50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Six

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the sixth thread of the 50 Books 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 or / and maybe authors as well of books you've read or going to read? It makes it much easier to keep track.

Some of us like to bring over lists to the next thread - again, this is up to you.

The first thread of the year is here, the second thread here , the third thread here, the fourth thread here and the fifth thread here

29.The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe
This was murder mystery set in the very specific time period of the Liz Truss premiership, in which a journalist covering a neo-conservative conference meets a sticky end. The narrative is delivered in a variety of forms, including memoir, cosy crime novel, and first hand accounts. Although I like Coe's state of the nation stuff, and I enjoyed the murder mystery plot, I didn't feel the two married well - something about the constantly changing narrative form maybe? It was still a decent read, just not up there with The Rotters' Club trilogy for me.

108 Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
I bought a stack of these on kindle offers because of the hype and quite enjoyed the first two I read (Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones) Then I forgot about them until RWYO. This one tells the story of the four adult children of rock star Mick Riva and flashes back frequently to his marriage to their mother June and their childhoods. It all culminates in a huge star-studded party at the eldest daughter’s Malibu mansion. This was just okay- enjoyable enough but silly- Jackie Collins for this century really. I have one TJR left - Carrie Soto- is it more of the same? Not sure I’ll bother with it if it doesn’t bring something new to the table.

Carrie Soto was my least fave of the TJR “shared universe” ones, but I think @ChessieFL enjoyed it. There was a lot of untranslated Spanish IIRC. Steer clear of Atmosphere. It’s not letting me tag you at all now Shúl!

Yes I did really enjoy Carrie Soto but I am a big tennis fan. There’s a lot of tennis in it so if you’re not really a tennis fan I can see that you might not enjoy it so much!

I like tennis but don’t love it. I also speak absolutely no Spanish so maybe I should give it a miss. Thanks @EineReiseDurchDieZeit and @ChessieFL Disappointed about Atmosphere though. Anyone know any other good space programme related fiction- not sci fi?

Having trouble posting from my iPad today - if anyone else is having an issue I’ve reported it to HQ and I’m not alone - they are investigating.

Can post from my phone though. Carrie Soto was my favourite of the TJR and I don’t remember anything about the Spanish. That doesn’t mean anything as my memory is shit at the moment.

It seems to be working again now.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Time travel with polar peril and a sexy naval commander. What’s not to like?

This was very silly and badly needed some editing, but I rather enjoyed it.

95 . Nomadland by Jessica Bruder

An extremely sobering/depressing look at poverty in America featuring large numbers of people making the best of things as they live out of vans and take exploitative jobs that don’t pay appropriately. It made me think that America is not a great place to live if you are working class. It’s taken me days to read because I kept putting it off because it all felt so sad and grim. It was made into an award winning film with Frances Mcdormand which I don’t know whether I’ll watch.

On to something a bit more upbeat, if possible.

29) The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly

I really enjoyed this. Set in London, the story revolves around a treasure hunt in the form of a fairy-tale picture book called the Golden Bones and the impact of it on two families.

The story is narrated by Nell, the daughter of the author of the book. The fanatics who are trying to find the last piece of the treasure think it has something to do with her. Her father decides to do a PR stunt with it but it goes wrong.

This is a real page turner, with lots of intriguing characters.

It is quite unlike anything else I have read.

36 Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell
Workaday thriller about a man who has several wives and lives on the go, plus darker secrets lurking in his past. Very far from her best, but passed the time.

Agree that it was bog standard and a bit disappointing @AlmanbyRoadtrip it was well read as audio though

Arran - when I read The Skeleton Key I felt it had almost been written with a view to a TV adaptation in mind. Maybe I am overly cynical.....

43 The Crow Trap - Ann Cleeves First in the Vera Stanhope series; a bit of a change from the other Cleeves series as it was written (and set) in the 90s and seems so old-fashioned! Very long and slow - we get long chapters from the point of view of each of the three women (botanist, ornithologist and mammal specialist) carrying out a survey on behalf of a quarry-mining company in the bleak, wild moorland of Northumberland before Vera even makes an appearance, and even then we only see her through other characters’ eyes until the last third of the book, when we finally get her viewpoint. I liked this approach - it helped to create believable characters and showed how easy it is to misunderstand other people. The ending is where Cleeves sometimes falls short, and this one was a bit disappointing, but I’ll read more Vera books in the future.

For now though, I’ve had a bit too much of Cleeves - I’ll read one more as I’ve already got it from BorrowBox, and then I’ll get back to other things!

117 Enigma - Robert Harris

Bought this on kindle last month, though technically a re-read cos I owned it on paper about 15 years ago, Had forgotten it, though 😀

Tom Jericho has left Bletchley Park for a rest cure in Cambridge after a major Enigma breakthrough on the Shark
variation, along with a failed relationship with Hut 6 worker Claire. But he is called back when the Germans change key codes in shark, to try and solve the problem again. He also wants to reconnect with Claire, but she goes missing almost as soon as he gets back. The hunt for her and for a Shark solution are equally gripping.

This follows a standard Harris approach of putting fictional characters and story in real historical settings. This is lighter on the history than I remembered, but still has a selection of real u boat messages etc. A near bold.

eta - 117 was my full year number for 2024, so I can stop reading now for the rest of the year…. Who believes me? 😀

46 The Quartet Murders - J.R. Ellis
Second book in the Yorkshire Murder Mystery series. Almost a bold and good enough for me to carry on reading the series. Good plot and I'm getting to like Oldroyd as a more likeable Yorkshire Morse.
47 The Monogram Murders - Sophie Hannah
The first of the 'new Poirot mystery series' and maybe the last I'll read. So convoluted and far too long, it took so long to tie it all up, I struggled to finish it to be honest. The problem is I got all five in a great deal on Kindle so the real mystery is whether I'll finish them!

The Scarlet Papers - Matthew Richardson

Read as part of RWYO - think I bought this off it being The Times spy thriller of the year in 2023 rather than any recommendation here.

Scarlett King worked for the British intelligence services in the immediate aftermath of WW2 and throughout the Cold War and rose to a position of seniority. She has been retired for some years when she approaches university academic, Max Archer, to write her memoirs. Max is suffering from a stagnant career and a failed marriage so thinks this could be his chance to make his name. The intelligence services and government go into overdrive once they hear about the project. The storyline moves backwards and forwards between events as they happened for Scarlet and the current day interactions between Scarlet, Max and the intelligence services.

I should have loved this but didn't. It's clever (perhaps, too clever in places) but stretched credibility too far for me. An easy read and I will read more by the author (not least because I appear to have bought them already!).

The film is excellent Eine

Well done on reaching last year's total @SheilaFentiman

83. Real Tigers - Mick Herron. The 3rd Slow Horses book read as part of RWYO. Enjoyable but I think I may just skim the 4th and start reading the ones that haven't been on Apple.

@Stowickthevast I started but was too depressed by it

I've hit the halfway mark with
25 - Started early, took my dog by Kate Atkinson
I did enjoy this, but not nearly as much as the previous 3 in the series. Having said that, a friend put Big Sky on my doorstep so the Brodie adventures (with implausible coincidences) continue!

@ReginaChase – I cannot wait for Clown Town!

@Piggywaspushed – so glad it wasn’t just me.

67 Sovereign – CJ Samson, Matthew Shardlake 3. I love this series. Set in 1541 and King Henry VIII’s Northern Progress is the main backdrop. Matthew Shardlake, a London solicitor is instructed by Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury to go to York to assist with petitions to the King. He also has a secret mission to ensure that a prisoner is kept alive in order to be returned to London to be tortured. Needless to say, things do not go smoothly. I really enjoy CJS’s writing. I can almost smell the setting.

68 A Case of Mice and Murder – Sally Smith. I got this on Audible, but I just couldn’t get into it. I ended up getting it out of the library too. Meh. I should have loved this cosy crime book, but it just didn’t hit the mark. The KC turned Detective, Gabriel Ward, is a quirky chap and is the only redeeming thing in the whole book. Like @Piggywaspushed , I just couldn’t get over the stereotypes and the indistinguishable KCs/Lord Justices etc. And I could not care less about the running of the Inner Temple. The Shardlake books are also set in the Inner Temple and I saw one review that laughably compared the two. No. CJS writes great books, interesting plots and good characters. Sally Smith does not.

84. I Hope This Finds You Well - Natalie Sue. Recommended by Eine, I thoroughly enjoyed this 30 something book set in a workplace with an actual nice HR person, which I wasn't sure actually existed. Good characters and amusing writing, it was a great lightweight option which I Inhaled it in a day - guess it counts as a RWYO as I did buy it before the challenge started just about.

118 The Cipher - Isabella Maldonado

First in a series of 3 about FBI agent Nina Guerrera, a care leaver who underwent a horrific assault at the age of 16 and who joined the police then the FBI to keep other young women safe. Many years on, her attacker seems to be back and setting her deadly puzzles.

Well written - the author was the first Latina captain in her section in the FBI and retired after 20+ years to write. Read this as part of the RWYO but have popped the next two onto my wish list (all 3 are on kindle unltd if anyone has that and fancies them)

22 Earth
23 Air both by John Boyne
Completing the Elements series with what I felt were the two weakest novellas. I read these out of sequence so the plot to Earth had been given away in Fire, ruining any element of surprise or suspense, without this I think I would have been more gripped.
Air took its title from the fact that the two main protagonists were completing a long plane journey and for me it was a pretty tedious conclusion to what had been a good series.
I did enjoy the interconnectiveness of the four books though with the same incidental characters reoccurring and main characters from the other novellas playing bit parts in each others stories.

I’m now tackling two long books I’ve been meaning to get round to reading for years. On Audible Vanity Fair, I’m 6 hours into a whopping 31 hour total and enjoying it immensely. And, thanks to noodlezoodle and the 50 Bookers meet up book swap, The Secret History which I began on the train home from London.
I may be some time …

Glad you liked it @Stowickthevast !