2025/123: Drop Dead Sisters — Amelia Diane Coombs

"Should I be offended that the most you’ve ever agreed with me is over how to deal with a dead body?" [loc. 1421]

Remi works as a community moderator for a games company. She hasn't dated for a while, and she doesn't have many (any?) friends. At the opening of the novel, she's heading for a family reunion: her hippie parents are renewing their vows on their fortieth wedding anniversary, and Remi -- the odd one out, the introvert in a nest of extroverts -- is going to have to see her two elder sisters, Maeve and Eliana, for the first time in seven years. 'If our lives were a video game, we each adventured off on our own side quests nearly a decade ago and never returned to the main storyline.'

The microaggressions start almost as soon as the sisters are reunited, but soon they have something more important to worry about: a dead body. They're not sure who committed the crime, but their attempts to cover it up are foiled when the body disappears. Then they learn that there's a fugitive on the loose, and that their (rather flaky) parents have been doing drugs in a state park... Remi's nascent crush on a park ranger named Leo seems likely to be derailed before she can do more than swap numbers with him.

This was a quick fun read: I did not guess the final twists, and I liked the happy ending. However, I can't help feeling that the authorities' response to the body's eventual reappearance was anticlimactic and, to be honest, unprofessional.

2025/122: Of Wind and Wolves — J M Elliott

"... in this country, tombs are the only permanent thing we build. Only the dead have ceased their wandering -- their bodies have, at least." [loc. 2343]

The setting is Scythia -- here spelt Skythia -- in the fifth century BC. Araiti's father has betrothed her to the ageing king of the Skythians, Ariapeithes, in order to forge a lasting peace between their tribes. Araiti, fostered by her mother's Amazon tribe, has earnt her status among her father's people, the Bastarnai: she's a formidable horsewoman and has been trained in the arts of war. The Skythians recognise her for what she is, androktones -- man-killer -- and decree that she may not marry the king until she has killed an enemy in battle and taken his scalp. She's sent out with the warband, led by the king's son Aric, to patrol the marches.

At first shunned by the Skythian warriors, Araiti gradually makes a place for herself, and revels in the freedom that few women have. She manages to conceal her 'spells', which seem to be epileptic fits, and gains respect for her wise counsel and her courage. She despises most women (it's mutual) and can't understand why Skythian women don't ride or fight -- as apparently they used to do. Creeping Hellenisation is changing their world, with Greek colonies springing up where they shouldn't be, and Aric's brother Skyles making deals with Hellenic traders.

The author is an archaeologist and a horse-trainer, and both these skills have coloured her narrative. I was fascinated by Araiti's descent into a plundered tomb, and more generally by the wealth of cultural detail.  (Herodotus is cited as a source: Ariapeithes and Skyles are historical characters.) And the horses are more vivid characters than some of the humans... 

There's a romantic element to the novel, but it's also an engaging piece of historical fiction. I did find some of the dialogue too colloquial ('What's that supposed to mean?') and some of the prose a little florid, but I enjoyed Of Wind and Wolves enough to be keen to read the second in the Steppe Saga.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 01 SEP 2025.

2025/121: The Song of Achilles — Madeleine Miller

Achilles returns to the tent, where my body waits. He is red and red and rust-red, up to his elbows, his knees, his neck, as if he has swum in the vast dark chambers of a heart, and emerged, just now, still dripping. [p. 325]

This is the story of Achilles and Patroclus, and of the war. Achilles the living weapon, the invincible warrior whose fate is to die at Troy: Patroclus who loves him, who is not much of a fighter, who befriends the enslaved Briseis and stands up for her, who dons Achilles' armour and dies and is not buried. And it's the story of Thetis, who does not think Patroclus good enough for her son: who is, at last, reconciled to him.

I bought this thirteen years ago and have attempted it several times since then: I think, in the first chapters, I found Patroclus too mild and Achilles too arrogant. This time around, I persevered, and the characters and story swept me along.

Miller's writing is simple, poetic, sometimes soaring. She uses, and explains, a few Greek words: therapon ('a brother-in-arms sworn to a prince by blood oaths and love'; apathes (heartless: used in the feminine form to reveal a disguise); hubris (pride). The gods here are real, and capable of turning the tide of battle or throwing a man down from a wall. Thetis in particular is monstrous, white as death with huge black eyes. At the novel's end, though, she offers what kindness she can to the spirit of the man she despised.

This is a love story as well as a study of the effects of fate and prophecy on the lives of heroes. It's poignant when Patroclus thinks 'I did not plan to live after he was gone': it's painful when Thetis tells Achilles of the prophecy that 'the best of the Myrmidons will die before two more years have passed... you will still be alive when it happens.’ Miller's descriptions of the natural world, and of the culture and society of Homeric Greece, ring true. Blood and honour, love and death, destiny and expectation.

2025/120: The Raven Scholar — Antonia Hodgson

"How do bears keep cool?"
Neema perked up. "They employ a variety of strategies," she began, but he was already lumbering off on all fours. "I was being rhetorical," he called over his shoulder...
So Neema created a new list – Six Ways Bears Keep Cool – and told it to the walls, because she had to tell someone. [loc. 3438]

The first time I started reading this novel, I stopped halfway through the first chapter. Yana, a young woman of noble blood, her family fallen from grace due to treachery and deception, is summoned by the Emperor. Gosh, I thought: another Chosen One. I thought I could predict at least some of her story, and it didn't interest me.

Reader, I was wrong -- and happily so. Yana is not the protagonist, though what happens when she meets the Emperor does shape the rest of the story. Our protagonist is instead Neema Kraa, the eponymous Raven Scholar: a Black woman in her thirties, lacking in social skills but extremely good at her job. She doesn't believe in the Eight -- animal Guardians who have saved Orrun seven times, but will destroy it on their next Return -- but is happy to pay them lip-service.

It's time for a new Emperor, the incumbent having served his twenty-four years: eight contenders, one for each Guardian, must compete in a series of mental and physical trials to determine who will become the next Emperor. The Raven Candidate is an old enemy of Neema's from her student days: she alone knows a terrible secret of Neema's. The Fox Candidate, Cain, is Neema's ex. And the Tiger Candidate is Yana's twin brother Ruko. When one of the Candidates is murdered, the Emperor charges Neema with finding the killer.

I liked Neema a great deal, and I loved the twistiness of the plot. There's violence but there's also affection, loyalty and kindness. And there is, in singular and plural voices, the Raven. ("Respect, that’s all we demand. Recognition of our magnificence. Offerings. Love. Fear. Trembling awe. Worship. Shiny things. Blood sacrifice, some of us very much enjoy blood sacrifice. Truly, we ask for so little." [loc. 4048]) It's a great murder mystery with elements of romance, epic fantasy, comedy and tragedy. The characters are rounded, consistent, flawed and gifted, with motivations and biases that aren't at first apparent. (Sometimes they do seem younger than they're stated to be: perhaps that's because of the whole 'tournament of trials' setup.) Also another delightful raven, Sol (short for Solitary Raven) who initially manifests as a magical book.

Having proved myself wrong about the nature of the story, I tore through this in a couple of days: I found it immensely addictive and intricately plotted, and I cared about the characters. I am so looking forward to rereading it in preparation for the sequel, probably due in 2026.

Meanwhile, I note that Antonia Hodgson has also written a quartet of crime novels set in the 1720s...

2025/119: The Secret World of Denisovans — Silvana Condemi, François Savatier (translated by Holly James)

While Neanderthals found themselves confined to a small, freezing territory during glacial maximums, Denisovans continued to thrive across an immense continent that had expanded due to decreasing sea levels, and still had enough exchanges with their northern relatives to maintain their genetic diversity. [loc. 1844]

Subtitled 'The Epic Story of the Ancient Cousins to Sapiens and Neanderthals', this is an accessible overview of current paleoanthropology as it relates to the Denisovans -- a human species who went extinct around 25,000 years ago, but whose DNA persists in Asian and Oceanic populations. Condemi is a paleoanthropologist, Savatier is a journalist: between them they have produced a very readable text, with boxed sections for the more technical or theoretical aspects of the story.

And it is a story: from the 2010 identification of the new species from DNA in a single finger-bone found in a remote Siberian cave, to ongoing debate about whether the Denisovans were indeed a separate species or whether they should be grouped with other extinct hominids. The species is not yet formally recognised by International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (see this article for current discussion... though Wikipedia now indicates that the Denisovans have been classified as Homo longi) but Condemi and Savatier argue that it is very much a separate species, diverging from the shared ancestor of Neanderthals, Denisovans and Homo sapiens about a million years ago -- and crossbreeding with neanderthalis (definitely) and sapiens (probably). Denisovans and Neanderthals had more in common, genetically, with one another than with Homo sapiens: the prevailing theory seems to be that Denisovans and Neanderthals had the same origin, but evolved differently in Asia and in Europe.

The book offers a good overview of the waves of human migration from Africa, and the differing environmental influences in Asia and in Europe. For instance, the effects of the ice ages were greater in Europe than in East Asia: on the other hand, there were fewer accessible sources of workable stone, which probably meant that early humans used bamboo rather than stone tools -- which won't have survived well. I also learnt that there had been a 'mega meteorite' impact somewhere in Eastern Asia around 800,000 years ago: Condemi and Savatier discuss its likely impact on human populations in the area. And I, with my European focus, wasn't aware of the 'drowned continent' Sundaland, currently below sea level but above water for 40% of the last 250,000 years. This, the authors suggest, is likely where the Denisovans evolved.

Occasionally the book does get technical -- the chapters on analysis of fossil skulls from different species were a struggle for me -- but overall it's a fascinating and very readable volume, full of the history of paleoanthropology as well as the prehistory of humanity.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 19th August 2025.

2025/118: Stone and Sky — Ben Aaronovitch

I’d like to point out that a) none of this was my fault and b) ultimately the impact on overall North Sea oil production was pretty minimal. I’m a dad now, so I don’t go looking for trouble the way I used to. [loc. 54]

Latest in the Rivers of London series, purchased on whim when I couldn't decide what to read. I've enjoyed the series as a whole, but I'm finding recent works less engaging. This short novel (300 pages in print) feels like two novellas braided together, and could have done with a third.

Peter and Beverly and their twins are 'on holiday' in Aberdeen: naturally (?) they are accompanied by Dr Walid (who's in search of a possible cryptid), Nightingale and his apprentice Abigail (who needs to find out what magic is like outside London), Peter's parents, and his dad's jazz band Lord Grant's Irregulars, and the Irregulars' new manager Zach Palmer. Yes, this is a 'team on holiday' novel, drawing everyone out of their usual urban environment: I was reminded of Elly Griffiths' Dark Angel. And it turns out that part of why I enjoy the Rivers of London books is the 'London' bit. (See also: Foxglove Summer, set outside London...)

The narrative is shared between Peter and Abigail (the latter in colloquial teen-speak): Abigail's side of the story was more interesting for me because there were foxes and mermaids, and I was also happy to see her falling for someone. There's very little Nightingale, which is a shame: the magical entities were rather less foregrounded than usual, but there was more corporate skulduggery. And there were tantalising hints of other stories (Paris! Wales! A society of British sorceresses on Lesbos!) which I have missed: possibly they are in the graphic novels. I'm also intrigued by one character's mention of Trump: "... he will make America great again. Although maybe not in quite the way he imagines." [loc.3560].

Stone and Sky wasn't bad, but it felt slight and I was disappointed. Maybe for the next one I'll wait for the price drop...

NB: This is the second novel I've read recently with a denouement on a North Sea oil platform (the other being Oracle.

2025/117: The Travelling Cat Chronicles — Hiro Arikawa (translated by Phillip Gabriel)

I am Satoru’s one and only cat. And Satoru is my one and only pal. And a proud cat like me wasn’t about to abandon his pal. If living as a stray was what it took to be Satoru’s cat to the very end, then bring it on. [loc. 2825]

Nana (not his choice of name) is a streetwise stray cat who, after being hit by a car, is taken in and cared for by a man named Satoru. They live together happily for five years, but then Satoru takes Nana on a series of road trips to visit old friends who he hopes will give Nana a home: 'Something came up, and we can’t live together any more'. None of the friends -- whose backstories are told in third person -- are able to offer a suitable home, and eventually Satoru and Nana end up living with Satoru's aunt Noriko, who is not a cat person. At least not to start with.

This could have been a cloyingly sentimental book, but Nana's sassy street-cat voice elevates it. It's a story about loss and grief as well as about the love between a man and his 'darling cat'. It brought tears to my eyes at several points (the ending is sad but hopeful). I also found it immensely humane and comforting. 

While I was reading, I was mostly interested in Nana: after I'd finished, I went back to look at how Satoru's past -- revealed as he meets each set of friends -- affected Satoru as he grew to adulthood. There is loss and grief, but Satoru weathers those episodes with grace. He doesn't seem to have had romantic relationships (or possibly Nana just didn't notice or care about them) but he is full of love for life, and for his friends and family. And for his darling cat.