50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Seven

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the seventh 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 , the fifth thread here and the sixth thread

Good things in the deals that I already own: The Wych Elm - Tana French
Out - Tim Shipman
The Frozen People - Elly Griffiths

The Paying Guests is an all-time favourite of mine - highly recommended at any price and a bargain for 99p. Annie Bot is also in the sale and I recall was mostly liked by people here.

@RomanMum- I’ve just started reading the Spy and the Traitor (which I must have bought as a Kindle Deal). You are right about his writing style - non-fiction writing style is something that I’ve thought about quite a bit for my reviews as although I wouldn’t expect a non-fiction book to be as compelling as fiction, it still needs to catch the reader’s interest.

Thanks to everyone who recommended Kindle Deals - I now have a few new authors to discover.

@MonOncle your views on Rachel Cusk (and Miranda July for that matter) sound similar to mine. She is an original writer as you say, but her novels mostly leave me cold - partly because I have a sense that the author herself is rather cold and self-obsessed.

I did read the whole Outline trilogy though, and Transit (the middle novel) was my favourite. Kudos, the last one, I didn't like much at all.

I’ve just read the sewing machine by Natalie fergie

A quiet, character-driven historical for readers who crave reflective, emotional resonance and the slow reveal of how ordinary lives are quietly stitched together across a century.

the literary equivalent of comfort food

I’ve just finished Verity - Colleen Hoover - a bit late to the party but I was busy with Silo books before that. This was a quick and easy read, which is what I was after. Slightly creepy in places, some of it a touch predictable, other parts much less so.

73. The Book Forger - Joseph Hone

Can't now remember where I saw this recommended, but it was billed as a real-life detective story about books. It’s not exactly that, despite the author’s efforts to involve Dorothy L. Sayers (she’s a very tangential character), but it was enjoyable.

The villain of the piece is Thomas Wise, a young man of humble background who worked as a clerk in a goods importing firm in the late 19thc, but whose passion was books. So much so that he took to illicitly producing pamphlets of works by the likes of Browning, Tennyson and Swinburne, and passing them off as rare early printings. As he became more and more eminent in the book world, so his forgeries became more audacious. Eventually he took to even more extreme book-related crimes, which went undetected for years - until two young men working in the book trade started to piece the clues together. By then Wise was elderly and a grand old man of the book world, and the revelation of his activities caused shock-waves.

This was a good yarn, and well-told, though as I say, maybe not quite as gripping as it was touted to be. I did come away from it wanting to know more about one of the two young men who uncovered the fraud, John Carter - who was himself quite a character. It’s also in the deals this month, for anyone who fancies it (I had it from the library).

65 - The Understudy - David Nicholls.
Ok, I loved One Day and You Are Here was good but this is just a bit bland. You know where it's leading but even then there isn't really a closure. I am committed to reading all his books though as I got them in a charity shop.
66 The Heart's Invisible Furies - John Boyne.
A strong bold for this one despite the implausible coincidences as Cyril navigates his way through life from conception in rural Ireland then to Dublin, via Amsterdam, New York and back to a very changed Dublin. Poignant but also laugh out loud humour in parts. The way he writes about Irish people talking about him being gay could have come straight out of Father Ted sometimes.

I read a Rachel Cusk book once. It was quite enough evidence to know I will never read another.

God! Same!

The Benefactors which I've recently read is in the 99p deals today. I liked it a lot. It's a polyphonic novel set in Belfast about a teenage girl who is assaulted at a party by 3 boys, and it moves between the perspectives of the girl, her family, and the mothers of the perpetrators. There is some plot as the investigation unfolds but it's mainly a series of very detailed, very convincing character studies.

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller. Another from the Booker shortlist. This is set in the early 60s and follows two young couples, both expecting a baby, during the very cold winter. I thought it was a slow start but once the snowstorm hit it became more exciting. I'm pregnant myself so found it interesting to read about pregnancy at that time, though could have done without hearing how faint and sick the women felt all the time! I found the ending a bit frustrating and inconclusive as well.

We Could be Heroes by PJ Ellis. Silly romance about a Marvel style movie star who falls in love with a Birmingham drag queen. Interspersed with a historic story about the comic book being filmed and the secrets of its creators. Warm and fun. There is a lot of content about drag culture however which I know can be a red flag for some people.

@Terpsichore The Book Forger sounds interesting - I’ve bought it! Will probably be 2027 by the time I get to it, at the rate I’m getting through the backlog…

174 The Sixth Wife - Suzannah Dunn

Came home from my mum's house with various histfic books she doesn't want any more. This was about Katherine Parr, post HVIII, through the eyes of her best friend, Cathy (who married Charles Brandon after HVIII's sister Mary Tudor died). Cathy and Thomas Seymour have an unlikely affair whilst Katherine is pregnant. I don't plan to read any more by her.

There are three books, all published within the last few months,, in today's Daily Deals which I've not only read but actually got round to reviewing - I can't remember if I posted my reviews here?

Kit de Waal, The Best of Everything

Wendy Erskine, The Benefactors,, mentioned above by@GrannieMainland

Hattie Williams, Bitter Sweet

In case I don't get back to posting today, reviews I've written recently are all on Librarything - this is for The Benefactors:

www.librarything.com/work/33739025/book/291155426

I have reviewed here - two of them on this thread just over 100 posts in, and the other in the middle of thread #6

I haven't yet read Suzannah Dunn's historical fiction though I have some TBR, but I've really liked some of her other novels and short story collections.

Yeah, I think of Rachel Cusk as a Mean Girl. Not that writers have to be nice people (I'm sure many of them aren't), but in her case, her writing style just isn't my cup of tea.

@GrannieMainland I liked The Land in Winter much more than you did, but I agree that hearing about other women's nausea is not fun when you're pregnant! I have a vivid recollection of being pregnant with my first, feeling really poorly, and going on a walk with an older woman friend who (when I told her I wasn't feeling well) proceeded to regale me with a long account of how badly SHE felt during her pregnancy. Her account of nausea was making me feel even more nauseous and I remember thinking I wished she would just fuck off 😂Even though she was a good friend. Anyway, congratulations on your pregnancy, that's wonderful news!

@elkiedee I added the Kit de Waal to my wish list on the strength of your review and picked it up today in the deal 😀

Re Suzannah Dunn - that’s interesting! The writing was fine. I just think - even leaving aside the historic accuracy - to have a woman shag her best friend’s newish husband, during said friend’s pregnancy, was quite an odd character choice!

I like Rachel Cusk - I do agree that she comes across as rather emotionless though.

40 Intermezzo by Sally Rooney - who is another marmite author! Peter and Ivan are brothers, but with a big age gap and very different personalities. They are in the process of coming to terms with the recent death of their father and navigating other close relationships within their lives. I'm a Rooney fan, and I thought this was her best yet.

41 The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. Reviewed upthread by several of you. This is set at a children's summer camp in the Adirondack mountains in New York State. Barbara, who is the daughter of the rich family who owns the camp, goes missing overnight, bringing back echoes of the disappearance of her brother Bear 14 years previously. I enjoyed this - some interesting characters and it kept me guessing.

41 Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan. Winner of the 2024 Women's Prize for Fiction, this is based on real events in the 1980s in Sri Lanka, and the conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers, a militant group fighting for independence in response to violence against the Tamils by the Sri Lankan government. This is a harrowing picture of how ordinary people get caught up in a civil war and families are torn apart by conflicting loyalties. It is devastating at times (yes, I cried). A worthy prize winner in my opinion, compared to the others on the 2024 shortlist I have read, namely Soldier, Sailor and Enter Ghost (both of which were very good too).

#27. The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith, well contrary to many other posters I loved this.
Not the actual detective case obviously - I didn’t have a clue what was going on there, or why the various people suspected of being The Hallmarked Man were in the frame, or which people being interviewed were linked to which of the 4 or 5 potential dead bodies.
I did start out with excellent intentions but once the field widened from Rupert Fleetwood/William Wright and Decima Mullins I was lost.
I put this down to listening on Audible (because I’m a cheapskate and it was the cheapest option) and therefore not having the ability to flick back and clarify who’s who, but plenty of people reading seem to have been equally lost.
But all that aside, I love the love story and the flashes of humour. Yes Robin was annoyingly obtuse in this but it was lovely to be inside Strikes head now he knows exactly what he wants and is going for it. The scene that takes place in Robin’s family home at Christmas was perfect, as was the epilogue.
Not sure how she’s going to string this out for another two books but I’m down for it!

#28. The Mixtape by Jane Sanderson, picked this up cheap after enjoying the evocation of first love in the BBC adaptation of the book. It was very average and didn’t really scratch the love story hole left by S&R. Maybe I need to get into Mills & Boone ….

I've been reading Rachel Cusk's work since her first novel, Saving Agnes, and have nearly all her books, fiction and non fiction, though some are still TBR, including her book about motherhood which I know caused a furore on Mumsnet (I first bought it secondhand in an NCT sale, and my boys are 18 and 16, so it's been TBR for some time!). In January 2025 almost all her books were on offer on Kindle through one of those Big Deal - 15 books by X - I already owned most but I got Kindle copies of her early novels and a book about travelling and looking at art in Italy that I'd read from the library and didn't previously own.

@Tarahumara I also loved Intermezzo, Brotherless Night and Enter Ghost - I have the other books you mention TBR.

@SheilaFentiman

I don't know about historical accuracy and Thomas Seymour but I think I've looked him up a few times after encountering his portrayals in fiction by several writers - C J Samson and Elizabeth Fremantle, I think, and Suzannah Dunn's version sounds quite in keeping with those. He doesn't come across as a nice man, really, even by the standards of his time.

Oh, Thomas Seymour is a Cad and a Bounder! It was more the behaviour of the BFF than the not-so-DH

117 . Unsticky by Sarra Manning

Grace, a young woman working at a magazine, has just been dumped when she meets Vaughn a wealthy art dealer who offers her an allowance to be his mistress. Deep in debt she accepts and is drawn into his world.

This was published in 2009, two years before 50 Shades and yet the two books are remarkably similar (minus the BDSM) young naive girl is contracted to wealthy man who showers her with luxury.

This is so badly written throughout. It Is Total And Utter Garbage. Would Not Recommend. Awful. Worst Book of 2025. I Have No Idea Why This Was On My Wish List.

I raced through it and I’m giving it a bold

Perfect Trash Reading

This is so badly written throughout. It Is Total And Utter Garbage. Would Not Recommend. Awful. Worst Book of 2025. I Have No Idea Why This Was On My Wish List.

I raced through it and I’m giving it a bold

Perfect Trash Reading

😂Proof, if proof were needed, that sometimes we all need the literary equivalent of a chip butty and can of coke.