50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Three

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the third thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.
The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2025, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

If possible, please can you embolden your titles and maybe authors as well of books you've read or going to read? It makes it much easier to keep track, especially when the threads move quickly at this time of the year.

The first thread of the year is here and the second thread here.

Interesting review of Saltblood @CornishLizard, it's been on my wish list since I heard about it on the radio, but it's inspired me to finally place a library reservation.

31 The Artist by Lucy Steed
My third Women’s Prize read was one I decided to read early because I wasn’t sure I’d like it so thought I would get it out of the way. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I read this is a day- completely bold for me- couldn’t put it down.
Joseph is a failed artist and trying to get a new career going as an art writer. He is astonished when the famously reclusive artist Edouard Tartuffe agrees to give him an interview in his home in rural France. When Joseph arrives he realises he has to sit for ‘Tata’ as a model to get his interview and live with the great artist and his niece Ettie. Despite the set up, this is really Ettie’s story. The story is quite predictable but the characters are so well developed and the writing is sublime. Also I have a weakness for books about art. There is some similarity in the writing to The Safekeep but this one is better. Definite bold.

Has anyone read any of the Yorkshire Murder Mystery series by JR Ellis? There are a few in this month's 99p Kindle deals. I'm looking for a good new detective series after being a bit underwhelmed by the first two Jackson Brodies (heresy round these parts, I know!)

@MargotMoon I think I listened to the first one and it wasn’t great. Have you tried Jane Casey’s Maeve Kerrigan or Simon Mason’s Ryan Wilkins? Both worth a read.

My list so fa...
(1) The Nurse by Valerie Keogh
(2) The Wrong Child by Julia Crouch and M. J. Arlidge
(3) The Perfect Parents By J.A. Baker
(4) Darkest Fear, written by Harlen Coben
(5) Old Filth by Jane Gardam
(6) The Man in the Wooden Hat by Jane Gardam
(7) Last Friends by Jane Gardam
(8) American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins -
(9) The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden (Description taken from Amazon)

Latest book...

(10) The Coworker by Frieda McFadden (Description taken from google books)

Dawn Schiff is strange.

At least, everyone thinks so at Vixed, the nutritional supplement company where Dawn works as an accountant. She never says the right thing. She has no friends. And she is always at her desk at precisely 8:45 a.m.

So when Dawn doesn't show up to the office one morning, her coworker Natalie Farrellbeautiful, popular, top sales rep five years runningis surprised. Then she receives an unsettling, anonymous phone call that changes everything...

It turns out Dawn wasn't just an awkward outsider--she was being targeted by someone close. And now Natalie is irrevocably tied to Dawn as she finds herself caught in a twisted game of cat and mouse that leaves her wondering: who's the real victim?

But one thing is incredibly clear: somebody hated Dawn Schiff. Enough to kill.

The Coworker is a tense, unputdownable thriller from New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden that explores the dark ways the past can echo through the present--with deadly consequences.

This book was just okay, easy to read and it kept me interested - very similar to the last book I read - think it will be better going forward to read books by different authors each time.

Onto the next book: The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

Happy reading :)

@MargotMoon I was also a bit underwhelmed by Jackson Brodie, but everyone else raves about it. I'm still looking for a good detective/mystery/police procedural series.
I just downloaded the whole of the Inspector Alan Grant series when they were in the Audible sale, but not started yet. I've just starting 10 Minutes and 38 Seconds by Elif Shafak. I wouldn't have chosen this - it's for bookclub.

I have also finished A Single Thread by Tracey Chevalier - which I really enjoyed

Set in the 1930s in Winchester, It's the story of 38 year old Violet Speedwell who lost her older brother and fiance in the Great War. Faced with the increasing likelihood that she will have to look after her difficult mother as she becomes more frail, she moves out of her family home and tries to become independent on a typist's wage. She moves to Winchester and she becomes involved in the Cathedral Embroiders, who are making kneelers and cushions. Most of them are part of the 2 million surplus women of their generation who are unlikely to marry and have children due to the losses of the young men of their generation in the Great War. However 1930 Britain is still a very traditional society which expects women to marry and Violet and her new friends have to find their own place in life. While it is fictional - the Winchester Guild of Embroiderers was real and according to Google between May 1932 and 1936, 360 chair kneelers, 96 alms bags, 34 bench cushions, 62 stall cushions, 1 lectern carpet, and more were presented to the cathedral. Louisa Pesel, who is in the book as the organiser and designer of the embroidery, was a real person.

I quite like MW Craven for detective lit - easy to read and amusing. Or Anne Cleeves?

24. The Ministry of Time - Kaliane Bradley. 4th Woman's prize read for me - but first since the list was announced. I feel like this has been quite widely reviewed and a bit marmite. For me it was an interesting premise but never really explained why they were doing anything. I did think Cote would have had a field day with the weakness of the SF aspects. I also found it dragged a bit in the middle before leaping forward to a thriller type finale. And I found the main character's lack of questioning about what was going on rather annoying. On the whole it was ok but I am quite surprised that this made the longlist over something like Elif Shafak.

25. Assembly - Natasha Brown. She has a new book out now so thought I'd read this first. It's very short - I read it in about an hour. The narrator is a successful Black woman who works in finance and has an aristocratic white boyfriend. The book details various micro aggressions she experiences and how she deals with these, although it's much more that just that. I thought this was excellent with brilliant writing (particularly after the flatness of the ministry of time).

35 The Return - Victoria Hislop

From the frontlog!

Sonia is in an awful marriage with James and goes on holiday to Granada with childhood friend Maggie. Present day is about a quarter of the book and sonia takes up flamenco, befriends an elderly bar owner called Miguel, learns about a poet named lorcan who died in the Spanish Civil War… and then finds out from her dad a bit more of her (deceased) mum’s background which sends her scurrying away from James and back to Spain.

The book then hops back to 1931 to follow the story of the Ramirez family- how the tensions of the coming conflict tear the family apart and how each of them gets caught up in a different strand of hostilities.

I knew very little about the civil war before reading and I now know a little more. The device of Miguel telling sonia the story wasn’t convincing as there was no one for anyone to have the helicopter view he did.

I enjoyed it, not a bold but interesting.

6. Summer in February by Jonathan Smith

A novel based on the story of the artist Alfred Munnings, recommended to me for a trip to Cornwall. A cluster of artists are living and working around Lamorna Cove in the years before WWI, with Munnings being the most charismatic and increasingly successful, and Laura Knight and her husband Harold more stable. They befriend among others Gilbert Evans, a land agent. Joey and then his sister Florence come to the area to study art. The emotional temperature climbs towards devastating events.

This was much more gripping, and more factual, than I expected. Apparently it's been filmed too, but I expect that would drain the life out of it - one of those period dramas that are better on the page.

43. Long Bright River by Liz Moore

I don't usually read the same author consecutively unless it's a series, but I really enjoyed The God Of The Woods and couldn't settle on a next.

Mickey is dependable and has always done the right thing - she's a cop working in a rundown neighbourhood. A series of strangulations makes Mickey afraid for her sister with whom she is NC because irresponsible Kacey is the reverse of Mickey, an at risk drug addicted prostitute.

This was good, but not as good as God Of The Woods there was a good twist but then several others that weren't particularly believable.

I do think this author is good though and will probably revisit her.

21 . The Gunslinger - Stephen King - This is the first in the Dark Tower Series, to me it was very reminiscent of the style of The Stand and also had throws of the The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene , although it's been 30 years since I read that so I may be misremembering. I enjoyed it but I will hold judgement for the second in the series.

22 . Billy Summers - Stephen King - This is a complete contrast to The Gunslinger and reading them both at the same time really demonstrates the variety in styles that Stephen King writes. I enjoyed Billy Summer which is basically the back story of a contract killer with strong themes of good and evil. He's a good story writer that's for sure. I found the end of this one a bit tear jerking which surprised me.

The Living and the Dead Jose Eduardo Agualusa trans by Daniel Hahn

After my absolutely amazing experience reading A General Theory of Oblivion, so fantastic and memorable that I changed my username, and went straight to book shop once finished and bought whatever they had on the shelves by Agualusa, I waited a while to read another by this author. I didn’t want to be let down or change my mind.

Whilst, this didn’t live up to AGToO, I still couldn’t put this down and read it all today. Writers gather on the Island of Mozambique for a literary festival when a cyclone cuts them off entirely from the mainland. The lines between fiction and reality are blurred as they all contemplate the end of the world.

Hahn is such a talented translator and I really felt like I was on this island, separated from not just the mainland or Africa, but from the whole world. For me, the ending was rather ambiguous and since there is a good deal of the magical realist tradition I think it’s very much open to interpretation.

I’ve got another Agualusa on my shelf but will savour this one for a while.

This was from my small physical TBR that I’ve got beside my bed, any views on what’s next?

• A Month in the Country, Carr
• The Hungry Tide, Ghosh
• Odessa Stories, Isaac Babel

Have a Miss Marple audio, and a rather silly but helpful book on Greek myths on my Kindle.

@ÚlldemoShúl I haven't! Thank you, I will look those up.

@WelshBookWitch Yes, I want a slightly formulaic police procedural with good characters, decent plot, and moments of proper of tension. (Sort of Line of Duty in book form??) Let me know if you find one! I listened to that Elif Shafak one last year, it's really good, hope you enjoy it.

25 Locked In by Jussi Adler-Olsen

The last in the Department Q series set in a cold case department in Denmark. The Nail Gun case which resulted in Carl and his old team being shot, is brought to resolution. The book itself was good, but it’s the characters that made it - I’ll miss Carl, Assad, Rose, and Gordon.

@MargotMoon how about Val McDermid's Karen Pirie series? The Distant Echo is the first. I really enjoyed them.

Or Stephen Booth's Peak District series. Black Dog is the first.

Ann Cleeves' Vera or Shetland books are good too.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit there's a new tv adaptation of Long Bright River about to air - I'm looking forward to it.

@AgualusasLover, A Month in the Country is absolutely divine, I'd start there.

My own latest:

7. JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography, by Liz McNeil and RoseMarie Terenzio. Part of my ongoing quest to understand my adoptive country. Insanely gossipy oral history of JFK Jr's life and death, and despite the extremely icky subtitle, very good. I cried quite a bit at the end. I hadn't realised that one of the authors was JFK's assistant at George and a good friend to both he and Carolyn, leaving her very well placed to put this together.

8. The Dream Hotel, by Laila Lalami. Not quite sure what to make of this. In the near future, people are assessed to see if they are at risk of causing a crime, and if they are, can be retained until their risk score lowers. Their score is calculated from hundreds of data sources, the latest inclusion being the dreams of people who have a neural implant. The future world building is great in places but then other parts seem a little perfunctory - for example, they can record people's dreams but the retainees are transported on a bus driven by a driver, not a self-driving vehicle? It's well written and was a propulsive read, and scarily plausible, but there were many places where I wanted more detail and felt a bit short-changed. There are some great themes about freedom, for-profit prisons and surveillance society, but it ended very suddenly and left me feeling a bit 'well, is that it?' Cote would hate it

@MargotMoon Line of Duty in a book would be great.
About halfway through 10 minutes and 38 seconds . It's good. Grim though

26. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley (Paperback)

Really enjoyed this. Second half was better than the first. More death and nastiness from The Creature than I'd imagined. I thought he was a big, dopey, lumbering thing who didn't really know what was going on, but actually not at all.

Nesting was already discussed as part of the deals I think. I finished it last night and particularly enjoyed it. It was lighter than I expected it to be, nit so much in the subject matter but the writing style.

May contain nuts by John O'Farrell. I've had this book for a long time and finally got round to reading it. It did not disappoint though it's not quite as good as his book Family Politics.

Now reading, and enjoying, Reading Lessons by Carol Atherton.

Month in the Country is wonderful Agualusa, I don’t know the others.

@MargotMoon have you tried the Jonah Sheens series by Gytha Lodge? Police procedural series that I really enjoy. The first is She Lies in Wait

Another vote for A Month in the Country, Agalusa.

Yes @noodlezoodle I saw the trailer and that prompted it. Amanda Seyfried was really good in The Dropout

Oh dear, what to do ....my day off work, I have lots to get on with but THIS just arrived....
Ed - image under review, it is the new Callum McSorley

@highlandcoo I've only read 2 Val McDermid, most recently Grave Tattoo which I thought was really badly written. I haven't tried Karen Pirie though, and will look up your other suggestions, thank you :)

@satelliteheart Thanks, will look yours up too :)

What a lovely thread, I think I spend more time reading this and browsing ideas than I do reading actual books though! 😅🤦🏻‍♀️