This week, I got back to reading speculative fiction, bought only two books (both on special offer from Amazon) and I lined up four great books for next week.
Not quite the reading week that I’d planned, but all the better for that. I let myself get distracted by the 2025 Hugo Awards and ended up reading some excellent shorrt stories as well as two books that I’d planned to read.
Nazi Germany is a dangerous place for a girl with a stammer – and although her father tries to keep her safe, Ingrid can’t help feeling like she’s let him down. But in the air, soaring high as she pilots her beloved glider planes, Ingrid is free and incredibly talented.
When she gets the chance to fly in a propaganda tour alongside her hero, Germany’s daring female test pilot Hanna Reitsch, Ingrid leaps at the chance. But through Hanna, she will learn some dangerous truths about Germany’s secret missions and the plans that could change the course of the war to secure victory for the Nazi regime. When everything is at stake, Ingrid must decide where her loyalties lie …
I picked up ‘The Last Hawk’ (2021) after reading Elizabeth Wein’s excellent Young Adult historical novel, ‘Stateless‘ (2023). ‘The Last Hawk’ is written for a Middle Grade rather than a Young Adult audience, so the story is a little simpler and the book is much shorter (136 pages), but I still found it to be a satisfying read.
I admire how clean and tight Elizabeth Wein’s writing is. She makes every word count. She never reaches beyond her audience’s ability, but she never feels like she’s dumbing things down or making compromises.
She succeeded in showing me how the world seemed to Ingrid, a seventeen-year-old girl with a passion for flying gliders, who lives her life in anxious silence, afraid that, because she stammers, the Nazi authorities will mark her for death so that she doesn’t pollute the gene pool.
I liked that Elizabeth Wein kept the story tightly focused on Ingrid and her changing understanding of what her country was asking of her. The parts about flying were joyful. The rest is laden with fear and disappointment.
It is 1937 and tensions are high. A spectacular air race around Europe seeks to promote unity among a group of young pilots, but distrust and animosity are rife. The British and sole female contestant, Stella North, is determined to prove not only her skill, but also her identity as her Nansen passport declares her ‘stateless’.
However, barely a few hours in, Stella is witness to a horrifying attack when a contestant’s plane is forced out of the air and crashes. Was this the work of another competitor desperate to win? Was the attack random or premeditated and, most importantly, will it happen again?
With the competition heating up and the death ruled an accident, Stella is left to form her own investigation. Can she find allies among her fellow competitors or will suspicion and deceit bring them all down?
‘The Four Sisters Overlooking The Sea‘ won the 2025 Hugo Award for Best -Novellette. It was published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, September/October 2024, It’s 21 pages long and is available for free HERE
I read it in an afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a vivid tale of betrayal, revenge, seals and selkies. I recommend it to you. I found the betrayal outrageous and totally believable. The revenge was drastic but uplifting.
A young royal from the far north, is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully.
Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor’s lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.
At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She’s a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece.
This week, I read Nghi Vo’s short story, ‘Stitched To Skin Like Family Is‘ (2024) when I saw that it had won the 2025 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. It was a powerful story, told in an original way, so I went looking for more. I found an audiobook version of ‘The Empress of Salt and Fortune‘ (2020). It had nothing in common with ‘Stitched To Skin Like Family Is’ except that the storytelling was original and mesmerising, and the content was chilling.
The story is set in a fictional world reminiscent of Imperial China, but where magic is a tool of statecraft. It takes place in a time of transition.. The old Empress has been dead for a year. The new Empress is about to be inaugurated. A young cleric from an order dedicated to recording history and capturing source material, goes to the remote, previously off-limits, estate of the dead empress to take inventory and gather data. The estate is deserted except for Rabbit, an old woman who spent most of her life as a handmaiden to the empress. From her, they hear the story of how the empress rose to power.
In the space of 110 pages, Nghi Vo creates a whole world, tells the story of two young women brought to court against their will, one a princess and one a peasant who, in the course of their long lives, changed the world.
It’s beautifully done.
An old woman in a nursing home speaks of a child buried behind the fireplace…
When Tommy and Tuppence visited an elderly aunt in her gothic nursing home, they thought nothing of her mistrust of the doctors; after all, Ada was a very difficult old lady.
But when Mrs Lockett mentioned a poisoned mushroom stew and Mrs Lancaster talked about ‘something behind the fireplace’, Tommy and Tuppence found themselves caught up in an unexpected adventure involving possible black magic…
Every gust of wind promises hope, renewal, and a chance to reshape a world teetering on the brink in this inspiring tale of loss, resilience, and transformation.
‘By The Pricking Of My Thumbs ‘ (1967) is the fourth Tommy and Tuppence book. The last time I met them was in ‘N or M?’ (1941) when they were rooting out fifth columnists. Twenty-six years later, their lives are a little more sedate but Tuppence’s appetite for mysteries is undiminished.
This was a gentle book, as memorable for the comments on what it means to grow old as for the mystery itself. It was Cozy Thriller. All the thriller elements were there but with no more sense of threat than a ‘Murder She Wrote‘ episode. It worked because Tommy and Tuppence, especially Tuppence, were engaging. I wanted them to win through.
This week, I’ve added two books that were recommended by book bloggers who I follow and were on offer from Amazon for £0.99 each. I’m hoping that both of them are the start of crime series that I’ll enjoy following.
London, 1922. Draper’s daughter Marjorie Swallow is 24, independent, and determined to live life to the full. A secretarial post with enigmatic American detective Mrs Jameson looks just the ticket. And soon she’s in the thick of it.
When the bohemian party they attend ends in murder, there is no shortage of suspects. Half of Bloomsbury wanted Mrs Norris dead – but who wielded the knife? Was it the handsome but troubled artist? The vivacious young actress? Or even the aristocratic lady novelist? Marjorie and Mrs Jameson must find the true killer to save an innocent man from the noose. From the garden squares of Bloomsbury to the seedy backstreets of Soho, they navigate the glamour and peril of Jazz Age London in a thrilling story of secrets and lies. Marjorie needs all her wit, pluck and charm in this perilous hunt for the killer.
I read Crossexaminingcrime’s review of Death At Chelsea (2024) and decided to try the first book in the series. I tried the audiobook but didn’t like the narrator. I tried the Kindle sample and enjoyed it so, I’m hoping I have another series to follow.
After ten years as a national park ranger in Oregon, Makalani Pahukula is back on Kaua‘i for her grandmother’s birthday. Having been gone for so long, Makalani finds the disconnect with her people and her struggles have never been more profound. Neither has her need to reacquaint herself with everything she left behind. When she reaches the homestead, she finds a bickering family and the disconcerting news that her cousins—a failed college football player and a rebellious teenage girl—have gone missing.
Makalani hopes they just ran off, too careless to realize the worry they’ve caused. But when hunters find a dead body in the Keālia Forest Reserve, Makalani fears something ominous is at play, and the search for her cousins grows more desperate. Although her help may not be welcomed by family and locals, Makalani is determined to solve a mystery that poses a greater risk than anyone imagines.
The investigation will open her heart, reawaken her love for the land she calls home, and strengthen her bond with her family. Because no matter how long she’s been away, for Makalani, Hawai‘i is in her blood.
A review by The Irresponsible Reader got me interested in this book, so when Amazon offered the Kindle version for £0.99, I coudn’t resist.
Park Ranger/ Game Warden books seem to be a thing now. They have great potential if they’re written by someone who knows the place the story is set in. Tori Eldrige seems to have both the background and the interest to bring Haua’i alive. Here’s what she says in the preface to the novel
“Welcome to Kaua‘i Storm. Welina mai iā kākou! I was born and raised in Honolulu of Hawaiian, Chinese, and Norwegian descent, but Kaua‘i has always been my favorite island, rich in beauty and old Hawaiian ways. The rugged tropical forests and Hawaiian Home Lands issues made it the perfect setting for Ranger Makalani Pahukula and her multigenerational, multiethnic ‘ohana. I have included a full genealogy of her family along with locations, characters, and words and phrases from ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i and Hawaiian Pidgin English as used in my book. As always, I have woven actual locations, history, and facts into my fiction and taken liberties where needed to tell an exciting story I hope you will enjoy.”
Next week, I’m reading two books that won 2025 Hugo Awards, a thriller from 2020 that I found in my local public library and the first book in a Canadian crime series.
In an opulent mansion at the borders of the Empire, an Imperial officer lies dead – killed when a tree spontaneously erupted from his body. Even here, where contagions abound and the blood of the Leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death at once terrifying and impossible.
Called in to solve the crime is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricity. At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory.
Soon, the mystery leads to a scheme that threatens the safety of the Empire itself. For Ana, all this makes for a deliciously thorny puzzle – at last, something to truly hold her attention. And Din? He’ll just have to hold on for the ride.
I’ve had ‘The Tainted Cup’ on my shelves since April 2024. I’ve heard great things about it but it hasn’t made it to the top of my TBR pile because the audiobook is almost fifteen hours long. This week, it won the 2025 Hugo Award for Best Novel, so I decided I couldn’t let gather any more virtual dust.
Moscow has resurrected the mammoth, but someone must teach them how to be mammoths, or they are doomed to die out, again.
The late Dr. Damira Khismatullina, the world’s foremost expert in elephant behavior, is called in to help. While she was murdered a year ago, her digitized consciousness is uploaded into the brain of a mammoth.
Can she help the magnificent creatures fend off poachers long enough for their species to take hold?
And will she ever discover the real reason they were brought back?
‘The Tusks Of Extinction‘ won the 2025 Hugo Award for Best Novella. I think the premise sounds interesting. Ray Nayler is new to me so I hope I’ve found a new speculative fiction voice to listen to.
Twenty-one years ago, Dr Richard Carter and his wife Pamela were killed in what has become the most infamous double murder of the modern age.
Their 1 0year-old daughter – nicknamed the Angel of Death – spent eight years in a children’s secure unit and is living quietly under an assumed name with a family of her own.
Now, on the anniversary of the trial, a documentary team has tracked down her older sister, compelling her to break two decades of silence.
Her explosive interview sparks national headlines and journalist Brinley Booth, a childhood friend of the Carter sisters, is tasked with covering the news story.
For the first time, the three women are forced to confront what really happened that night – with devastating consequences for them all.
I’ ve already started the audiobook of ‘When I Was Ten‘ (2020). It feels dark from the beginning. The prose works well, mostly functional but flecked with memorable descriptive phrases (like “eyes catching like silk on roughened wood” to describe early lust in a relationship), and with small differences for each person’s point of view. It’s good but it’s depressing. There’s no light in the book so far, just a gathering storm.
Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef is making her way towards retirement after keeping the peace in the sleepy town of Port Dundas for many years. But when a local woman is found murdered – her mouth gruesomely shaped into a silent cry – Hazel and her department are faced with their biggest case yet.
They soon discover that this is not the first time a body has been found in this way, and it is unlikely to be the last.
‘The Calling’ (2008) is the first book in a four-book Canadian crime series featuring Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef of the Ontario provencial police department. I like that Micallef is approachig retirement (maybe that’s why there are only four books in the series) and that she has spent her police career in relative quietude, The only downside is that it’s a serial killer story. To my surise (given how hard it can be to get Canadian crime novels) I was able to borrow this novel from my local public library.
Mike Finn's Fiction 