Lady's Knight - Amie Kaufmann and Meagan Spooner

52%

17.10.26

How many authors does it take to write a mediocre novel? (Further evidence here.) This depended too much on exuberance and not enough on good writing, engaging pacing and strong worldbuilding.

Writing: among many other poor techniques, using 'the other girl' or 'the older woman' instead of the character's name or pronouns is almost as annoying as apparently every contemporary novel using the non-word 'atop' instead of 'on'. 

Pacing: it was kind of boring - too much ladying and not enough knighting.

Worldbuilding: the setting and characters were so American that the biggest twist of the story was a mention of Kent and 'Londonne' towards the end.

Dear Debbie - Freida McFadden

58%

13.10.26

This was less psychological thriller and more improbable farce but that made it a fun, unpredictable, easy read (although it did take mental health issues and the aftermath of violence a little too lightly).

The Killing Time - Elly Griffiths

61%

10.10.26

I read this over a lazy Saturday - evidently I was in the mood for a time-travel police procedural (and who isn't?). As with the first in the series, it doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it too hard, the person who's shaping up to be a baddie is the most interesting character and 'whodunnit' could not have been guessed, but it's still lots of fun (and the author clearly loves cats).

Atmosphere - Taylor Jenkins Reid

65%

09.10.26

Despite TJR being very, very keen to show off her extensive research at the expense of pace, despite the boringly self-righteous main character, despite the sometimes overwhelming sentimentality, even despite no-one from her previous Celebrityverse books wandering into scenes as they usually do... I really enjoyed this.

Under My Skin - Juno Dawson

55%

04.10.26

While schlockily confirming my view that tattoos are a bad idea, this was oddly paced, with a confusing ending that explained little and left many of the storylines un-inked. 

Great Big Beautiful Life - Emily Henry

55%

02.10.26

Henry has tried to branch out a little into TJR territory by supplementing the rather uninspired romance with a fictional celebrity memoir. It gets points for trying, and for being well written on a line level, but neither story made a lot of sense.

Heart the Lover - Lily King

48%

27.09.26

What I said about King's Writers and Lovers? That. Exactly that. Same story, same protagonist, same unrelenting pretentiousness and sense of inconsequence, with everybody hiding behind literature to avoid actual emotions. (They did that in the Pym I've just read too. It's not a trope to get the reader onside.)

This is the second book from the 2026 Women's Prize shortlist that I've read and the second book I thought was a bit rubbish. Does that say more about me or the judges?

Some Tame Gazelle - Barbara Pym

52%

26.09.26

Pym's debut novel is really a pilot for her more successful later ones. Dated and staid as it is, there are glimpses of Pym's wicked humour and sharp characterisation.

Death on the Norfolk Express - Ross Greenwood

39%

21.09.26

The only thing I liked about this book were the local references. Otherwise, what I said about previous books in the series (Cromer and Fakenham) remains true - too many pointless characters, too much pointless exposition and relentlessly boring writing stops the story in its tracks (ha!).

Learning Curves - Rachel Lacey

54%

17.09.26

I mean, this was fine - an undemanding, wistfully positive, contemporary queer romance. The author clearly has never met any British people or knows anything about British universities (where you don't tend to have roommates or call yourself a freshman; at least she didn't try to set it in the UK) and the academics could have been STEM rather than art, and nothing much happened, but generally it was... fine.

Ravenous Beasts / Savage Daemons - Lauretta Hignett

59%

10.09.26 / 12.09.26

Just as crazy and confused and surprisingly feminist as the first two in the series but just as much fun, especially the last book, which went off in all sorts of unexpected directions.

Vicious Creatures / Fractured Gods - Lauretta Hignett

59%

04.09.26 / 06.09.26

More dark fantasy fun, this one even more violent than usual. There was, however, just as much need for a proper proofread (e.g. using 'little' five times in one paragraph and the constant focus on a particularly 'masculine jawline') but Hignett's irrepressible heroines and wry humour mean she is one of the few authors for whom I can overlook her lack of editing.

The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances - Glenn Dixon

54%

01.09.26

If this story is anything to go by, cosy dystopia is as problematic a genre as it sounds. Or, detached from its setting, it's just a typical 'underdog heroes fight the villain' story. It was fine but I've read better 'what makes us human' novels.

Fire in the Flint - Eva St John

39%

30.08.26

As with the first in the series, a good idea, poorly executed. It's inexplicably well reviewed on Amazon so maybe other people don't care about the poor quality of writing and lack of editing and proofreading (so, many, comma, splices) that make it a confusing, hard-to-read mess. It reinforces all my assumptions about self-published fiction but gets points for being about Magical Norwich.

The Vacationers - Emma Straub

57%

28.08.26

The wry observational characterisation almost made it not matter that there wasn't much plot or that the characters would be mostly unbearable if they were real. What did matter was the lack of believability, whether that was fact checking (I'm starting to wonder whether New York time actually is ahead of Europe, it comes up so often) and the weirdnesses placed only to help the story along (why would you make your young adult, who has just graduated high school, take Spanish lessons on vacation?). Not as insightful as it's no doubt supposed to be.

Tithe - Holly Black

53%

24.08.26

Holly Black is a good writer but this was a bit of a mess. The incidental worldbuilding was refreshing - the details (oh, so it's the '90s, oh, so these are the features of faeries) meant there wasn't the usual tedious exposition. But that also made it confusing to work out what was going on - was there even a central plot driving towards a specific goal or really any reason for the characters doing what they were doing? 

Love Galaxy - Sierra Branham

41%

20.08.26

An engaging concept with strong (if overcomplicated) worldbuilding and much darker and more political than the cover suggests. But it had the whiff of AI about it that became stronger towards the (entirely unresolved) ending. If this author did write it all herself, she needs to humanise - and generally improve - her style, sci fi theme or not.

The Ending Writes Itself - Evelyn Clarke

42%

11.08.26

Self-indulgent and confusing 'mystery' which seemed to hate everything about writers, editors and publishing - rather an ungrateful move for the two successful co-authors whose poorly written novel was going to sell well no matter how bad it was.

I Hope This Finds You Well - Natalie Sue

58%
04.08.26

While the narrator was unrelentingly self-pitying and mostly unsympathetic, I was still drawn into her dark little office world. The romance aspect in particular was done well, playing out without overwhelming the rest of the story. I may have shed a tear or two.

Summer of '76 - Isobel Ashdown

50%

28.07.26

It's set in 1976, you know. 1976! Yes, 1976! Can you tell? Can you tell? Are there enough irrelevant pop culture details and political references and endless updates on the heatwave (which actually sounds quite mild compared with 2026's brutal summer) to hint at it being, you'd never guess, 1976? And let's add so much background description that readers might not notice the flimsy, predictable plot.