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!)