2025/137: The Dream Hotel — Laila Lalami

“I didn’t do anything.” In a whisper this time.
Lucy nods. “Right. But what’d they say you were going to do?” [loc. 400]

Historian Sara Hussein, returning from a conference in London and eager to see her husband and their two small children, is detained by authorities at LAX. Her risk score -- the likelihood of her committing a crime in the near future -- has been calculated as over 500, marking her as a potential threat to her family. She's sent to a retention centre ('not a prison or a jail') known as Madison, for 21 days of forensic observation.

Nearly a year later, she's still there.

There are several contributory factors to Sara's 'retention': she's Moroccan-American, and she was impatient with the airport security officers. Most significantly, though, she has a Dreamsaver implant, which improves sleep quality and depth (invaluable for a mother of young children) -- and also (as mentioned in the small print of the EULA) records the dreams of the user. That data is just one of the two hundred inputs to the Risk Assessment Administration's crime-prediction algorithm. Since some of Sara's dreams involve violence against, or happening to, her husband, she's deemed a potential threat to him.

The Dream Hotel is set in the near future: far enough ahead that there are cures for lung cancer and dementia, close enough that it reminded me all too vividly of current immigration detention cases in the US. In the novel, the RAA was set up after another mass shooting: 'Democratic lawmakers called [it] a “watershed moment” and demanded strict gun control, while Republicans ... argue[d] that the fault lay solely with the gunman' [loc. 790]. The RAA's algorithm has reduced US gun deaths by 42.6% in two decades, and suicides by 48%. It's spoken of as 'knowing people better than they know themselves.' And it doesn't like outliers like Sara and the other women at Madison.

I bought this at full price after reading a couple of reviews, and found it immensely readable and ... not quite 'enjoyable', but ... satisfying? Scary and dystopian, but with a spirit of cooperation. 'Isolation is the opposite of salvation,' Sara thinks near the end of The Dream Hotel. It's collective action that makes things change: for Sara, for us.

Historians observe the world, and scientists try to explain it, but engineers transform it. Step by step, they’ve replaced village matchmakers with dating apps, town criers with social media, local doctors with diagnostic tools. The time has come for sages, mystics, and prophets to cede to an AI. [loc. 1486]

2025/136: Summerland — Hannu Rajaniemi

'Do you remember Doctor Cummings who treated you when you had measles? Well, soon there will be no doctors. If you get sick, you will just pass over.’
‘If you have a Ticket,’ Peter said.
‘That’s right. And soon, having a Ticket will be the only thing anyone cares about. Not studying, not working, not doing the right thing. Nothing real.’ [p. 125]

The setting is an alternate Great Britain in the late 1930s. The Nazis never came to power, because Germany suffered a crushing defeat in WW1 -- partly as a result of the new ectotechnology. '...the ectotanks were created to break the deadlock of the trenches in the Great War: weapons that grew more powerful the more they killed". In the late 19th century, radio contact was made with the dead: now, half a century later, ectophones and ectomail connect the great metropolis of Summerland to the world of the living. In Summerland, Victoria reigns; in Summerland, the Presence watches every Soviet citizen. Anyone in Britain can, in theory, acquire a Ticket to prevent their dead spirit from Fading before it reaches Summerland. Anyone in the USSR knows that when they die, they will join the Presence.

There's war in Spain, the Soviet Union versus Great Britain. Rachel White is an SIS operative for the Winter Court (the living) who discovers that a mole is betraying Britain's secrets to the Soviets. Rachel's superiors regard her as inferior because of her sex, but Rachel is determined to prove them wrong. And Peter Bloom, an operative who's now in Summerland, is about to discover some unexpected truths about himself.

A spy novel crossed with a ghost story, and peppered with real-world individuals such as Kim Philby and Roger Hollis: this should have grabbed my attention from the first page until the last. But this is the second time I'd attempted to read it, and it still felt a little hollow. Several plot elements are left unresolved (the Cullers, the Old Dead, the absence of non-human spirits) as though this was intended to be the first in a trilogy. I liked the world-building very much -- Pope Teilhard! National Death Service! Edison dolls! -- but the characters felt two-dimensional.

2025/135: The Naked Light — Bridget Collins

"They kept themselves safe from the faceless ones. They warded them off. Whereas now... now the faceless ones are not a metaphor at all. Now they are real. Real men, whose faces have been shot or torn or burnt away, by other men ... [loc. 1699]

The setting is (mostly) the Sussex village of Haltington in the aftermath of WW1. Florence Stock has come to live with Dr Manning, her widowed brother-in-law who's the vicar of Haltington, and her teenage niece Phoebe. Kit Clayton, home from Paris after a year or so of creating lifelike tin and enamel masks for facially disfigured men, has moved into the Bone House: not as macabre as it sounds, but the former home of the Bone family, now extinct. 

Mrs Bone's sons all died in the War, and the old woman dies up on the downs, trying to fulfil her familial duty to the Face, which local folklore says protects the village from thurlath -- 'a wandering, hungry thing that resembles a man but is not a man. They are hollow in the sense that they have no soul, and hollow in the sense that they are hungry.' And they crave faces: they steal the appearance of a person. 'You will have noticed that there are no effigies in Haltington Church...' (That's from Dr Manning's self-published work on the mythology and folklore of the area.)

Incidental characters, such as Phoebe's teacher Beatrice, provide context for the plot, and the setting: only one girl in ten will marry, because so many men are dead. Women who worked during wartime are now at loose ends. Florence is excited to see men's shirts hanging on the line at the Bone House -- until she realises that Kit Clayton is a woman.

I've enjoyed Collins' other novels (especially The Binding) but this didn't work as well for me. Though there is a supernatural element, that aspect of the novel doesn't really bloom until the last third of the book. Florence's doomed love, Kit's solitary misery and Phoebe's smiling malice are vividly written but not especially cheering, and the focus remains very much on those three women -- which means that some plot threads, unwitnessed by any of them, are given only cursory resolutions. Some of the secondary characters feel superfluous, too, included only to explain an aspect of the plot. But there's a surprisingly, believably happy ending, and some truly scary moments along the way.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the review copy: UK Publication date is 25th September 2025.

The title comes from Eleanor Farjeon's poem Peace, which is quoted at the start of the novel:

Nations! whose ravenous engines must be fed
Endlessly with the father and the son,
My naked light upon your darkness, dread! -
By which ye shall behold what ye have done...

2025/134: No Friend to this House — Natalie Haynes

What's the point in telling the old stories all over again in the same way? [loc. 549]

Natalie Haynes, author of The Amber Fury, Stone Blind and Divine Might (and a number of works that I haven't yet read) turns her attention to the myth of Jason and the Argonauts. I expected this to be another novel about Jason and Medea, but Haynes' focus is broader: No Friend to this House, with its multitude of female narrators, explores the lasting damage caused by the Argo's voyage and her crew's actions, as well as Medea's love for and abandonment by Jason. 

There are chapters from the viewpoints of priestesses, goddesses (who are usually responsible for getting Jason out of whatever sticky situation he's blundered into), animals (including the dove sent to fly ahead of the Argo to test the Symplegades and a crow that's Hera's messenger), the women of Lemnos and the enslaved Thracian women, naiads and harpies and nymphs...

The mortal women are often powerless, lacking agency; the goddesses have power, but are as exasperated by mortal men as by the gods. There's a healthy and heartening theme of female solidarity (for instance, the women of Corinth defending Medea to Jason) and some notes on Greek grammar. "... no matter how many girls were in a room (just one, in this instance), if boys were there too, the word 'children' takes the masculine ending. And the girls disappear." [loc. 3066]

Haynes' afterword explains that this is the novel she's been preparing to write for most of her life. (The title is a line from Euripides' Medea, and refers to Jason. She discusses the marginalisation of women, and the plethora of lost children, in the myths: and she explains why her version of Medea, unlike that of Euripides, has not descended into madness.

No Friend to this House is a fascinating collection of narratives, linked by the Argo and her captain. There were quite a few myths that were unfamiliar to me (Haynes provides a good bibliography) and each narrator had a distinct character, from an indignant Erato addressing the reader directly to an enslaved Thracian woman advising Iphinoe of Lemnos how to avoid mess when murdering a man. Recommended for anyone who's bored of straightforward retellings of Greek mythology.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my advance review copy: UK publication date is 11th September 2025.

2025/133: Rose Under Fire — Elizabeth Wein

I think it is the most terrible thing that was done to me – that I have become so indifferent about the dead. [p. 317]

Reread, after a description of tipping a V1 -- the manouevre that leads to Rose's capture, and her incarceration in Ravensbruck -- in Spitfire. 

My original review from 2014 is here: I don't have anything to add, though I was surprised at how many details (mostly horrific) I had forgotten or repressed. I remembered, instead, the small kindnesses, the reunions, the love.

Unaccountably there is no UK Kindle edition available at present.

2025/132: Spitfire: A Very British Love Story — John Nichol

'...it was thrilling to down an enemy aircraft. This feeling increased with my catching sight that the German crew had bailed out. I hoped the pilot would be able to bail out as I hoped that’s how someone would think of me.’ [loc. 1623]

Nichol's aim is to tell the human story of the men and women who flew and maintained the iconic Spitfire: a timely endeavour, as he managed to interview quite a few WW2 veterans who died before the book was published.

The book is as interesting for its insights into 1930s Britain as for its accounts of aerial warfare and mechanical detail. Initially, pilots were young aristocrats -- male, of course: 'almost exclusively recruited from the distinguished drinking clientele of White’s'. There was, unsurprisingly, a lot of heavy drinking: If we were flying the next morning and still had a hangover we would plug into our Spitfire’s oxygen supply and this usually did the trick.’"

As the war progressed, 'the distinctive lines of the British class system were ... severely blurred'. Even worse: there were women flying (though ferrying planes -- the ATA -- rather than in combat). One veteran reminisces: "'Women didn’t fly aeroplanes! It shocked me so badly that I said to one of my other buddies: “My God, if a woman can fly that aeroplane, I know I can.”' Warning for period-typical sexism... "Diana simply could not accept putting her bare legs and knickers open to view," Nichol writes of one ATA pilot who, dressed in uniform rather than flying gear, wasn't enthusiastic about bailing out.

More troubling were glimpses of the unsympathetic treatment of pilots suffering combat trauma: "... a fellow pilot had broken down in tears as he went to climb into his plane. The medical officer was quickly summoned. He was clearly of the old school. ‘The doc gave him a terrific punch and a few well-chosen words,’ a 616 officer observed. ‘And we had no further trouble.’"

Nichol covers the combat history of the Spitfire through the Second World War -- Dunkirk, the defense of Malta in 1942, aerial combat in North Africa, downed pilots escaping occupied France and the Netherlands -- through to military action in Malaysia, 1957. There are some fascinating anecdotes, and some details of the plane's capabilities and technical features that I (a woman, with little or no knowledge of mechanics or mass production) found readable and interesting. I have to admit, though, that my focus was on the men and women who flew Spitfires. Fighter pilots were often very young (at least one became a squadron leader in his teens) and had a 50% chance of surviving the war. The women of the ATA (first in Britain to get equal pay) also suffered losses: they weren't taught to 'fly blind' and at least one female veteran is pretty angry about that.

Nichol's final chapter, 'The Last Salute', is a sobering description of life after wartime: of PTSD, a return to inequality for women, mourning the dead, adjusting to a changed world. There are also accounts of reunions (not always cheerful: one pilot discovered, fifty years after the event, that three of the Dutchmen who'd helped him after his plane crashed had been executed as a result of his escape) and final flights in restored Spitfires.

One aspect of the book that resonated with me is reflected in the quotation that heads this review: the mano e mano nature of Spitfire combat. The pilots don't come across as bloodthirsty (though several clearly hated the enemy): their focus was the destruction of the enemy aircraft, rather than of the people within.

Also features an account of exactly how to 'tip' a V1 bomb in mid-flight, preventing it from reaching its target: this sparked a reread of Elizabeth Wein's Rose Under Fire, in which the heroine does just that.

‘The best way to stop a V1 was to get your wingtip under its wings and tip it up, thereby toppling the gyros that controlled it, causing it to dive out of control before reaching populated areas.’ [loc. 4768]

2025/131: Creation Lake — Rachel Kushner

Neanderthals were prone to depression, he said.
He said they were prone to addiction, too, and especially smoking. [first line]

That opening hooked me, though it's not exactly indicative of the novel as a whole... Sadie Smith (not her real name) is thirty-four, a heavy drinker, a former FBI operative now employed as a translator for Bruno Lacombe, an ageing revolutionary who lives in a cave and communicates with his disciple Pascal Balmy by email. Bruno's emails are full of Neanderthals, genetics and Cagots -- this last a 'sub-human' people of the Pyrenees who Bruno likes to think are descended from Neanderthals. Meanwhile Pascal's commune of anarchist activists is determined to defeat government-backed agricultural businesses, which threaten the way of life in this corner of south-west France. 

Sadie has been employed by shadowy figures to subvert the anarchists' plots, and starts off by infiltrating the commune and embarking on a relationship with one of the men there. Luckily she's something of a sociopath: other people's realities don't impinge upon or impact her life. (Though there's the heavy drinking...) We are shown glimpses of her past, and there's some discussion of undercover agents (such as Bob Lambert) and hints that Sadie may have been let go by the FBI due to being rather too enthusiastic about convincing activists to commit violent crimes.

Bruno is fascinating, though completely batshit. We get some of his wartime backstory, too, and I found this remarkably poignant. Lucien, Sadie's erstwhile lover (from whom she's borrowing the house where she's staying) is a mere cipher, and Rene (Sadie's activist mark) is almost sterotypical in his brusque masculinity. Sadie is the focus of the novel, though: she's not exactly likeable, but I found myself admiring her detachment and, by way of contrast, her (secret) moments of humanity. Her sense of humour also charmed me. ("I thought, Fuck you, Pascal. “Having you here has meant a lot to me,” Pascal said. Like most people, he was unable to read minds." [loc. 3864]). 

A pacy novel with a surprising ending, some fascinating excursions into history and prehistory, and a narrator who refuses to be dismayed by climate change, the horrors of capitalism, or the soon-to-be-released court records from her FBI entrapment case. I'm still not sure if I liked it, but it held my attention and made me think.

2025/130: A Garter as a Lesser Gift — Aster Glenn Gray

He was not good; had never aspired to be good. He had only ever wanted to be a jolly good fellow, and to be too good, like Percy, destroyed all chance of ever being jolly. Percy would have pulled the covers up over his head before he ever let his host’s wife kiss him, let alone kissed his host. [loc. 621]

A refreshing and sweet novella, setting Gawain and the Green Knight in wartime Britain. The squadron drink at the Green Dragon, and one night a man in green appears...

Gawain chats to the Bertilaks about crime novels and the Blitz; kisses his hostess, and then his host; and returns (or is returned) to his squadron with a green armband, because he has 'been raised with a great belief in magic' and is disinclined to refuse a gift that confers protection. And when the Bertilaks come visiting (with a gift of wild boar, which hasn't been hunted in Britain for four centuries) he confronts them with his anger and grief that it was just a game...

A delightful read, which I wish I'd read at Christmas! The updated setting works very well, and Gawain is vulnerable, likeable and better at talking about his feelings than the original. But then, it is a different time.

2025/129: The Prey of Gods — Nicky Drayden

Now humankind is finally coming into its own, bending and stretching genes in the manner of gods. It was only a matter of time before they muddled their way into bending the exact right genes to reveal that they were gods. Those genes, gone dry and brittle from lack of use, are just begging for an open flame. [p. 61]

The setting is the Eastern Cape in 2064. Alphies (levitating robot assistants) have replaced smartphones; there's a new drug on the street, which seems to confer superpowers; and the roads and parks are overrun by hundreds of thousands of dik-diks.

Our protagonists are a teenage Xhosa boy named Muzikayise, a rugby star, who's secretly in love with his (male) best friend; Riya, a pop diva who keeps her MS at bay with street drugs; Wallace Stoker, cis male politician by day and cabaret superstar Felicity Lyons by night, whose mother is overprotective; Nomvula, a ten-year-old girl who looks after her mentally-ill mother and talks to Mr Tau, who may be a deity and / or her father; Clever4-1, an alphie which seems to be developing a 'spark'; and Sydney, a demi-goddess fallen on hard times who is plotting to regain her power and 'plunge South Africa into a darkness not seen since the days of apartheid. If that’s what it’ll take to get these humans to believe in something, it’s what she’ll have to do.' Each has a secret: each will emerge greatly transformed after Riya's sold-out megaconcert, the climax of this novel.

This was a fun read, fast-paced and twisty. It sometimes had a YA feel, perhaps because several of the characters are quite young, but it also reminded me of KPop Demon Hunters, which is not a bad thing. I loved Stoker, who's expecting a memory wipe, leaving himself a warning encoded in cosmetic colour names: 'Sunday Drive', 'Like a Bat Out of Hell', 'Mother of Pearl', 'Out to Get You', 'Remember', 'Concert Tee'. (I've always thought there were stories waiting to happen in cosmetic names.) I liked Muzi's desperate and misguided attempts to use his new-found powers. And I liked the origin mythology behind the story, a creator god whose children have the gifts of various animals: dolphin, peacock, crab... 

The alphies, too, are truly interesting, with character, ambition, emotion and several conflicting agendas. This novel dates from 2017, before the current AI bubble: I wonder how differently Dreyden might write the alphies now.

2025/128: A Memoir of my Former Self — Hilary Mantel

You can control and censor a child’s reading, but you can’t control her interpretations; no one can guess how a message that to adults seems banal or ridiculous or outmoded will alter itself and evolve inside the darkness of a child’s heart. [loc. 5001]

A selection of Mantel's short non-fiction, ranging from book reviews (originally published in the New York Review of Books) and film reviews (originally published in the Spectator), through articles about writing and reading, to a delightful review of perfumes and a piece about stationery. ('...comrades, the hard-spined notebook is death to free thought. Pocket-size or desk-size, it drives the narrative in one direction, one only, and its relentless linearity oppresses you, so you seal off your narrative options early.' [loc. 5349]... I, with my plethora of discbound notebooks, wholeheartedly agree.) 

Also, of course, quite a bit about the Tudors: a variety of pieces written during the long gestation, writing and publication of the trilogy beginning with Wolf Hall. This volume also contains the full text of her 2017 Reith Lectures, exploring the art, craft, possibilities and constraints of historical fiction: I confess I found her voice a little grating when I listened to the Lectures, but it's much mellower in my head as I read!

Mantel the reviewer takes no prisoners. She is acerbic, informed and precise. I'm not familiar with everything she reviewed, but appreciated her admiration of Annie Proulx's 'inarticulate characters' and her critique of Wild at Heart ('not a film you should recommend to the vicar'). More interesting for me were her thoughts about writing, and about reading. She hypothesises that she internalised saintly Cousin Helen, from What Katy Did, and delayed seeking medical advice because of Cousin Helen's dictums about never complaining, never showing your pain, making a virtue of immobility... I am certain that an impressionable child (as I was) can be damaged by their reaction to a book, however innocuous the book might seem to others.

Many of these essays are available online, but it's nice to have them collected, to dip into from time to time. I intend to reread some pieces at times when the writing-well seems empty, or poisoned, or inaccessible. "You have to keep shocking your psyche, or nothing happens in your writing – nothing charged, nothing enduring. It’s imaginary encounters with death that generate life on the page..." and later, "bad art and good art feel remarkably the same, while they’re in process".

2025/127: The Haunting of Hill House — Shirley Jackson

“I could say,” Eleanor put in, smiling, “‘All three of you are in my imagination; none of this is real.’”
“If I thought you could really believe that,” the doctor said gravely, “I would turn you out of Hill House this morning. You would be venturing far too close to the state of mind which would welcome the perils of Hill House with a kind of sisterly embrace.” [loc. 1870]

Reread, for comparison to A Haunting on the Hill: my original review from 2016 is here.

I'd forgotten a lot, of course. I'd forgotten about the vision of a long-ago picnic, and Theodora looking back and screaming. I'd forgotten about Mrs Montague, the self-proclaimed psychic who is the only person oblivious to the supernatural disturbances. ('“There’s a definite cold spot just outside the nursery door,” the doctor told his wife hopefully. “Yes, dear, very nice.”') I'd forgotten about flirtatious Luke, who will inherit Hill House... This would be such a different novel if we knew what the other characters were experiencing, thinking, feeling. Instead, we're trapped inside Eleanor's thoughts, and she is a liar and a fantasist who is desperate for somewhere to belong. Unfortunately, she has found it.

And I had forgotten the songs: Hill House does, in both novels, enjoy a song.

Eleanor turned and looked at the empty center of the room, where someone was walking and singing softly, and then she heard it clearly: Go walking through the valley, Go walking through the valley, Go walking through the valley, As we have done before ….

edit to add: who is doing the haunting? is it the house, or is it the visitors?

2025/126: A Haunting on the Hill — Elizabeth Hand

“If you’re scared, channel that into Tomasin.”
“He’s a demon. He doesn’t get scared.”
“So tap into that. You’re a demon in a big spooky house—you should feel right at home.”
“I do...That’s what scares me.” [p. 176]

This isn't exactly a sequel to The Haunting of Hill House: it's more of a tribute, with a rather different ambience. Instead of the tight third-person narrative of Eleanor, there's a first-person narrative from Holly Sherwin -- a never-quite-successful playwright working on a play about witches -- as well as third-person chapters from the perspective of Holly's girlfriend Nisa, a singer-songwriter; Amanda, an ageing actress with a murky past; and Stevie, Holly's best friend, who's acting in the play and doing the sound. Holly finds Hill House when she's on a weekend break with Nisa, and it seems the perfect place to rehearse and workshop her play -- despite the odd decor, the peculiar housekeeper, the knife-wielding neighbour... 'It felt like it was always the middle of the night, and not in a good way' [p. 198]

Gradually, the characters' flaws and failings are revealed, and tensions rise. The ambience isn't the brittle gaiety and flirtation of Jackson's original, but each of the characters experiences something strange, and each reveals a darker side. Perhaps it's the house ('demented', says Melissa the housekeeper), or the huge black hares (cue Nisa singing about hares on the mountain), or the deafening sounds that don't register on Stevie's recordings. Or perhaps it's the pressure of Holly's expectations, or the secrets that all of them are keeping.

I didn't find A Haunting on the Hill as unsettling as The Haunting of Hill House: perhaps because we know what everyone in the house (or, at least, the quartet of viewpoint characters) is thinking and feeling,  or perhaps because the setting is more modern and familiar. But I did like the way that Hand, like Jackson, never points the camera directly at the source of the unease, never tries to explain it. There are hints of the house's history going back to Eleanor, and further: deaths, suicides, a lost child, a poisoning. The novel's denouement is more explicitly horrific than Jackson's ending, more of an intrusion into the physical world. Paradoxically, this reduced the chill factor for me. But this time, at least, we get to see what happens afterwards.

2025/125: The Corn King and the Spring Queen — Naomi Mitchison

All I can say is that this is a very strange country, and that one has evidence of things occurring here which would certainly be against all the laws of Nature at home. [p. 412]

Reread, with perhaps a better understanding now of the Greek elements: I thought I'd read it quite recently, but it turns out that was in 2015 (review here).

I'd forgotten a great deal: just how murderous Erif and Tarrik are; the snake that protects Kleomenes; the death of Harn Der. And this time around, more interested in the Greek (and especially the Spartan) elements, I found Kleomenes' story fascinating. I don't think I'd noticed before that the pictures of Kleomenes' last days that Berris creates are foreshadowings of Christian imagery: 'the feast at the prison, the last eating together... three windows across the back of his picture. The King was in the centre, with Panteus beside him, leaning against his breast' recalls the Last Supper, and there's a young man on a colt riding through crowds, and a body on a stake with a cross-piece... Perhaps, in Mitchison's imagination, these pictures -- hidden away by slaves and helots -- were passed down as a kind of folk memory.

That's just one aspect of Mitchison's exploration of comparative religion. "Taking a living man and mixing him with pain and death — yes, mixing him—like a cook — and making a god," muses the dissolute Ptolemy IV Philopator, revelling in the death of Kleomenes. "I have made a god that way. A new form of god. Dionysos-Sabazios has shown himself again on one man, a torn man. Like Pentheus in the play." Erif feels a sisterly kinship with Isis, who is also a Year Queen. Tarrik, meanwhile, expects to be killed and eaten when his time is up: though perhaps, by the end of the novel, times have changed enough that the rituals will be kinder.

I was struck by this line in Mitchison's Introduction, written about sixty years after the novel's 1931 publication:

...my account of what was happening in Sparta or Athens or even Egypt, is all based on real history, but the view was moulded by what I—and many another person—was thinking in the Europe of those days, with Mussolini and his fascists in Italy and already the shadow of Hitler in Germany. [loc. 72]

2025/124: The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America — David Baron

It is an inspiring epic of human inventiveness. It is a cautionary tale of mass delusion. It is a drama of battling egos. Ultimately, though, it is a love story, an account of when we, the people of Earth, fell hard for another planet and projected our fantasies, desires and ambitions onto an alien world. [Introduction]

This is an account of Percival Lowell's obsession with the planet Mars, and its profound consequences for the human race. Following the observations of Schiaparelli -- who described a network of long straight lines on the planet, 'canali' (channels, but mistranslated as 'canals') -- Lowell, a wealthy businessman, published a number of books about his observations and his interpretation of them. He also founded the Lowell Observatory, and inspired a generation of scientists and science fiction authors.

The first part of the book, 'Century's End - 1876-1900', recounts Lowell's early life, and the context in which his astronomical work was received: his first books were published in the 1890s, in a period where science and technology were celebrated. Several reputable figures had asserted that life was not only possible but probable on other planets, and there was much discussion -- in parallel with the fashion for spiritualism -- about how to communicate with the inhabitants of our nearest neighbour. Nikola Tesla was convinced that his work in 'wireless telegraphy' (radio) would enable him to signal Mars.

In the second section, 'A New Civilization - 1901-1907', the sense of the limitless possibilities of the new century is strong. Mars became fashionable: everything from stage plays to dance tunes, advertising, and a plethora of stories in the popular press. (Meanwhile in London, Edward Maunder, an assistant at the Royal Observatory, conducted a study at the Royal Hospital School in Greenwich, showing that schoolboys perceived straight lines on images of Mars if seated at a certain distance from the pictures. Closer, and they could distinguish the lines and curves that made up those 'straight lines': further away and it was all a blur.) 

The third section, 'The Earthlings Respond - 1908-1916', describes the waning of popular enthusiasm for Lowell's ideas -- although he continued his lecture tours until his death in 1916, maintaining that "the difficulty in establishing the fact that Mars is inhabited lies not in the lack of intelligence on Mars, but rather the lack of it here." What he lacked in scientific rigour, he made up for in sheer stubborn belief.

Baron's epilogue, 'Children of Mars', celebrates Lowell's legacy. He suggests that the reason the American public were so ready to believe that Orson Welles' radio production of The War of the Worlds was real news was that many could remember all the newspaper reports about life on Mars. And, more importantly, 'intelligent eyes really had been watching human affairs keenly and closely': not aliens but children* who grew up hearing stories and theories about other worlds. A young man in Luxembourg was enthralled by Lowell's Mars: his name was Hugo Gernsback, and he is regarded as a key figure in the rise of science fiction as a genre. H P Lovecraft attended one of Lowell's lectures aged 16; H G Wells met Lowell and discussed Mars with him (this fact established by Baron's own research); and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars featured canals, deserts and dry lakes, just as Lowell had suggested. Burroughs' Barsoom, in turn, inspired another generation of writers and scientists, including Carl Sagan, Ray Bradbury and Arthur C Clarke.

This was a great read, full of fascinating detail and copious illustrations. Baron's authorial voice is unobtrusive: his accounts of his research expeditions are interesting but very much secondary to the main narrative. There's a good bibliography and extensive references. And I did like his conclusion:

... I thought I had set out to tell a tale of human folly, about how easy it is to deceive ourselves into believing things simply because we wish them to be true... I discovered another, perhaps more powerful takeaway: Human imagination is a force so potent that it can change what is true. Thanks to Lowell's Martian fantasies that helped inspire the early space age, visiting the Red Planet has become a potentially realisable goal for today's children. [loc. 3031]

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 26 AUG 2025.

* same thing?

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.

2025/116: The Friend — Dorothy Koomson

Yvonne began to laugh. ‘You’re all so funny!’ she screeched. ‘You all act like you’re best mates, but really? You’re all so fucking pathetic with your stupid secrets and lies. I bet none of you know what I know about all of you.’ [loc. 5920]

Read for book club. Cece Solarin has just given up her job and moved to Brighton with her huband Sol and their three children: Sol's been promoted, and is seldom around. On her boys' first day at school Cece discovers that a popular parent, Yvonne, is in a coma after being attacked one night in the school playground. The brittle, fearful, suspicious atmosphere makes it even harder than she expected to make friends and connections, but she becomes friendly with three other young mothers -- Maxie, Hazel and Anaya, each of whom was friends with Yvonne, and each of whom has a Big Secret in her past.

Cece's ex, Gareth, shows up and more or less blackmails her into using her profiling skills to investigate her new friends and discover who tried to murder Yvonne: Gareth is convinced that it's one of the three. '...one of them has a caution on record for assault; one is being investigated for possible fraud and one, I don’t know, one of them there’s something about her' [loc. 3992]. Cece accepts the challenge.

This for me was a depiction of an alien world. None of the women seem interested in anything except their children and husbands: they don't read books, listen to music, take an interest in politics. The protagonists are racially diverse, but -- despite the Brighton setting -- I don't recall any characters who aren't cis-het. The women, Cece included, have Secrets: we know this because the first third of the book is basically 'oh, it would be Terrible if anyone knew about my Big Secret'. And of course Yvonne knew everything, or nearly everything: there's a motive! Once some of the secrets are revealed, the book became more interesting -- until the denouement, which stretched credibility to breaking point. (I'm also not convinced the timings worked.)

I may update this review after the book club discussion next weekend... maybe the discussion will help me see what I missed.

2025/115: A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II — Elizabeth Wein

“Nobody knows the exact day when they started calling us night witches,” said pilot Serafima Amosova. “We were fighting in the Caucasus near the city of Mozdok... We were bombing the German positions almost every night, and none of us was ever shot down, so the Germans began saying these are night witches, because it seemed impossible to kill us or shoot us down.” [loc. 2889]

I love Wein's novels, which are mostly about young women during WW2, so thought I'd try her non-fiction. A Thousand Sisters is an account of female Soviet pilots in the Second World War -- the infamous 'Night Witches' -- who flew fighter planes and were united by the desire to 'liberate their land'. Many of them were teenagers: some were mothers. A third of female pilots did not survive.

Wein gives a good overview of Soviet culture, especially in the military. Between a quarter and a third of all Soviet pilots, by the end of the 1930s, were women: this was because any young person could learn to fly, free of charge. The women pilots seem to have experienced little, if any, sexual harrassment (though plenty of gender discrimination). Unlike American women -- who were not allowed to fly combat missions during WW2 -- the Soviet women pilots received equal pay and were not subject to racial discrimination.

Unlike the novels, Wein doesn't wax poetic on the joys of aviation. Instead, she focusses on the technical difficulties, and the dangers, of aerial combat. She details the various missions and offensives, quoting extensively from the womens' own accounts. (There's a thorough bibliography at the end of the book.) A Thousand Sisters is aimed at a young adult audience, and Wein engages the reader's sympathy and imagination by stressing the youth of the pilots, their camaraderie, and their determination to make a difference. "...change is possible. It can begin with one person. Go out and change the wind." [loc. 3806]

“When weather caused the cancellation of a mission, everyone stayed at the airfield and danced,” said Irina Rakobolskaya. “It would never come into any man’s head to do that, while waiting for permission to fly.” [loc. 1999]

2025/114: The Scandalous Letters of V and J — Felicia Davin

...on the way over Aunt S said, “The people we’re about to meet may tell you shocking things about me.”
“Shocking things like how you’ve aided your niece-nephew in perverting the social order and defying nature itself?” I asked.
“Oh, is that what you’re doing?” Aunt S said. “The social order seems intact to me. And if it’s your goal to defy nature, you might have to put in a bit more work.” [p. 172]

A young person -- 'I'd rather be Victor than Victorine' -- is evicted from the family home, and moves to Paris with their Aunt Sophie. In a run-down boarding house they encounter art student Julien, who is also Julie and who doesn't want to be trapped into being 'one or the other when I've always been both'. 

Julie(n)'s transformation is magical, achieved by painting self-portraits: they're very proud of their hands. Victor, it turns out, is also capable of changing the world: when he writes a strongly-felt letter with a particular pen, the recipient believes what's written. (Cue a bloodless heist of ten thousand francs.) But Julie knows more about magic than Victor does, and is keen that Victor destroy the 'cursed artifact'. Victor, though, is intrigued by this new hidden world, and realises that his mother's death -- and perhaps also his father disowning him -- is also due to magic...

Also, they are in love. And in lust.

I'd enjoyed Davin's SF M/M romance trilogy (Edge of Nowhere, Out of Nowhere and Nowhere Else) though I note that I purchased this novel well before I discovered those! The Scandalous Letters of V and J -- first in the 'French Letters' series: I've wishlisted the other two volumes -- is quite different in tone and setting (Paris in the 1820s rather than mysterious space stations), but the prose is as assured and witty as in the Nowhere books. V (transmasc) and J (non-binary) are fascinating characters with very different personalities and beliefs, and with distinctive voices. The magic system, and the abuses perpetrated using magic, are thoughtfully explored and well-integrated with the romance. And I especially liked the stories-within-the-story, told (usually as a prelude to, or a part of, a sexual encounter) by V.

This is a very steamy book and I wasn't really in the mood for the steam, which seems a waste. But even skimming the sex scenes I could appreciate how much they contribute to the plot and the characterisation.

2025/113: Emperor's Wrath — Kai Butler

The sky was blue, and three ravens sat on the wall above me, each looking deeply judgmental.
“Poor showing,” Terror said.
“Is this really the one we’re putting our faith in?” Dawn asked.
“I ate the mother mouse,” Ratcatcher said. “Haven’t had time to tell you yet.” [loc. 2302]

Second in the 'Emperor's Assassin' series, which I discovered while reading this volume is a trilogy with the finale due in autumn 2025 (aargh). Airón and Tallu are married, and Airón is beginning to understand Tallu's plan -- and the fate awaiting the last Emperor. The ravens are delightful; there are airships, elephants and ghosts; and there are several powerful, intelligent and deceptive women. Another big revelation at the end, and months to wait until the series finale!

Butler's prose is very readable, and her pacing is excellent: I really liked the touches of humour (which made a particular character's death all the more affecting) and the Machiavellian machinations of the various factions. And I do like Airón, though I'd love to read Tallu's perspective on events. (And to meet the rest of Airón's family, including the sister we glimpsed all too briefly at the beginning of the series.)

I expect I'll be rereading this and Betrothed to the Emperor later this year, in preparation for Shadow Throne King...

2025/112: Betrothed to the Emperor — Kai Butler

I felt as taut as a bowstring pulled, ready to release the arrow and realizing that I had to build the target I needed to hit. [loc. 1690]

Airón, prince of the Northern Empire, has been raised as an assassin: his twin sister Eonai is to marry the Emperor of the fearsome Imperium, after which Airón will kill his new brother-in-law. He doesn't expect to survive, but the Imperium must be destroyed. Except it all goes horribly wrong when Eonai and Airón are presented to Tallu, 'a viper' reportedly responsible for the deaths of his parents and younger sibling. Because Tallu decides that he will, instead, marry Airón...

Classic enemies-to-lovers plot, with the addition of a hilarious raven named Terror (Airón can talk to animals, part of his Northern heritage), some half-starved sea-serpents in the palace lake, a dragon egg -- which Airón does not treat with nearly enough care -- and a supporting cast of servants, nobles and soldiers. Because the story's told as Airón's narrative, we know as little as he does about the Emperor's true motives, which keeps Airón wrong-footed and the reader intrigued. The worldbuilding was intriguing, and the budding romance credibly slow.

I enjoyed this a great deal and instantly read the next in the series...

2025/111: Return to the Enchanted Island — Johary Ravaloson (translated by Allison M. Charette)

He got sent to a cell... went before the judge, did three months of community service at the Garches hospital, was all the same spared extradition—a random impulse would never extinguish his luck.[p. 96]

Translated from the French, this novel is the first I have read by a Malagasy author. It interweaves Malagasy heritage and history with the story of Ietsy Razak, privileged son of a wealthy family, named after the 'first man' in Malagasy myth. Ietsy is sent to France to 'continue his education' after a misadventure with drugs in which a schoolmate dies. There, he meets and falls in love with Ninon, and is devastated at the end of their affair. He becomes an illegal alien when he forgets to renew his visa. 

Despite being lazy and prone to depression, Ietsy tends to fall on his feet. He has good (and patient) friends, and seems to get away with a great deal. It's a clash of cultures -- Madagascan nobility versus modern, democratic France -- and only by returning to Madagascar can he find peace and happiness.

I don't think the audiobook -- capably narrated by Ron Butler -- was the best way to appreciate this novel. I found it difficult to understand the parallels between the mythic and the real Ietsys, and I didn't really warm to the protagonist, a spoilt slacker exploiting his social status to get away with ... well, with causing the deaths of others. But Return to the Enchanted Island did offer a portrait of Malagasy life, culture and history, and in that respect was interesting.

I note that the original title, Les larmes d’Ietsé, translates as 'The Tears of Ietsy': perhaps a more descriptive and less generic title than the rather vague Return to the Enchanted Island.

2025/110: Mythica — Emily Hauser

It’s also cuttingly symbolic of our hunt for Late Bronze Age women that the eponymous lions of the Lion Gate have been systematically misgendered as male – when they’re actually a fierce and gorgeous pair of female lions. (If you visit Mycenae, I encourage you to annoy as many people as you can by pointing out that this is, in fact, the ‘Lioness Gate’.) [loc. 5624]

An examination of the role of women in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and in the wider realm of Greek myth. In her introduction, Emily Hauser says she's exploring 'what new discoveries about the real women of history can do to help us understand Homer – not what Homer can tell us about the Late Bronze Age' [loc. 819]. And she points out that, although women are treated as secondary, as property, as lesser, they are essential to the stories. The Iliad begins with two men quarrelling over an enslaved woman (Briseis): the Odyssey ends with Odysseus going home (via Calypso, Circe and Nausicaa) to Penelope.

In chapters titled for the different women -- human and divine -- who power the stories, Hauser examines archaeological evidence, ancient DNA, linguistics (I am now mad keen to read about Linear-B!), the changing geography of the eastern Mediterranean, the ways in which the women of Greek myth have been reimagined in literature (I hadn't realised Briseis is the source for Chaucer and Shakespeare's Cressida), the histories of other civilisations in the Late Bronze Age, and the practicalities of women's lives in that period. She also presents a fascinating overview of gender roles, as typified in burials (traditionally graves with mirrors were assumed to be burials of women, and those with swords burials of men: this turns out to be overly simplistic) and in pronoun use in the Odyssey, where Athena, in disguise as Mentor, is referred to by the gender-neutral term 'min'.

There is so much fascinating detail here: the Hittite stories which may have been one of Homer's sources; Schliemann asking his Greek tutor to find him 'a black-haired Greek woman in the Homeric spirit' and choosing his wife Sophia, famously photographed wearing 'Priam's Treasure', from a selection of photographs; the length of time it takes to weave a sail for a ship (four years: possibly Calypso, instead of bewitching Odysseus for seven years, couldn't wait to see the back of him but had to provide a sail before he could leave); Γ58, the skeleton of a woman found with an immensely valuable electrum death-mask... Hauser is an excellent communicator (also a novelist: I shall look out for her fiction) and the occasional colloquialism (Cassandra as 'a Greta Thunberg of ancient times', for instance) doesn't distract or detract from the accessible, well-referenced account of women's roles in the centuries around the Late Bronze Age collapse.

I'm tempted to buy this book in paper form: I think it will be an invaluable reference, as well as an excellent read.

2025/109: 1983 — Tom Cox

At the end of the day, when the shops closed, the city felt like the bottom of a glass that too many people had been drinking from. [loc. 1830]

Set in a village on the outskirts of Nottingham ('the UK city where you're statistically most likely to be assaulted by a stranger') in the early Eighties, this is the story of Benji, an only child aged seven, who spends his time playing with the ZX Spectrum at school, building a nuclear fallout shelter in the woods, listening to The Teardrop Explodes and waiting for the aliens to come and return him to his home planet. (He glimpsed the aliens, which can shapeshift, during a hospital stay some years earlier.) 

Benji's parents are outsiders in the village, due to their Penguin paperbacks and modern jazz records, despite his dad having been born less than ten miles away. Benji, though he has plenty of friends and is happy at school, is a bit of an outsider too. He is aware of, though doesn't understand, the sense of social change and industrial decay, the rise of Thatcherism and the rage of the underclass.

But that's an undercurrent, considerably less foregrounded than the crew of shapeshifting aliens from the planet Vozkoz, who need to abduct a particular human whose essence is the only thing that can save their world. Another plot thread involves neighbour Colin, who builds robots out of scrap and whom Benji is convinced (after research conducted with the library's microfiche archive) is actually Bruce Lacey, as featured in the Fairport Convention song 'Mr Lacey'. (You can hear the robots at around the 2-minute mark in that video.)

Intercut with Benji's narrative are various uncaptioned photographs, and diverse other voices: Benji's parents, a headmistress, Benji's cousin, an alpaca, Colin, a drunken fuckwit, some daffodils... All contribute something to the story, though it's Benji's voice, and the events of that one year, that pull it all together. I enjoyed it immensely and nostalgically, and I loved Cox's inventiveness and the discursive winding of the story. The fantastical elements were (mostly^*) cleverly woven in and, frankly, made just as much more sense as nuclear war or Margaret Thatcher. And there's a strong sense of affection blooming through the novel: a love of life with all its imperfections.

^*I don't believe you could buy six blank cassettes for 49p in 1983, even in Nottinghamshire.

2025/108: Code Name Verity — Elizabeth Wein

I am no longer afraid of getting old. Indeed I can’t believe I ever said anything so stupid. So childish. So offensive and arrogant. But mainly, so very, very stupid. I desperately want to grow old. [p. 114]

Reread after The Enigma Game, which features a younger and considerably more cheerful Julie. (My review from 2013.) This is still a very harrowing read, even though I know what happens. 

This time around I especially noticed the marvellous portrayal of Engels, the translator/guard, who Julie portrays as monstrous because to reveal her acts of kindness would get both of them in trouble. It's a masterclass in unreliable narration and in why you should consider the audience, as well as the author, of a text.

Maddie and Engel are talking about cigarettes:

‘Never gave any to Julie!’ Engel gave an astonished bark of laughter. ‘I damn well gave her half my salary in cigarettes, greedy little Scottish savage! She nearly bankrupted me. Smoked her way through all five years of your pilot’s career!’
‘She never said! She never even hinted! Not once!’
‘What do you think would have happened to her,’ Engel said coolly, ‘if she had written this down? What would have happened to me?’ [p.310]

Also spotted a friend's name in the Acknowledgements: hope to discuss it with her soon.

2025/107: The Enigma Game — Elizabeth Wein

People being nice to you after someone has made you feel like a criminal or an enemy is just like sticking cardboard in your window after a bomb has blasted all the glass out of it. The hole is stopped up, but the glass is still smashed and you can’t see through the window any more. Everything in the room is uglier and darker. [loc. 2523]

Louisa Adair is fifteen and orphaned: it's 1940, her English mother died in the Balham bombing, and shortly afterwards her Jamaican father was killed when his merchant navy ship was torpedoed. (He couldn't enlist in the Royal Navy because he wasn't born in Europe.) She telephones to answer an advertisement for someone to look after an elderly aunt -- the advertiser, Mrs Campbell, can't tell from Louisa's 'polite English accent' that she's biracial -- and finds herself escorting the redoubtable 'Jane Warner' (actually Johanna von Arnim, a former opera singer) from an internment camp on the Isle of Man to a pub in a small Scottish village.

Stationed at the nearby airbase is Flight Lieutenant James G. Beaufort-Stuart (who also appears in Code Name Verity), nineteen and pretty good at keeping his squadron alive, despite their clunky Blenheim bombers and a CO who seems determined to ignore Jamie's input. And working as a driver at the airbase is Volunteer Ellen McEwen, of Traveller heritage, who appeared in The Pearl Thief. The narrative switches between the three protagonists, all of whom become involved in the acquisition and operation of a secret Enigma machine.

It's a great adventure story: it's also a depiction of period-typical racism (the little boy who thinks Louisa must be a German because he's never seen anyone like her before; Ellen instinctively reacting to an insulting comment about Louisa because she's all too familiar with the same kind of insult). And, poignantly, it features Jamie's 'wee sister' Julie. The Enigma Game is set years before Code Name Verity and is not nearly as harrowing, though there's plenty of peril and not everyone makes it to the end. I liked it very much, not least because of Wein's fantastic gift for writing about aviation: she's also very good at evoking the sheer inconvenience of wartime life.

Bonus Ancient Greece angle: code names in this novel include Odysseus and Calypso (Louisa being mistaken for the latter).

2025/106: Moira's Pen — Megan Whalen Turner

He should have recognised the danger when the king insisted on a formal introduction every time they met, forcing his sullen attendants to recite the diplomatic courtesies again and again, always with the pretense of never having heard them before, always with that same look of gleeful idiocy on his face. Beyond petty, beyond tedious, it was ridiculous. What kind of a king makes a mockery of himself? Melheret wished he'd seen the answer sooner... Only a king who was very sure of himself could afford to be laughed at. ['Melheret's Earrings, p.124]

A collection of short stories woven in and around the canon of the Queen's Thief series (which I have recently devoured and fallen in love with) plus maps, essays on archaeology and historical inspirations, and some beautiful illustrations. I'd read some of the stories and essays before, appended to the novels, but it is nice to have them all in one place. Even if that place is a hardcover book...

I was most intrigued by the last story in the book, 'Gitta': the protagonist is Princess Gittavjøre, a descendant of Gen and Irene, and she's reading the books that Pheris wrote about the life and times of Eugenides the Great. There are many hints about how matters played out in the Little Peninsula -- now Ephestalia - after the end of the series: some sad, some tantalising. If Turner ever decides to write a novel about Gitta, I'll definitely buy it.

Moira's Pen is not a long book, and most of the stories are quite slight: character studies or outsider viewpoints. It's as interesting for the insights into Turner's creative inspirations as for the extra glimpses of Gen, Helen and Irene. (And Laela!)

2025/105: Breaking the Dark — Lisa Jewell

Her whole life has been a slow-motion multiple pileup. She lives on the edges of everything, at the sharp pointy corner of existence between normality and extraordinariness where she is neither one thing nor, truly, the other. She can do extraordinary things, but she doesn’t like doing them. But she can’t be normal either, she’s too broken, too other. [loc. 1217]

I'm not familiar with Jewell's thrillers, but I am a fan of Marvel's Jessica Jones, and had listened to an audiobook of another story featuring her, Playing with Fire. So, for the challenge involving two books in the same shared universe...

In Breaking the Dark, Jessica is recruited by a wealthy socialite who believes that something weird has happened to her children, Lark and Fox, while they stayed with their father in Barton Wallop, a small village in Essex (the UK version). They used to be normal (if privileged) teenagers, but now they just keep talking about everything being 'perfect': they're polished, glossy and uninterested in their old friends and hobbies, and they're obsessed with the Lloyd Cole song 'Perfect Skin'.

Jessica's broke and in a rut: she needs the money, so agrees to investigate. In England, she discovers a self-professed 'AI witch' who also talks about being (or at least looking) perfect, as well as a run-down farmhouse where a girl named Belle seems to be living in the thrall of an older woman named Debra.

In a parallel plot thread, a woman named Polly targets a young man named Arthur -- and his parents Ophelia and John, who have (a) an elderly cat and (b) a big secret. Polly wants to be a big-name beauty influencer, and has created a product line called Beauty X. But there's been some outcry about her ingredients, and she jumps at Arthur's suggestion of using quantum physics to achieve similar effects. Jessica (with the help of teenaged sidekick Malcolm, and longterm friend-with-benefits Luke Cage) uncovers Polly's dastardly plot, and the secret of that farmhouse: she also undergoes a change of her own.

This was a fun read, well-paced and suspenseful: Jewell's Jessica is very much the character I recall from the Marvel TV show, and I found her changing perspective on life very credible. Happy endings for the deserving few (though I felt very sorry for Mr Smith) and no lasting damage. And by the end of the novel Jessica's life is transformed: not perfect, but good.

...my husband said that this is the hardest he’s ever seen me working in all the twenty-five years I’ve been at this job! [Author's Afterword]

2025/104: Oracle — Thomas Olde Heuvelt

In both timelines there was a chain of events triggered by a smaller event on the North Sea. At Doggerland, it was the annual sacrifice they pushed off in a canoe. In the eighteenth century, it was the five sick hands they threw overboard to drown. ‘It’s been awakened,’ Grim uttered. ‘That thing from below. Its hunger was aroused, and now it’s demanding more . . .’ [p. 280]

I've enjoyed Heuvelt's previous novels (HEX and Echo: supernatural horror in the modern world, with layered narrative and unreliable narrators. Oracle -- in which an eighteenth-century plague ship suddenly appears in a tulip field -- ties together Doggerland, oil rigs, smallpox epidemics and oppressive regimes. The protagonists are Luca Wolf, aged thirteen, who watches his best friend Emma vanish into the ship (they're the first to see it) and, later, his father; Robert Grim, who appeared in HEX; Eleanor Delveaux, who heads a shadowy government department tasked with investigating weird phenomena; and Vincent Becker, a damage assessment inspector investigating a disaster at a North Sea oil rig called Mammoth III. This is not the only mammoth we will encounter.

Luca is a delight, as is his practical and open-minded girlfriend Safiya. Grim is rather two-dimensional (I don't really remember him from HEX). So is Eleanor, who was not endeared to me by the explanation '[she] knew she was hated and she didn’t care. In the male-dominated world of power, you had to be hard as nails to stand your ground. If that meant that she was perpetuating the stereotype of the unscrupulous battle axe, then tough'. 

The secondary characters, to be honest, are more interesting than most of the protagonists: a tulip-farmer haunted by the sound of a bell, a rig mechanic talking about discovering a gargantuan skull, a Guardian correspondent abducted in broad daylight... Where the novel excels is not in character depth but in visions of ancient rituals and curses, the living memory of catastrophic floods, the terrors of storms at sea: in Elder Gods, half-glimpsed horrors and human bodies metamorphosed into something dreadful. The climax is thoroughly cinematic, though the true resolution of the ancient conflict between humanity and the natural world is described only in the Epilogue.

This was a well-paced read with some evocative locations, nicely interwoven past-and-present, and the occasional echo of Lost. And there are hints that we'll see more of Grim in Heuvelt's future novels.

2025/103: Hemlock and Silver — T Kingfisher

I had just taken poison when the king arrived to inform me that he had murdered his wife. [opening line]

A new T Kingfisher novel is always a delight, and Hemlock and Silver -- a dark and occasionally horrific riff on 'Snow White' -- has brought me great joy, right from that opening line.

Healer Anja is thirty-five years old, unmarried, an expert in poisons and their antidotes. The king, having informed her that he'd murdered his wife, wants her to cure his adolescent daughter, Snow, whom he believes is being poisoned. The money is good and the offer difficult to refuse. In short order, Anja is on her way to Witherleaf, an opulent palace in the desert. She meets the young princess, who is clearly hiding something; she runs tests, the results of which are inconclusive; and she encounters an excellent cat.

I loved the worldbuilding: the beasts of heaven rose up and slew the cruel, pitiless gods, and are worshipped as saints. (There is no Saint Cat.) Anja refuses to believe in magic, and approaches her work with scientific rigour. She's a likeable narrator with a pragmatic approach and a burning urge to understand the world around her.

There are elements of horror that reminded me of some of Kingfisher's darker works, such as The Twisted Ones and The Hollow Places: there's also romance, friendship and the aforementioned excellent cat ("His Gloriousness, God-King of the Deserts, Lord of Rooftops, King of Mirrors, Heir to the Mantle of Harar, He Who Treads the Serpent's Tail, Whose Claws Have Scarred the Bark of the Great Tree") who is key to the resolution of the mystery.

UK publication date is 19th August 2025: thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my advance review copy!

2025/102: When Women Were Dragons — Kelly Barnhill

[Author's Note] I thought I was writing a story about rage. I wasn’t. There is certainly rage in this novel, but it is about more than that. In its heart, this is a story about memory, and trauma. It’s about the damage we do to ourselves and our community when we refuse to talk about the past. It’s about the memories that we don’t understand, and can’t put into context, until we learn more about the world. [p. 366]

Reread for Lockdown bookclub: original review here. I liked it even more the second time around, though I found myself focussing more on the silences, absences and unspoken truths of Alex's childhood than on the natural history of dragons. Interestingly, it felt a lot more hopeful when I read it in 2022 than now, nearly three years later.

Discussed with book club. Reactions were mixed. We wanted more about knots, and whether they were actually magic.

2025/101: The Silence of the Girls — Pat Barker

I was no longer the outward and visible sign of Agamemnon’s power and Achilles’ humiliation. No, I’d become something altogether more sinister: I was the girl who’d caused the quarrel. Oh, yes, I’d caused it – in much the same way, I suppose, as a bone is responsible for a dogfight. [loc. 1596]

This is the story of Briseis, a princess of Lyrnessus who was captured when the Achaeans sacked the city. Her husband and brothers were slaughtered, and she was given to Achilles as a prize. Later, Agamemnon's prize Chryseis was returned to her father, a priest of Apollo: plague had broken out and Apollo, the god of plague, needed to be appeased. Agamemnon complained about the loss of his property: Briseis was taken from Achilles and given to Agamemnon to replace Chryseis, and Achilles then sulked in his tent and refused to fight.

Of course the story is quite different from Briseis' point of view. She's witnessed the slaughter of her people, slithered 'along alleys cobbled with our brothers', been a victim of and witness to rape (at least as a noblewoman she isn't given to the common soldiers), and she has prayed for Apollo's vengeance. Patroclus is kind to her ('I know what it’s like to lose everything and be handed to Achilles as a toy'), and she becomes friendly with other women in the Greek camp as they nurse the wounded. But these are small comforts: she has become liminal, belonging neither with the living nor the dead. And she refuses to forget her former life.

Towards the end of the novel there are some scenes from Achilles' point of view: the arrival of Priam, the loss of Patroclus, the desecration of Hector's corpse. These scenes are an interesting counterpoint to Briseis' quiet despair and loathing: they show us Achilles' resignation in the face of his fate, and his desperate loneliness after the death of his only friend, and they illuminate some aspects of the warrior life. I don't think they were necessary, though: I'd rather have stuck with Briseis.

The Silence of the Girls ends with Briseis reflecting on how people hearing of Achilles' brief and glorious life won't want to know about the rape camps and the enslavement and the slaughter. Pregnant by Achilles and married to one of Achilles' captains, she's still, effectively, enslaved. The final words -- 'now, my own story can begin' -- feel trite.

Horrific brutality, colloquial speech, glimpses of the divine and supernatural (Briseis sits with her back to a bronze mirror and feels the rage of Achilles' ghost: earlier, his mother -- the goddess Thetis -- emerges from the sea), and a determination to survive, no matter what.

We’re going to survive – our songs, our stories. They’ll never be able to forget us. Decades after the last man who fought at Troy is dead, their sons will remember the songs their Trojan mothers sang to them. We’ll be in their dreams – and in their worst nightmares too. [loc. 3595]

2025/100: Monsters — Emerald Fennell

The best thing about there being a murder in Fowey is that it means there is a murderer in Fowey. It could be anyone. [loc. 464]

The nameless narrator of Monsters is a twelve-year-old girl, orphaned in a boating accident ('Don’t worry – I’m not that sad about it') and living with her grandmother. Every summer she's packed off to an aunt and uncle who run a guest house in the quaint Cornish town of Fowey. There, she meets Miles, also twelve, and they bond over a murder -- a local woman found tangled in fishing nets. Miles and our narrator are fascinated by the notion of a murderer... but as their investigations proceed and more bodies are found, some uncomfortable truths are revealed. (I say 'revealed': some of the nastiest truths are merely hinted at.)

Most of the reviews seem to revel in the monstrosity of Miles and the narrator, and it's true that they are amoral little monsters. But I felt desperately sorry for her: I think that line on the first page, 'I'm not that sad about it', is ... not quite a lie, but a glib response to a horrendous situation. She has nobody: her grandmother is emotionally distant, her aunt is terrified, her uncle is horrific. No wonder she's so desperate for Miles to like her: no wonder she's not always in control of her own actions. She's as much a victim as the drowned eyeless girls who wash up with sea urchin fossils in their mouths.

I liked most of the novel, especially the vignettes of local characters: superstitious townsfolk, feeble Aunt Maria, poisonous Jean. The ending, though, seemed at once hasty and inconclusive. Yes, it resolved and explained most of the murders, but it felt out of tune with the rest of the story.

2025/099: The Story of a Heart — Rachel Clarke

Depending on your point of view, the transplantation of a human heart is a miracle, a violation, a leap of faith, an act of sacrilege. It’s a dream come true, a death postponed, a biomedical triumph, a day job. [loc. 199]

Keira, aged nine, is fatally injured in a traffic accident: her heart keeps beating but she is brain-dead. Max, also aged nine, has been in hospital for almost a year because his heart is failing. This is the story of how Keira (and, more actively, her family) saved Max, and of the people involved in the heart transplant - doctors, nurses, couriers, porters... It's a compassionate and engaging work of narrative non-fiction, this is the story of a heart transplant, and of how the death of one child and the saving of another led to a significant change in UK law.

While I was reading The Story of a Heart, it was announced as the winner of the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction: I hope this will prompt more people to read it. Clarke, trained as a doctor, is an excellent communicator of medical science: she's also adept at highlighting the little details. (Keira's young sisters, both convinced that she would have wanted to donate her organs, paint her fingernails orange while she's lying in intensive care.) 

I found this a moving, fascinating and sometimes sobering book: I think it's what I was expecting when I read Mend the Living (a novel that I thought at first was non-fiction) some years ago. They're both very good books.

interview with Rachel Clarke