Julia (AUDIOBOOK) – Sandra Newman, Narrated by: Louise Brealey – 07.06.25

I remember reading 1984 in the late 1980s when I was eighteen and being completely blown away by it – the scene where Winston realises that there had been a viewscreen behind the painting the whole time made my heart drop. I re-read it recently in preparation for reading this and was somehow less impacted by it (perhaps because I was no longer surprised?!)

So, Julia was Winston’s love interest in 1984 – I strongly recommend reading that book first if you haven’t already, and this new novel is telling the same story but from her point of view.

My feelings about the book went on a bit of a rollercoaster – at first I really didn’t like Julia’s character – she seemed more than happy to use her sexuality for personal gain and there were several quite explicit scenes which I thought were unnecessary. However, like many good books, the character’s journey, both themselves, and in the readers opinion of them changes as they experience new things and learn more about the world, and as we experience and learn more about their backstory which led them to the behaviours and choices that they made.

By the end of the book I felt much more sympathetic towards Julia and her part in things – she was very much as much of a victim of the controlling and terrifying state as Winston had been and we almost feel her betrayal and growing awareness of it all the more.

A clever and unnerving book with an ending which just draws you into a vicious circle of depressing understanding of the worst of humanity.

Never Flinch: Holly Gibney Book 4 – Stephen King (AUDIOBOOK)Narrated by: Jessie Mueller – 29.05.25

I love Stephen King’s Holly Gibney books. She is such a good character – high functioning autistic and very truthful and insightful and brave. In this book at least two threads weave together – one of a serial killer who promises to kill thirteen innocent and one guilty person, and the other, Holly taking on a job as a bodyguard to a radical feminist writer/speaker who has been getting death threats.

Holly as a body guard is a bit of a stretch as she is not a very physical person but on the other hand she is quick witted and intuitive and has got out of many dangerous situations in the past, and the feminist who hired her wanted female intelligence over male brawn.

Some reviewers have complained that this series of Stephen King books have been too political, but I don’t mind that (maybe because I seem to be mostly in agreement with his leanings!).

Once again poor Barbara (younger sister of Jerome, who sometimes helps out at Holly’s detective agency) gets caught up in dangerous situations, although this time there is nothing supernatural in the plot, just a good old fashioned murder mystery thriller.

I found the novel to be very enjoyable and I can’t wait for the next Holly Gibney books (I certainly hope there will be more!).

Strange New World: Dr. Greta Helsing, Book 4 – Vivian Shaw (AUDIOBOOK) – 27.05.25

Strange New World: Dr. Greta Helsing, Book 4

I have loved the Greta Helsing series, one of my favourite urban fantasy series with a strong female lead character and lots of fun mythology, humour and gripping plots.

That said, I can’t help feeling that this book was not quite up to the standard of the previous books. I liked the whole angels and demons trying to get along bit, which although very reminiscent of Good Omens, was different enough to be not just a rip off, but it felt almost just like dragging out things from the previous books rather than coming up with something new and exciting.

Hmmm, I feel bad being negative at all, because as I said already this is a very good series that I am enjoying very much.

I just looked at other people’s reviews on Amazon and a few are saying that this is going to be the final book in the series. I hope they are wrong because I want more!

James – Percival Everett (BOOKGROUP)(AUDIOBOOK) Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman – 20.05.25

This was my book group read for the summer and I read (or listened) to it during my book group holiday from our home in Belfast to the Isle of Wight. I listened on the flight over as well as on my two early morning runs that I did on the trip so that was fun!

This is a retelling of the Huckleberry Finn story but from the perspective of Jim the slave. I kind of remember the plot of Huck Finn (I should really have re-read it before tackling this), I’m sure I read it at school (a LONG time ago!!) and it’s one of those stories that is just out there in our western cultural heritage.

I found the book to be very emotive in many ways, for example reading about the way James schooled the other slaves to hide their intelligence and appear stupid and meek because if the white folks felt threatened by them they would treat them worse, and of course the violence and casual de-humanising that was almost normal.

There are many stories about the terrible atrocities of slavery and racism but it was still shocking and hard to read some of the scenes of brutality and callous treatment of people of colour by white people and even by people of African ancestry but with pale enough skin to pass as white.

I didn’t see the ending coming, although I should have looking back, which is the mark of a story very well told.

I really liked the narrator’s voice!

Whisper in the Wind: Fetch Phillips, Book 4 Audiobook – Luke Arnold (Author, Narrator) – 12.05.25

I really like this series of fantasy noir.

Fetch Phillips was a private eye in Sunder city – once home to all manner of magical creatures but now since the event that Fetch is at least partly responsible for that removed all magical power from the world, these creatures at best must find new ways to live and at worst sicken and die. Currently Fetch has turned his back on sleuthing to run his friend’s abandoned café and spends his days making coffee and bacon rolls. When he shelters some young people from corrupt policemen the café gets drawn into a youth culture of rebellion and blurred lines between good and bad and going too far.

Fetch is irascible but good hearted and filled with guilt and a desire to do the right thing and support the oppressed and can’t resist following clues to get to the heart of things. The book ends on something of a cliff hanger tease which leaves me eager for the next instalment.

Sunrise on the Reaping: A Hunger Games Novel – Suzanne Collins (Audiobook) Narrated by – Jefferson White – 07.05.25

I approached this hunger games prequel with a mixture of irritation and excitement – irritation because it’s basically the same story again – noble but powerless teen sacrificially causes themselves to be picked for the reaping and tries their best to be defiant and stand up to the terrible capital society and government while also staying alive and helping their weaker allies; and excitement because of course I’m going to read it for all the reasons above!

This is Haymitch Abernathy (the drunken mentor from district 12 who looked after Catniss) ‘s backstory and after reading all the way to the end you can very much understand how he ended up so jaded and so dependent on alcohol to numb his pain. Oh my word, without wanting to give spoilers, all I can say is I found the ending of this book to be so moving and I felt outraged and hollowed out by what happened to poor Haymitch.

Underscore: The Vinyl Detective, Book 8 (AUDIOBOOK) – Andrew Cartmel, Narrated by: Finlay Robertson – 04.06.25

In my opinion this 8th instalment in the Vinyl Detective series is a return to form with all the old characters getting together to hunt down an old LP of a movie soundtrack from the 1960s Italian crime caper genre. The grandchildren of the composer/musician want to remaster and re-release the soundtrack from an immaculate copy of the vinyl record if one (or maybe bits of several) can be found and they also want to clear the name of said musician who was suspected of murdering a diver who worked on the film with whom he was rumoured to be having an affair.

As the team follow leads to hunt down the illusive record, people they track down who were connected with the original start turning up dead and they are once again caught up in murderous and dangerous adventures!

The usual banter, cat talk and foodie fun peppers the story which I did enjoy.

Bad Moon: Elizabeth Cage, Book 4 – Jodi Taylor, Narrated by: Zara Ramm – 31.05.25

I’m pretty sure I’ve read everything that Jodi Taylor has had published, and I think that this series about Elizabeth Cage is my favourite (along with the Frogmorton Farm series)! It has the typical Taylor humour and great characters with lots of depth of emotion and gripping plot and the added element not of time travel in this series but of magical realism/paranormal/supernatural stuff/mythology come to life – Urban fantasy, I guess (does everything need to be labelled or slotted into a genre?).

Elizabeth’s character is an endearing mix of lack of self confidence and ballsy girl power (when she let’s it out). It has a timeless nostalgic feel and I can’t wait for the next instalment

In this novel Elizabeth is allowed to remember some big scary things about her past that had been magically hidden from her before to shield her from the pain of knowing and has to decide whether to remember or forget again. I would recommend reading the previous books in the series first.

The Magicians Series – Lev Grossman

The Magicians: Book 1 – Lev Grossman – 05.05.25, The Magician King: The Magicians, Book 2 – Lev Grossman – 20.05.25, The Magician’s Land: The Magicians, Book 3  – Lev Grossman – 31.05.25

I have to say that this series really grew on me. At the end of the first book, I was ready to write a quite scathing review along the lines of : ‘If the Harry Potter books and the Narnia Chronicles got married and moved the America, and had a baby that grew up to be the worst kind of winey bratty American teenager then that would be this book!’ and in a sense, that, I think is a fair review of book one, but perhaps the main protagonist, Quentin, who found out that magic is real not as an abused eleven year old (like Harry Potter) but as a normal (ish) American 18 year old, and the magical school he ended up in was college rather than high school, needed to be so objectionable so we (the readers) could see the journey he went on because, to be fair, he does a lot of growing up by the end of the series.

As well as Harry Potter parallels, the very obvious homage to the Narnia chronicles was a series of books Quentin read repeatedly and loved as a child where English children find their way into a magical land called ‘Fillory’ and have adventures with talking animals and magical beasts and become kings and queens.

The Fillory books and the real family they describe feature heavily in this series because it turns out that they too are real and Quentin finds a way to enter the magical land.

At first this annoyed me – I thought this is basically just fan fiction about Narnia and Harry potter but with swearing and sex, but with more pondering I’m coming around to thinking that including mythology from these books in a new work of fiction is no different than the many fantasy stories that draw on classical mythology, just that the source material is less old.

I did find myself becoming more and more invested in the characters of Quentin and his friends, and in the fate of the magical world of Fillory, and ended up really enjoying the reading experience.

Conversations with Spirits – E. O. Higgins – 22.04.25

From the title of this book (and also the brief synopsis) I was expecting something supernatural, but actually the title is referring to brandy rather than beings (banshee’s bogeymen – I’m trying and failing to come up with a pithy alliterative quip!).

I’m not sure if I liked it or not – the main character is quite unsympathetic – a raving drunk who is ill and making himself worse with his hopeless addiction (I know that addiction is a disease and not a character flaw, but this man just seems to wallow in it – I want someone to help him to sober up) who is approached by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, no less, and employed to be an objective judge of a medium and magician that he (Doyle) is taken with.

Is it a comic farce? Is it a detective story? Is it a journey of discovery? Maybe all or none, I don’t know. I quite liked it (I think).