Last week’s heatwave pushed most of us to find shade during the middle of the day, and what is there better to do when sitting in the shade than read a book, or two, or three. It was still too hot for headphones most of the time so I’ve been hitting my ebooks. I’ve also been rekindling (see what I did there?) my love for Science Fiction.
Anyway, here’s what I read and bought in this hot week and what I’m planning to read next week.
This week, I finished one of the strangest crime novels I’ve read in a long time, read yet another book in Elizabeth Moon’s Serrano Legacy series (they get better and better) and revisited one of my favourite Bristish Science Fiction authors, Gareth Powell.
After proving herself in battle, Esmay Suiza is continuing her RSS Fleet training alongside her erstwhile love Barin when she meets Brun—the ebullient daughter of Lord Thornbuckle—who idolizes her as a reluctant hero. But Esmay cannot abide Brun’s highborn airs. And when their shared affection for Barin ignites a rivalry between them, Esmay is exiled to remote duty. Crushed by the rebuke of her friendship, Brun leaves the facility—and enters a nightmare.
For the enemies of civilization are on the move. The savage New Texas Militia, driven to spread their fanatical dogma, has been stealing the Familias government’s own weaponry to use against them. When Brun accidentally witnesses their depredations, her life is all but forfeit. Taken by the Militia, she is subjected to inhuman torment as Esmay is blamed for the disastrous situation and the galaxy prepares for inevitable conflict.
With the life of Brun and the dominance of the Familias Regnant both in peril, Esmay must go into action once again against a brutal, deranged enemy who would rather die than face defeat…
This story got darker and darker. Not a built-to-scare-as-entertainment dark. A dark that feels real and wrong. Taliban dark. IDF in Gaza dark. Elizabeth Moon brings her characters into conflict with a violent, self-righteous, misogynistic, male-supremacist military group for whom the murder, mutilation, enslavement and rape of women who live ‘ungodly lives’ is a holy mission. It didn’t make for easy reading, but it wasn’t exploitative either.
What made this part of the book work was that the people, even the ‘warriors’ doing such terrible things, felt human and multidimensional and that women who had been abducted refused to give up hope, despite the things done to them.
The book also dealt with the internal politics of the military, ranging from manipulation and corruption in pursuit of career goals through to organised treachery, in a way that felt realistic and delivered a fair amount of suspense.
I liked the passage when Esmay Suiza, currently in bad odour with the Fleet, is called home to succeed her recently deceased grandmother as the Landbride for her substantial estates. I loved the concept of the Landbride both for its links to the land and for the matriarchal model that it offered in contrast to the military patriarchy. It was refreshing to get planetside for a while, and the description of the ceremony was beautiful.
The ending was satisfying and left so many challenges ahead of the main characters that I’m eager for the next book.
Louise Boni, maverick chief inspector with the Black Forest crime squad, is struggling with her demons. Divorced at forty-two, she is haunted by the shadows of the past.
Dreading yet another a dreary winter weekend alone, she receives a call from the departmental chief which signals the strangest assignment of her career – to trail a Japanese monk wandering through the snowy wasteland to the east of Freiburg, dressed only in sandals and a cowl. She sets off reluctantly, and by the time she catches up with him, she discovers that he is injured, and fearfully fleeing some unknown evil.
When her own team comes under fire, the investigation takes on a terrifying dimension, uncovering a hideous ring of child traffickers. The repercussions of their crimes will change the course of her own life.
‘Zen and the Art of Murder’ (2004) This was a strange book. The greatest mystery wasn’t the one to do with the monk walking through the snow, but with the mental and emotional condition of the lead detective. There were points when this novel almost lost me, but I’m glad I stuck with it. I think it will stick with me.
My review is HERE
When Nicola Mafalda’s scout ship comes under attack, she’s left deeply traumatised by the drastic action it takes to keep her alive. Months later, when an old flame comes to her for help, she realises she has to find a way to forgive both the ship and her former lover. Reckless elements are attempting to reactivate a giant machine that has lain dormant for thousands of years. To stop them, Nicola and her crew will have to put aside their differences, sneak aboard a vast alien megaship, and try to stay alive long enough to prevent galactic devastation.
‘Descendant Machine’ (2023) is the second book in Gareth Powell’s Continuance series. You don’t need to read the first book, ‘Stars and Bones’, to read ‘Descendant Machine’. I enjoyed the second book much more than the first. Powell thinks big, mind-blowingly big. The plot was complex but never confusing. The pairing of a kickass, introverted, fierce, foul-mouthed human female navigator with a calm, urbane, sentient ship was inspired. Gareth Powell’s humour made me smile, and his action scenes rocked.
This week, I’ve been letting myself be tempted by the £0.99 for a limited-time-only deals on Amazon ebooks. I picked up a Mary Westmacott novel which is alleged to be Agatha Christie’s favourite and has been on my wish list for a whiel, a gumshoe novel from 2021 that I’d never heard of but which nowruns to six novels, a Science Fiction novel that’s currently a Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel (2026), and aLocus Award Nominee for Fantasy (2026) but which I’d hesitated over because of its length and because I don’t seem to do well with Dark Academia books, and a set of Rivers of London short stories that I’d been havering over buying at full price.
The audiobooks I bought are a pure indulgence. One is to see if I like Matt Dinniman better when her isn’t writing about Dungeon Crawler Carl; the other continues the Chastity Riley series about a State Prosecutor in Hamburg.
Everyone expected Isabella Charteris, beautiful, sheltered and aristocratic, to marry her cousin Rupert when he came back from the War. It would have been such a suitable marriage. How strange then that John Gabriel, an ambitious and ruthless war hero, should appear in her life.
For Isabella, the price of love would mean abandoning her dreams of home and happiness forever.
For Gabriel, it would destroy his chance of a career and all his ambitions…
When a past love calls for help, John Cutler returns to Seattle. He didn’t want to go, but she offered the one thing he needed more than distance from her—money.
After the former cop arrives in the Emerald City, old feelings resurface, and new lies are told. Soon, Cutler doesn’t know which way is up, and that’s a dangerous place to be.
For influential people are in the orbit of this past love, and they want to silence a secret she keeps. Money and political connections lead to corruption and intimidation. Murder is only a heartbeat away.
As he gets closer to the truth, does death await Cutler?
After twenty-four years on the throne, it is time for Bersun the Brusque, emperor of Orrun, to bring his reign to an end. In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven contenders will compete to replace him.
Trained at rival monasteries, each contender is inspired by a sacred animal – Fox, Raven, Tiger, Ox, Bear, Monkey, and Hound. An eighth – the Dragon proxy – will be revealed only once the trials have begun. Eight exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists – the best of the best.Then one of them is murdered.
It falls to the brilliant but idiosyncratic Neema Kraa to investigate. But as she hunts for a killer, darker forces are gathering.
If Neema succeeds, she could win the throne – whether she wants it or not. But if she fails, she will sentence herself to death – and set in motion a sequence of events that could doom the empire . . .
Return to the world of Rivers of London in this first short story collection from Ben Aaronovitch.
Tales from the Folly is a carefully curated collection that gathers together previously published stories and brand new tales in the same place for the first time.
Each tale features a new introduction from the author, filled with insight and anecdote offering the reader a deeper exploration into this absorbing fictional world.
Join Peter, Nightingale, Abigail, Agent Reynolds and Tobias Winter for a series of perfectly portioned tales.
Discover what s haunting a lonely motorway service station, who still wanders the shelves of a popular London bookshop, and what exactly happened to the River Lugg
All New Sonoran colonist Oliver Lewis ever wanted to do is run the family ranch and keep their aging fleet of intelligent agriculture bots ticking.
But now the colossal Apex Corporation has been hired to commence an “eviction action” – exterminate all life on New Sonora in preparation for a reboot. And they charge bored Earthers for the opportunity to design their own war machines, remotely pilot them, and make it a game.
The game is called Operation Bounce House . . .
And New Sonora is its playing field.
Determined to defend the only home he’s ever known, Oliver and his friends find themselves fighting for their lives against these machines.
To earth its a game, but to Oliver, it’s war.
In Wilhelmsburg, Hamburg’s so-called ‘problem area’, an American couple is found brutally murdered in a derelict villa.
Prosecutor Chastity Riley is assigned the case, and quickly finds herself waist-deep in a murky tangle of city planners, shady investors and vanishing officials. The gentrification machine is rolling on, and someone is sending a very clear message.
As November fog settles over the city, Chastity is coughing up blood, her personal life is a slow-motion disaster, and her former colleague, Faller, won’t stop interfering. But nothing’s going to stop her from cutting through the lies – not even the sharks circling ever closer.
He’s wrong on both counts. But Tiverton – with its stagnant economy, entrenched racism and rural isolation – has more crime than one constable can handle. And when the next call-out takes him to the body of a sixteen-year-old girl, it’s clear that whether or not Hirsch finds her killer, his past may well catch up with him.
This should be an excting week. I’m moving closer to the end of The Serrrano Legacy series and the stakes are rising, I have a brand new Faith Hunter book and I have a thoughtful Science Fiction novel from a British author who I think is a rising star.
After the suppression of the New Texas barbarians, Esmay Suiza and Barin Serrano hoped for a respite to develop their relationship. But there is time for neither rest nor pleasure as events around the galaxy push all the great powers towards war.
This is the penultimate book in the series. I think things are going to get a lot worse before (if) they get better. I’m looking forward to an exciting ride.
Angelina Everhart-Trueblood and her brother Evan run Everhart Investigations, a PI firm in Chattanooga that solves paranormal crimes committed by supernatural beings. When their new client wants help finding her friend, who supposedly disappeared during a reception at Angie’s aunt Jane’s winter residence, things get . . . complicated.
The client is not who she appears to be, and demons strike the city for the first time since the Witch War. On top of that, evidence is pointing toward the involvement of an overly ambitious vampire—who just happens to be Angie’s ex-husband.
As Angie and Evan team up with CPD, they will have to dig deep into their magical reserves—and rely on some friends in high places—to rid Chattanooga of the danger creeping into their city.
I had this on pre-order from the moment I knew it had been written. I’m really looking forward to seeing what Faith Hunter does now that she’s writing a book for her own enjoyment rather than to complete a contract on a long series.
When the internet collapsed, it took the world with it, leaving its digital ghosts behind – and they are hungry. Former photojournalist Katerina fled the overrun cities to the relative safety of her grandmother’s village on the edge of a forest, where she lives a solitary life of herbal medicine and beekeeping.
When a wordless boy finds her in the marketplace with nothing but her name in his pocket, her curiosity won’t allow her to turn him away. But haunting his arrival are rumours of harvest failure and a rampant digital disease stirring up the ghosts, and the mood in the village starts to sour.
Accused of witchcraft, Katerina and Stefan escape into the forest, searching for his missing father and the truth behind the disease. If there is a cure, Katerina alone might find it, but first she must find the courage to trust others – because the ghosts that follow her aren’t just digital.
I’m excited about ‘’We Are All Ghosts In The Forest’ (2024) because I lost myself completely in Lorraine Wilson’s earlier novel, ’This Is Our Undoing’ (2021). It was a powerful reading experience that left me hungry for more of her work.
‘We Are All Ghosts in the Forest’ was longlisted for the British Science Fiction Awards – Best Novel. Its sequel, ‘The Salt Oracle’ (2025) was a BSFA Best Novel finalist, a Locus Recommended Read and is on the 2026 shortlist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Book of the Year.
Mike Finn's Fiction 