This week, reading has been my refuge from all the necessary but tedious administration tasks I’ve been wading through. I’ve picked books that let me leave reality behind one page at a time and I’ve been stocking up on more. Yes, I know I have a huge TBR with lots of escapist titles but buying books is a completly seperate way of holding stress at bay than reading books. Still, I’m sure you know that.
Anyway, here’s what’s been happening this week and what’ s up next.
This has been a week for reading books from series. I’ve started a new Urban Fantasy series, confirmed that I want to continue a rather bizarre series about a tough forensic accountant and realised that I’d overdosed on a comedy about an assassin,
‘Waifs And Strays‘ (2025) is Helen Harper’s latest Urban Fantasy novel. It kicks off a series with the (for me) irresistible title: ‘The Cat Lady Chronicles‘ featuring the inimitable Kit McCafferty, a cat lady living in Coldstream, a town on the border between Scotland and England, populated by supernaturals of all types. Kit leads a quiet life renting rooms in her house and feeding feral cats but, as the tagline says: “No one is just a cat lady‘.
I wolfed this down in a couple of days. It was tremendous fun. A good plot, engaging characters with complicated histories, a fully imagined supernatural world and a lot of cats. Humour lubricates the plot but never drives it. This is a thriller/mystery designed to introduce Kit and her world and keep the reader on the edge of their seat while doing it. The book was made even better by Ruth Urquhart’s narration.
I read the first book in this series ‘The Water Rat Of Wanchai’ a.k.a. ‘The Deadly Touch Of The Tigress’ (2011) a year ago. It stuck with me, mostly because it was so hard to label. Thriller/Travlogue/Pan-Asian mashup. I had my doubts about a book about a Chinese woman written by a white European man. I had bigger doubts about combinging ‘Thriller’ and ‘Accountant’. To my surprise it worked and it worked mostly because Ava Lee was so calm that I found the story relaxing. So, I decided to try the second book ‘The Disciple Of Las Vegas‘. Another trip around the world. Another thriller about recovering stolen money. Ava Lee remained calm but this time there was a lot more violence, some of it aimed at Ava Lee, some of it orchestrated by her. Even so, I found the book relaxing, perhaps because the violence lacked malice. It was just business.
Swamp Sniper’ was my third visit with Fortune Redding in the (very) small town of Sinful Louisana. Sadly, it was disappointing. I hadn’t expected the series to start to feel tired by the third book. I almost set this aside because the first third of the book was all slapstick, pratfalls, sinking boats, will-she-won’t-she with Carter and not much else. I felt like I’d read most of this book before. A plot eventually emerged in the second half of the book, helping it to scrape a three-star rating.
I think this is a series that I’ve accidentally overdosed on by reading the books to close together. I’ll take a pause before I read the next one (which is already in my TBR)
My review is HERE
For once, none of the books i’ve bought this week are hot off the press. I’ve picked up a 2017 thriller that I’ve continued to hear good things about, an ebook bundle of three thrillers published between 2011 and 2013 (which feels like an age ago sometimes) in a series I’m following, a 2016 fantay novel that kicked off a ten-book series and a 2024 collection of short stories from an Irish writer who I’ve been watching since she won the EU Prize For Literature in 2022.
Amber Patterson is tired of being a nobody: an invisible woman who melts into the background. She deserves more. She deserves a life of wealth, luxury and leisure.
Daphne Parrish is the golden girl of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut. With her model looks, her picture-perfect mansion and her millionaire husband, Jackson, she has everything Amber wants.
Amber’s envy could eat her alive—if she didn’t have a plan. Before long, she has become Daphne’s closest friend, and is catching the eye of Jackson. But a skeleton from her past could destroy everything, and if discovered, Amber’s well-laid plan may end in disaster…
This debut novel was released in hardcover by Faber in 2024 as ‘The Revenge Of Rita Marsh‘. I liked the title and the cover, so I was surprised to find that when the paperback edition, released in March 2025, the title had changed to ‘Her Two Lives‘ and has been give an much more generic cover. I’d have passed this version over if I’d seen it on a shelf.
It’s a bit of a roll of the dice but I’m fascinated by ‘Women Who Kill’ thrillers so I’m giving this one a chance.
This bundle includes: The Wild Beasts of Wuhan, The Red Pole of Macau, The Scottish Banker of Surabaya
The Wild Beasts of Wuhan,
Uncle and Ava are summoned by Wong Changxing, “The Emperor of Hubei” and one of the most powerful men in China, when he discovers that the Fauvist paintings he recently acquired are in fact forgeries. Ava uncovers a ring of fraudulent art dealers and follows their twisted trail to Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Dublin, London, and New York. But the job is further complicated by Wong’s second wife, the cunning and seductive May Ling, who threatens to interfere in Ava’s investigation. Will Ava find the perpetrators and get the Wongs’ money back? Or will May Ling get to them first . . .
The Red Pole of Macau,
Ava’s half-brother Michael is desperate to pull out of a multi-million-dollar real estate deal in the territory of Macau. The developers are threatening to halt construction unless Michael and his business partner put up another $80 million; the bank is looking for repayment on their loan; and her father is prepared to sell everything to protect his first-born son. As Ava follows the money trail, she finds herself drawn deeper and deeper into Hong Kong’s dark and deadly world of organized crime.
The Scottish Banker of Surabaya,
Ava begins an investigation into what she thinks is a Ponzi scheme. The trail leads her to a bank in Indonesia that is run by a Scot, but in actuality is a front for an elaborate money-laundering operation for Italian mobsters. The relationship between Ava and the Scotsman turns nasty and personal. Meanwhile, Uncle’s health problems become apparent . . .
Ha ving found the first two books in this series to be relaxing comfort reads, I decided to buy the third book. Then I found that the novels have been bundled into three-novel sets, starting with book three, so I picked up a bundle to sit on my TBR for the next time I’m looking for a slightly off-centre, relaxing, unchallenging read.
Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children
No Solicitations
No Visitors
No Quests
Children have always disappeared under the right conditions – slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere…else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.
Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced…they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world. But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her newfound schoolmates to get to the heart of things. No matter the cost.
I’ve found that I either like Seanan McGuire’s novels or they slide right past me. She’s prolific, has an astonishing imagination and tries her hand at lots of kinds of stories. ‘Every Heart A Doorway’ is the first book in the ‘Wayward Children‘ series. I have high hopes for it. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novella (2017), Nebula Award for Best Novella (2016), Locus Award for Best Novella (2017), World Fantasy Award Nominee for Long Fiction (2017), James Tiptree Jr. Award Nominee (2016), ALA Alex Award (2017), British Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Novella (2017), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Fantasy (2016)
In sixteen sparkling stories, Jan Carson introduces us to worlds and characters that feel real enough to touch.
All of life is here: the thrill of growing up, the grief when youth is over; first love, mature love, parenthood and loss – all shot through with profound compassion, warm wit, and boundless imagination.
I’ve been thinking about reading Jan Carson since her novel, ‘The Fire Starters‘ (2019) won the EU Prize for Literature . I browsing her backlist when I saw that she published a short story collection in 2024. That seemed like a good introduction to her work. I’ve read the first three stories and I’m hooked. I’m limiting myself to one story a day so that every story has time to sink in.
This week, I’m pulling books from my TBR. I have a Weird West fantasy novel and the first bookin in a sllightly fraught American police procedural series.
In a wild west where the only things more dangerous than outlaws are dragons, Deputy Berry is struggling to protect her town and keep her family fed. As a last resort, she robs a train for ammunition only to find that the cargo she needs so badly was owned by war hero Frederic Rousseau.
The same Frederic Rousseau whom she served during the Amelior Civil War. The same Frederic Rousseau she’s been hiding from for the last five years.
Millie knows a secret that could ruin Rousseau’s life, and he’ll stop at nothing to keep her from telling the truth. With her violent past bearing down on the life she’s built for herself, Millie has to decide how far she’ll be willing to go to keep her town safe.
Weird West books appeal to me because they tacitly acknowledge the Wild West as folklore rather than history and then amplify it by adding supernaturall elements. They’re often festivals of trope twisting and, if they have energy, pace and some interesting people, I have a lot of fun with them. I’m hoping that ‘No Land For Heroes’ which is a Wild West story with dragons thrown in, will have everything that I’m looking for.
For more than twenty-five years, Philadelphia homicide detective Bree Taggert has tucked away the nightmarish childhood memories of her parents’ murder-suicide…. Until her younger sister, Erin, is killed in a crime that echoes that tragic night: innocent witnesses and a stormy marriage that ended in gunfire. There’s just one chilling difference. Erin’s husband, Justin, has vanished.
Bree knows how explosive the line between love and hate can be, yet the evidence against her troubled brother-in-law isn’t adding up. Teaming up with Justin’s old friend, former sheriff’s investigator and K-9 handler Matt Flynn, Bree vows to uncover the secrets of her sister’s life and death, as she promised Erin’s children. But as her investigation unfolds, the danger hits close to home. Once again, Bree’s family is caught in a death grip. And this time, it could be fatal for her.
‘Cross Her Heart‘ has sat on my shelves for three years now. The idea of the series appeals to me but the opening of the book, which involves children caught up in extreme domestic violence, brought me to halt the first time I tried to read it. I’ve decided to try it one more time because the Bree Taggert series has been so successful. I hoping that’s the right choice.
Mike Finn's Fiction 