as A True Gothic Mystery, is a kind of biography of the 9th Duke of Rutland. I found it an interesting enough read, but I felt it didn't quite live up to the title and the really intriguing cover.

The book opens with the death of the Duke in 1940, then the author describes how she came across his story some years later - she had set out to research something slightly different. While looking at his papers, she discovered that someone, probably the Duke, had been keen to conceal various papers and that it appeared he had something to hide - what was it?

I enjoyed the look at the life of an aristocratic family in the early 20th century, before and after WWI, but felt a bit like saying, is that all there is to it? at the revelations. I think part of the problem was that the author kept writing about the sensational secrets she was uncovering, and they weren't that sensational.

The print book comes with some black and white photos (not that well reproduced) of the Duke and his family, and various maps and plans of his estate, his home, Belvoir Castle, and other significant places in the story, and lots of endnotes detailing the author's references.

This is clearly meticulously researched and an interesting read but the mystery is not as exciting as the title leads one to expect.

I read and reviewed The Secret Rooms years ago. I think there's another book by Catherine Bailey in this month's 99p deals - Fey's War aka The Lost Boys - I bought a copy and then realised it was the same book that I'd already bought in 2019 under a previous title - returned it for a refund. It's a Second World War story, looks to be about a European aristocratic family.

44 . Him by JD Kirk

This was free to me as an Audible Original starring David Tennant and Louise Brealey. Overall it was a good listening experience but I knew nothing about it going in.

Turns out it’s a direct rip off of the Black Mirror episode Be Right Back in which Domnhall Gleason dies and is brought back as an AI to his bereaved wife so she can still talk to him.

This is the EXACT premise here, bereaved Sarah is introduced to EternaTech which can replicate her dead husband Nick. But the AI has ideas of its own.

The added twist here is that we find out Nick was murdered, but really, it’s just too derivative of something that was done and done better years ago.

The ending and the epilogue are unbelievable particularly the idea that Sarah’s story would just be believed by everyone after what had happened. But as I say it was an enjoyable listening experience if a rather lukewarm story.

@Jecstar, I had the same feeling about The Secret Rooms.. She does a good job at building up a Gothic atmosphere at the start, so the big reveal feels a bit banal at the end, just because real life usually is. Worth the read though.

39 The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake - Aimee Bender

Magical realism from the front log. This was a popular one a decade or so ago. At the age of nine, Rose starts to taste people’s feelings in her food (in this case, her mother’s sadness in the home made lemon birthday cake )

The novel follows her, her brother Joseph and his friend George into adulthood, with Rose coping with her skill and the occasional person believing her. Meanwhile, Joseph’s life is progressing rather oddly,

It was ok. A sort of drifty plot that didn’t really resolve, but Rose was a nice character.

The secret rooms - a true Gothic mystery, Catherine Bailey

A non-fiction account of how Bailey gets access to the archive at Belvoir castle, home to the Dukes of Rutland, to research à book on the impact of WW1 on the surrounding villages. However when she begins her research she discovers that John, the 9th Duke, has created huge gaps in the archive corresponding to three periods of his life in the weeks leading up to his death in 1940. The story of her research into these gaps and why he was so secretive about these periods becomes the book. John, his mother Violet and uncle Charlie were great letter writers and this forms the bulk of the documents used in the book.

I liked the book for showing how historical research was done to piece together à puzzle like this and it really evoked what life was like pre-ww1 for the aristocracy which was well done. I didn’t find the revealing of the reasons for the gaps that mysterious or shocking so the ending fell rather flat for me.

Glad you enjoyed it @FuzzyCaoraDhubh , I can't even remember if I read it because of a recommendation on here or in my trawling of the internet looking for older translated novels by women (it's surprisingly hard to find any pre-1960s, never mind pre-1900s). Definitely the highlight of my reading year so far, I was very tempted to reread it straight away as well, like you said there's so much in it for such a short novel.

Thanks Fuzzy and BoiledEgg - sounds like I should just read the copy of After Midnight I have.

I have a 2020 Penguin copy of After Midnight and similarly, no introduction just a short biographical note.

Hi @elkiedee interesting post! Thank you.

It's the Penguin edition from 1985, a library book. No introduction, just a biographical note about Irmgard Keun at the start. I'm reading it again tonight. For such a short book, a novella, it's very detailed. There's loads in it. Keun's critical voice as she views the world through Sanna's eyes is fascinating. There's a comment on nearly every page. I think it's brilliant.

Thanks to Janina for the recommendation. I also find this period fascinating. I studied 'The Tin Drum' as part of my degree in German and reading an author like Grass or Keun is very satisfying as you experience their first-hand account of those times. There's nothing like it.

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh

I've been thinking about Irmgard Keun in the last couple of weeks - I read Child of All Nations a few years ago - shockingly when I looked it up back in 2019 (so Before Covid) and meant to read more. I have an older paperback of After Midnight (1980s perhaps). Did the copy you read have an introduction? I have a bit of a thing about reprints with introductions or afterwords, especially if they are by other novelists/writers. I'm also slightly obsessed with 20th century German history. Sadly After Midnight is not available in any of my libraries to investigate additional content, but I've borrowed another of her books in a stylish Penguin Modern Classics edition.

I reread A Clockwork Orange a couple of years ago and this was my review:

My English teacher gave my class the first chapter to read when I was about 14 and I was so fascinated by the language of Alex and his droogs that I immediately went and read the full book. The ultra violence is difficult, but I don't think it's gratuitous, and although the language is an effort at first the internet translations made this much easier this time round. I was surprised by how much I remembered, but I wasn’t sure what I remembered from the book and what was from the film. The questions raised around free will and the rights of the individual vs those of society are still relevant and I found the use of music really interesting too. A classic work of absolute genius.

@LadybirdDaphne It took me a long time to be able to cope with reading A Clockwork Orange but it is stunningly, horribly good.

Finally I've got round to writing another review, #8 this year but 4 of them were of books I read in 2024.

2025 #4
Elly Griffiths, The Frozen People
Read 29.12.24 to 08.01.25, reviewed 14.03.25

Detective Ali Dawson works in the Department of Logistics, a police unit working on cold cases, crimes so old that they are almost "frozen", jokes a colleague. The dull name hides an exciting secret - they are pioneering the use of time travel in their work. Her previous cases have been 20th century, but now Ali is told she is to travel back 173 years to 1850, to investigate a suspected murderer. There are complications: this will be Ali's first visit to the 19th century. Can she expect to get there and return safely? Also, the unit has been asked to look into the case by a Conservative government minister, Isaac Templeton, whose great-grandfather Cain was a prime suspect, though there wasn't enough evidence to convict him. Isaac Templeton is the justice minister, and Ali's son Finn works in his office in Parliament.

I was a bit nervous about what to expect. I've devoured Elly Griffiths' previous novels, contemporary and historical, and the premise of this one requires a certain amount of setting up by the writer, and then a suspension of disbelief.

I did really enjoy it though. I liked the contrast of Ali's contemporary life - a middle aged woman with a son aged 22, who claims not be a Tory although he's working for one - with that she must fit in to in Victorian London. The contrasts and the problems of day to day life are described with a wry humour, but she is in a genuinely scary situation and the tension builds up. It is hard to explain the plot but, as with Elly Griffiths' other books, I really came to care about Ali Dawson, and am looking forward to the next book in this series.

I received a review ecopy of this book via Netgalley, and hope to buy a Kindle ebook version in due course, but am really drawn to the UK hardback cover design (credits Ghost Design/Shutterstock) showing a photograph of Parliament, Westminster Bridge and the Thames, appropriate for a novel set in London, present and past.

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra

A woman wakes in the night and knows there’s someone in the house. She only has minutes to decide what to do to protect herself and her children - run, hide or fight? I was expecting a standard thriller but this ends up going in a direction I didn’t expect. I liked it, although I did find it a bit slow to get going and the way that no characters in the novel are given names is a bit odd.

I just lost a long post, so here is a shorter version!

15. The Colony: Audrey Magee

An English artist and a French linguist travel to a remote outcrop of an island off the coast of Ireland in 1979. They have a complete clash of personalities and ideals and the islanders get caught up in the fray, in particular the young boy who has his own dreams of becoming an artist. The story is punctuated by news reports of the atrocities that occur in the North of Ireland during that turbulent time. This was excellent. I loved the writing, the description of the paintings and the inclusion of conversational Irish. I loved Mairéad's chapters in particular.

16. Gone Away: Hazel Holt.

The first book in the Mrs. Malory series.
Very enjoyable. Good cosy crime.

17. After Midnight: Irmgard Keun (trans. Anthea Bell)

A novella about a young girl living in Frankfurt during Nazi rule. This was excellent in portraying the paranoia and hysteria of people and the creeping sense of horror and helplessness of life in Germany under the regime. Keun was blacklisted by the Nazi Party and wrote her books abroad in the years following WW2. This was brilliant. It is well written; sharply observed and not without humour although it's too horrifying to be funny. I am curious to read more by her in the future.

18. Perfect Prepositions: Olly Richards

A book to improve my Italian. This is a good series for language learning.