2026 - 50 Books a Year Challenge

41 What Happened That Night - Nicci French

This is the third book in the writing partnership's series featuring Detective Maud O'Connor. An excellent who done it, slightly in the vein of Agatha Christie where all the suspects of an historical murder are gathered together at the request of the person who was convicted to discuss what may have really happened that night.

30 years ago Tyler Green was convicted of murdering his university friend Leo Bauer. Now, newly released from prison, requesting the company of the former tight knit group of friends as they were then, including his once much loved girlfriend, now married to another of the circle. This is an evening of facing the truth. Their varying fortunes are revealed whilst their darkest secrets initially kept hidden, during the course of the drunken gathering hosted by Beatrice, KC and married to a government minister, are gradually to be exposed. At the end of the evening one of them will be murdered. Tyler believed to have killed before, falls under suspicion, but did he commit this one or the previous one? . Enter Detective O'Connor.

55-Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree-Santa Montefiore
What a delight this was. Set in the Argentine pampa, this family saga has it all; romance, exotic locations, forbidden love, death and rich lifestyles. Spanning the turbulent years from 1947-1997 this story was a real page turner.

Just popping in to say how much I have enjoyed The Names.
Finished it 10 minutes ago. Well written and kept me gripped.
Thank you for the recommendation.

HelterSkelter1

Just popping in to say how much I have enjoyed The Names.
Finished it 10 minutes ago. Well written and kept me gripped.
Thank you for the recommendation.

Glad you enjoyed The Names HelterSkelter1 a definite standout book.

#54. Secrets From The Grave by Jack Cartwright.

After the intensity of Butter, I treated myself to another Freida McFadden:

26. The Housemaid’s Secret, Freida McFadden

The follow up to The Housemaid, which I read recently. I enjoyed it, but I’ll move on to another author now, as I’m getting too used to her style. Even I am starting to spot the twists well in advance.

42 Yesteryear Caro Claire Burke Audible

This is a book that has a lot of buzz around it, soon to be filmed with Ann Hathaway in the leading role of Natalie Heller-Mills the leading protagonist. Natalie is a rather smug social media influencer, promoting traditional gender roles as a sahm on the family farm displaying a superficially idealised and wholesome life as wife and mother. The twist in the plot is when she wakes up one day and finds herself transposed to the mid 19th century where she is far removed from her comfort zone lacking all the accoutrements of modern day life which for her included umpteen hired help in the form of nannies, ranch hands and a social media producer who it's later revealed is having an affair with her husband. Natalie is prone to treat Caleb her hapless husband with a certain amount of derision. Plunged back into the reality of hard graft of the daily grind and a woman's lot from over a 150 years ago so far removed from all she is familiar with. Thereafter the novel is told from two timelines, one from her idealised life before the time switch and how she copes with the reality of what the lot of a mid century, pioneer woman managing a family of multiple children and a farm with livestock meant when she was expected to take on all the onerous tasks, being ill equipped for such a life she relies on the oldest child of the family, Mary who treats her as pretty useless and incapable. No longer the Queen Bee of her life as it was, she imagines she will at some time wake up from what appears to be a really bad dream, however as that doesn't happen she plans her escape.

An unusual premise, I could see it transferring to the big screen well.

#55. When The Night Ends by MJ Lee.

27. The Wedding People, Alison Espa

Lecturer Phoebe turns up at a luxury nineteenth century hotel at the lowest point of her life, having walked out of it on a whim and with just the clothes she stands up in. The hotel has supposedly been booked out for Lila and Gary’s six day wedding and she is very reluctantly dragged into the wedding party. It turns out that everyone at the hotel is just getting through life as best they can, and facing their own demons, despite their wealth and privilege. This is a very good read, full of interesting characters and lots of humour alongside some sad stories.

56-Never Lie-Freida McFadden
Wow! what a page turner this is. I could have read this book in one sitting if I'd started earlier in the day. I was hooked from the first page, when newlyweds are forced to stay overnight in a house they are viewing, due to a snowstorm. The house has been vacant for several years, but why is there fresh bread in the fridge? I thought by page 50 that I'd worked out the ending- but how wrong could I be? Fabulous story.

#56. Do Not Disturb by Freida McFadden.

28. True Crime, Patricia Cornwell

I downloaded this autobiography as an audiobook read by the author. I must say that her very slow delivery and the fact that I found the first half of the book rather meandering and repetitive brought me close to sending it back to the library. That would have been a big mistake, as the pace really picked up once the author started talking about how she researched her Scarpetta books by working with the police, FBI and medical examiners, her liaising with major names in the entertainment world to bring her work to the screen, her research into the Jack the Ripper murders and her very eventful adult life. It picked up even more when I increased the narration speed to 1.7!

In the end I really enjoyed it and feel inspired to read a Scarpetta novel for the first time in many years.

29. One By One, Freida McFadden

Three couples are heading for a luxury spa hotel in the middle of the woods when their car breaks down and they have to spend three nights with hardly any food or water, worrying about bears and wolves. They don’t all survive. This one was short, and just a bit too unbelievable imho.

30. John Grebble is Gone, Peter James

Just a short story from Amazon First Reads, but I think it could have made a good book. John wakes up to a letter from his bank confirming his death, and a nightmare day follows when he finds he has to prove he’s still alive. A bit of a worrying tale of identity fraud.

#57. Thunderball by Ian Fleming.

57-The Seaside Cocktail Campervan-Caroline Roberts
A delightful romance between Lucy and Jack, both self-employed caterers. A great summer read.

#58. Never Lie by Freida McFadden.

43 It Could Have Been Her Lisa Jewell

I'm a huge fan of Lisa Jewell, this is her latest which I actually bought as a holiday read treat, I knew the waiting list at the library would be a long one. The weirdness of her characters and plots at times remind me of Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell who was my favourite author by far of the psychological/crime genre.

The central character here is Jane Trevally, who as the story unfolds, in a flashback finds herself, having met a man in a pub when she makes the rash decision to accompany him back to his house for a drink. In a nano second hearing a scream from upstairs at the entrance, all her instincts tell her to leg it. That was well over 20 years ago. Now Jane a twice divorcee who lives alone, except for her 4 dogs, in a inherited seen better days old house in Dorset. Once the home of her drunken addicted parents. The large old house, practically falling down around her ears is subject to interest from local estate agents. Her life revolves around her dogs and whilst walking them she is to find a cute Cairn type terrier dog nearby who appears to either have been abandoned or lost. So it comes as some surprise when returning him via his chip it's to the very house in Hampstead's, strangely named Vale of Health on the edge of the Heath, where her possible near abduction took place all those years ago. Thereafter, a multi stranded plot of a missing teenage girl from the house, owner of the small white dog and the secrets contained within the home she appears to have fled, uncover a trail back to a fate that could have been sealed for Jane if her sixth sense hadn't kicked in. A compulsive read for Lisa Jewell fans.

58-A Darkness more than Night-Michael Connelly
This is a follow on from Blood Work, as Terry Mc Caleb helps find the truth behind a murder, working with Harry Bosch.

#59. The Locked Room by Freida McFadden.

Calendargirl

#59. The Locked Room by Freida McFadden.

Correction, The Locked Door.

37 The Permaculture Farden by Graham Bell. Really good if your into gardening sustainably (I am) so this is a keeper. I've slowed down on the reading as the weather has been so good and i'm spending lots of time gardening. Still aiming to make at least the 50 books for the year.

44 Shadow of the Silk Road (Non Fiction) Colin Thubron

An incredibly interesting book club choice, although with non fiction I find I have to intersperse it with a novel. I took this one away with me. Published 20 or so years ago, so times have moved on and it does seem to me, at least watching the latest Race Across the World that some of "The Stans" featured in the book have been growing at a rapid pace, if their infrastructure is anything to go by. In particular I'm thinking maybe of Uzbekistan, an overall Muslim population but more secular and not moribund as a religious state plus their relatively new found autonomy having been shackled by the Soviet Union, all seem to point to a thriving nation. There was a chapter devoted to the Uyghur population so marginalised by the Chinese, not quite as depressing as the chapter on Afghanistan, as it was and as it still is, remaining one of the most appalling countries as to human rights and an example of how dire it is for its people to live under such an unbending theocracy. Nevertheless, the explanations of how silk was discovered, the cultural blends who left their influence and genes as a reminder of the civilizations that traded from the Mediterranean to China was very interesting. It is a book, that many of us found we could only read in short bursts. I'd manage a chapter at a time, there was a helluva lot to absorb without forgetting what I'd just read, so for me, it was over to my Lisa Jewell when I felt my brain was becoming too addled.

I’m stuck at home with a broken ankle while OH is off sailing in Norway, so I have been sitting reading and doing little less.
Thank goodness for my new kindle as I broke my glasses at the same time as my ankle and can’t read a print book at the moment.

#42 The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz
I was enjoying this so much in print, I bought it on kindle to finish when I couldn’t read the print.
It follows the story of the wealthy, New York City-based Oppenheimer family, from the first meeting of parents Salo and Johanna, under tragic circumstances, to their triplets born during the early days of IVF. As children, the three siblings - Harrison, Lewyn, and Sally - feel no strong familial bond and cannot wait to go their separate ways, even as their father becomes more distanced and their mother more desperate. When the triplets leave for college, Johanna, faced with being truly alone, makes the decision to have a fourth child. What role will the "latecomer" play in this fractured family?
This was very good, very well written and engrossing. 9/10

#43 City of Scars by J D Kirk
Number 14 in the DCI Logan series. 8/10

#44 Ripeness by Sarah Moss
Just out of school, Edith is sent alone to rural Italy. Her task is simple: support her sister Lydia, a brilliant but brittle ballet dancer, through the final weeks of her pregnancy. Once the baby is born, she is to make a phone call that will change all of their lives forever.
Decades later, Edith is living a contented life in Ireland, happily divorced and finally free. But with the arrival of an unexpected message, Edith faces up to the consequences of what happened that summer.
I was a bit disappointed in this, not as good as other Sarah Moss books but still well written. 8/10

#44 The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman
The latest outing for the Thursday Murder Club. 8/10

#45 Here Lie the Dead by J D Kirk
Number 15 in the DCI Logan series. 8/10

#46 The Truth About Ruby Cooper by Liz Nugent
Ruby and her sister, Erin, live an idyllic life in their close-knit church community in Boston. But when Ruby is sixteen, she is involved in an incident that causes her family’s world to implode. Across decades, the fallout leaves a wake of destruction behind Ruby in Dublin and Erin in Boston.
Not that Ruby wants to think about the past, but it can’t stay a secret forever.
By the same author as Strange Sally Diamond. It was very good, lots of moral dilemmas that make you wonder how you might have reacted. 8/10

#47 One For the Ages by J D Kirk
Number #16 in the DCI Logan series. 8/10

#48 A Family Matter by Claire Lynch
1982 Dawn is a young wife and mother hemmed in by village life. Then Hazel appears like a torch in the dark. Their attraction is instant and suddenly Dawn’s world is more joyful, and more complicated, than she ever expected.
2022 Maggie has always lived with an absence where her mother should be, her father never speaks of her. When her father becomes ill and she starts helping him sort through his papers, she discovers the painful truth about social mores 40 years before.
Very good. 9/10

#49 All the Forgivenesses by Elizabeth Hardinger
Growing up on their hardscrabble farm in rural Kentucky, 15 year old Albertina "Bertie" has learned a lot from her mama, Polly. She knows how to lance a boil, make a pie crust, butcher a pig, and tend to every chore that needs doing.
When Polly succumbs to a long illness, Bertie takes on responsibility for her four younger siblings and their dissolute, unreliable daddy. Yet no matter how hard she tries to hold the family together; the task is overwhelming. Finally, Bertie makes the only choice she can—breaking up the family for its own survival, keeping the girls with her, sending the boys off to their grown brothers, long gone from home. Ever pragmatic, Bertie marries young, grateful to find a husband willing to take on the care of her sisters.
This was an excellent and engrossing read. It vividly describes the hard life of the times and the battles to keep families together and surviving through challenging times. 9/10

#50 In the Service of Death by J D Kirk
Number 17 in the DCI Logan series. 8/10

#51 Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville
Set in late 19th and early 20th centuries in rural Australia. Dolly is an intelligent girl who is stifled by the expectations of her family and the times she lives in. She is determined to make something of herself outwith the he strict social confines of the times.
I didn’t realise that it is based on the life of the author’s grandmother until the end. 7/10

31. The Defence, Rob Rinder

I really like Rob Rinder’s books and have enjoyed this even more than the previous three. Our hero, young trainee barrister Adam, takes on the case of a young woman accused of murdering her boss by adding deadly monkshood to his healing bath water at a glitzy corporate function to promote it. He’s also dealing with a client accused of a homophobic assault, a complicated love life, and regular calls from his mother (which are a delight). I downloaded this from our library service as an audiobook, and I would also praise the excellent narrator, Josh Dylan, who really brought the book to life.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery, AliBeeee. Thank goodness for books and Kindles, eh?