I was lucky enough to hear Clare Mackintosh speak not long after I had read the first book in her Ffion Morgan series. That was an enjoyable experience.
I have since read books 2 and 3 in the series with the third one being Other People’s Houses. I was delighted to spend time in Ffion’s world again, both professionally and in her off duty life.
Mackintosh has created a number of series characters whom I was happy to again see. These include Ffion’s former husband, her new love and his son, her daughter, her mother and, of course her dog. He is a handful.
Ffion is an officer in Wales while Leo, her boyfriend, works with the English police. Their cases often overlap as they do here.
Leo has been investigating a number of break ins in a wealthy enclave. As it turns out, his former wife does not live there but is close by and is trying to ingratiate herself with her upscale neighbors. Meanwhile, there has been a murder in Wales of a female realtor. Readers will observe as the cases intersect.
Readers will also follow a crime podcast of a cold case. Will this become relevant to Leo and Ffion’s case?
I highly recommend this series. The settings are well done, the characters are interesting, readers will hope that Ffion and Leo can keep their relationship going and the snarky bits are fun.
Recommended to fans of Welsh and English crime, those who like series and those who enjoy a good crime story. Publishers Weekly states that “…mystery readers of all stripes will find something to like.”
Many thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for this title. All opinions are my own.
I have enjoyed other novels by Eliza Knight including The Mayfair Bookshop and The Queen’s Faithful Companion. So, when I see her name on a book cover, I am excited.
This time, Knight explores the world of publishing in the early 1960s. To say that women were not highly valued for their skills is an understatement.
As this story opens, Bernadette is working on editorial tasks but is not respected for this. Rather, she is asked to bring her boss’s dirty laundry to the cleaner. Understandably, Bernadette does not appreciate this and wants more. Will she succeed? Will friends that she makes at the New York Public Library help her? Find out in this enjoyable read that also features a likeable editor who has fallen for Bernadette. I recommend it.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks-Landmark for this title. All thoughts are my own.
I think that Emylia Hall’s excellent series does not garner the attention that it deserves. I have found every title in the Shell House Detective books to be enjoyable.
The stories are set in Cornwall with the area brought to life in a way that lets me recall past time there and leaves me wishing that I could go back.
The Shell House Detectives are Ally and Jayden. Ally’s husband Bill was a local police officer who has died by the time that the series begins. She becomes close to a divorced writer, Guy, in the earlier books. Jayden stands out in the community where most people are white. He is married and at the time that this story begins, his second child has just been born. As a side note, credit to the author for acknowledging how difficult the days of parenting a newborn can be. Ally and Jayden began solving cases (of course) in the first of the series.
As this story begins, an arts festival is about to start. A famous artist has returned to be the guest of honor. Interestingly, he does not seem to bring his best work. He does bring an art dealer, semi significant other who (no spoiler because it happens early in the novel), is murdered. Was she the intended victim? Will there be other deaths? Is the graffiti that is popping up related to the murder? These are just some of the questions requiring answers in the story.
There are many characters to follow. The story line is involving.
Of interest to those who have followed Ally and Gus, a man from Ally’s past has arrived for the festival. Will he and Ally rekindle their relationship? What has brought him back?
This book is about 400 pages long which I loved as I was happy to remain in the company of these characters.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for this book. All opinions are my onw.
Note: The e book costs under $5.00 which amazes me
Pub date: 08 April 2025
The audio book:
I toggled between reading and listening as I often do. Listening while I exercise makes the time so much more enjoyable.
The narrator here is spot on…easy to understand, able to speak in the voices of the different characters and able to bring the story to life.
Really well done!
Thanks to NetGalley and the audio publisher for this title. All opinions are my own.
This is the first in, what appear to be, at least three Cornwall set mysteries featuring two characters with complex pasts. They are Ally and Jayden. Ally was widowed and misses her police officer husband deeply. Her daughter would like Ally to leave Cornwall to be with her in Australia; Ally is very ambivalent. Ally is an artist who creates works from the detritus that she finds on the beach. (She makes a relevant find there).
Jayden worked as a police officer who left the force after a tragedy. He is biracial and not sure if he fits into his wife’s community. Both of these characters are trying to keep their lives moving forward. Will solving a case help them to achieve their goals?
Ally’s husband Bill was haunted by one person’s death. When he arrested this man’s son, Bill offered to help him in the future. When this young man comes knocking on Ally’s door, she (regretfully) turns him away.
Events move forward and this young man is now in the hospital, gravely wounded. His grandmother and only support was not there for him when he got out of prison. Lewis Pascoe has an interaction with the couple that built a new home where his grandmother had been. These events set the scene for the novel.
I enjoyed the main characters in this book and was also interested to meet the people around them. There are many community members in the story so there is no lack of suspects. For example, there is the coffee shop worker and a recently divorced man who is trying to write a novel.
In addition to the mystery and the characters, Cornwall is also a strong presence in the book. Readers will be able to smell the sea, see the cliffs and walk along the shore.
All in all, this was a most enjoyable read. I recommend it to anyone who likes cozy mysteries.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Amazon Publishing UK. All opinions are my own.
Readers will so enjoy meeting Nora Breen, the former nun, who serves as the amateur investigator in this 1950s set novel. Formerly Sister Agnes, she has left the convent after many years to take up residence at Gulls Nest. Nora has chosen this location because someone close to her, who had been living there, is missing. Did Frieda meet with foul play? Nora fears so as Frieda had promised to write weekly and her letters have stopped.
At Gulls Nest Nora meets quite an assortment of characters. There is the woman who owns the boarding house and her daughter, Dinah, who does not speak. The reader never knows where she will be found. There are also the housekeeper (an awful cook) and Rose, who both work there, and then, of course, the boarders. These include a couple Teddy and Stella, a puppeteer and performer called Professor Poppy, the mysterious Karel, and others. On the side of the law is Rideout who engages in much verbal play with Nora.
The story becomes more intricate when someone is found murdered. This is not Frieda but, no spoiler, so I won’t say who. What else will happen? Will order be restored?
Nora is outspoken and sometimes brash (she throws a shoe at an unresponsive officer in the police station). She is also determined, bright and a keen observer with whom I loved spending time.
This is a terrific mystery and one that it is easy to recommend. I eagerly await Nora and Rideout’s next appearance.
Kirkus Reviews notes: “A delightful series kickoff in a cozy community primed for more murder.”
Many thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for this title. All opinions are my own.
July 2026 Prepub Alert: forthcoming titles to know, share, and buy; plus a downloadable spreadsheet of all the titles and an Edelweiss catalog with plot summaries, author profiles, and more.
— Read on www.libraryjournal.com/story/Prepub-Alert-July-2026-Titles
I think that Tana French is a brilliant author and her books are must reads for me. I found The Dublin Murders series to be very clever with the detective pairings and story lines. My favorite of these is The Likeness but it is very easy to recommend the entire series. Her non-series novels have also offered gripping reads.
Now readers have The Keeper to savor. It is the third (and last book) in the series that also included The Searcher and The Hunter. Ideally, these books should be read in order, although that should not be a hardship in any way.
Here are characters who will be well-known to readers of the earlier titles. Cal, Lena, and Trey are the central three. Readers will, I think, be eager to know how all of them are doing and where French will leave them at the end of this novel. In addition to Lena, Trey and Cal, many others surround them in their community of Ardnakelty. Among them are Trey’s family, the farmers, the shopkeeper (Lena’s sister) and the local Garda.
This time there is also much about Tommy Moynihan, his son Eugene and Rachel who had been dating Eugene. What happened to Rachel? To what extent are Tommy and Eugene responsible? What does it mean to Ardnakelty when the social equilibrium is again upset? Read this one to find out.
French excels at describing the physical landscape. Readers will feel that they are soaking in the very air of the township.
This book is, in my opinion, a slow burn. Have patience, stick with it. It will be worth it.
I highly recommend this title.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Viking Penguin for this read. All opinions are my own.
Pub date: 31 March 2026
Post first published on 19 March 2026
5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
See reviews of the first two titles on my blog if interested.
Description:
from the publisher
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Oprah Daily, Today, BookPage, Goodreads, and more
From the iconic crime writer who “inspires cultic devotion in readers” (The New Yorker) and has been called “incandescent” by Stephen King, comes the third and final book in the million-copy-bestselling Cal Hooper trilogy.
On a cold night in the remote Irish village of Ardnakelty, a girl goes missing. Sweet, loving Rachel Holohan was about to be engaged to the son of the local big shot. Instead, she’s dead in the river.
In a close-knit small town, a death like this isn’t simple. It comes wrapped in generations-old grudges and power struggles, and it splits the townland in two. Retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper has friends here now, and he owes them loyalty, but his fiancée Lena wants nothing to do with Ardnakelty’s tangles. As the feud becomes more vicious, their settled peace starts to crack apart. And when they uncover a scheme that casts a new light on Rachel’s death and threatens the whole village, they find themselves in the firing line.
“One of the greatest crime novelists writing today” (Vox) crafts a masterwork of atmospheric suspense that brings the story of one of her most beloved characters to a spellbinding conclusion.
Unlike many others, I have not (as yet) read The Life of Pi so that is not why I wanted to read this novel by Yann Martel. I was deeply interested in it because I had just read the Iliad in a class (and an excellent one at that!). I learned so much and felt much more than I had ever anticipated while reading that work. The time was right for Son of Nobody as the Iliad was fresh in my mind.
This book will, I think, have both its fans and detractors. It requires a bit on the reader’s part and is certainly not a page turner. However, I was fascinated by how the author had thought about the Iliad and written something that relied on that, while being original.
This is a story told in two narratives. One is about Psoas. He is a fictional every man who experienced the Trojan War. He did not come from an illustrious line and yet was thrust into this very long conflict.
The other story is about the scholar who explores Psoas’s story. His last name is Donne (for the poet?). He is on a quest and this has led him to be a less than perfect husband and father.
This is a work of literary fiction. It can be read by those who have no experience of the Iliad but will be enjoyed most by those who have a reference point. It this book appeals, I suggest reading a summary of the Iliad, if needed, first.
I am glad to have read this one. Many thanks to NetGalley and W.W. Norton & Company for this title. All thoughts are my own.
Pub date: 31 March 2026
Description:
From the publisher
From the author of the international bestseller Life of Pi, a brilliant retelling of the Trojan War from the perspective of two commoners: an ancient soldier and a modern scholar.
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were not the only ancient tales of the Trojan War. In Son of Nobody, Yann Martel composes a new legend: the Psoad, an epic in free verse that follows a goatherd’s son, Psoas of Midea, who leaves his wife and family to fight at Troy. Psoas meets his doom and the poem of his life is lost—until a Canadian academic studying at Oxford, Harlow Donne, discovers its relics thirty centuries later. As Harlow assembles and comments on the fragments in footnotes, he retrieves memories of his wife and daughter and grapples with questions of ambition, family, and responsibility in both the ancient and modern worlds. Son of Nobody upends the regal perspective of traditional epics and shows that “the past is never done with, that always there are parallels and returns and repetitions, always the song continues.” Readers of Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles and Emily Wilson’s The Iliad will revel in this breathtaking feat of the imagination.
About the Author:
Yann Martel is the author of Life of Pi, the international bestseller that won the 2002 Booker Prize and was adapted to the screen in the Oscar–winning film by Ang Lee. He lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Praise for Son of Nobody: A Novel
A brilliant novel of ideas. . . . A powerful meditation on life, death, and the vanity of human wishes, all illustrated by a poem that would do Homer proud. A stunningly imagined revisitation of an ancient past. — Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Original, thought-provoking, and utterly absorbing… [An] inventive novel about a classics scholar who makes a thrilling discovery. — Kristine Huntley, Booklist, starred review
Inspired… An appealing labor of love. — Publishers Weekly
From Publishers Weekly:
Yann Martel
Author
“I was inspired by Homer’s Iliad. The Trojan War still speaks to us today because it was a siege, and waiting, prolonged waiting, is very trying. Waiting is an incubator of wild ideas and unwarranted rage, hence the violence that can arise when it finally ends. Waiting fascinates the ancient and modern minds because to learn how to live is to learn how to wait, how to deal with the sand as it falls through the hourglass. We all live before the walls of Troy.”
I loved Quinn’s novel, The Rose Code, and, after that one, I have always read her books. I enjoyed The Briar Club but it did not displace The Rose Code as my favorite. Now Quinn has written The Astral Library; this one is different from her earlier books that offered suspenseful historical fiction.
This time, Quinn has written a novel with some elements of fantasy. Main character Alix travels to the Astral Library which is like no library I know of-I only wish that it were real. How does Alix get there?
Well, Alix’s mother left her to the vagaries of the foster care system. Note that Quinn clearly sees the flaws in this system for those who are in need. Alix (names Alexandria for the famous library) has had one consolation only in her young life and that has been reading, reading, reading.
When the story opens, Alix is struggling financially and emotionally. One day, when at the Boston Public Library, she accesses the Astral Library meeting with it idiosyncratic head. Alix is told that she can choose to enter the world of any one book. (Read the story to find out what she chooses). While in the library Alix faces danger and adventure. She visits books and times that are real for her in these moments. For example, Alix visits Sherlock Holmes and the world of Huck Finn. In another plot in this novel, Alix enters paintings as, for example, one by Thomas Cole.
What will happen to both Alix and the Library? What will her life be like by the end of this novel? Readers will hope that her life improves. I know that there is one character that I hope she will be involved with long term (again no spoiler so won’t say who).
This book is part of what seems like a recent genre to me in which people enter the world of books or a character from a novel appears in the life of a book’s protagonist. This is a trend that I have enjoyed.
Those who can roll with this story without questioning how the events could happen will enjoy a book with lots of mentioned literature and art. These are elements that I enjoyed.
Note too that a theme of this novel is body positivity. Alix is a size 22 and there is someone she knows who makes a gorgeous blue dress for her. There is also commentary on the importance of libraries and the importance of all kinds of books being available to all.
I recommend this book to those who like their books to have that books within books vibe.
Many thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for this title. All opinions are my own.
Pub date: 26 February 2026
Description:
from the publisher
This stunning DELUXE LIMITED EDITION is only available on the first printing while supplies last! The collector’s hardcover features stenciled edges, illustrated endpapers, and jacket effects.
From New York Times bestselling author Kate Quinn comes a gorgeously written fantastical adventure which poses the question: Have you ever wished you could live inside a book? Welcome to the Astral Library, where books are not just objects, but doors to new worlds, new lives, and new futures.
Alexandria “Alix” Watson has learned one lesson from her barren childhood in the foster-care system: unlike people, books will never let you down. Working three dead-end jobs to make ends meet and knowing college is a pipe dream, Alix takes nightly refuge in the high-vaulted reading room at the Boston Public Library, escaping into her favorite fantasy novels and dreaming of far-off lands. Until the day she stumbles through a hidden door and meets the Librarian: the ageless, acerbic guardian of a hidden library where the desperate and the lost escape to new lives…inside their favorite books.
The Librarian takes a dazzled Alix under her wing, but before she can escape into the pages of her new life, a shadowy enemy emerges to threaten everyone the Astral Library has ever helped protect. Aided by a dashing costume-shop owner, Alix and the Librarian flee through the Regency drawing rooms of Jane Austen to the back alleys of Sherlock Holmes and the champagne-soaked parties of The Great Gatsby as danger draws inexorably closer. But who does their enemy really wish to destroy—Alix, the Librarian, or the Library itself?
Joyce's mystery and fiction book reviews with some non-fiction too! 