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Of the 135 books I read this year, there were many candidates for the top five and it was hard to narrow down my choices. As usual , I read a lot of thrillers, mysteries, crime and suspense, but my top five, and the further five on my longlist, are a little more diverse. And although I didn't pay attention to the gender of the authors when I was making my choices, all five of this year's top five, and four of my longlist, are written by women. 1. S earching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok. At the start of Jean Kwok's novel, the titular Sylvie Lee leaves her family and home in Brooklyn to visit her dying grandmother in the Netherlands and then disappears. Her younger sister Amy, who has always felt overshadowed by her beautiful and accomplished older sister, is left to pick up the pieces of Sylvie's seemingly perfect life and to try to find her. But the more Amy digs, the more troubling secrets she uncovers. The premise sounds superficially like Gone Girl  but this is a ver...

As 2019 comes to a close, and a new year begins, it’s time for my annual round-up of my favourite five photos of the year that feature me jumping for joy in various locations. Regular readers will know that I use this post as a way of looking back on my travels throughout the year. And this year, I visited nine countries, including three that were new to me — Estonia (new), USA , Germany , Switzerland , Slovenia (new), Malaysia (new), Singapore , Spain and France. I also visited several major cities for the first time, including Chicago , Lausanne and Seville , while also returning to New York, Berlin and Cannes. I’m currently in the process of planning my foreign travel for next year, and torn between flying west and east for my main holiday. Stay tuned! 1. The bean leap — Chicago, USA By happy coincidence, most of my favourite leaps of the year featured lakes, or at least bodies of water. You might have to squint a bit to spot Lake Michigan in my photo in front of Cloud Gate, be...

In this, the first and most delicious of my ninth  annual end-of-year round-up posts, I highlight some of my favourite coffee shops, restaurants and dishes of the year, both in London and on my travels. This year, I visited nine countries (Estonia, the US, Germany, Switzerland, Estonia, Malaysia, Singapore, Spain and France). From £4 chicken rice in Singapore to tempting tasting menus in Tallinn, as well as sublime speciality coffee, it's been quite a year. As usual, I've only included places I visited for the first time in 2019. 1. Best coffee shop London Le Café Alain Ducasse I've worked in King's Cross for almost a decade, and it's been fascinating to watch the neighbourhood change. Where I used to have to walk at least 20 minutes on my lunch break to find good coffee, my most recent King's Cross speciality coffee guide  demonstrates that the area is now a hub for craft coffee. The much-lauded opening of Alain Ducasse's Le Café in the sleek Coal Drops Ya...

When I found myself with a few days booked off work and no plans last week, it was the perfect opportunity to return to Bath, which I last visited two years ago . I took a train from Paddington on Sunday morning, returning home on Monday evening, which cost £42 (return tickets from London are generally around £60 unless you manage to score an advance fare). Bath accommodation can get quite expensive at weekends — with some properties requiring two-night minimum stays — while Sunday nights are often cheaper, hence the timing of my visit. Where to stay I stayed at  No. 15 Great Pulteney , a boutique hotel on the titular Great Pulteney Street, a rather grand street a short walk east of the city centre, across the River Avon. My 'cosy double' room was indeed very cosy, and colourful too with a woodland mural on one wall. Although small, it was well-appointed with a kettle, Nespresso machine (I supplied my own pods from Bath-based Colonna Coffee ), Dyson hairdryer and bath pro...

For the past two years, my mum and I have taken a short European city break together — Budapest  last year and Prague  the year before. This year, we flew south instead of east to Seville, Spain's fourth-largest city and the capital of Andalucía. Although I've been to Spain a number of times, my visits to date have been centred around Barcelona and Bilbao, so it was great to finally go to the south of the country. We spent three full days in Seville, arriving on Friday evening and flying home late on Monday night. Although we were there in late November, the weather was very nice too: it was around 15 degrees and sunny for most of our trip, even if the drizzle did emerge on our last day. THINGS TO DO Plaza de España. As we were blessed with glorious sunshine on our first morning in Seville, we decided to go to the Plaza de España, a stunning plaza built for the Ibero-American exposition of 1929, first thing. The colourful mix of architectural styles looked particularly lovely ...