50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Eight

45) Make Me Famous by Maud Ventura, translated by Gretchen Schmid.

Parisian Cléo has wanted to be a famous singer-songwriter since the moment she started singing to her audience of stuffed animals in early childhood. Armed with meticulous research, dogged determination, and a perfectionist streak, she sets off to New York and eventually makes it big against all the odds. But the music industry is unforgiving and unless she wants to be a one-hit wonder, Cléo must submit to a seemingly endless cycle of tours, interviews, social media engagement to promote her new songs. Now at the pinnacle of her career after several years of hard work and a punishing schedule, Cléo takes a desperately needed break to a remote island with no internet or phone access. As the island's sole inhabitant, Cléo can finally disconnect, work on her upcoming album, and reflect on her ascent to A-list celebrity status. And a disturbing incident that happened six months prior...

This was a quick read and very enjoyable, and had I read it before Ventura's first novel, My Husband (which I loved), I might have considered it a bold. However, while both books feature unlikeable, obsessive women as protagonists, I didn't find Cléo as compelling as the narrator in My Husband. Additionally I didn't see the twist coming when I read My Husband, whereas the end of Make Me Famous was quite predictable.

I would still definitely recommend this book though, as it's possible my expectations were unreasonably high based my enjoyment of on the author's previous work!

107. Sky Burial by Xinran - read for a challenge prompt requiring an author whose name starts with X, I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed it quite a lot. A fictionalised biography of a Chinese woman who went to Tibet in the 1950s to look for her army doctor husband who was reported dead. She ended up staying there for 30 years, most of the time with a nomadic Tibetan family. It was a glimpse into a life so alien from anything I know that I don't quite know how to review it. I came away with a sense of vastness and peace and a life that is rooted in a way modern life can never be. Definitely worth a read.

108. Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo - A totally different proposition but I enjoyed it just as much if not more! Sequel to the YA fantasy Six of Crows, this follows the further exploits of Kaz Brekker and his gang of talented criminal teenagers. It has much darker themes than the first book and we see the characters suffer in physically and emotionally. But they are great characters and my emotions were right there with them. Shame it's only a duology, I will miss Kaz Brekker and his crew.

48 Just Ignore Him by Alan Davies. Davies' mother died of leukaemia when he was 6, and then he was sexually abused by his father until he was 13 (he reported his father to the police when he was in his early 50s). Unsurprisingly, this is a terribly sad read.

49 Last One at the Party by Bethany Clift. This is easily the worst book I've read this year. I like dystopian fiction and I like chick lit, but this combination of the two made for a completely unrealistic and far too fluffy apocalyptic scenario. Sorry Eine, I know you liked it, but this one really wasn't for me.

It has divided opinion @TarahumaraI believe Remus hated it too. I took the recommendation from this thread and no longer have any idea whose it was originally but I did really enjoy it

@bibliomania you managed to get tickets to see the Bayeux Tapestry, well done. I’m thinking of visiting the Victorian copy in Reading Museum.

I DNF Last One at the Party but can’t remember a thing about it now.

Today’s small charity shop haul. The Golden Mole is not only a bit of a beauty, but also signed.

67 The list of suspicious things. Jennie Godfrey. The musings of a young girl caught up in the excitement/trauma of the Yorkshire ripper case and how it impacts on her and those around her as she decides to investigate. This was not for me. I felt little empathy for Miv and her meddling which had such serious consequences for those she accused and others. I felt its social commentary aspects were shoehorned into an unrealistic plot. It made me uneasy that a real life tragedy was used as the backdrop to a ridiculous sequence of fictitious events. However most people seem to have loved it.
68 The Midnight Library. Matt Haig. Turned out I'd read this before, but I barely remembered any of it. A person is trapped between life and death, exploring her options. It's not very memorable. It's nice, light, a happy ending guaranteed, with no peril. It's just not original, gripping, challenging or inspiring. I hoped it would get me thinking about the purpose of life but it didn't.
69 The Blind Assassin. Margaret Atwood. Dnf. Had no idea who anyone was or what was going on and gave up about one third of the way through.
70 Hurry up and Meditate. David Michie. Fine. A bit basic. I preferred The Dalai Lama's Cat. I'm in a reading decline at the moment and really need something gripping.
71 Run. Blake Crouch. This is a less literary version of Cormac Macarthy's The Road on speed. I loved The Road and liked this too. It follows a family escaping an apocalyptic event that causes people to turn on each other. It's gory, the characters are annoying and the plot thin, but somehow it was a page turner.
72 Mad Mabel. Sally Hepworth. Bold. Really enjoyed this touching exploration of child abuse and the power of friendship. Very sad in parts but also uplifting. I didn't like one of the twists but am prepared to put it aside. I'll definitely be reading more by Hepworth.

85. The Holiday - Richmal Crompton

One of Crompton's many adult novels, and thoroughly enjoyable. It recounts the adventures of the large family (5 children) of Vicar Timothy Cotteril as they decamp to the country for a month in a locum parish in the summer of 1901. I thought there was a definite echo here of the much-loved Fortnight in September, which was published in 1931, only two years earlier than this book - I wonder whether Crompton knew of it?

Anyway, there’s a lot to enjoy here, with each child given a narrative, along with their mother (who'd really love to be staying in a lovely hotel having everything done for her) - and we meet the various locals the family encounters during their stay. In case this all sounds a bit cosy, there are plenty of moments to show that Crompton's writing had a harder edge than you might perhaps expect.

63 The Last House on Needless Street - Catriona Ward
Bit behind the pack reading this one. In a lakeside American town, someone has been abducting small children. Dee is convinced that Ted is the one who took away her little sister Lulu eleven years previously. Ted is a lonely alcoholic who lives in a boarded up house on the edge of the forest - so far, so stereotyped - and we learn more from his perspective. And his cat Olivia’s - there’s an element of mind-bending surreality underlying the whole thing.

If you love an unreliable narrator (and I definitely do), this could be a hit. Very dark themes of abuse and psychological suffering, and I guessed some elements of the main twist right off, but this keeps you gripped with layers of revelation right to the end. A bold, and I’ll be looking out for more of hers.

I didn’t know Richmal Compton had adult novels! I absolutely love the Just William books. My sister and I still have a couple of pieces we quote that cracked us up. Thank you for reviewing this. I’ll be adding to my wishlist straight away!

Just popping my head in to say that Prairie Fires is in the Daily Deals today

There are loads, @ÚlldemoShúl! She wrote about 40 books for adults, which she considered her main achievement - a good number of them are on kindle for £3.99 each. Definitely worth exploring, and the ones with children (like The Holiday, which features a particularly repellent small boy) make you remember why the William books are such a hoot.

Needless Street is her best imo @LadybirdDaphne . Perhaps matched by her first, Rawblood. I still remember the Ohhhhhhhhhhhh! moment when I realised what was going on. It’s some of the best fictional writing about trauma I’ve read. Her other books are good yarns but you might find yourself looking for the twist from the start (Looking Glass Sound was a bit try hard iirc).

I had completely forgotten that I read all the Just William books as a child. This sounds delightful.

Also Last One at the Party by Bethany Clift sounds right up my street and I had missed earlier reviews.

I also loved the Just William books as a child.

@elkiedee- just wanted to send sympathy & to say how shocked I was to read about your friend. I’ve also bought the Alba de Cespedès (an author I hadn’t heard of before joining this group - thanks to you for the tip & her other champions).

@VikingNorthUtsire- I couldn’t resist Prairie Fires. I enjoyed reading the Little House books as a child & enjoyed them even more when reading them to my own DC.

93 . Lord of the Flies by William Golding - I first read this at school & was not inclined to reread this partly as reading about a group of schoolboys had limited appeal to me then and partly because it is a very bleak book. I reread it because I wanted to listen to more Book Club podcasts and it was available on BorrowBox. I completely agree that it is masterpiece. Aside from the very beginning and the end, where the text describes social structures, the book does not feel dated despite its age. The language is beautiful - the parts describing different boys when they are alone on the island have the feel of a David Attenborough documentary even though the book predates that type of programme (& much else on the TV). The guilt and motivations of the characters are also explored so well. I both want to reread it (in light of the podcast discussion) but also don’t want to (as it is so bleak).

94 . The last witness by Denzil Meyrick - a detective in rural Scotland is drawn into a Glasgow crime war. This is the second in the series and I enjoyed it immensely (especially after reading a few literary books).

94 . Dark suits and Sad Songs by Denzil Meyrick - sequel to my last book and it deals with the police corruption issues set up in previous books. Enjoyable, but not as well-plotted as the previous books (although possibly I read it too soon after reading its predecessor). Both books were on BorrowBox & sadly they don’t have the next volumes.

95 . Outback by Patricia Wolf - German tourists go missing in the Australian Outback. This is another BorrowBox detective read. It’s similar to my 2 previous books in its atmospheric description of a harsh landscape and in its plot linked to social problems. Again, I enjoyed this and was disappointed that the sequels weren’t on BorrowBox.

I really enjoyed Prairie Fires. I also splashed out on a massive hardback copy of Pioneer Girl years ago. The annotations and photos are great. I have a bit of a fascination with LIW. Must have been watching the TV shows on a Sunday morning as a kid. I used watch it and The Waltons with my nan.

The Long Winter is my favourite of the little house books.

Recent reads:
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf a reread- beautifully written exploration of the passage of time and distance, beauty and family and motherhood. I think this will always be bold for me no matter how many times I reread it. I want to read more Woolf in 2027.

Christine Falls by John Banville
The first of Banville’s crime fiction books set in 1950s Ireland where pathologist Quirke looks into the death of a young woman who seems to have some connection to his adoptive brother. I liked Quirke, the family set up and the central mystery. Part of the book was set in the Irish community in Boston, I found this part less interesting so hope the follow ups (I have all of the series on kindle from various 99p deals) stick to the damp Dublin streets- much more atmospheric!

The Island of Doctor Moreau by HG Wells
Mostly a fun adventure type novel where our narrator is rescued from shipwreck and ends up on an island where Doctor Moreau restricts his access to but what are the strange noises in the night? It does raise a few interesting questions for the time around animal experimentation and the differences if any between us and animals- who is the most savage? I listened on audio- free audible reading- the narrator wasn’t great- that bombastic American voice that usually advertises the movies.

Ghosts by Edith Wharton
A series of short stories all with a haunting involved. Reading them all together was maybe a bit much. But there’s a few corkers in here- Mr Jones was my favourite. And as always Wharton’s prose is divine.

Double Indemnity by James Cain
A wife and an insurance investigator plan the murder of her husband. Quick pacy and clever. Good fun.

I read Little House in the Big Woods aged 9 and loved it but didn’t get on so well with Little House on the Prairie. A year later I read The Long Winter and loved that - it is still probably my favourite although I’m still fond of LHITBW with the wolves and bears and I love the story of the building of the town in Little Town on the Prairie & The Happy Golden Years.

I must have read On the Shores of Silver Lake before The Long Winter as I was appalled by what happened to Mary when I first read Silver Lake, but SL is a book I’ve understood much more as an adult as I didn’t really understand the work on the railway as a child.

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage- I thought that I had read the Alison Weir bio of Mary Queen of Scots years, but I had mixed it up with the Antonia Fraser one. The Rest is History mentions the AF one and draws a lot on the John Guy one, which is very readable (and even more entertaining when selectively quoted on TRIH). It’s disappointing that a biography of Mary could be dull as her life was so eventful and includes stuff that you really couldn’t make up (eg a murderous warlock creaking up the castle stairs).

46) Fair Play by Louise Hegarty - A group of friends rent a house to celebrate the New Year and Benjamin's birthday with a murder mystery party. But in the morning Benjamin is discovered dead. Really actually dead. A famous detective arrives on the scene to solve whodunnit, and everyone is now a suspect. The book alternates focus between the investigation, and the subequent grief of Benjamin's sister, Abigail, as she tries to make sense of his death.

I first heard about this book on an earlier thread. It's an unusual format and, as previously mentioned, difficult to describe without spoilers. I found it quite sad, but definitely an interesting concept. Not sure if it's a bold for me, but that might change as I mull things over.

37 The Day of the Storm by Rosamunde Pilcher
I’m so sorry, I know someone else on this thread read this which is why I bought it, but I can’t find the post. Rebecca, a bookshop assistant, is starting a new life in a tiny Fulham flat on her own, when a letter finally reaches her after a month’s delay. A desperate flight to be in time for a death, and revelations result.
I was convinced I hadn’t read this before but now I’ve read it I might have done. A lovely cosy romance if you can take it being set in ?1975? with attitudes to match (I can).

@TheDonsDingleberries that was me 🙂 glad you are mulling it, I have saved it for a reread someday (I often read and donate to manage the stack, so this is unusual for me!)

Thanks @Benvenuto , will look out for those other biographies. I guess there was a reason the Alison Weir one was reduced to 99p on kindle! Still, I’m proud of myself for getting through it 😄

@ÚlldemoShúl - I read all the Quirke books earlier in the year and can confirm that there are no more trips to Boston!