This was a mixed reading week, with two books that worked very well, two that fell flat and one that was fun but ran a little long.

Anyway, heere’s what I’ve read and bought this week and what’s up next.

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‘Becoming Sherlock – The Red Circle’ and ‘How To Slay At Christmas’ were the highlights of my week. Both surprised me. Both had clever plots and engaging characters. Best of all, they were both highly entertaining.

‘Witch Slap’ was fun and kicked off a cosy paranormal series tha shows promise.

The other two books disappointed me.

“Becoming Sherlock” is a story set in a dystopian London in the near future. At the same time a passenger plane goes down in central London, Dr. Watson finds a man naked and beaten in the street. The man has no memory, no past but seem to inhabit exceptional gifts of detection. This is the start of a mystery that unravels rapidly with one burning question at the center of it, who is Sherlock Holmes?

‘Becoming Sherlock: The Red Circle‘ was excellent. It was a clever and engaging reworking of Sherlock Holmes, set in the near future and with some twists to the characters. I loved that, although it used all the characters from Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, it changed them in fundamental and surprising ways. It was a bold thing to do but it worked. The near-future Britain-in-decline setting gave a lot of freedom for twisting the story into something new. The mystery was complicated and exciting. I strongly recommned the audiobook version.

Morgan Winters wants an ordinary life:
A job at a bookstore, an apartment she can barely afford, and a healthy amount of existential dread. Her brother (AKA “The Ruiner”) ruins that when he shows up on her bedroom windowsill, transformed into a talking cat.
He claims it’s due to a date gone horribly wrong, but Morgan’s not buying it. Still, when he begs her to take him to a witch who can change him back into a human, she reluctantly agrees. Family is family.
When they arrive in Hollowbeck—a suspiciously small and suspiciously magical town—they find the witch.
Only she’s dead.
And there’s a letter left behind—with Morgan’s name on it.
Even though no one knew she was coming.
Morgan could run. She could hide. But she’s not the type. She’s determined to stick her nose into the middle of the supernatural, figure out who left her the letter, find the murderer—and hopefully sort out Ruiner’s cat problem before he leaves another hairball on the rug.

This is the start of a cosy paranormal series set in a strange little village in Cumbria were most of the inhabitants are magic users and familiars are taken for granted. It was a fun read that made me laught several times. The beginning was strong, The middle sagged a little, leaving me waiting for something to happen. The ending was exciting (for a cosy paranormal). The mystery that drove the plot was solved and the stage was set for the next book in the series. .

She’s making a list, she’s checking it twice…
Jessica Williams loves Christmas: the food, the drink, the fairy lights, the opportunities to take out all the miserable people who ruin the festive season for others. And what better cover for her murderous intentions than taking a job as Mrs Claus at the Ellsbury Christmas Market grotto? After all, who would possibly think Mrs Claus could stab a man through the eye with a Phillips-head screwdriver?
Fearne Dixon hates Christmas. As the long-suffering wife of the Ellsbury Christmas Market’s manager, she’s sick to the back teeth of it and it’s still only November. But then the bodies start piling up, an old rival arrives back in her life, and Fearne reaches breaking point.
When the lives of the two women collide, who will end up on the Naughty List?

‘How To Slay At Christmas‘ was one of my best Christmas reads this year. I got the dark humour and vengeful violence that I’d expected but I got a lot more than a bloody procession of bad men being killed. The plot was clever and surprising. Having the focus on two women rather than one broadened the story and made their emerging friendship central to the novel. The biggest surprise was that I not only liked the woman whose annual mission at Christmas is to kill people on her Naughty List but the story was filled with a hopeful Christmas spirit (provdied you weren’t on The Naught List).

A Gibson martini garnished with three silverskin onions is 77-year-old Mimi’s favourite cocktail. It is best served with a crossword puzzle, not as an apéritif at Jane Ireland’s extravagant auction party.
But given Mimi has been blackmailed into attending Jane’s event, at a grand old mansion on Mackinac Island (Michigan’s answer to The Hamptons), there are worse drinks she could spend an evening sinking.
Thankfully for her, she’s roped her granddaughter, Addie – who is escaping the heartache caused by her manipulative ex-fiancé – into accompanying her. While Addie spots celebrities and socialites in the manor’s labyrinth of dark rooms and Mimi wonders how to confess the real reason for her presence at the soiree, a scream pierces the air.
Jane is dead.
And when a second body turns up, Mimi and Addie soon become the unlikeliest of sleuths in a race to narrow down the suspects.
In a house that contains as many secrets as the people within it, it’s going to take more than a Gibson to survive the night…

I felt that this book over-reached itself. It was also a book that is more likely to appeal to gamers (or even people who do Crosswords) than it did to me. I set it aside.

My review is HERE

It’s Christmas Eve, and Lara anxiously anticipates the arrival of her sister, Cleo, so she can reveal a shocking family secret that has been haunting Lara since their mother’s death. By confronting revelations about their grandfather’s shameful past, Lara is hopeful that she and Cleo can make reparations and exorcise this ghost from their lives. The ghost, however, won’t be appeased so easily….

I liked the beginning of this play. The relationship between the two sisters seemed real. The things that they bickered about fed into the sense of menace in the play. The history of dementia in the family anf the stress caring for their dying mother has caused one of the sisters allowed room for doubt about whether what she think she’s seeing is really there. I liked that what seemed to be the mother’s demented rants in her native Ukrainian turned into something shameful and menacing when translated. The performances by Tara Fitzgerald  and Shobna Gulati were strong.

I lost sympathy with the play at the end. Firstly, it depended too heavily on the ‘immersive suund experience’ to carry the story. I would have preferred fewer noises and more words. Secondly the ending seemed to disappear in a puff of unresolved ambiguity that left me dissatisfied.

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This week’s book buying has no pattern that I can see. They’re just books that caught my eye. I have two Canadian authors, two Amerucan authors, one British author and one Japanese author. Perhaps the only thing the books have in common is that they all (even the memoir) set out to make the reader see the world differently.

A robotics engineer working at Artificial Life is given a simple yet unsettling mission: track down and erase Emily, a rogue unit that hurt a human. But when Emily finds him first—seeking his help instead of hiding—he is faced with an impossible choice.
He can protect Emily, uncover the truth behind its evolution, and risk everything to challenge the laws that govern machines. Or he can report it, safeguard his career, and help Artificial Life contain a scandal that could redefine the future of AI—at the cost of Emily’s existence.
But as the story unfolds, one thing becomes clear: This isn’t just about man versus machine

The cover caught my attention, The concept hooked my curiosity. I pressed the BUY button when I saw that Francis Malka studied mechanical engineering and robotics at the École Polytechnique de Montréal while also training as a violist at the Montréal Music Conservatory. It sounds like the right combination to imagine the implications of creating autonomous AI.

No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. 
Nothing ever changes – until now.
As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. ‘I nearly missed you, Doctor August,’ she says. ‘I need to send a message.’
This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.

I shouldn’t have bought this. I have unread Claire North books in my TBR. I should have read those first.

BUT

This one came highly recommended and the concept sounds intriguing so I’ve added it with a promise to myself to read it before this winter is over.

Salem’s Lot is a small New England town with white clapboard houses, tree-lined streets and solid church steeples. Of course there are tales of strange happenings – but no more than in any other such town.
Ben Mears has returned to the Lot to write a novel and exorcise the terrors that have haunted him since childhood – since the event he witnessed at the Marsten House.
He finds the house has been rented by a newcomer, a man who causes Ben some unease. And then things start to happen: a child disappears, a dog is brutally killed – nothing unusual, except the list keeps growing…

Unlikely as it may sound, I’ve never read ”Salem’s Lot‘ (1975) or seen any of the movie versions, so, when I saw it on sale for £0.99. I snapped it up. I’m curious to see how well this fifty-year-old novel stands up and what Stephen King’s writing style was like back then.

You think you know everything about your life.
Long-married couple Junior and Henrietta live a quiet, solitary life on their farm, where they work at the local feed mill and raise chickens. Their lives are simple, straightforward, uncomplicated.
Until everything you think you know collapses.
Until the day a stranger arrives at their door with alarming news: Junior has been chosen to take an extraordinary journey, a journey across both time and distance, while Hen remains at home. Junior will be gone for years. But Hen won’t be left alone.
Who can you trust if you can’t even trust yourself?
As the time for his departure draws nearer, Junior finds himself questioning everything about his life – even whether it’s really his life at all.

I think ‘Foe’ (2018) will either be wonderful or it will be a book I set aside in disappointment. I’ve never read Iain Reid before but the concept sounds strong and the opening pages drew me in so, i’m rolling the dice.

Meet Keiko.
Keiko is 36 years old. She’s never had a boyfriend, and she’s been working in the same supermarket for eighteen years.
Keiko’s family wishes she’d get a proper job. Her friends wonder why she won’t get married.
But Keiko knows what makes her happy, and she’s not going to let anyone come between her and her convenience store…

I bought ‘Convenience Store Woman‘ (2016) because I read a very positive review recently. Previous review ha made it sound like Booker Prize fodder that I was happy to pass over. Then I took a deeper look, discovered that it was about a neurodivergent Japanese woman and that it was written with powerful simplicity and decided to buy it. I’m hoping for a Japenese equivaltent of ‘The Seven Imperfect Rules of Elvira Carr‘.

Written and read by New York Times bestselling author of They Knew, Hiding in Plain Sight, and The View from Flyover Country, Sarah Kenzidor, The Last American Road Trip navigates a changing America as Sarah and her family embark on a series of road trips in an audiobook that is part memoir, part history, and wholly unique.
It is one thing to study the fall of democracy, another to have it hit your homeland—and yet another to raise children as it happens. The Last American Road Trip is one family’s journey to the most beautiful, fascinating, and bizarre places in the US during one of its most tumultuous eras. As Kendzior works as a journalist chronicling political turmoil, she becomes determined that her young children see America before it’s too late. So Kendzior, her husband, and the kids hit the road—again and again.
Starting from Missouri, the family drives across America in every direction as cataclysmic events—the rise of autocracy, political and technological chaos, and the pandemic—reshape American life. They explore Route 66, national parks, historical sites, and Americana icons as Kendzior contemplates love for country in a broken heartland. Together, the family watches the landscape of the United States—physical, environmental, social, political—transform through the car window.
Part memoir, part political history, The Last American Road Trip is one mother’s promise to her children that their country will be there for them in the future—even though at times she struggles to believe it herself.

I don’t normally read memoirs but I’ve been following Sarah Kendzior’s writing on America’s journey towards totalitarianism since I read ‘The View From Flyover Country‘ in 2019. I admire how clearly she sees things and how calmly she expresses them.

It didn’t surprise me to learn that, since 2016, she’s been taking her kids on journey’s from their Missouri home ‘to see America while it’s still there’.

I dipped into the book and found it to be a thoughtful and very personal account of the America she and her family saw on their trips and the hopes and fears she has for her country and her children’s futures.

Sarah Kendzior is the narrator for the audiobook version of ‘The Last American Road Trip‘. I’m looking forward to listening to her share her thoughts and experiences.

The event became known as The Pulse. The virus was carried by every cell phone operating within the entire world. Within hours, those receiving calls would become insane, or die.
In Boston, a young artist, Clayton Riddell, flees the explosive heart of the city. Clay’s son has a little red cell phone. Often out of juice. But what if this time the battery is full? Clay has to reach his son, before his son reaches for his phone….
Who doesn’t have a cell phone? This utterly gripping, gory, and fascinating novel doesn’t ask the question ‘Can you hear me know?’ It answers it with a vengeance. High concept, ingenious, and terrifying: Cell is the perfect nightmare for a whole new generation of Stephen King listeners.

‘Cell’ (2006) appeals to me because it’s another example of Stephen King taking a piece of technology that we’re supposed to desire and turning it into an existential threat. He did it with a classic car in ‘Christine’ in 1983. He did with Kindle in ‘UR‘ 2009, a story for Kindle about Kindle that tells us that people and books are always more important than the technology we use to read them. In ‘Cell’ (2006) he has a virus spread by mobile phones bringing about the end of the world. I have to see what he’s done with that idea.

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This week’s reading is a trip back in time. I have a Stephen King novel from 2014, the third ‘Thursday Murder Club’ novel from 2022, the first ‘Stranger Times’ novel from 2021 and the first Cal Leandros novel from 2006.

A spectacularly dark and electrifying novel about addiction, religion, music, and what might exist on the other side of life. 
In a small New England town, in the early ’60s, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs Jacobs; the women and girls – including Jamie’s mother and beloved sister – feel the same about Reverend Jacobs. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond, based on their fascination with simple experiments in electricity. 
Then tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, the preacher curses God, mocking all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town. 
Jamie has demons of his own. In his mid-30s, he is living a nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll. Addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate, he sees Jacobs again – a showman on stage, creating dazzling ‘portraits in lightning’ – and their meeting has profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil’s devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings. Because for every cure there is a price….

I’m planning on reading a Stephen King book a month in 2026. I’ve read and enjoyed a lot of his books, but I still have quite a few gaps. I’ve had ‘Revival’ (2014) on my shelves since 2020, but its length deterred me from pulling it to the top of my TBR pile. I’m in the mood for it now. I started it a couple of days ago, and the pages are just flying by. It’s beautifully written, even when the things being written about are ugly or unpleasant.

It is an ordinary Thursday and things should finally be returning to normal.
Except trouble is never far away where the Thursday Murder Club is concerned. A decade-old cold case leads them to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers.
Then a new foe pays Elizabeth a visit. Her mission? Kill…or be killed.
As the cold case turns white hot, Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), while Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim chase down clues with help from old friends and new. But can the gang solve the mystery and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?

I fell in love with ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ (2020), despite the hype, because it was a joyous book about old people who felt real. It had a story that, while it rang almost all the genre bells, was driven by the relationships between the central characters, and it was flawlessly narrated by Lesley Manville. The second book, ‘The Man Who Died Twice'(2021),was very good but a little more fanciful and less character-driven. I bought the third book, ‘The Bullet That Missed‘ (2022), but it’s sat on my shelves since 2023. I was disappointed that Lesley Manville was no longer the narrator, and the reviews I read suggested a dip in the quality of the story, so it never made its way to the top of the TBR pile. I’ve heard better things about the next two books in the series, so I’ve decided to dust off ‘The Bullet That Missed’ and find out whether I like it.  I’m hoping it will still be better than ‘We Solve Murders‘.  (2024).

A weekly newspaper dedicated to the weird and the wonderful (but mostly the weird), it is the go-to publication for the unexplained and inexplicable.

At least that’s their pitch. The reality is rather less auspicious. Their editor is a drunken, foul-tempered and foul-mouthed husk of a man who thinks little of the publication he edits. His staff are a ragtag group of misfits. And as for the assistant editor . . . well, that job is a revolving door – and it has just revolved to reveal Hannah Willis, who’s got problems of her own.

When tragedy strikes in her first week on the job The Stranger Times is forced to do some serious investigating. What they discover leads to a shocking realisation: some of the stories they’d previously dismissed as nonsense are in fact terrifyingly real. Soon they come face-to-face with darker forces than they could ever have imagined.

I passed on this series when ‘The Stranger Times‘ came out in 2021, partly because I couldn’t imagine Manchester as a hotspot for supernatural activity. When I was looking for Christmas-themed books this year, I came across ‘Ring The Bells’ (2025), the fifth book in the series, and decided to go back to the beginning and see what all the fuss is about. I was encouraged when I learned that ‘The Stranger Times‘ won the 2023 British Fantasy Award for Best Audio Work.

Welcome to the Big Apple. There’s a troll under the Brooklyn Bridge, a boggle in Central Park, and a beautiful vampire in a penthouse on the Upper East Side–and that’s only the beginning. Of course, most humans are oblivious to the preternatural nightlife around them, but Cal Leandros is only half-human.
His father’s dark lineage is the stuff of nightmares–and he and his entire otherworldly race are after Cal. Why? Cal hasn’t exactly wanted to stick around long enough to find out.
He and his half-brother Niko have managed to stay a step ahead for three years, but now Cal’s dad has found them again. And Cal is about to learn why they want him, why they’ve always wanted him…for he is the key to unleashing their hell on earth. The fate of the human world will be decided in the fight of Cal’s life…

My first taste of Rob Thurman’s work was in 2016, when I read his clever and surprising Christmas short story ‘Milk and Cookies‘ in the ‘Wolfsbane and Mistletoe‘ anthology. I bumped into his work again this year, in the ‘Shadowed Souls‘ anthology, where his story, ‘Impossible Monsters‘ introduced me to his best known creation, the monstrous Cal Leandros (think Dexter with a foul mouth and supernatural abilities), I don’t know how well the interior monologue of a depressed, violent, sociopathic main character will translate into a novel, but I’m curious enough to want to read ‘Nightlife‘ (2006), the first Cal Leandros book, to find out.