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DI Niamh Khalid, the protagonist at the heart of Anne Mattias's debut novel, Kingsrise , has had better Halloween nights: first, her beloved teenage brother Lance and his friends find themselves in trouble with the law and then a body shows up on the beach. It turns out that the man is critically wounded, not dead, but working out who he is and where (or when) he has come from proves challenging for Niamh and her team. And then a dead man dressed as a knight is found near The Gate, the stone arch on the outskirts of Niamh's sleepy town, and things become even stranger — and more troubling. The first chapter sets up the story perfectly, introducing Niamh and establishing her complex relationship with Lance — a wonderful characterisation of the often neglected brother–sister relationship — before ending with a twist. From then on, I was gripped by the story and ended up staying up way too late to find out what happened. I don't read much in the fantasy genre but I am a big fa...

Today, I am sharing my five favourite books from among those I read during 2022. I ended up reading fewer than 100 books in both 2020 and 2021  and to hold myself accountable, at  the start of 2022  I started blogging every other month about my favourite books. I tailed off towards the end of the year due to a hectic travel schedule and getting stuck for a while on a few books I wasn't enjoying, but I still achieved my target and read 102 books in 2022. Read on to find out which ones made my shortlist, as well as my full reading list for the year. As usual, I've included links to  Bookshop.org , a UK-based online bookshop, although you should also be able to find them all in your local indie bookshop. 1. Yerba Buena   by Nina LaCour The power of a great novel comes in its ability to transport you to another time or another place and Nina LaCour's debut adult novel did just that, taking me back to coastal California, which holds a special place in my heart....

Another two months have passed (how?!), which means it's time for my bimonthly book recommendations. I read 19 books in July and August, taking my total for the year to date up to 78. I enjoyed so many of the books I read over the past two months and it was really hard to select just five favourites...but here they are. 1. Yerba Buena by Nina LaCour YA author Nina LaCour's debut adult novel is a beautiful, evocative love story between two young women growing up in California. Sara runs away from her home, and a world of tragedy, as a teenager and eventually finds success as a cocktail mixologist in LA. Emilie struggles with consistency, switching majors and then careers as often as she changes her clothes, but meets Sara while she is working as a flower arranger. The novel darts between different time periods, showcasing vignettes from Sara and Emilie's lives, together and apart. The relationship between the women is exquisitely portrayed, and the novel is a real treat for...

It's time for the latest installment of my bimonthly series where I pick my favourite five books from among those I've read over the past two months. My tally for May and June was slightly down (mainly because there were a couple in there that — were I less of a completionist — may well have been DNFs), but I still read 17 books. I'm up to 59 at this mid-year point, which means I'm comfortably on track to meeting my goal of reading 100 books by the end of the year. Heading off on holiday soon? Perhaps you'll find inspiration in some of my picks, although I must confess that they aren't all that summery! There's also an honourable mention in the form of Chris ' The Flight Attendant ' Bohjalian's Old Hollywood meets East African safari thriller, The Lioness . It's been massively talked up on #bookstagram and as I made my first visit to East Africa this year, I was really looking forward to reading it. I loved the depictions of the Tanzanian la...

This year, I've been trying to get my for-fun reading back up to pre-pandemic levels and  I've also been picking out and writing about my favourite five books every two months as a way to hold myself accountable. I read 20 books in March and April, taking my year-to-date tally to 42. Here are my five favourites from among the books I've read in the past two months. 1. Reputation by Sarah Vaughan. I've been a big fan of Vaughan's writing since I read and loved Anatomy of a Scandal   back in 2018. If you enjoyed the latter, you'll probably also like  Reputation : a psychological thriller with a perfect blend of politics, law and domestic drama. At its centre is Emma Webster, a teacher-turned-MP, who is rising to prominence within the Labour Party. She's worked hard in her career but when it comes to it, there is nothing that she won't do to protect her teenage daughter...or her reputation. And as the events in the novel spiral rapidly and chaotically out...

Just like in 2020 , the number of books I read last year  dipped below the 100 mark. For most people, reading 74 books in a year is still a lot, but in 2022, I wanted to try to prioritise reading for fun again. And to hold myself accountable, I'm going to write a post every two months picking out my five favourite books from among those I've read. So far, this is working quite well, as it's the end of February and I've already read 22 books. Here are the five that I most enjoyed reading. 1. We Are All Birds of Uganda  by Hafsa Zayyan. When I travel, I love to read books set in the places I'm visiting and when I spotted Hafsa Zayyan's novel in a bookshop just after I'd returned from a trip to Uganda , it was a serendipitous discovery. In present-day London, successful lawyer Sameer has been offered an exciting new role in Singapore. Accepting the position should be an easy decision, but when his childhood friend is badly hurt in a racially motivated attack, S...

What with one thing and another, my 2021 end-of-year round-ups have been slightly delayed, such that it is now already 2022. In this post, I'm highlighting my five favourite novels that I read in 2021, as well as five more that almost made the shortlist.  For the second year in a row , I've read fewer than 100 books this year — I know that for many people 72 is still a lot of books, but for someone whose yearly tally was once as high as 200 , it feels like a big drop-off. The reasons are also the same as last year: I'm no longer commuting into the office (I would usually read at least two books a week on my daily 1h30 round trip bus journeys) and I've been travelling a lot less. I still find it difficult to make time to read in the evenings, unless I'm really gripped by what's currently on my Kindle or in my paperback. Before I jump into this year's list, I'd like to give a quick shout out to BookShop.org , a UK-based online bookshop that supports indepe...

 1. The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris* I was looking forward to reading Zakiya Dalila Harris's debut novel for many weeks, and I raced through it in a couple of evenings. In the novel, Nella is a 26-year-old editorial assistant working at a New York publishing house. She works hard, gets on well with her editor and hopes she is on track for a promotion in the not-too-distant future. She is also the only Black employee...until Hazel starts as a new editorial assistant. At first, Nella is pleased; she feels that some of her efforts to encourage the company to take diversity, equity and inclusion more seriously are finally paying off. But when Hazel makes in-roads with the editor Nella works for, and then their CEO, Nella begins to wonder if she should in fact feel threatened by her fellow editorial assistant.  Part insightful social commentary about racism and bias within the publishing industry and beyond, part thriller, The Other Black Girl is sharp, darkly comic a...

This is the last of my 2020 round-up posts, and highlights my favourite five books that I've read this year. My reading habits changed as much as my travel habits  this year, and I've read far fewer books than last year : 94, in total. I used to read for pleasure mainly on my bus ride into the office and when travelling. I've technically had more time this year, but I've tended to use it for other hobbies, like writing (my own novel is now technically finished after I wrote the final 30,000 words this year) and doom-scrolling. I also got stuck on Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light  for several weeks, which I did enjoy but felt it should have been 200 pages shorter.  Il Decameron  is a pretty hefty read too, even in English, rather than the Italian original I studied at university, but its Black Death setting and black humour felt apt for this year.  Spotted in Rye, Sussex I've also tried read books from a more diverse range of authors, and in particular to...