Sunday, 1 June 2025

May 2025 Reads

 


I have no idea where May went, one moment I was posting a round-up of my April reads and the next it's June. The month started well with a holiday. I used the holiday as an opportunity to catch up with a few books on my TBR pile. Returning home was a shock to the system as I felt as if I was chasing my tail trying to catch up. Unfortunately, this means I've fallen a little behind with reading review books. June is going to be all about getting up to date.

The month began with the incredibly creepy We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough. Emily and Freddie buy a remote country house and Emily is convinced it’s haunted. Freddie tries to pass the events off as post-sepsis hallucinations following a traumatic accident that saw Emily in a coma for months. As Emily investigates you wonder if there is a supernatural element or a serious case of gaslighting taking place.

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.


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