October Reading 2026

I was looking forward to reading a number of books in October and in general they lived up to my expectations.  These are the books that I finished in October

General Fiction

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

This novel has been out for a few years and I remember seeing it everywhere, so when it was sitting there, unclaimed, on the library shelf I decided to give it a try. For some reason the title made me think that this was going to be a story about Asian Americans. I couldn't have been more wrong! The Heaven & Earth Grocery store is a story set in the first part of the 20th Century in a mixed Jewish and Black community in a small town in Pennsylvania, although over time the Jewish community moved away from the neighborhood where the titular store was located. But the owners, Moshe and Chona, kept the store and lived above it. Eventually the whole community comes together to save a deaf black teenager from the people who want to put him in an asylum. This is a story of outsiders, a story about disabilities and a story about sexual predation, all of which sounds like it could be very depressing. But McBride has a humorous style and his depictions of all the residents of the town sometimes made me laugh out loud. The main reason to read this novel is for the multitude of characters that McBride creates. From a plot point of view, I kept wondering how all the strands of the story would come together by the end. Truthfully, I think he cheats a bit at the end by not going into too much detail and not dealing with a big question - wouldn’t the disappearance of a well known citizen have caused issues? But maybe it’s better not to think too deeply about it. 

Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead

Ray Carney and his friend and mentor Pepper are back in this third novel by Colson Whitehead.  Although Ray wants to go straight the world of crime draws him back in ostensibly to make a little extra cash to lend to his wife Elizabeth who has started her own travel agency. I wrote about this novel separately here. I highly recommend this because Whitehead is a brilliant writer who combines plot, character and sense of place seamlessly. Set in the 1980's in New York, the city is as much a character as Ray and Pepper, who are each memorable in their own way. 

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson 

This was a re-read for me because the BlueSky Book Group was reading it this month. I don’t want to say too much about this classic except if you’ve never read it, what are you waiting for?

Our Noble Selves by Kate Atkinson

As usual, Kate Atkinson wrote a novel I enjoyed although I don't think it is as brilliant as some of her earlier novels. This one is centered around the 1951 Festival of Britain (of which I knew nothing) but also contains a murder (maybe?) mystery. The mystery is cleared up (cleaned up?) a little too neatly for my taste but the main character, Harry Flynn, is well developed as are all the other quirky characters surrounding him. And Kate Atkinson is an excellent writer. More of my thoughts are here.

May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry

A Booker Prize long-listed novel about a curator who takes on a commission to create historically accurate rooms at an old palace. She chooses as her time period the reign of a King who never wanted to become King and whose life is full of ambiguities. Perry is a poet and this novel is beautifully written on a sentence level. The plot and characterization (and even the setting) did not appeal to me however. My full thoughts are here.  One irony is that I read two books in a row that contained lots (lots!) of details about things that would be used to dress a display room. One (the Atkinson novel) entertained me, the other (the Perry novel) I found tedious by the end.

Mysteries

Murder in Purple and Gold by Lindsey Davis

The 14th of the Flavia Albia series, set in ancient Rome during the reign of the Emperor Domitian, finds Flavia Albia and her family returning to Rome from their extended trip to the South. While walking her dog the first night home she (really her dog) stumbles across the dead body of a young, upcoming charioteer named Lepo. While she is perfectly content to simply report this to the authorities and not take it on as a case, he husband urges her to solve the crime. He is a supporter of the "Golds", a chariot racing team, and he suspects that one of the "Golds" will be accused of murdering Lepo, who drives for the "Purples".  What makes this a little tricky (besides the fact that Flavia' father is a "Blue" supporter) is that the "Golds" and the "Purples" are new teams started by the Emperor Domitian and supported by Big Money. Flavia (and pretty much everyone else in Rome) would like to avoid having anything to do with Domitian. Thus begins a mystery set among the racing world. Davis includes a lot of detail about the racing world but, unlike a few of her books, she manages to incorporate it within the plot and not have too much narrative (at least until the end, during the final race).  In reading this I realized that at this point the number of volumes in the Flavia Albia series has gone well past the number in Davis' Didius Falco series (Flavia Albia's father).  In general I like both series, they generally have good mysteries, I like the characters and I like the ancient Rome setting (which Davis makes seem not that different from living in modern Rome). For a while, I thought Davis had lost her way with the Flavia Albia series, incorporating too much of her research into the books as straight narrative, but the last two have been very good. 

The Crossroads by C.J. Box

Over the years that I have been reading the Joe Pickett series by C.J. Box I've always said that in real life Joe would have died in each book because he always stupidly got himself into situations that seemed to have no way out. But a Deus Ex Machina (usually his friend Nate) always swooped in to save him. This novel begins with the news that Joe has been shot and left for dead. As he lays unconscious in a hospital, MaryBeth at his side, his three daughters team up to discover what happened to their dad. None of them are sure that the new Sheriff in town will do his job (the Sheriffs in this series have up to this book all been terrible).  Joe's truck was found on a road with three ranch entrances at the end. Each of the ranch owners has had a run in with Joe. Which was it? Or was it someone else? As usual, I was entertained by this novel. Box has gotten better at writing women over the years ( he started out terrible) and I enjoyed the three daughters although he did occasionally fall back on stereotypes. 

Nonfiction

Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry

This memoir by author Sarah Perry is about one specific period in the author's life: the death of her much-loved father-in-law David. The memoir begins with a day out for David, Sarah and David's son (Sarah's husband) Robert. David seems fine. Three weeks later when they meet David again Sarah can tell that something is terribly wrong with him.  Almost immediately David is diagnosed with esophageal cancer and he dies at home shortly thereafter. I'll be honest and say that I found this memoir very triggering and almost gave up on it a few times. She is unflinching in her description of the very fast process of David becoming ill and dying. But I kept on because I also felt that she completely captured the sense of helplessness that loving caregivers feel, not so much in failing to stop the death but in simply knowing what to do on a daily basis. And she completely captured how grateful one feels for the professional caregivers who calmly know what to do. This memoir was longlisted for the 2026 Women's Prize for Non Fiction. 

Our Noble Selves

The Book: Harry Flynn came back from World War II a broken man. As a young journalist he was captured in Singapore by the Japanese and, as a prisoner of war, he was put to work building the infamous Burma-Thailand railroad, a project that killed thousands of prisoners of war (for background you might watch The Bridge Over the River Kwai). Harry makes it back alive although he was listed as Missing, Presumed Dead.  Life seems hopeless. “It wasn’t that he wanted to be dead, he simply couldn’t be bothered with the tiresome business of being alive. It seemed ironic, having spent the last three years struggling to do just that.”  But then he realized he’d “been given back his life and he was going to have to live it, whether he liked it or not.” As the novel starts it is 1949 and Harry has left an ill advised suburban marriage (complete with a step-daughter named Veronica and a little dog named Mrs. Betty) and is working at a dead end job. Then one day he is approached by his old boss and asked to work on The Festival of Britain, a national festival with exhibitions to be held in 1951 and to be built from scratch on the south bank of the Thames. He agrees although he doesn't really have a job description. He's there to "take up some slack" and to compile a poetry anthology. Turn the page and it is now 1951 and the festival is on the verge of opening. It turns out that Harry works in a small office in Savoy Court and every part of the festival having to do with the display rooms, including the sourcing of materials, comes through his office. Harry works with two other men, both are veterans and none of them like to talk about what they did in the War. There is also an errand boy (known as The Boy) who they all take under their wing. The job has been good for Harry, he is starting to feel more alive. All is going well until the night he is asked to meet a young French woman for a drink. The next morning Harry can't remember what happened after the woman left him at the pub but the woman is missing and many people seem to suspect that Harry killed her.  And on top of all that, Veronica and Mrs. Betty show up on his doorstep.

The Author: Kate Atkinson

Genre: Historical Mystery 

Length: 504 pp. (e-reader, ipad mini)

One good thing:  I knew nothing about The Festival of Britain before reading this book. As usual Kate Atkinson has done stellar research and incorporated it into the plot, most often in incredibly humorous ways. I was fascinated.

One not-so-great thing: It takes a while for the “mystery” plot to get going and it all gets “solved” or tied up a little too easily for my taste.  But that often happens in these type of “ordinary man caught up in strange circumstances” stories.

Four Doorways: Story; Characters; Setting; Language**** 

Although my summary makes this sound like a ordinary thriller, Kate Atkinson doesn't write ordinary thrillers. In fact the mystery plot seems secondary to the rest of the novel and truthfully gets wrapped up too easily. If you are looking for a plot driven book that takes off from the beginning, this might not be for you. But if you are ready for a slow build, it does eventually get going. There are points when a reader must wonder how she is going to draw the threads of the story together into a reasonable ending. How does the contest for a Festival Cake fit into the plot? What about the young women who are supposed to roam around the festival grounds selling Oranges?  

But in the end the plot isn't really the point; it is the characters and the setting that draw the reader in. Atkinson’s strong point is always her characters. As usual, Atkinson introduces a plethora of quirky characters in quirky situations, each character completely fleshed out so that all of their strange tics and flaws (and they have many) seem perfectly natural. Be warned, Harry’s back story is very sad and even though Atkinson doesn’t dwell on the details of Harry’s time in the prisoner of war camp, it permeates the novel. Since it takes a good long while for the plot to get going, readers may feel the novel is too dark despite the humor strewn throughout. (It does get lighter once the mystery plot builds up.) 

For those who love a good setting, her descriptions of the festival grounds made me wish I could have seen it. (To help things along she includes insets from plans of the festival grounds before each chapter. I kept thinking that Walt Disney had similar ideas when he created Epcot). It is clear that Atkinson did a ton of research into the festival but I did not feel she let the research overwhelm her plot. On the other hand if you have little patience for minutiae, you may grow tired of the descriptions. 

Atkinson is one of my favorite writers. Although this novel doesn't begin to approach the brilliance of Life After Life, it is enjoyable and she does create a believable character in Harry Flynn, a man who went through hell in the War and sometimes is just hanging on by a thread. By the way, the title is taken from a toast made by the Army on Wednesdays:  To our Noble Selves.

****"It seems to me that all works of fiction and narrative nonfiction are broadly made up of four experiential elements: story, character, setting, and language. I call these “doorways,” because when we open a book, read the first few pages, and choose to go on, we enter the world of that book. And I’ve come to believe we can help readers better choose their next book by looking at the proportion of these four elements."  Nancy Pearl on the Four Doorways.

Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead

It is the 1980's and New York City is coming out if its 1970’s bankruptcy crisis. Ed Koch is mayor and things are looking up for some people. There is a building boom, with skyscrapers rising every day, but the city's poorest denizens live on the street often literally underground. The city is graffiti covered and "Escape From New York" is playing in the theaters. As the novel opens, Ray Carney, who has been selling Sterling Furniture from his store in Harlem for over 20 years has been chosen by Sterling as "Regional Dealer of the Month - Northeast."  Today Ray is being interviewed over the phone for the Company’s magazine. Ray is pretty sure he is the first Black Dealer to ever be chosen for this honor. 

Of course, over the years Ray has also had a from-time-to-time side business of fencing stolen property, but Sterling doesn’t need to know that. Then Ray receives a message from his friend Martin Green that says “The new samples have arrived”. This is a code that there is a fence “opportunity” right up Ray’s alley. Ray intends to turn it down (he has mostly gone straight these days) and only have a nice dinner with Green. But when Ray arrives at his friend’s office he discovers Green bound and gagged and two white men with pistols waiting for him. They are looking for Uncle Rich, a legendary uptown criminal mastermind who Ray only knew as Dwayne. Ray, who had just been thinking that he had attained all he could ever want (a wife he loved, two successful children, a beautiful home and the highest accolades in his business) finds himself drawn into the crime world. Again. 

This is the third book in the Ray Carney trilogy that Whitehead has been writing over the years. The first book was set in the 1960's, the second book was in the 1970's and now Ray is living through the 1980's in New York City, a city he both loves and doesn't trust. A city that will use you up and spit you out. A city of opportunity (if it doesn't destroy you). 

New York City, specifically but not exclusively Harlem, is as much a character in these novels as Ray Carney. You not only see the city, you smell it and feel it as Ray walks its dirty streets. And yet, you see why Ray loves it. 

The plot is divided into three parts, each set in different years. This novel is really three inter-connected novellas, a structure that I'm not fond of but that worked perfectly well for me here. In the first section, set in 1981, Ray is drawn, once again, back into crime. In the second part, set in 1983, Ray's friend and mentor Pepper is also drawn back into crime when Ray's wife Elizabeth asks him to act as bodyguard to one of her travel agency clients. Although their adventures cause each of them to decide to pull back from crime, they are both drawn back in when, in the third part, set in 1986, Ray's nephew needs them. 

Generally this type of structure lacks propulsion for me but Whitehead is able to keep it going. He writes in a very cinematic style, drawing in the reader at the beginning of each section. Then he uses carefully placed flashbacks and memories to fill in the gaps as the story goes along. He is so good at voices that he can give you a narrative info dump without you really realizing it. He can show you the actions that took place in the past at the same time as he is portraying the actions taking place in the present. I wish I could force every writer who thinks that writing about two periods means you have to put each period in a different chapter to study how Whitehead does it. 

But it is his character creation that clinches it for me. He always starts by giving his main characters a good reason for being drawn into the crime world and it always involves family (by blood or choice). In the first part Ray tells himself that he wants extra cash to help his wife Elizabeth who is starting her own travel agency and wants to expand. But no bank will lend to her. In the second part, Pepper simply can't say no to Elizabeth's request because he loves the Carneys like family. In the third part, there is an actual family member involved. 

But even as Ray and Pepper have these reasons for going along with a plan, in reality they are both crooks at heart. As Ray thinks: “He’d always blamed other people for dragging him into their messes, but all bullshit aside he chose the chaos himself. Deep down he loved the chaos as much as the next crooked soul.”  

As with all of the best novels, Whitehead doesn't just tell a story, he asks questions. In this novel there is the question of nature vs. nurture. There is also the question each character must ask (that another character directly asks), what is it that is truly of value to YOU? There are also questions about colonialism and art theft by colonialists and others. And there is the question of when it is time to hang it all up and retire, and what retirement means. 

And then there are the parts of the novel that simply appealed to me, that made me smile or laugh out loud. For instance, Ray has no patience with anyone who voted for Ronald Reagan. Toward the beginning he is impatient with former hippies that sold out and voted for Reagan. By the end, Ray fires one of his sales associates who admitted that he voted for Reagan not once but twice. 

I think I read that Whitehead only intended a trilogy for Ray Carney and in a way I'm sad because I would like to see Ray in the 1990's.  I also read somewhere that there is to be a series based on the novels and I'm intrigued. In the meantime, if this is the final novel it was a fine one. 

    

  

Crown Awards 2026 Longlist - Historical Fiction

The Historical Writers' Association has announced its 2026 Longlist for the Crown Awards. The 2026 Crown Awards (Debut, Non-Fiction, and Gold) are for full length books published for the first time in English in the UK between 1 April 2025 - 31 March 2026. The Gold Crown is for authors who have previously published full length novels. Below is the longlist for the Gold Crown.

I’ve read three of the longlisted books: The Bookbinder’s Secret, The Art of a Lie, and Nonesuch.  Click through to read my thoughts, but I can tell you that I liked each of them. I probably liked Nonesuch the best even though it has fantasy elements in it. It is a brilliant depiction of living through The Blitz. And I say that as someone who is not always a fan of WWII fiction. The Art of a Lie has a convoluted plot which may attract some people and repel others. I was fine with it. I only recently read The Bookbinder's Secret (last month, in fact) and I thought it was a debut novel but I must be wrong. I liked it but did criticize some stylistic choices. 

It is always a good sign for a longlist when I've liked the books on it that I have already read, so I intend to look up some of the others. I already have The Pretender. It's been waiting for me to find a big chunk of time (it's a big one!). 

Here is the list (the descriptions are from the HWA website). 

LONGLIST

The Bookbinder’s Secret by AD Bell (HQ)

An apprentice bookbinder at the turn of the 20th century is drawn into a dangerous intrigue. At once an enthralling mystery and a love letter to the lost art of bookbinding.

The Tarot Reader of Versailles by Anya Bergman (Manilla Press)

A rich blend of meticulous historical research into the extraordinary life of Marie-Anne Lenormand; magic, political intrigue at the heart of the French Revolution. It offers a vivid description of a world on the brink of violent transformation and its possible wider repercussions. 

The Venetian Heretic by Christian Cameron (Orion)

A vivid historical escape to Venice through the story of an Englishman who left his life of slavery behind him. This masterful storytelling dives into the streets of Venice bringing intrigue, sword fighting, revelries, and conspiracy.

The Last Witch by CJ Cooke (HarperCollins)

The true story of Helena Scheuberin’s defiance against one of Europe’s most notorious witchfinders is a gripping fusion of well-researched history, gothic horror, and psychological suspense. Its haunting atmosphere and fierce female solidarity make it a powerful and unforgettable historical novel.

A Scrooge Mystery by Andreina Cordani (Zaffre)

A very original idea and a fabulously fun read. This is a totally absorbing sequel to A Christmas Carol which transports you back to Dickens’s London. 

The Pretender by Jo Harkin (Bloomsbury)

A fictionalised telling of the early life of Lambert Simnel – pretender to the throne of Henry VII – which combines enviable stylistic verve with a wonderfully warm heart.

Lion Hearts by Dan Jones (Head of Zeus — an Aries Book)

The wars in France have created an unbreakable brotherhood that only fighting for your very survival can do. The Essex Dogs once fought and killed for each other. And must do again, reunited in Lion Hearts. Dan Jones gives us an epic conclusion to a truly memorable trilogy.

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (Swift Press)

A masterfully-told story which immerses you in a small close-knit rural community in 18th-century Massachusetts, told by an unusual but totally relatable main protagonist: wife, mother, and compassionate midwife. We could not put this book down.

The Winter Warriors by Olivier Norek translated by Nick Caistor (Open Borders Press)

Cold, brutal, gripping. Grounded in reality and drawing from actual eyewitness accounts, The Winter Warriors is an inspiring retelling of an almost-forgotten war.

The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Mantle)

Sprightly crime caper set in a confectionery shop in vivacious Georgian London. Threaded with twists and turns and memorable characters, sparkling with wit and pathos.

Nonesuch by Francis Spufford (Faber & Faber)

A rich, immersive and assured blending of history and fantasy set in a claustrophobic World War Two London. Full of stylish prose; genre-bending too.

A Far-flung Life by ML Stedman (Doubleday)

Poignant and tragic family saga from the late 1950s set on a vast Western Australia sheep station; very memorably portrayed. Bleak, beautiful and epic, yet full of character nuance. 

The HWA Gold Crown Award judges are: Amy McElroy (chair), Ellen Alpsten, Rebecca Batley, Sharon Bennett Connolly, Jean Fullert

August (and some July) Reading

As usual, I escaped the heat and humidity of the St. Louis summer and took myself up to the Canadian/Minnesota border at the end of July. Because I am always gone at the end of July I usually combine my July and August reads into one very long post. This year, however, I broke with that tradition and I published some of July early. This post contains books I read the last week of July as well as the books I read in August.

Most people take light reading with them on vacation but because for so many years this time at the lake was the only time of the year when I had uninterrupted reading time, I’ve always brought longer and heavier books with me as well as the lighter reading. This year I took a number of books nominated for various prizes.  It was a lot of historical fiction and maybe it's time to read something more modern next month.

The following are the books I finished by the end of August.

Boundary Waters by Tristan Hughes

Arthur Stanton, living in Montreal in the early 1800’s, feels that he is a disappointment to his father and, on the spur of the moment, he signs on to be an apprentice clerk for The XY Company, a fur trading company. Setting out for Lake Superior with a group of Voyageurs to bring back a cache of furs taken from Missouri country, Arthur begins to learn the trade and also learn about the Company’s chief competitor, The North West Company. But when the furs turn out to be missing the trip turns into a quest to find them before the competitors can. When I saw this novel on the longlist for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize I knew I wanted to read it. And what better place to read a novel that partially takes place on Rainy Lake and the Rainy River than sitting out on a deck overlooking waters that flow into Rainy Lake? Hughes is very good at creating a sense of place and as far as I can tell (and I’ve read a lot on this subject) he gets the details of a fur trade expedition pretty correct. The plot is good. The “side” characters (the Voyageurs) are interesting. Where the novel falls down for me is in the main character. My biggest issue was that Arthur is an idiot. I get that having the point of view be from a novice is helpful because the reader can learn along with the novice, but I just found his ineptitude annoying. The other problem is the woman character. There is a half-Native American woman who Arthur and one other character pine over but we see her only through Arthur’s eyes and he puts her on a pedestal. He never understands her. In the end I can recommend this if you want to get a good feel for the early 19th century fur trade but only if you don’t mind an inept main character who regularly makes dumb decisions  

Benbecula by Graeme MacRae Burnet

It is 1857 on the Scottish island of Benbecula and the McPhee family (father, mother, four adult siblings and an aunt) is struggling. Like many of the people on the island, they are poor. Then the third son, Angus, begins to show signs of madness but the family does not have the funds to pay for his commitment and they are not poor ENOUGH to qualify for charity. Five years later, Angus’ brother Malcom is living alone in the house and thinking back to those days and the horrific crime Angus committed. But is Malcom also going mad? This is the second Burnet book I have read (the first was “His Bloody Project”) and in both he takes an episode of true crime from long (long!) ago and turns it into a novel, with an afterward that goes into detail about the documents he reviewed. This is a short novel (170 pages including the afterward) but because it goes back and forth between Malcom’s current state of mind and Malcom’s recollection of the events five years earlier, I thought the plot lacked propulsion. Because everything is told from Malcom’s point of view, and he is a somewhat unreliable narrator, I didn’t get a feel for the other characters. I thought it would give me a good sense of place and time and it does portray well the poverty at this time, but I didn’t particularly have a vivid picture of Benbecula (compared, say, to the picture of a Scottish island in John of John). It is well written on a sentence level and was shortlisted for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize. It was also longlisted for the 2026 Crime Writer’s Association Silver Dagger Award. But it just didn’t do it for me.

The Artist and The Feast by Lucy Steeds

It is 1920 and Joseph Adelaide has come from London to the South of France to interview the reclusive (fictional) painter Edouard Tartuffe. Tartuffe lives in a dilapidated farm house with his niece Ettie who keeps house for him, handles all his mail and finds the props he needs for his paintings. Tartuffe, who has a temper, is uninterested in having visitors. But when Ettie points out that Joseph would be the perfect model for Tartuffe’s next painting he relents. As the hot summer goes on, Joseph and Ettie forge a bond that is partly the result of their relationship with the abusive artist. The characters in this novel are fictional but it is clear Steeds has done her research. The characters are well drawn and she creates a good sense of place. (I wanted to visit the south of France after reading this - but with air conditioning.) The plot holds together but her choice of structure is one I often have issues with - the novel is told through the points of view of Joseph and Ettie told in alternating chapters. As usual, I found that this alternating point of view structure stalled the forward movement of the plot a bit - at least for me. This novel won the Waterstones Prize for debut fiction and was Waterstones book of the year for 2025. It was also on the longlist for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction. If this type of structure does not bother you, I recommend it  

Angel Down by Daniel Kraus

The Americans have entered WWI and Cyril Bagger, son of a bishop who perished on the Lusitania, unbeliever, con man, and failed draft evader, has managed to stay alive by keeping himself on grave digging duty  But then Bagger and four other men the commander considers expendable are given the task of entering No Man’s Land to find a wounded soldier, who is shrieking non-stop. However, it turns out this is no wounded soldier but an otherworldly being who could have the power to stop the conflict. But will each man’s greed destroy that possibility? And why does Bagger feel that he may have been specially chosen?  I loved this novel but I recognize it probably is not for everyone. The first wonderful thing about this novel is the structure, one long sentence with each paragraph beginning “and …”. Very early in the novel Kraus clues us in that this structure is meant to symbolize The War. 

… Bagger, already weighed down in mud and blood, further heavies in the dreary certainty that the shriek will never end, just like the war will never end, like the carnage won't ever end, it’s a sentence in a book careening without periods, gasping with too many commas, a sentence that, once begun, can’t ever be stopped, a sentence doomed to loop back on itself to form a terrible black wheel that, sooner or later, will drag each and every person to their grave …

I worried that I would find this structure annoying but in the end I found it very effective. The second wonderful thing about this novel is how it puts the reader right into the absolute hellscape that was WWI. I’m a sucker for WWI books and have read many novels set during that period and immediately after. Many of them graphically describe life in the trenches. But this novel goes beyond graphic descriptions and piles it on until it becomes almost unbearable to read, the way it was unbearable for the men fighting the war. Again, very effective. The third wonderful thing is that the point of view character is American, an easily recognizable type of American. Few really good WWI books are from the American point of view. We came into that war late and it is overshadowed in our memories by WWII. We lost fewer men in WWI than the other fighting powers. In fact there is a portion of the novel where Bagger comes across a French deserter who taunts him about this. The next wonderful thing is that the plot moves along, as Bagger must save this otherworldly being and bring it to headquarters while the armies are on the move and the fighting goes on. Finally, and maybe best of all, this is a novel of ideas. So many ideas. Faith, family ties (and the lack), racism, greed, and whether there really could be an end to war  After all, The War to End all Wars didn’t do that. And it is a good reminder of the carnage and hell of war when those fighting today can do it by robot and drone hundreds or thousands of miles away and not live through the devastation on the ground. This novel won The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2025 and it was well deserved.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith 

This is the story of two families, the Jones family and the Iqbal family. The fathers of each became unlikely friends during WWII and after the war they return to England, marry and raise children. This is also the story of immigrants to the UK, from Bangladesh and Jamaica and their attempts to both assimilate and retain their heritage. This is also the story of people of different faiths. Finally, this is the story of modern scientific genetic advancements and possible repercussions. I’ve read a number of novels by Zadie Smith and have enjoyed all of them. But I had never read her debut, and much acclaimed, novel White Teeth. And … it is probably my least favorite of all of her novels that I’ve read. Like many of her novels, it is humorous but often the humor gets lost in the details of the story. Mostly I just felt that it was all over the place and needed more structure. This novel won a number of awards including the Whitbread First Novel Award.

Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko

It is the 1850’s in Australia in the area that will become Brisbane. White settlers are impinging on the land of the aboriginal people. This is the story of Nita and Mulanyin, two people separated from their own people and living among the Yagora people. This is in part a love story but also the story of Mulanyin’s struggle with the white settlers. Part of the story also takes place in 2004 when Grandma Eddie Blanket, a 100 year old black woman, ends up in hospital telling her story to a journalist and haunted by a ghost. I admit I found this novel hard to get into mostly because Lucashenko uses words of the Yagara language throughout. I wondered if Australian people were simply familiar with these words. I could have used a glossary. But she brings to life the Australian landscape and her characters were very vivid and by about the 25% point I finally began to be comfortable with the language and got into the story. This book was longlisted for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize and nominated for 12 other prizes, winning the ARA Prize for historical fiction in Australia and New Zealand.

Metropolitan Mysteries: A Casebook of London’s Detectives edited by Martin Edwards

This is another volume of short stories published by the British Library Crime Classics. I generally do not like short stories but I did enjoy this volume. It included stories by Dorothy L. Sayers involving Lord Peter Wimsey, a Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle and a Margery Allingham story involving Albert Campion. Most of the other stories were also very good, especially the ones that were very short. 

Isola by Allegra Goodman

It is the 1500’s in France. Marguerite de la Roche is an orphan, heir to a fortune but her guardian has left her impoverished. Forced to travel with him across the Atlantic to New France she angers him and he maroons her on an island off the coast of Canada. This novel had a lot of publicity when it was published and became a Reese’s Book Club pick. I wanted to read it for its connections to New France. Goodman is very good at bringing time and place to life but I felt the characters were a little thin, even though (or maybe because) it is told in the first person by Marguerite. However, wanting to know the end of the story kept me turning the pages. This was a New York Times Notable Book of 2025.

God’s Country by William Kent Krueger

This year’s installment of the long running Cork O’Connor mystery series takes Cork deep within the Boundary Waters which was especially poignant this year given the bad fires in that area this summer. When we were Up North, a couple of times we were near where some of the firefighters were staying and the flags in the state were at half staff for a dead firefighter. This story has no fires but the purity of the Boundary Waters (or God’s Country as Cork calls it) is still endangered, this time by humans. I didn’t think there was much of a mystery in this one, we found out who the perpetrators were fairly early and the only mystery was to identify why they did what they did. The crux of this novel was Cork’s soul (I never believed his life was in danger, it’s a series) and the choices he had to make. Based on the ending I suspect the ramifications of this trip will live on to the next novel. Frankly I like it better when Krueger just does a straight mystery. 

The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne by Elsa Hart

It is 1703 and Cecily Kay has arrived at the London home of Barnaby Mayne, a collector of great renown. Mayne seems to collect everything and his town home is packed with objects and books. Cecily is there to consult Mayne’s collection of botanical specimens and writings. To her delight, she discovers that a childhood friend, Meacan, is also staying there working as an illustrator for Mr. Mayne. But Cecily soon learns that the community of collectors in London is obsessive and cut-throat. When, on Cecily’s first day, Mayne is found murdered, Cecily is sure that the police have arrested the wrong man. But can she prove it? And what secret does Meacan hold?  This was a library serendipity pick for me, I had never heard of this author before. I liked that this was told in the third person so she didn’t have to make Cecily too stupid to figure things out. I thought the side characters were well developed. About half way through the novel I realized that, while I still couldn’t guess the ending, I almost had forgotten it was primarily a mystery because I was wrapped up in the setting and descriptions and the characters. The ending did hang together. It also seemed that the author intended to make this the start of a series, but there has been no follow up since 2020.

The Bookbinder’s Secret by A. D. Bell

It is 1901 and Lilian Delaney is working as an apprentice bookbinder in Oxford while still living at home above her father’s used book store. During a visit to a client she is given a partially burned book in which she finds, hidden beneath the binding, a more than 50 year old letter that mentions murder. Lilian is pulled into a search for more information about the letter writer and the murder that turns out more dangerous than she could have imagined. This book was on the new fiction shelf at the library and I believe it is a debut novel. Although not perfect, I thought it was very good. I liked the main character and the plot moved along at a good clip. I also learned a bit about book binding. My biggest criticism is that the various parts of the “confession” that Lilian finds are written like a novel and not a confession. They are complete with dialog in quote marks. Real people don’t write like that. But it didn’t ruin it for me, just distracted me. It looks like this is intended to be the start of a series .

 

2026 Walter Scott Prize

Somehow I managed to miss the announcement of the shortlist for Historical Fiction for 2026 which was published in April. This is my favorite prize to follow because I love historical fiction, although I get tired of WWII historical fiction. 

Back in February I blogged about the long list here.  Since that time the only additional book on that list that I read was Helm which I wrote about here.  It has been difficult finding the other books because my library doesn't always buy them or there is a long wait list.

The shortlist, which was announced April 16, 2026, was:

The Pretender by Jo Harkin (Bloomsbury)

The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly (Bloomsbury)

Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Polygon)

Once the Deed is Done by Rachel Seiffert (Virago)

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (Viking)

Of that list the only one I've read was Seascraper which I read last year when it was on a Booker Prize list. I liked it very much. 

The winner for 2026 was announced June 12, 2026 and is The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly. 

I checked and of course my library doesn't have it but I put a "notify me" tag on it. 

May 2026 Reading

May was a good month for reading. One of the books I finished will surely go on my year end list of favorite books. I also re-read a classic novel and enjoyed it tremendously. This month I read three mysteries (I enjoyed all of them) and stretched myself by also reading  more general fiction and one memoir. 

These are the books I finished in May.

The Gospel of Orla by Eoghan Walls

Orla is a young, teenage girl in England grieving the death of her mother from cancer. Left with her father, who drinks too much, and her much younger sister Lily, Orla feels detached from the world including her school friends. She wants, more than anything, to escape and she plans to run away to her aunt's home in Ireland. She thinks she has all the logistics worked out but then she runs into (literally) a homeless man who says he is Jesus. And ... maybe he is. Eoghan Walls is a poet from Northern Ireland and this is his debut novel. While I didn't think it held together completely at the end, I did find it an engrossing read. Walls wrote in the first person as Orla, in the manner that a young, not too well educated 14 year old would write. There is punctuation missing and he uses run-on sentences. And that style works, revealing Orla's character bit by bit. There is a plot to this novel but it is mostly a novel based on Orla's character. Although the plot of the novel does include a journey across England toward Liverpool, there isn't much of a sense of place. My Quick Take is here. 

Murder at World's End by Ross Montgomery

This is an historical mystery set in Cornwall in 1910 (I seem to be on a bit of a Cornwall kick, unintentionally) during a time when Halley's Comet is making an appearance.  Stephen Pike has arrived at a manor house called World's End set on an island off the coast. Stephen has just been released from prison and has been recommended for the job of a second footman. When he arrives he finds the house in an uproar because the owner is convinced the tail of the comet will wipe out life unless every crack is sealed and the residents wear oxygen masks. Stephen is assigned to assist Miss Decima Stockingham, an 80 year old, irascible, foul mouthed aunt of the owner. By morning the owner is dead, apparently killed by a cross bolt in a room locked on the inside. As an ex-con all eyes are on Stephen as the murderer so he and Miss Decima must solve the crime. Yes, this is another locked room mystery but I found it more enjoyable than the last one that I read, possible because there is some humor in this mystery. And Stephen and Miss Decima make quite a team. I suspect this is the first of a series. 

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

One day a man named Theo arrives in the small college town of Golden, Georgia. He is very mysterious, never telling anyone his last name or his whole story (except for one man in town who he hires as an advisor and from whom he rents an apartment). In the local coffee shop he notices that the walls are filled with the art of a local artist - portraits of local people who frequent the coffee shop and its surroundings. Theo begins to buy the portraits and present them to the subjects, learning about their lives. I admit that, on my own I would never have picked up this book and if I had I probably would have DNF'd it, but it was chosen by my bookclub. This is a very "southern" book, it meanders along, the characters (most of them) are nice and it almost seems beside the point to find out who Theo is and why he came to that town. In some ways, reading this novel reminded me of reading Jan Karon, whose books I like. But Karon keeps her books to a shorter length and while she introduces loads of small town characters she doesn't tell their stories in narrative as much as in action. In this book we get a lot of narrative. (A LOT of narrative.) For a while it seemed that each chapter was Theo meeting a new person and hearing their story. In some ways parts of the novel were like a series of short stories and as I was reading I kept thinking that the entire novel would have made a better short story.  Frankly at about the 50% mark I was bored by it although it did pick up shortly thereafter and had a surprising ending. I know this book is popular with many readers, including some in my book club, but it really wasn't for me.  

Every Good Boy Does Fine by Jeremy Denk

Jeremy Denk is a classical pianist and this is a memoir about his piano education - basically about all the piano lessons he took in his life. You might not think he or his life have much in common with Barbra Streisand but his memoir very much reminded me of hers. In each the author seemed to remember every moment of their lives and were determined to tell us about each of them. In Denk's case he seemed to remember every detail of every piano lesson he ever took.  In both of their cases they remembered every compliment (and every criticism) they ever received. Thank goodness Jeremy Denk is much younger than Barbra and this memoir mostly ends (except for the Coda) at about the age of 30. I listened to this on audiobook. I like to listen to memoirs on audiobook because I often feel that the author is speaking directly to me. Occasionally this backfires if it sounds like the author is reading and not talking, but mostly it works. I sometimes feel that hearing the author on an audiobook tells me even more about the author than just the words the author wrote. But in the case of this memoir, I think I would have been better off reading the written word because I think I would have appreciated the wordplay and Denk's wry humor better. Hearing him tell his story I didn't find myself amused. At a few points in his story he said that other students thought he was insufferable and I thought - yes, you ARE insufferable. (I sought out a Terry Gross interview after finishing this and he didn't sound as insufferable when he was answering her questions as he did narrating the audiobook.) I like classical music and at one point I played the piano so I found most of this memoir interesting even though I found his telling of it annoying. But unless you are VERY interested in classical music and piano lessons, I don't recommend this. If you are interested, I recommend you read it and don't listen to it. (Although the one benefit of the audiobook was that at certain points he would actually play passages on the piano.)

The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex

In the early 1970's three lighthouse keepers in a tower lighthouse off the coast of Cornwall (yet another Cornwall book) mysteriously disappear. The lighthouse is spotless and the door is locked from the inside but they are nowhere to be found. Years later, in the 1990's, a writer of seafaring adventure stories decides to figure out what happened and write a book about it. The portions of this novel that take place in the 1970's are written in the third person. The portions written in the 1990's are partly written as transcripts of the responses of the people the researcher interviews - the wives and girlfriend of the men at the lighthouse. This novel is fictional but the author points out that she had inspiration from a true story from 1900 when three lighthouse keepers disappeared from a remote rock light light in the Outer Hebrides. This novel really kept my attention and made me turn the pages. The characters are well drawn and are interesting. The descriptions of the lighthouse made me want to see a lighthouse. Recommended. 

The Framed Women of Ardmore House by Brandy Schillace

At first I wasn't sure I would like this novel. The main character, Jo Jones, is an American who has inherited an estate in Yorkshire with a crumbling manor house and a cottage on the grounds where she decides to live. Then, almost immediately, she finds a dead man in the cottage and the local police are investigating the murder and her. The setup really appealed to me but in the first 50 pages I was constantly annoyed by the main character, her actions and the way she phrased things. Turns out she is neurodivergent, which explained a lot. I found this novel to be a real page turner and I liked all of the peripheral characters. I eventually liked Jo Jones. The plot is, perhaps, a little unbelievable in certain places (as these kind of stories involving crumbling manor houses often are). I do wish they had explained the main character's neurodivergence a little earlier in the story but my frustration with her at the beginning made me relate to the characters in the novel who are frustrated by her.  Recommended. 

John of John by Douglas Stuart

I feel fairly certain that this novel will go on my list of favorite novels of 2026. The main character, Cal McLeod, has returned to the island of Harris, off the west coast of Scotland, after failing to find a job following graduation from art school. He is to assist his conservative father with sheep farming and the weaving of "Harris Tweed" wool. Cal feels stifled partly because he feels he must keep his sexual identity as a gay man a secret from his father and the community or risk being ostracized. But his father and his grandmother have their secrets too, in fact the whole community has secrets. I was incredibly impressed by Stuart's writing. He evokes the island of Harris in all of its harshness and beauty and he creates multi-dimensional characters.  And he manages to make all the strands of the story come together in a believable way by the end.  My short take is here. Highly Recommended. 

Persuasion by Jane Austen

This novel was the May readalong with the Blue Sky Book Club. Technically, for me it was a re-read because I read the novel a long time ago (maybe 40ish years ago). But since I remembered almost nothing about it, it was all new to me. The main character, Anne Eliott, is the daughter of a baronet and lives in a country house with her father and her elder sister Elizabeth. Austen makes clear from the start that Anne is not the favorite daughter (that would be Elizabeth). There is a third sister, Mary, who is the youngest and does not live at home during any of the important points in the novel (either being away at school or being married). Eight years earlier Anne had fallen in love with Frederick Wentworth, a naval captain with little money. Her snobbish father and sister felt he was an unworthy match. Lady Russell, a close friend of Anne's deceased mother and a kind of surrogate mother to Anne, persuaded Anne to turn down Captain Wentworth's proposal. It is clear that Anne always regretted this. Now, eight years later, the Eliotts have fallen on hard times and are forced to let their country estate and take up residence in Bath.  Before joining them in Bath Anne makes an extended visit to her married, younger sister Mary, whose family lives nearby. It turns out that the couple who lease the Eliott estate are related to Captain Wentworth, who comes to visit, so he and Anne are thrown together. Much tension ensues as it isn't clear whether or not Frederick and Anne will end up together (although, c'mon, this is Jane Austen.) This is not a long book (compared to other Austen novels) and Anne is much more mature than other Austen heroines. As with many novels, if the characters would only TALK to each other they would solve a lot of problems, but then there would be no story. I enjoyed this novel very much and am very glad to have re-read it. Recommended. 

A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz

This is the 6th book in the Hawthorne and Horowitz mystery series that features the author, Anthony Horowitz, as a character in his own books. Hawthorne is a private detective, kicked out of the police service, who is a sort of grungy Sherlock Holmes type to whom Horowitz, grudgingly, plays his Dr. Watson. In this installment, the first novel in the series is being adapted into a movie and a death occurs on the filming location. Hawthorne is called on to help solve the crime and Horowitz tags along in the hope it will make another good book. Along the way Horowitz learns more about the mysterious background of Hawthorne. I like this series and recommend it but it definitely needs to be read from the beginning. 

April 2026 Reading

I've very much been in a reading slump these past couple of months. If the books were "assigned" as part of a reading group I read them. Otherwise I found myself reluctant to read anything that took any effort. This month that meant finishing Bleak House and reading Wild Dark Shore for my book club next month. By the end of the month I decided to stop fighting it and just binge read mysteries. 

These are the books I finished in April.

Python's Kiss by Louise Erdrich

I am not a reader of short stories. There are occasionally a few that I like but normally I am left wanting more from the story. However, I make it a point to read everything by Louise Erdrich and this is her latest book, a collection of short stories. The title is taken from the title of the first story in the collection, the story of a guard dog named Nero. The collection is diverse. A woman reminisces with her niece about her four marriages, not telling her niece everything. A schoolbus driver tries to drive his bus full of students safely through a blizzard. A woman remembers a trip to Venice at a young age and then later as a married adult. A mother discovers that local kids, including her daughter, are playing a game similar to paintball in which they "kill" the enemy. A number of the stories had cats in them ranging from Tigers to a feral cat in a bathroom. My least favorite were two stories about corporations that control the afterlife, where your consciousness is uploaded and lives on - or does it? In general, all of them were fine for short stories. As I said, I'm not a short story reader. But every once in a while I read a short story that strikes me as the perfect length for a story and is written in a way that is complete and yet makes you continue to think long after you read it. That story in this book, for me, was "Amelia" in which a teenage girl works at Kentucky Fried Chicken where she meets a local man who comes in to eat every night dressed as Colonel Sanders. I won't give any of it away but I read it twice and still think back on it with a smile.

The Sea Child by Linda Wilgus

Widowed by the Napoleanic Wars, left destitute by her late husband's debts and the subject of embarrassing gossip, Isabel Henley leaves Greenwich and moves to an isolated cottage near a small village in Cornwall. Although she has never lived there, the local people know her story because she was found nearby as a child, soaking wet, and her birth parents were never located. Adopted by a sea captain and his wife and taken to Greenwich, the villagers seems to feel that if luck had run any differently she may have been brought up by one of them. According to the mythology believed by the villagers, she is the child of a sea creature. This is an historical romance and the truth is that I don't read a lot of romance anymore (at one time I read quite a bit) mostly because you always know how it will end. I specifically seldom read historical romance because I prefer straight historical fiction. But I think if you like historical romance you would like this novel. At first I worried that the author relied on too many romance tropes. There are the usual Cornwall smugglers. There is the handsome but mysterious, and slightly dangerous, man the heroine is drawn to. There is the villainous man who threatens her. There is the "but there is only one bed" trope. But part way through the book the plot took a somewhat unexpected turn that made the story more interesting for me. Wilgus also created an interesting heroine in Isabel, a woman who loved her dead husband and is drawn to the dashing, mysterious man but also likes the independence that widowhood gives her. The story is not written in the first person but in close third person from Isabel's point of view, which was a mark in its favor for me. (I tend to dislike first person narration in mysteries and romances.) The best thing about this novel for me was how she created a sense of place, making Cornwall a place I would want to visit again. There is a (very) slight fantasy element to this novel also, which didn't bother me. If you like romance novels in an historical setting you would probably enjoy this (it is only, maybe, two chili peppers on a scale of five) but if you aren't a romance novel reader you could probably find some straight historical fiction you would enjoy more. 

A Day of Judgment by Charles Todd

Charles Todd is the pseudonym of a mother/son writing team who wrote the Inspector Rutledge mystery series and the Bess Crawford mystery series, two of my favorite mystery series of all time. Unfortunately the mother passed away a few years ago and there was some question as to whether the son would continue either or both series. This is the next installment of the Inspector Rutledge series and, unfortunately, I found it disappointing. It wasn't so much the mystery that was the problem; the mystery itself was fine. As with most of the Rutledge mysteries, Rutledge must leave London to assist on a murder investigation in a smaller town. This town is up on the eastern coast of England near Lindisfarne, or Holy Island. When a body is washed ashore near Holy Island the church hierarchy is concerned that people will think the murder occurred there and calls in Scotland Yard. Rutledge is of course able to solve the mystery. The problem with the book, for me, was the writing. One of the reasons the Charles Todd mysteries were among my favorites was because the writing excelled. The team managed to integrate descriptions of place, the psychology of the characters and the mystery in interesting ways that always propelled the plot forward. Now that the son is the sole writer, I suspect that the mother was the truly interesting writer of the pair. Yes, there are lots of descriptions of place in this novel but they aren't integrated into the action; they read as if they were lifted from a travel guide or are describing a room/location in a historic house. Where, previously, "action" portions were written in complex sentences with multiple clauses, this novel's action is told in straightforward, simple sentences. And Rutledge himself seems very wooden in this novel, especially at the end in which he is meant to be showing his softer side. All in all this novel was a disappointment and I'm sad to lose one of my favorite series. 

When the Wolves are Silent by C.S. Harris

The Sebastien St. Cyr Mystery Series, which is set in England during the Regency, is probably my current favorite mystery series and after being disappointed by the Charles Todd mystery I started this latest installment with trepidation. But I should not have worried. Even though this is the 21st book in the series, the writing remains fresh, the mystery is interesting and she continues to slowly build the characters we have come to know and their universe.  In this installment, someone is killing a group of six young(ish) aristocratic friends one by one. The murdered victims are then "arranged" in such a way as to suggest that they were ritual murders by a Celtic Druidic Cult. I was left in the dark as to the murderer up until the end. The plot also (slightly) moved along the overarching story of Sebastien and his family. As with some of the novels in this series, I wish there was more of one particular character but you can't have everything. These novels are very well written, blending characterization and sense of time/place in a manner that propels the plot along. 

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Although I have read a number of novels by Dickens in my life, Bleak House was the novel that I started multiple times and just could not get into.  I was very happy to join in the BlueSky group readalong that took place in March and April because I knew the peer pressure would keep me reading. Many of Dickens' books are real door stoppers and this one is one of the longer novels. My e-version of the book was 2,639 pages. I discovered that after the first 500 pages of character development I enjoyed the story. It was somewhat of a surprise to me (and my fellow readers) how the novel hit a point where the plot just took off and galloped along to the end. Part of the novel is told in third person and part of the novel is told in first person by a character named Esther Summerson. Many of us had trouble relating to Esther, including me. It didn't stop me from enjoying the novel but I liked the third person sections much better. They were dark, "foggy" and in some ways pitiless. Esther's sections, while showing Dickens' disdain for England's Chancery Court, were I think supposed to convey some hope through Esther's "good" character. I can't say that this is my favorite Dickens novel of the ones I have read (Great Expectations remains in first place - with perhaps a close second of David Copperfield) but I did enjoy it very much. And perhaps my memory of those other books is skewed by the fact that I was so much younger when I read them.

Death of a Lesser God by Vaseem Khan
City of Destruction by Vaseem Khan
The Edge of Darkness by Vaseem Khan

This are the the fourth, fifth and sixth novels  in Vaseem Khan's Malabar House mystery series set in Bombay in the early 1950's (not long after Indian Independence). Malabar House is the station of the Bombay police where officers who are out of favor are sent (like an Indian version of Slow Horses). The main character, Persis Wadia, is there because she is a woman detective and the force has no idea what to do with a woman detective. In the first of these novels, a young white man has been found guilty of the murder of a prominent Indian lawyer. All of his appeals have failed and he is scheduled to hang. Persis is tasked with re-examing the case in the days before he is scheduled to die to see if perhaps the crime was committed by someone else. This search eventually takes her across the country to Calcutta and back. I've enjoyed all of the books so far in this series. The mystery in this one is good (I did not guess whodunnit) and I enjoyed the descriptions of Calcutta. I also usually learn something new about a part of the world I find fascinating. What was particularly interesting to me in this novel was Khan's exploration of what it takes to be an "Indian".  The subcontinent was settled by many different types of people, all of whom consider themselves "Indian". Then they were subjugated by the British. The British government left but individuals stayed on. The accused white man was born and raised in India and has no Britain to "go back to" since he wasn't from there in the first place. Can he be considered "Indian"? It was an interesting question that flowed through the novel. 

The second of these novels involved the attempted assassination of a high level politician who was promoting war with Pakistan to "take back" the land and have a united India. Persis stops the assassination attempt but is haunted by the (dead) young man who pulled the gun. She tries to figure out who he was and how he was convinced to do this deed. This novel very much goes into the partition of India and Pakistan and the pressures by the world to keep them apart or pull them together. 

The third novel sees Persis sent to a completely different, backwater, part of India near the border with Burma. The local tribes (former headhunters) want their own country and don't want to be part of India but India is determined to keep that area (partly because it is a buffer with China).  When a high level official is found dead by beheading (the head is missing) the military immediately wants to blame the insurgent tribes but Persis is determined to discover the truth. This was a "locked room mystery" and, perhaps because of that, was the weakest of the three books. I find that locked room mysteries work better in short stories because the interest is in the "how" rather than the "why".  There seemed a lot of padding in this novel with Persis doing a lot of thinking about things that happened in the previous two books. Hopefully she will be back in Bombay for the next installment. 

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Dominic Salt, a widower with three children, lives with his family as the caretaker of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica and home to the world's largest seed bank. But global warming has caused the waters around the island to rise and it is slowly disappearing. Although once full of researchers, Salt and his family are the only inhabitants left and they are charged with packing up as many of the seeds as possible before they and the seeds are evacuated in only a few weeks.  Then, during one of the worst storms the island has experienced, a woman washes ashore.  As the family nurses the woman, named Rowan, back to health they form a bond with her. But it is clear that neither Rowan nor Dominic (nor indeed the entire family) is being entirely truthful with the other. McConaghy tells the story in an interesting structural way. Each chapter focuses on a different character but is told in a different person. Dominic and Rowan's stories are told in the first person as they try to figure out what the other isn't telling them. The two older children's stories are told in the third person. The youngest child's chapters are in the first person, but mostly him telling Rowan about the flora and fauna of the island. McConaghy has created compelling characters with a surprisingly propulsive story arc as the characters (and we) try to figure out what is actually going on. McConaghy is clearly interested in the natural environment and the harm that man has done to it but she is not preachy. She can make nature itself seem like a character. There was actually a moment when tears came to my eyes as Rowan described how, after a huge fire, she discovered that the local wombats had saved many of the forest animals by letting them hide in the wombat burrows. I remember hearing about this when Australia was suffering huge wildfires a few years ago. I also found myself rooting for the seals and penguins on the island.This is the second McConaghy novel I've read and I've enjoyed both of them (the first was Once There Were Wolves about a woman working on a project to reintroduce wolves to the Scottish Highlands). This very well might go on my best of the year list. 

March 2026 Reading

This was a TERRIBLE reading month for me. I managed to keep up with my two-month group read of Bleak House but that was about it for me in terms of motivation. Every time I would start a book I would very quickly DNF it. In the end I only finished three books this month and two of those were in the last week of the month. 

These are the (very few) books that I finished in March.

The Care and Management of Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

Winspear is the author of the very successful Maisie Dobbs series which I enjoyed very much, although I liked the earlier post-WWI stories better than the later WWII stories.  This is a standalone novel set during WWI, so I assumed I would enjoy it. However, I found that the plot meandered too much for me. I started this novel at least two years ago and would read it sporadically on my e-reader. It became the book I would read when I was stuck somewhere with nothing to read. If it hadn't been written by Winspear I probably would have DNF'd it long ago. The main characters are two young women who make very different life choices. One is a suffragette and the other is a former teacher who marries and becomes a farm wife. WWI then intrudes. While I think Winspear did capture life in Britain, especially rural Britain, right before and during the first year of the war, the characters did not come to life for me. If you want to be transported to WWI Britain (and a bit of France) you may enjoy this book, but I did not think it was one of her best. My Quick Take is here. 

Nonesuch by Francis Spufford

An historical fantasy set in London in the first year of WWII, the plot involves Iris Hawkins, a secretary at a financial firm in The City of London. Iris is trying to manage her career (she's ambitious), her love life, and the Blitz. But on top of that, she has been chosen by some otherworldly beings to save Britain from the British fascists who want to go back in time and change the course of history. I really liked this novel despite the fact that I didn't really understand (until the end) why the fantasy portion of the novel was at all necessary.  f you are looking for a well drawn character living in a well evoked time and place, you will like this novel, even if you don't usually read fantasy. My Quick Take is here. 

A Slowly Dying Cause by Elizabeth George

The latest in the Inspector Lynley mystery series, this novel finds Lynley and Havers in Cornwall where Lynley is dealing with maintenance issues on his family estate. Havers is dealing with the death of her mother (and with being a guest in a Great House). Lynley's ex-girlfriend Daidre is also in Cornwall. But none of them get to Cornwall immediately because the first part of the novel is concerned with the murder of a local citizen and we see very little of our principal characters. Once they get to Cornwall, however, they are caught up in the investigation. The mystery portion was good enough, she keeps you guessing on the whodunnit. I don't think there was enough Lynley/Havers in this novel but I did like finding out more about Daidre's family dynamics. This could be read as a stand alone novel, but as always I recommend you start at the beginning of the series. My Quick Take is here. 

Nonesuch

 

The Book:   It is 1939 and Iris Hawkins is a secretary at a financial firm in The City of London but she dreams of being a financial analyst, advising clients on their investments. This dream seems unlikely to be realized as there are no women in that position in London. A night out on the town brings her unexpectedly into what is supposed to be a one-night-stand  with Geoff, a young man who is working for the BBC in the new industry of television. Soon thereafter, WWII begins, Geoff enlists in the Army and Iris (with the rest of London) must deal with the terror of The Blitz. With all the young men away at war, the defense of the City is left in the hands of the elderly, the infirm and the women. This opens up new paths for women, including in the financial field. But Iris isn't only dealing with The Blitz, her night with Geoff unexpectedly draws her into a world of magic, other-worldly beings and bridges between past and present. The fascists in Britain want to take control of the bridges, go back in time and stop Britain from defying Hitler. Only Iris can stop them and save Britain. And while she is trying to save Britain she is also dealing with her feelings for Geoff and her avoidance of her mysterious past. 

The Author: Francis Spufford

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Length: 481pp (hardback)

One good thing:  In Iris, Spufford has created a character that is smart, mysterious, ambitious, driven, brave, not afraid of her own sexuality and completely human. Following her journey through the Blitz and at work and in her relationship with Geoff kept me turning the pages. 

One not-so-great thing:  Throughout the novel I kept wondering why Spufford felt it was necessary to include the fantasy elements (full disclosure, I'm a big reader of historical fiction and only occasionally read fantasy). The WWII plot and Iris's feelings for Geoff and her mysterious past and her ambition to rise at her firm, all of that seemed plenty for a great novel. The fantasy elements in some ways just seemed an unnecessary distraction. Until the very end, when it turns out that they are necessary to lead us into a sequel. I would have been fine with a stand-alone novel and no fantasy. BUT, the inclusion of the fantasy elements did not hinder my enjoyment of the novel or make me not recommend it. 

Nancy Pearl's "Four Doorways":

    Story: Spufford has created a page turning story for Iris where the reader keeps wondering how she will deal with the ever deepening crisis of the Blitz as well as her job and her relationship with Geoff, not to mention how she will save Britain from the Nazis. I felt  that the fantasy part of the story meandered a little bit. It would go away for a while and then come back. But because Iris' personal story was compelling the novel never flagged for me. And if you like to read fantasy your feelings about those parts of the story may differ from mine.

    Characters:  While this is a plot driven novel, Spufford has created a character in Iris with a lot of depth and a believable arc. The other characters are also well-drawn and have their own arcs. I particularly found the arc of Iris' boss very interesting and believable. In addition to the human characters there are the other-worldly characters, which are also very well created with just enough detail to make you imagine them but not too much detail (which would have destroyed, perhaps, their otherworldliness). Some of them are also (intentionally) humorous. If you are a character-driven reader (as I am) I think you would enjoy this novel.

    Setting:  There are two settings in this novel. The first, the real London immediately before and then during WWII, is created so well that I could often smell the smoke and dust, and feel the grit, from the aftermath of the bombings. The other setting is the fantasy setting of the land of the bridges which was VERY confusing to me (a reader who has trouble seeing things that are described in novels).  Possibly there was too much detail for me, but your mileage may vary on that. 

    Writing: As with all of his other novels that I have read, I found Spufford's writing to be excellent. He has a way with a perfectly ordinary phrase that doesn't seem at all special and yet completely sets the scene or describes the character.  My only objection in this novel is his descriptions of the fantasy bridges - but again that may be because I am a reader who has trouble picturing things that don't look like anything in the real world (one reason I will watch SciFi movies but don't read many SciFi books.)

The Care and Management of Lies

The Book: Kezia and Thea are old school friends who find they have less in common now that they are adults. Thea is a passionate suffragette. Kezia becomes engaged to marry Tom, Thea's brother, and seems bound for a traditional life on a farm. Then World War I intervenes and everyone is forced into a role they did not expect.  he world is in turmoil and the role of women in society is changing.   

The Author: Jacqueline Winspear 

Genre: Historical fiction

Length: 260 pp on e-reader (ipad mini)

One good thing:  The title of the novel comes from the fact that none of the characters are entirely truthful with each other about their lives, especially during the War. Each wants to shield the other from any unnecessary pain.  

One not-so-great thing:  The letters that Kezia sends to Tom during the War are filled with long detailed descriptions (lies) about the dinners she is making "for him" while he is gone so that he can pretend to be home with her, eating a good meal. This worked for a while but got old very soon. 

Nancy Pearl's "Four Doorways":

    Story:  This is not a page turner. I purchased this book at least three years ago and it sat in my Nook library for at least a year before I began it. It took me two years to finish because the story just dragged along. Winspear was constrained by real life events, I understood, but I was just not invested enough in the story or the characters and would put it down for months at a time. It ended up being the book that I would read when I was stuck somewhere with nothing to read. I think the only reason I kept reading was because I am a sucker for WWI novels and I like Winspear's Mazie Dobbs books. 

    Characters:  What happens to the characters seems very realistic and I did not dislike the characters. But they seemed more like sketches of characters than fully fleshed characters. 

    Setting:  I think Winspear does do a good job of evoking rural Britain just before and during the first years of the War.  And while she doesn't spend a lot of time in France with the troops, that part is evoked well. 

    Writing:  The writing is very accessible but there is nothing remarkable about it. 

    

    

Helm

 

The Book: In the history of the world, certain winds get names. Think of the Santa Ana winds in North America. In Great Britain, only one wind has a name:  Held. This is the story of Held, as Held observes the formation of the world and the coming of peoples. This is also the story of the people who lived with Held including the neolithic people who considered Held a god, a medieval "wizard" who considered Held a demon, a Victorian scientist who wanted to study Held, a 20th century farmer's daughter who considered Held her friend, up to and  including a scientist studying plastic particles in the air. 

The Author: Sarah Hall

Genre: Historical Fiction

Length: 507 pp on ipad mini

One good thing:  Hall creates Held as an actual character. Held is curious, mischievous, egocentric, ferocious, and in some cases as close to loving as a wind can be. Hall uses third person omniscient with Held (as with all the characters) but the narrator, when talking about Held, has a real sense of humor. I sometimes thought that the narrator of the chapters about Held could actually be Held referring to Heldself in the third person. 

One not-so-great thing: There are many characters and their stories are strung out throughout the novel forcing the reader, with each chapter, to try to remember who the character was and where we were in their story. Although there is narrative flow I found my attention wandering at about the 75% point in the novel and didn't come back to it for a few days. 

Nancy Pearl's "Four Doorways":

    Story:  There is a narrative arc for each of the characters (except possibly Held) but I would not call this a narrative driven novel. 

    Characters:  There are many characters and they are well drawn.  Each has a story arc. In fact the story arc of each character could be a single short story. If you like short stories you may like this. (I don't and found myself wanting more definitive endings for each character.)

    Setting: Hall does a great job in setting the scene in Cumbria and specifically the Eden Valley. If a novel with a great setting makes you want to see the location, you will be booking plane tickets immediately after finishing the novel. 

    Writing:  Hall's characterization of Held is the glue that holds this novel together. There were laugh out loud moments for me in reading about Held. The novel is structured as one of those novels that goes back and forth between characters but here the characters don't really have anything to do with each other. Most characters are unaware of the characters that came in time before them. It is their fascination with Held that ties them together.  In some ways this is really a book of interconnected short stories but Hall split up the stories into chapters so that no story is told linearly. If you like short stories this may not bother you. I don't particularly like short stories so I kept expecting something else that would hold the characters together or at least more definitive ends of their stories.