It’s been a strange reading week. One huge disappointment and one pleasant surprise. It was a week full of tempting books offered at great prices. It was a week when I rediscovered my local library and found another way to add to my TBR.

Anyway, here’s what’s been happening this week and what’s up next.

---

This week, I’d planned to read two new releases from authors I’ve enjoyed before. I’d pre-ordered both books, so I was keen to dive in. The first book I tried was a disappointment. I set it aside. I decided that I wanted a replacement, a palate cleanser from my TBR. The book I picked restored my spirits. It was even better than I’d hoped it would be.

Once, Sera Swan was one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Then she resurrected her great-aunt Jasmine from the (very recently) dead, lost most of her powers, befriended a semi-villainous talking fox, and was exiled from her Guild. Now she helps Jasmine run an enchanted inn in Lancashire, where she deals with their quirky guests’ shenanigans and longs for a future that seems lost. Until she finds about an old spell that could restore her power …
Enter Luke Larsen, handsome magical historian, who might have the key to unlocking the spell’s secrets. Luke has no interest in the inn’s madcap goings-on, and is even less interested in letting a certain bewitching innkeeper past his walls. So no one is more surprised than he is when he agrees to help.
Running an inn, reclaiming lost power, and staying one step ahead of the watchful Guild is a lot for anyone, but Sera is about to discover she doesn’t have to do alone – and that love might be the best magic of all.

Sadly, this was one of those instances where I could judge a book by its cover. I didn’t make it past chapter two. It was an interesting plot, packed with emotional trauma delivered with all the emotional impact of a Teletubbies episode. I felt I was reading a children’s book of the kind that makes Disney seem hard-hitting.

My review is HERE

Desperate journalist Nick Bishop takes a job profiling new mindfulness app, Clarity. Relaxing meditations are mixed with haunting ‘sleep songs’ where a woman’s voice sings users into a deep sleep.
Then the nightmares begin.
Vivid and chilling, they feature a dead woman who calls Nick by name, whispering guidance – or are they threats?
Soon, he can’t escape her voice. And that’s when he makes a terrifying discovery: no one involved with Clarity has any interest in his article. Their interest is in him.
Because whilst he may not have any memory of it, he’s one of twenty people who have heard this sinister song before, and the only one who is still alive…

Scott Carson’s ‘The Chill’ was one of my favourite horror novels of 2023. I described it as “A compelling combination of the plausible and the fantastic that took me on a wild ride to dark places”. That description also fits ‘Where They Wait‘, although the two books are very different in terms of plot and characters.

What I liked most about this book was how the horror kept escalating, not on the back of jump scare moments but by the slow, inexorable revelation of a threat that melded science, technology, well-documented but gruesome history, local folklore and the megalomaniacal will of a wannabe Tech Bro. It was beautifully done. It pulled no punches. It was always clear that things would not end well, but the ending still surprised me. 

‘ve been on a bit of a book-buying spree this week. With the exception of a horror novel that I’ve had on pre-order for a while, the other five books are by authors whom I’ve read and enjoyed before. A couple of them were recommendations from other reviewers. They’re a diverse bunch. I think the only things that connect them are how well the authors write. 

Every day at 8:05, Iona Iverson boards the train to go to work. Every day, she sees the same people and makes assumptions about them, even giving them nicknames. But they never speak. Obviously.
Then, one morning, Smart-but-Sexist-Surbiton chokes on a grape right in front of Iona. Suspiciously-Nice-New Malden steps up to help and saves his life, and this one event sparks a chain reaction.
With nothing in common but their commute, an eclectic group of people learn that their assumptions about each other don’t match reality. But when Iona’s life begins to fall apart, will her new friends be there when she needs them most?

This book was recommended to me by someone who read my review of Clare Pooley’s ‘How To Age Disgracefully‘(2024). I had some trouble finding it at first because the publishers originally released it under the title ‘Ivona Iverson’s Rules For Commuting‘. The premise appeals to me partly because there was a time when I would commute from Bath to London daily on the 06:30 train, and I remember seeing the same tired faces in the same seats day after day. I never spoke to any of them, of course. That would have been against the rules.

One night, Jess, a struggling actress, finds a five-year-old runaway hiding in the bushes outside her apartment. After a violent, bloody encounter with the boy’s father, she and the boy find themselves running for their lives.
As they attempt to evade the boy’s increasingly desperate father, horrifying incidents of butchery follow them. At first Jess thinks she understands what they’re up against, but she’s about to learn there’s more to these surreal and grisly events than she could’ve ever imagined.
And that when the wolf finally comes home, none will be spared.

Nat Cassidy is a new author for me. I’ve being seeing good reviews of his horror novels for some time now. I decided to order his latest novel ‘When The Wolf Comes Home‘ (2025) because the premise sounds original and the cover is simply gorgeous. I’m stowing this away to be one of my Halloween Bingo books.

Scions have no limits. Scions do not die. And Scions do not disappear.
Sergeant Ted Regan has a problem. A son of one of the great corporate families, a Scion, has gone missing at the front. He should have been protected by his Ironclad – the lethal battle suits that make the Scions masters of war – but something has gone catastrophically wrong.
Now Regan and his men, ill-equipped and demoralised, must go behind enemy lines, find the missing Scion and uncover how his suit failed. Is there a new Ironclad killer out there? And how are common soldiers, lacking the protection afforded the rich, supposed to survive the battlefield of tomorrow?

I like Adrian Tchaikovsky’s shorter fiction. It always packs a punch. One of the first novellas of his that I read was ‘Firewalkers’ (2020). I found out this week that ‘Firewalkers‘ is now being marketed as one of three novellas in a collection called ‘Terrible Worlds: Revolutions’. ‘Ironclads‘ (2017) is the first book in the series, so I thought I’d try it out. 

Career criminal Longview Moody, on the run from killers, assumes his dead twin brother’s identity as the new chief of police of a Texas town that’s being terrorized by a Mexican drug cartel. To pull off the deadly deception, Longview desperately works to become the kind of cop and man that his brother was. But when the two lives he’s living converge, he’s forced to embrace the violence within him to get justice…and vengeance.

I went back through Robert E Dunn’s back catalogue when I finished. ‘A Dark Path‘ and found this standalone novel. It’s the only novel of his that I’ve found available as an audiobook. The premise sounds fun, in a dark way. It reminds me a little of the TV series ‘Banshee’, although I hope it’s not as violent. 

Ed Edwards works in the dirty, tough world of used car sales,but feels sure he is destined for more in life.Dreaming of a brighter future for himself and his plucky little sister, Ed wants to get out of the game.
And when Dave, his lazy, grease-stained boss, sends him to repossess a Cadillac, the better deal Ed has been searching for suddenly seems in reach.
The Cadillac in question belongs to Frank Craig and his beautiful wife Nancy, owners of a local drive-in and pet cemetery. Ed knows Nancy well – too well. In the throes of their salacious affair, Nancy has suggested they kill Frank and claim his insurance policy. It is a tantalizing offer: Ed could finally say goodbye to cars and maybe even send his sister to college. But does he have what it takes to seal the deal?

I love the diversity of Joe Landsdale’s books. He doesn’t repeat himself. He always takes me somewhere intriguing that feels real but that I would never normally visit. I’m hoping for another surprising read.

When high school senior Charlotte agrees to babysit the Wilbanks twins, she plans to put the six-year-olds to bed early and spend a quiet night studying: the SATs are tomorrow, and checking the Native American/Alaskan Native box on all the forms won’t help if she chokes on test day. But tomorrow is also Halloween, and the twins are eager to show off their costumes.
Charlotte’s last babysitting gig almost ended in tragedy when her young charge sleepwalked unnoticed into the middle of the street, only to be found unharmed by Charlotte’s mother. Charlotte vows to be extra careful this time. But the house is filled with mysterious noises and secrets that only the twins understand, echoes of horrors that Charlotte gradually realizes took place in the house eleven years ago. Soon Charlotte has to admit that every babysitter’s worse nightmare has come true: they’re not alone in the house.

I love seeing Stephen Graham Jones playing with horror tropes. He always produces something new that’s also deeply rooted in the traditions of the genre. This one was originally released only as an audiobook so I have high hopes for the narration. This is another book that I’m stacking up for Halloween Bingo.

---

Next week, I’m reading a light-hearted book that I added last week and two thrillers that I came across in my local library.

Jenny Kennedy appears to have it all. She’s the perfect daughter, the popular girl at school and a successful beauty queen. But then Jenny is found dead in a murder that rocks the small town she grew up in to the core.
Her estranged half-sister Virginia finds herself thrust into the spotlight as the case dominates the news and is desperate to uncover who killed Jenny. But she soon realises that maybe Jenny’s life wasn’t so perfect after all.
The truth is that Jenny has more than a few secrets of her own, and so do her neighbours… What really happened that night?.

When I was browsing my local library’s recently uppgraded BorrowBox app, the name Amy Green stood out because I already have her next book ‘Haven’t Killed In Years‘ on my winter wishlist. ‘The Prized Girl’ (2020) was her debut novel. I’ve made a start on it already. it’s adebut novel that feels accomplished. I like that each sister gets her own point of view – the older sister immeidately after her younger sister’s murder and the younger sister immediately before it. Amy Green gives the two of them very different voices. This is amplified by the use of two narrators. I’m settling in to watch the past and the present unfold.

---

Mrs. Loretta Plansky, a widow in her seventies, is settling into retirement in Florida while dealing with her 98-year-old father and fielding requests for money from her beloved children and grandchildren. Thankfully, her new hip hasn’t changed her killer tennis game one bit.
One night Mrs. Plansky is startled awake by a phone call from a voice claiming to be her grandson Will, who needs ten thousand dollars to get out of a jam.
By morning, Mrs Plansky has lost everything. Law enforcement announces that Loretta’s life savings have vanished, and that it’s hopeless to find the scammers behind the heist. First humiliated, then furious, Loretta Plansky refuses to be just another victim.

This is an escapist fantasy, a world where a grandmother, scammed out of her savings, can not only get revenge but also change some of how the world works. I’m hoping for a few smiles. 

Who would you go back for?
Lestari Aris is a woman on the edge. Her tattoo studio in Karangashape Road is hammered by burglaries, the hangers-on in her life, from a teenage runaway to a married cop, are bonded to her for reasons she can’t fathom. And years after Lestan’s father disappeared, her Indonesian mother is still lost in a a self-medicated blur.
When a murder in Symonds Street Cemetery whirls Listen into the orbit of an unpredictable drug, she uncovers a decades-long covert clinical study targeting rough sleepers and others on the fringes – an its dark connections with her own life and history.
Everything is connected – the past is circuling.
How far will Lestari go to save someone she loves?

I’m always on the lookout for genre voices that aren’t from a mainstream UK/USA background. These are relatively easy to find in crime novels these days, but much harder to find in speculative fiction. The BorrowBox app at my library let me search for writers from certain countries. Angelique Kasmara popped up when I searched against New Zealand. She was born in Indonesia. Her family moved as refugees to New Zealand in 1972. She’s worked in Jakarta and Auckland. According to Wikipedia, “Isobar Precinct (2021), is one of the few literary novels published by an Asian New Zealandwoman writer, and received critical praise.”

I’m impressed that my library had this and that they made it so easy to find.