50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Six

Back with a Borrowbox read that I had to finish today before it expired.

54. Look What You Made Me Do - John Lanchester

I almost made this a DNF and tbh that might have been better. A story of revenge, of a very modern type, full of horrible people. The one who suffers most is just about the only genuinely worthy character. Not really for me, although I have enjoyed this author’s books in the past.

30 - Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - Winifred Watson
Written in the 1930s, this is the story of a down-at-heel middle-aged (though she only turns out to be 40 which to me is not quite middle-aged!) governess who gets sent to work for a glamorous nightclub singer by mistake. There is lots of drama across the course of a day that Miss Pettigrew has never before experienced - she is thrilled and it changes her life.

This was a decent bit of fun, not too heavy while dealing with relationships and the position of women at the time.

53. There’s No Turning Back - Alba de Céspedes

Thanks so much to @cassandre for putting me on to the author and to this outstanding novel, her first. De Céspedes was writing in the 1930s, the time of Mussolini, and this book was banned when it came to the regime’s attention, although it sold extremely well. Its crime was to depict young women daring to question orthodoxy and transgress the boundaries laid down for them: although to us it might not seem so extreme, the mere notion of living their lives as they chose was viewed as unacceptable.

In Rome, eight young women forge friendships while they live at a sort of religious boarding-house, the Villa Grimaldi, run by nuns. They’re there to study for their degrees; though most are in their 20s, they’re still cloistered overnight and lights are extinguished at a set time, but to all, they feel as though they’re poised on a bridge, about to go forth into their real lives.
We follow their stories in a kind of free-form tapestry, dipping in and out of each one - for some there’s little drama but others go through turbulent emotional events, and one has a closely-guarded secret. I won't say more as I'd love others to read this: the writing is excellent (as is Ann Goldstein's brilliant and idiomatic translation) and I felt compelled to keep reading.

It reminded me a little of Mary McCarthy’s The Group and in terms of the institutional setting, of Muriel Spark's The Girls of Slender Means - though it’s not comedic at all, but a serious and impressive work, amazing for a first novel. Highly recommended.

Just finished Pagans by James Alistair Henry. I kind of enjoyed it but I wanted to like it more than I did, if that makes sense. I loved the clever premise and the world-building but the plot was predictable and formulaic and only one of the characters (Drustan) actually grabbed me. If Drustan is back for the next book I’ll read it, but Aedith didn’t capture my interest enough.

Now reading Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid which is an easy summer read. As it’s set in the professional tennis circuit in the 80s and 90s, a period when I was obsessed with tennis as a teen, I’m really enjoying that world. But also there are lots of elements that just don’t ring true - players talking in press conferences in ways that never happened and would never happen; claims that Soto was routinely serving at 120mph in the 80s (the best women players were serving 90-105mph then) and a younger player claiming she’s never heard of Carrie Soto, who is supposed to be the most successful player of all time and who would only have retired when the younger player was about 12 or 13.

My issues with it are similar to my issues with Daisy Jones and The Six by the same author. It’s a good, atmospheric read with memorable, flawed characters but it doesn’t know quite as much about the world it’s set in as it really needs to.

36. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson I'm almost sure I have read this before but usually I don't forget books? But I predicted the outcome early on and the names of the people seemed familiar so maybe I have.. this is the first Jackson Brodie novel, and it's comfortingly similar to the others which i think I have read but can't quite remember (apart from the one where he gets his dog)? Similarity is not a negative, by the way, the all stories of the series blend nicely together and the character development is nice, though I haven't read the books sequentially. I'd describe the books as literary crime fiction; the characters are on the foreground and the crime mysteries propel the character build. But the story is gripping, highly readable and great for summer holidays

25 Last Man Off by Matt Lewis
A short, gripping account of a 1998 doomed voyage on the Sudar Hadid, a fishing vessel in the South Atlantic. Lewis was on board as an Observer. What I was struck by was the familiarity of some of the events and characterisation having read The Perfect Storm. It’s not in the same league as that book and changes viewpoint rather oddly but gives a visceral dose of insight into the danger of that life.

32 Just Send Me Word by Orlando Figes. Following on from our discussion recently about epistolary novels, this is an example of epistolary non fiction - the (edited) letters between Svetlana, living in Moscow, and Lev, who is serving a 10-year sentence in a Soviet gulag during the 1940s and 1950s. This is an interesting and moving account of a relationship which survives against all the odds.

33 Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka. Recommended upthread by @TheDonsDingleberries, this is the fictional account of Ansel Packer who is on Death Row and facing imminent execution for a series of murders. During the course of the book, we find out about the nature of his crimes and the background that led him to that point. Could things have turned out differently for him? This is so so good. I thought Kukafka did an amazing job of giving us some sympathetic feelings about Ansel's difficult childhood, while not shying away from the awfulness of what he had done. A bold.

40 The Secret Hours - Mick Herron I felt like re-reading this after finishing the Slough House series (I first read it early last year, before starting on Slough House). Having first read it so recently, I thought I would just flick through it and not count it on my list, but it was such a rich and absorbing story now that I know the Slough House world and characters that it turned into a full re-read and this time gets a bold from me.

It tells the back story of some key characters, taking place in early 90s Berlin, via the framework of the bureaucratic and doomed Monochrome inquiry into potential misdeeds by MI5. Both the present-day section and the flashbacks are excellently done and it fleshes out the world Herron has created while still being a great story in its own right.

My last couple of holiday reads- such a relaxing week away- I finished 3 (including 1 audio) read 1 novella, 1 children’s book and read another 2 (and started another that I’ve yet to finish but hope to this week). Altogether a satisfying week’s reading!

The novella was The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante, Leda, the mother of grown up daughters who live overseas spends the summer at the beach. She becomes obsessed with a Neapolitan family who are there every day, in particular a mother and daughter. This leads to complications and to her thinking over her own life. Leda is unlikable but interesting and a lot of themes are explored including work, marriage, class, motherhood (and the loss of self in motherhood) and self image. I found it fascinating and found Leda very real as a character.

I also read thread favourite Barbara Pym-Excellent Women. This was a social commentary in a comedic tone but with a lot of bite. I won’t summarise as I’ve no doubt I’m one of the last to read it, but I enjoyed it more than I expected to and really liked Mildred as a character.

The House in the Woods - Mark Dawson

First in a series about private detective Atticus Priest, a former police officer with a touch of the Sherlock Holmes.

We open on Christmas Eve. DCI Mackenzie Jones - who is a woman, name abbreviates to Mack, which my brain insisted on reading as Mark for a long time - is called to a house in the woods where most of the Mallender family lie dead, apart from Ralph, who called it in. Most of the book runs parallel with Ralph’s trial, with Atticus employed by Ralph’s wife to try and secure last minute evidence to acquit him.

Took a while to get into but I enjoyed it. I might read more in the series.

34) The Cut Throat Trial by The Secret Barrister

The Secret Barrister has a long standing blog and books featuring some of their trials. Now they have written their first novel.

It's a great concept as it takes us through the trial of three young men accused of murder by following the various days of the trial and seeing everything from the perspectives of the three defendants, their barristers, the prosecutor and the judge.

The plot is excellent, with a good twist. And it is fascinating to see how the court process works. I'm more used to the American system from watching series like The Good Wife and Matlock (it's a very long time since I saw Crown Court!).

I skipped past the summing up sections, because it's just repeating everything we know, and so although it's an important part of the coury process, that didn't translate so well in a book imo.

It shows how the process is what matters in law, not the truth.

Anyway, this is a definite bold from me.

83 Operation Sunshine – Jenny Colgan RWYO. This was fairly dire. Jenny Colgan’s books are usually fairly breezy, nothing too taxing, but this was another level. Lazy characters, rubbish plot. I don’t know why I bothered to finish it. The only good thing I can say is that is was RWYO and it has been added to the pile of paperbacks to drop off at Oxfam tomorrow!

I can’t edit the bloody post but it’s 46 not 51

51 . It Could Have Been Her by Lisa Jewell (audiobook)

Another audiobook because I can’t seem to physically read

Jane returns a lost dog, and realises with a shock that the house the dog is from is a house she ran from one night in her twenties scared something bad would happen to her.

It is clear to Jane that something about the situation doesn’t add up and she starts digging.

This is a great audiobook. All star cast led by James Norton and Lesley Sharpe. As good an audiobook as None Of This Is True and Don’t Let Him In

As a book it is flawed. Stuart, one of the main characters, doesn’t add up. He starts off one way and ends up another. His entire persona never feels like a real person who exists, in the choices he makes and the things he does.

Jane is a minor character from Don’t Let Him In and her Nancy Drew ways (not to mention the overall timeline) are a bit unbelievable. I wonder if Jewell is going for a shared or ongoing universe.

When all is said and done, it’s well worth your time if you enjoyed either of the two others

The Winter Guest by Sarah Moss
Out later this year and a slight (even by her standards) 128 pages. If you like vaguely sinister stories set in deserted hotels on the West Irish coast on Christmas Eve then you may like this. I would rather have seen it as a long story in an anthology, tbh and it ultimately failed to all hang together satisfactorily. I read an ARC so there was still a fair bit of grammatical editing to do, but I suspect the finished version won’t have any speech marks and there’s a lot of speech. I preferred the female character - she was very loquacious à la Bennett’s A Woman Of No Importance.

maybe just save the podcast to listen at a later date? That’s what I did with WintheW- which I haven’t listened to yet. I just saved it on YouTube

I know and it’s just 200 pages but I can’t get my act together

It just happens that I read and really enjoyed The Leopard a couple of months ago. It’s well worth reading I would say.

@ÚlldemoShúl

I’m behind on Goalhanger Book Club, still struggling to read. I haven’t read TWITW yet or The Leopard I probably won’t manage the latter before tomorrow

43 The Cutting Place by Jane Casey

Treating myself to Maeve Kerrigan #9 after Tess. Not my favourite story this time (a fairly hackneyed nasty all-powerful gentleman's club plot). And a tough read for fans of Maeve herself - not, for once, primarily for reasons of investigative danger. But worth it for the ending.

So true

@countrygirl99 it's such a balance of budget/health/time isn't it? Life isn't quite set up in the right order!

@RazorstormUnicorn I'm so jealous. Hiking in Patagonia has been on my want to go list ever since Blue Peter went there on one of there summer trips (age giveaway!). But my bucket list is bigger than my budget and DH has health issues so I suspect it's one that will get missed even though I now have the time for longer trips.

Quite Ugly One Evening - Chris Brookmyre

Jack Parlabane grows up, meaning a lot less swearing and fewer acts of neck-risking derring-do. Also, Tim Vale is in this one 💙

Don't read this book if the above means nothing to you :>

We open on investigative journalist Jack (now nearly 60) coming round from an altercation in a luxury cruiser cabin, only to find he's in there with a dead body. Oops. Part 1 then goes back a few weeks to tell us how he got there - under the flag of his current employer, online magazine Broadwave, he is probing into the Maskyn family.

Patriarch and Matriarch Maskyn built an empire on puppet-based children's TV adventures (Thunderbirds, anyone?). Jack has been sent by his mysterious security service contact, Ms Glass, on a fan cruise with the whole Maskyn family (shades of the Murdoch dynasty, except Patriarch Maskyn is dead). Jack has been tasked to find out about Simeon Wickham, who has an unknown connection to the Maskyns. Mayhem follows, as it always does.

An entertaining read, though I am fonder of ridiculously sweary Jack, TBH.

Enduring Patagonia by Gregory Crouch

I am off to Patagonia to explore/hike in 5 months and although many mountaineers do a single trip to Patagonia, I was loathe to re-read their autobiographies just for one chapter and I wanted more Patagonia detail specifically. This is because I wanted DH to understand how awful the wind and storms might be, the average temperatures are quite mild, but I need him to understand we need to pack for winter!

Anyway, Greg Crouch is hopelessly in love with this wild landscape and dedicates his life to climbing it. When he isnt sitting looking at the mountains waiting for a storm to pass he works construction and over time becomes a writer.

When he is working construction he talks about how humiliating this is. This tells me a lot about him as a person. Why would he think he this? He must have a scale jn his head and decided he is better than this, although he doesn't tell us what job he thinks is better or go do it.

This attitude also comes to the fore when he writes about his climbing partners. He seems to need to know how they feel about the mountains before he can warm to them, and only those who truly love a wild place like he does are accepted in the inner circle.

I assume this means people like me, who like a good hike with a view but don't go very often are not high in his estimation. Luckily I don't care because he is not in charge of how one loves mountains even if this is the impression he gives.

I now feel like I am picking on him, but I don't love his writing either. It's fine. The nature descriptions bring to life the landscape I am going to see, and the storms are almost their own character arriving abruptly and causing an end to countless expeditions.

I have got a better understanding of the mountains now, the Patagonia Andes are not tall mountains, so no altitude for me or him to worry about, but they are dangerous and I think more than any other range, at the mercy of the weather window.

I don't recommend this really unless one has an especial love for Patagonia or is an avid armchair mountaineer and read all of the other books in that genre first