Sunday, 15 June 2025
Deadline by Steph McGovern
Thursday, 12 June 2025
River Of Stars by Georgina Moore
Wednesday, 11 June 2025
The Six Murders Of Daphne St Clair by MacKenzie Common
Female serial killer novels are a very popular genre at the moment and most of them are firmly tongue-in-cheek and filled with dark humour. With a tagline of "Meet Daphne St Clair: glamorous ninety-year-old grandmother, care home resident, and your new favourite serial killer" I fully expected The Six Murders Of Daphne St Clair by MacKenzie Common to be in the same vein. What transpired was something much more sobering and mysterious.
Word of Daphne's crime, and her admission that she has killed before, spreads quickly around her local area. Encouraged by her granddaughter Daphne agrees to tell her story for a podcast, a podcast that proves to be extremely popular, Most of the listeners have the same question. Why would a ninety-year-old, having gotten away with numerous murders, suddenly confess?
In charge of the podcast is Ruth, a struggling local journalist. As Daphne recounts her story we quickly learn that both Daphne and Ruth are unreliable narrators. Daphne's start in life was bleak. I found the details of the Dust Bowl in 1930s Canada informative and distressing. Considering her early life of desperation and abuse, Daphne's first two murders are almost understandable. By her fourth we learn that she relishes the sense of power she has, deciding who lives and who dies. In her heyday she was beautiful, clever, flirtatious and inscrutable, all of which made her attractive to rich men. However, she could be mean, malevolent and greedy, her only concern in life being her own well-being. The information she is prepared to share with Ruth, and the general public, is carefully curated.
Ruth's involvement initially seems obvious, she's desperate to enhance her flagging career. As Ruth delves deeper into Daphne's past it soon becomes clear that she has an ulterior motive.
I enjoyed the way in which the popularity of the podcast, and Daphne's crimes, were discussed on message boards, with ridiculous theories and desperation to know where Daphne lived. We also see some of the more bizarre behaviours on social media with Daphne merchandise becoming popular and even an influencer giving advice on how to dress like Daphne during the time period in which she committed each murder.
The overarching question remains though, what is the motive behind each woman's actions? The mystery surrounding Ruth eventually clears but what she hopes to achieve is still vague. As for Daphne's motive, you'll just have to read the book yourself to find out.
The Six Murders Of Daphne St Clair by MacKenzie Common will be published on 19th June 2025 in hardback and ebook. The audiobook will be published on 26th June 2025. My thanks to NetGalley and Headline for a review copy.
Monday, 9 June 2025
#BlogTour The Woman Who Got Her Spark Back by Fiona Gibson
Meet Celia.
Life hasn’t worked out quite how she’d planned.
Since her
son left for university, Celia has felt stuck at home – battling with her
husband Geoff over control of the thermostat, and without the merest glint of a
social life. Her only joy comes from the plants she nurtures in her makeshift
plant hospital in their Glasgow flat.
Then three
unexpected things happen:
- She catches Geoff in bed with a secretary from
his sausage factory (no pun intended).
- Her high-flying best friend Amanda arrives on her
doorstep without warning (but with a very large suitcase).
- A tall handsome French teacher asks her to tend
his daughter’s cactus back to health.
Suddenly,
Celia finds her life in freefall, but she makes a decision: she won’t let this
be the end of her. She’ll bring herself back to life, just like the plants she
works her magic on. But just how do you change the habits of a lifetime?
Wednesday, 4 June 2025
The Protest by Rob Rinder
Rob’s participation in Who Do You Think You Are? retraced
the story of his Holocaust survivor grandfather and received a BAFTA. The BBC
series he presented, The Holocaust, My Family and Me, was aired to wide
critical acclaim and he has gone on to curate and present notable documentaries
on a range of topics, from international conflict to medieval history and,
recently, the history of prisons. In 2020, Rob was awarded an MBE for his
services to Holocaust education and an honorary doctorate for his legal work.
A regular host on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Rob co-hosts
BBC Two’s Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond The Lobby and recently appeared in a new
show about art and travel, The Grand Tour, which saw Rob and his co-host Rylan
retrace the footsteps of cultural greats around Italy.
Rob’s novels The Trial and The Suspect are inspired by his
experiences as a barrister.
Tuesday, 3 June 2025
Isabella's Not Dead by Beth Morrey
Monday, 2 June 2025
Some Of Us Are Liars by Fiona Cummins
Sunday, 1 June 2025
May 2025 Reads
My Twitter/X feed was filled for months with pre-publication
praise for The Midnight King by Tariq Ashkanani. I’m pleased to
say that the book lives up to the hype. Nathan Cole returns to his childhood
home following the suicide of his writer father. Discovering a manuscript that
tells the story of the exploits of a serial killer brings back troubling
memories for Nathan and leads the reader along a dark and sinister path.
A cheating husband forces Celia to re-evaluate her life in The
Woman Who Got Her Spark Back by Fiona Gibson. An accidental
pregnancy at the age of seventeen has resulted in Celia accepting that “good
enough” is all she’s entitled to. Discovering her husband’s affair and the
sudden reappearance of a long-lost friend sees Celia embrace a new, but not
drastically different, life. A change in her self-esteem and a hint of romance
make Celia realise what she is missing.
Lots of review books meant that I’d kept putting off my next
visit to Slough House but I’m desperate to get up to date for the new book due
to be published in September. My holiday resulted in me reading Joe Country
by Mick Herron, book 6 in the Slough House/Slow Horses series. The
ominous opening makes it clear that lives will be lost as the failed spies find
themselves in unfamiliar terrain trying to rescue the teenage son of Min
Harper. There’s also a new face at Slough House causing problems for Jackson
Lamb.
The Countdown Killer by Sam Holland is the
fourth book in the Major Crimes series and feels very much like the conclusion
of a storyline. DCI Cara Elliott and her team, still reeling from their
dealings with the serial killer known as The Puppet Master, find themselves
dealing with a new foe. Someone is kidnapping and carrying out gruesome acts of
retribution against individuals who seem to have gotten away with their crimes.
It soon becomes clear that there are links to a previous killer.
I’d heard so much praise for Broken Country by Clare
Leslie Hall that I wanted to see what all the buzz was about but was a tiny
bit hesitant that it might be a bit literary so saved it for my holiday
when I’d have plenty of time to devote to reading. I needn’t have worried as
this wonderful love story has got to be one of the easiest, and most absorbing,
books I’ve read this year. A love triangle, with devastating consequences, had
me completely captivated. I so wanted a happy ending for everyone.
Births, Deaths And Marriages by Laura Barnett is
likened to Four Weddings And A Funeral and One Day. Twenty years after meeting at university, six friends are brought together over the space of a year and we learn
if their lives have gone as they had hoped. All of the characters are perfectly
likeable, I just didn’t really engage with any of them. I did recognise the
feeling that at twenty you assume you’ll have your life sorted by the time you
are forty. This is a book that will probably resonate more with millennials.
My next read was for my new book group. Stolen by Rebecca
Muddiman is set in the northeast and starts with a young mother being
assaulted on a lonely country road and her baby goes missing. A police
investigation draws a blank. While an easy read and filled with emotion I found
the lead detective (this is the first in a series) to be one-dimensional.
I was over the moon to get a review copy of my next read, The
Killer Question by Janice Hallett. Being a fan of the author and
hearing her talk about the book at Bay Tales 25 I had a vague idea of what to
expect. Fans are in for a treat, this is her best yet. Based around a regular
quiz night at an isolated country pub, there’s murder, deceit, blackmail and,
possibly worst of all, cheating! All told via emails, texts and WhatsApp
messages. You won’t want to put this down once you start it.
Another exciting review book was Some Of Us Are Liars
by Fiona Cummins which opens with a court case following the death of a
four-year-old child. The person on trial is the child’s aunt. Over the course
of the book, we learn about the events leading up to the tragedy, events which
tore apart a close-knit family. Another of those books that is impossible to
put down once you start reading.
I rounded off the month with Isabella’s Not Dead from
Beth Morrey. There is a mystery involved in the story when a group of
women meet up forty years after playing hockey together at school, but one of
them is missing. Isabella simply disappeared fifteen years ago, even her best
friend lost touch. Some people think she’s dead, however, her best friend is
determined to track her down and find out what happened. The book is filled
with all the humour and charm you would expect from the author.
Only one audiobook this month, The Antique Hunter’s Death
On The Red Sea by C. L. Miller. Freya Lockwood and her aunt find
themselves on a cruise for antique collectors as they try to track down the
mysterious “Collector”, someone who trades priceless antiques on the black
market. Aunt Carole is as hilarious as she was in the first book, however, she
couldn’t save the story which just seemed to keep going around in circles.
Publication dates to watch for:-
We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough will be
published on 5/6/25 in hardback, ebook and audio format.
The Countdown Killer by Sam Holland will be
published on 5/6/25 in paperback, ebook and audio format.
The Woman Who Got Her Spark Back by Fiona Gibson
will be published on 7/6/25 in paperback, ebook and audio format.
Births, Deaths And Marriages by Laura Barnett
will be published 12/6/25 in hardback, ebook and audio format.
Some Of Us Are Liars by Fiona Cummins will be
published on 19/6/25 in hardback, ebook and audio format.
Isabella’s Not Dead by Beth Morrey will be
published on 19/6/25 in hardback, ebook and audio format.
The Killer Question by Janice Hallett will be
published on 4/9/25 in hardback and ebook format.
Deadline by Steph McGovern
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