I was unsettled this week, perhaps something to do with watching the world being plunged into chaos by Israel’s territorial ambitions and Trump’s idiocy. Whatever the cause, my planned books couldn’t hold me. There was nothing wrong with them; they just didn’t suit my agitated mood. Fortunately, I found some entertaining reads that worked. I also went looking for some lighter reads to add to my TBR in case I continue to be distracted by world events that read like clichéd dystopian fiction.
Anyway, here’s what I’ve read and bought this week and what’s up next.
II started the week with Elizabeth Strout’s beautifully written lockdown novel. That was as much literature as I could cope with, so I snacked on some speculative fiction short stories, dived into an action-packed Urban Fantasy series-starter and had a lot of fun with a novella-length thriller set in the swamps of Louisiana.
In March 2020 Lucy Barton’s ex-husband William pleads with her to leave New York and escape to a coastal house he has rented in Maine. Lucy reluctantly agrees, leaving the washing-up in the sink, expecting to be back in a week or two. Weeks turn into months, and it’s just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the sea.
‘Lucy By The Sea’ (2022) was a quietly told fictional memoir of the emotions and reflections that lockdown and the pandemic triggered. It was not dramatic, but it was truthful, and the truths it shared, even though they were not my truths, summoned my own memories of lockdown: my rage at the loss of life that my incompetent government tolerated and the contrast between all that death and the relative comfort and safety of my lockdown.
Part of my fascination with the Lucy Barton character is that I have very little in common with her. She is empathetic, deeply curious about people and is good at intuiting their emotions. She’s often anxious, sometimes to a crippling degree. She’s so focused on her inner life that the mechanics of the world tend to pass her by. Through her, I finally started to understand how so many people failed to take in the scale of COVID and the likely length of lockdowns, even though all the relevant information was widely available by the beginning of March 2020.
The start of the novel, when Lucy accedes to her ex-husband’s request to leave NYC and live in Maine, was powerful and evocative. Lucy’s interior landscape and her shifting and fraught relationships with her daughters and her ex-husband felt authentic. For me, the book ran a little long, perhaps because Elizabeth Strout wanted to show what the new normal looked like.
A Missing Ferryman. An Undead Dilemma. An Immortal Detective.
An emissary from the Dark Council has just materialized in the office of the Montague & Strong Detective Agency, and makes Simon Strong an offer he can’t refuse. Charon is missing. The legendary ferryman responsible for transporting sorcerer souls across the river Styx hasn’t been seen in days. And with each passing hour, those unable to cross the river are left to walk among the living, tilting the world further out of balance.
Meet Simon Strong, an immortal, who is also the best private detective in New York City. Together with his surly partner-Tristan Montague, a mage of indeterminate age, they must find the Ferryman and get him back to work before another Supernatural War ravages the earth, destroys humanity, and Simon’s local coffee shop.
Time is running out. His landlord wants the rent and Karma with a capital K is paying him a visit, and she can be a real…
Join the Montague & Strong Detective Agency and help them locate Charon, so he can restore balance to the universe, put the dead sorcerers to rest, and maybe solve the age old conundrum-coffee or tea?
‘Tombyards & Butterflies’ (2017) was exactly the kind of entertainment I needed this week. It was a fast-paced, action-packed, trope-twisting Urban Fantasy novel that laid the foundations for a fun series, filled with engaging characters.
My review is HERE.
Macy and Ethan built their careers pursuing the unknown, turning their YouTube channel, Ghost Patrol, into a viral sensation as they investigated the paranormal. But when they wade into the murky depths of the Louisiana bayou—looking into the disappearances of two local women—alongside team members Tasha and Max, their latest case takes a lethal turn.
What begins as a routine hunt for answers quickly spirals into something far more sinister. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Secrets surface where none should exist. And when Macy stumbles upon a horrifying truth, she realizes they were never just chasing a story; they were lured here for a reason. As the swamp closes in and the line between hunter and hunted blurs, one thing becomes terrifyingly clear: some secrets are better left buried.
I picked up ‘The Swamp’ (2026) after reading Leah’s review, which described it succintly as:
“• fast-paced novella • mystery thriller • ghosthunter supernatural suspense • spooky vibes • trust and jealousy issues • Louisiana Bayou setting • dual POVs“
‘The Swamp’ was even more fun than I’d expected. The narration by Brittany Pressley and Karissa Vacker brought the book alive. The novella length meant it was a fast read. The plot twisted in ways that I didn’t expect. The ending caught me completely by surprise but made perfect sense.
I was in the mood for short stories so I’ve been reading my way through the Trespass Collection from Amazon Original Stories, which Amazon describes as “a collection of wild stories about animal instincts, human folly, and survival from award-winning, bestselling authors. Read or listen to each in a single sitting.” I read three of the six stories in the collection this week and they were all good.
Mexico, 1917
She is the adventurer of the family. Her brother, the gentle dreamer. Even as they bond over folktales and hold each other close, their world has never felt so dangerous. Revolutionaries and pelones are in conflict, soldiers have turned into scavengers, and an escaped tiger has slipped up the mountain, looking for easy prey. As the darkest of legends becomes real, a young girl will do anything to save her brother’s life.
This was a powefully emotional piece of historical fiction. For the young girl at the heart of the story, Her description of the tiger she encouters was more than its physical self; it was an embodiment of death: beautiful, magical, terrifying death, coming not for her but for the person she loved most. In those moments, the tiger was an elemental force, and her reaction to it would always define her.
My review is HERE
Sam has retreated to her late father’s rental house, a safe place to commune with the animals in the greenbelt out back, tend to her garden, and keep her secrets. Her sense of security slowly returns—until an aggressive neighbor from the other side of the ravine fells a tree on her property. How little he regards nature. Or understands its darkness. How little he knows Sam.
This was a complex, often obscure, but ultimately satisfying, exploration of the power of the human instinct to be territorial and to respond to threat. It looks at how our instinct for action sometimes wars with our self-doubt, our regret, and our shame, leading us to grieve for our lost innocence and be haunted by actions that cannot be undone.
My review is HERE
Millie Two Bears lives alone in a trailer in the heart of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana. Since her husband went to jail, she’s been on the outs with the reservation. And it’s not just people she has to contend with. Now the prairie dogs are moving in on her patch of land. When a strange woman comes into Millie’s life, and Millie’s rodent war escalates, a fateful confrontation with vengeance, secrets, and survival is just underfoot.
This was a satisfying mix of Science Fiction and folk tale. I loved watching Millie work out what was going on and what she was going to do about it.
I bought six books this week:
- ‘The Sundowner’s Dance’ (2025), a horror novel set in a retirement community;
- ‘Welcome to the Neighbourhood’ (2025), a contemporary revenge story that I hope will be witty;
- ‘Culpability’ (2025),a timely story about the ethical challenges of AI;
- ‘Crampton Hadnet’(1985), q Barbara Pym novel, written in 1939 but only published posthumously;
- ‘How to Read a Killer’s Mind’ (2025), a quirky, dark, witty twist on serial killer thriller tropes with a psychologist heroine who may live up to the psycho part of her title;
- ‘The Other Bennet Sister’ (2020), tells the story of Mary Bennett from ‘Pride and Prejudice’. My wife read and enjoyed this when it came out and the BBC have just adated it for television, so I thought I’d take a look.
Jerry Campbell just wants to be left alone. Grief-stricken over the death of his wife Abigail, the elderly widower and recent retiree is desperate for a change of scenery. When his realtor suggests a new home in Fairview Acres, a retirement community in the Poconos, Jerry figures it will be a nice place to spend the rest of his days in solitude.
Until he moves in.
Weird neighbors. Nightly block parties. Strange noises across his rooftop at all hours. Worst of all is Arthur Peterson, chairman of the Fairview Acres Community Association, who seems obsessed with coaxing Jerry into participating in these neighborhood activities.
At first, Jerry shrugs off the incidents and eccentricities, telling himself he doesn’t want to be the guy who complains about everything-but that all changes one evening when Katherine Dunnally appears on his doorstep with an ominous warning: “You need to leave. The worms…they dance at nightfall…”
His neighbors all say Katherine suffers from a form of dementia called Sundowner’s Syndrome, but as the weeks progress and the strangeness mounts, Jerry begins to suspect there is something else going on in his neighborhood. Something that has to do with the huge stone in the community park…
Kitty thought moving to London would spice up her life. Unfortunately, she ended up on Ashdown Close, where the hottest topic of gossip is a missed bin collection.
That was before the arrival of Sian and Rich at number 8. They are cool and glamorous, and Kitty is perfectly willing to be dazzled by their company.
But when she spots a mysterious woman furtively leaving their house, she realises they might not be the magnetic couple she thought. Aided and abetted by best friend Grace, Kitty feels she needs to investigate.
Do Sian and Richard really have something to hide, or are Kitty and Grace just being nosy neighbours?
And if they are, perhaps they are not the only ones.
Because on this street nobody’s business might just turn out to be everybody’s business . . .
When the Cassidy-Shaws’ driverless minivan fatally collides with an oncoming car, seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver’s seat. His father, Noah, is beside him, and in the back with his younger siblings is his mother, Lorelei—a renowned AI researcher—who is lost in her work.
During a weeklong retreat on the Chesapeake Bay, the Cassidy-Shaws wrestle with the moral fallout of the crash as a routine police enquiry starts to unravel. As Lorelei’s increasingly odd behaviour stirs her husband’s suspicions that there may be a darker truth behind the incident, the arrival of tech billionaire Daniel Monet (who has a mysterious history with Lorelei) cements them. When Charlie falls for Monet’s teenage daughter, tensions among the Cassidy-Shaws reach breaking point.
Formidable Miss Doggett fills her life by giving tea parties for young academics and acting as watchdog for the morals of North Oxford.
Anthea, her great-niece, is in love with a dashing undergraduate with political ambitions. Of this, Miss Doggett thoroughly approves. However, Anthea’s father, an Oxford don, is carrying on in the most unseemly fashion with a student—they have been spotted together at the British museum!
But the only liaison Miss Doggett isn’t aware of is taking place under her very own roof: the lodger has proposed to her paid companion Miss Morrow. She wouldn’t approve of that at all.
I’m psychologist Dr Emy Rose, but that’s not my real name.
I work with serial killers who’ve hidden their victims. My job is to find the bodies – and I’m kind of awesome at it.
The trick is to get inside these murderers’ minds. And there’s one in particular I’m hellbent on breaking.
Why? None of your business! Just know, I’ll stop at nothing to read that killer’s mind…
In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, we know the fates of the five Bennet girls. But while her sisters are celebrated for their beauty of their wit, Mary is the “plain” middle sister, the introvert in a family of extroverts, and a constant disappointment to her mother.
Lonely and lacking connection, Mary turns to the only place she feels safe: books. Determined to be “right” since she can never be “beautiful”, she prepares for a life of solitude at Longbourn.
One by one, the other sisters move on: Jane and Lizzy for love, and Lydia for respectability. Mary is destined to remain single, at least until her father dies and the house is bequeathed to the reviled Mr Collins.
But when that fateful day finally arrives, the life Mary expected is turned upside down. In the face of uncertainty, she slowly discovers that there is hope for the “plain” sister after all . . .
I’m only adding two books to my reading list this week, because I’m still catching up on last week’s books. One is a COVID novel that will replace the disappointing ‘Fourteen Days’ in my Fiction in a Time of COVID Reading Challenge. The otheris a polictical satire, published in 1972, which seems very relevant to current UK/USA relations.
Edinburgh, haunted by the ghosts of its many writers, is also the cold case beat of DCI Karen Pirie. So she shouldn’t be surprised when an author’s manuscript appears to be a blueprint for an actual crime.
Karen can’t ignore the plot’s chilling similarities to the unsolved case of an Edinburgh University student who vanished from her own doorstep. The manuscript seems to be the key to unlocking what happened to Lara Hardie, but there’s a problem: the author died before he finished it.
As Karen digs deeper, she uncovers a spiraling game of betrayal and revenge, where lies are indistinguishable from the truth and with more than one unexpected twist . . .
‘Past Lying’ (2023) is the seventh Karen Pirie thriller from Val McDermid. I haven’t read the other books but I have watched and enjoyed the ITV series. I’m diving in at book seven because it’s set during COVID. I was pleased to see that the audiobook is narrated by Lauren Lyle, who plays Karen Pirie in the TV series.
TEmma wakes up one morning to an apocalyptic world. The cosy existence she shares with her grandmother, a famous retired actress has been shattered: there’s no telephone, no radio and an American warship sits in the harbour. England has withdrawn from the European Common Market and, on the brink of bankruptcy has decided that salvation lies in a union – political, military and economic – with the United States. Theoretically it is to be an equal partnership, but it soon begins to look like a takeover bid.
As the two women piece together clues about the ‘friendly’ military occupation on their doorstep; family, friends and neighbours come together to resist the interlopers.
‘Rule Britannia’ (1972) was Daphne Du Maurier’s final novel. It was published a year before the UK joined what was then called the European Economic Community (EEC), which later became the European Union (EU) . In ‘Rule Britannia’, Du Maurier imagines a scenario where the UK has left the EEC, thrown in its lot with the USA and is slowly becoming an occupied country.
Amazing how what,, fifty-four years ago, was seen as a satirical thought experiment, now reads more like a prophecy or a warning.
Mike Finn's Fiction 