A Beginner's Guide to Breaking and Entering - Andrew Hunter Murray

44%

24.01.26

This couldn't be more different to the previous book I read - it's all action and gentle British humour. What it does have in common is the lack of character development and emotional engagement, making it instantly forgettable.

The Atlas Six - Olivie Blake

41%

19.01.26

Gosh, but this was boring. Was there even a plot or was it just badly written, pretentious philosophical worldbuilding featuring eight or nine characters with an interchangeable personality? 

The Perfect Golden Circle - Benjamin Myers

54%

14.01.26

This is lit fic at its most self-referential, like the crop circles it describes - carefully crafted and ultimately meaning whatever you want it to. 
 

The Bones Beneath My Skin - TJ Klune

57%

12.01.26

The genre might vary but a Klune novel will always have a male/male romance, found family, a supernatural element, awkward dialogue and jokes in surprising (sometimes inappropriate) places. This was essentially an action thriller with an eye on a Netflix adaptation but that made it feel rather superficial and I doubt I'll remember much about it in six months.

The Unknown Ajax - Georgette Heyer

53%

09.01.26

Heyer is a dependable comfort read when I'm under the weather (I've been winged but not by a pistol) and this, as usual, featured vivid characters and gentle humour, but it's also a little dull (despite the smuggling subplot). Much of it hasn't aged well since the 1950s - marrying one's cousin and bullying a queer relation lands rather differently these days.

The Wishing Game - Meg Shaffer

53%

05.01.26

I knew I had to write a review for a book I'd finished yesterday but it took me a good ten seconds to remember what that book was. Which isn't a great sign. I really liked Shaffer's The Lost Story but this, while competently written, was somehow both emotionally detached and overly sentimental. 

Woodworking - Emily St James

69%

02.01.26

The new year's off to a strong reading start with this engaging, funny, moving and ultimately satisfying character-driven story that uses every type of narrative voice to convey many types of identity. I was less keen on the underplaying of the inappropriateness of the teacher/student relationship, and the lack of trans men amongst the vivid queer cast, but overall a good read.

Novels I started but didn't finish in 2025

While I read just a chapter or two of some novels and just didn't come back to them, there were only few this year that I devoted time to and then abandoned. 

In alphabetical order by author:

• One Day With You - Shari Low: just no.
• The Hungry Dark - Jen Williams: I got three-quarters of the way through this but it was so unrelentingly grim, and the characters so improbable, that I couldn't finish it.
• The Year of the Child - Niall Williams: too pretentious to bear.

I started and wasn't enthralled by but may come back to:

• The Friend - Dorothy Koomson
• Aphrodite - Phoenicia Rogerson

The Golden Age of Magic - Luanne G. Smith

43% 

29.12.25

The author tried hard with the worldbuilding but maybe should have spent more time thinking about plot, pace and clarity.

Born For This - Caitlin Devlin

45%

26.12.25

I can sort of see what Devlin was going for here - but it didn't really work. Trying to add nuances to perceived nepotism - and actual privilege is fine if we care about the characters. But everyone was either awful (the main character and her friends) or unrelatable (her aunt and mother) so the stakes would have been higher if they'd all tried to go into accountancy instead of the family business of acting.

A Glass of Blessings - Barbara Pym

72%

18.12.25

I hadn't heard of this but it was by far the best Pym novel I've read. The snobbish, judgemental narrator was, oddly, especially engaging and relatable - in fact, it's surprising how much of a 1950s, middle-class, religious housewife's life is still relatable through Pym's witty and perceptive writing. Her relationships with her mother-in-law and, later, her gay friends, were surprisingly positive. Overall: delightful.

Snowblind - Ragnar Jonasson

37%

14.12.25

A stilted translation, one-dimensional characters who were hard to tell apart, poor pacing, a plot that made no sense, and being told everything instead of being shown it - the much-celebrated (and rather monotonous) descriptions of snow were not enough to save this weak novel.

All Passion Spent - Vita Sackville-West

59%

10.12.25

Although the style and much of the subject matter is dated, you could bump into many of the characters today. Everyone was eccentric in their own way - sometimes charmingly and sometimes obnoxiously but always vividly. And the message of women's sacrificing their individuality for men and family is still, sadly, relevant.

The House Across the Lake - Riley Sager

54%

07.12.25

Someone pointed out that all Riley Sager's books can be summarised as 'Young down-on-her-luck woman moves house, discovers neighbours' secrets, has secrets of her own.' This one definitely fits that mould, and is also pretty similar to Sarah Pinborough's supernatural domestic thrillers (like the one I've just read). Despite its cliches, this was still quite well written and pretty entertaining, if not all that engaging.

Insomnia - Sarah Pinborough

50%

01.12.25

Well, this certainly didn't keep me awake at night, in fact, quite the opposite, what with the slow pace and boring characters.

Nightshade - Autumn Woods

30%

23.11.25

You know the phrase 'So bad it's good?' Yeah, well, that doesn't apply here. This is so bad in so many ways that it's like a first-time author's first draft that nobody's bothered to read or revise or comment on or edit or proofread before it was published. 

Cover Story - Rachel Lacey

56%

19.11.25

You know what I said about Lacey's Stars Collide? That. Except this had some minor manufactured angst that got boring fast.

The Warbler - Sarah Beth Durst

52%

14.11.25

This had an unusual and intriguing premise that was unfortunately fumbled in the execution. Readable enough but too many 'but whats?', 'but whys?' and 'but hows?' to feel like a final draft.

The Ballad of Smallhope and Pennyroyal - Jodi Taylor

47%

10.11.25

Perhaps it's my own fault for reading the original story of characters I didn't know from a series I haven't read but it was supposed to be standalone and, well, funny and exciting, but instead it felt like an in-joke that hadn't been explained with a very ragged plot. And it would have been much more interesting if they hadn't (spoiler) fallen in love at the end.

(This novel gets incredibly high ratings on Amazon and Goodreads but I've tried and failed to get on with Taylor's books before so clearly everyone else is wrong.)

They Own the Night - Amy McCaw

49%

06.11.25

This inexplicably has an almost-perfect Amazon score but I found it dull, confusing and poorly structured. With updates like this, no longer Dracula won't die.