Tag: bookreview

Top 20 Books of 2024

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HAPPY NYE EVERYONE!

So last year I knew instantly that I wanted to do a Top 20 as I had read so many amazing books. This year, while I knew I enjoyed loads of books, I thought I would have a solid top 10 but nothing more. Until I started properly looking and then realised I 100% had enough for a Top 21 at least. So I have chosen my top 20 and I am very happy with them.

November 2024 Wrap Up

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I can’t believe that we are officially in the last month of 2024. It’s so crazy. But before we get to that, let’s talk about November.

  • I read 12 books this month
  • I DNFd 1 book this month
  • Genre: 4 fantasy, 3 murder mystery, 1 romance, 1 thriller, 1 horror, 1 non-fiction and 1 sci-fi
  • Gender of authors: 7 women and 5 men
  • Race of authors: 8 white authors and 4 asian authors
  • Age range: 7 adult, 4 YA and 1 middle grade
  • Format: 9 paperback and 3 hardback
  • 3.9 stars average rating for the month

A Very Lively Murder – Katy Watson (DNF)

While I loved the main trio of Dahlias and the setting unfortunately I couldn’t get past the really slow pacing and the not that very interesting side characters!

The Wood at Midwinter – Susanna Clarke (1 star)

Yeah… I wasn’t big fan of this. While I can’t deny that Susanna Clarke has a beautiful writing style this book lacked a lot of things. Character, substance, a plot. It made no sense and ended way too soon for anything to make sense.

The Wizard of Oz – Frank L. Baum (2.5 stars)

This was such an interesting reading experience as I have watched the original 1930’s movie and I very recently watched the Wicked movie as well as the whole musical. But I have never read the original story. What I took from it was how imaginative the world was which I loved but the writing style was underwhelming.

Night Side of the River – Jeanette Winterson (4 stars)

Wow. I have not been this impressed by a short story collection in a long time. Soul-bearing, spooky and very black mirror esque. This book had a bit of everything and I was drawn in with every story I read. It is very hard to master the art of writing short stories, not everyone can do it. Smaller word count, tighter plot structure while still needing your reader to connect with your characters and Winterson managed to achieve this so well! My favourites stories were App-arition, Boots, The Door,No Ghost Ghost Story

Murder at Holly House – Denzil Meyrick (4.5 stars)

Going into this book I wasn’t if this was going to be for me. I was trying to figure out if I liked the main character and the narrative voice, I also found the plot to be a bit all over the place at the start but something just would not let me put the book down and as I slowly endeared to Grasby’s idiosyncrasies and the plot starting slowing piecing itself together I found myself needing to pick it back up and find out what happened next. I would be disappointed if my bus turned up at my stop or my break ended and I found myself thoroughly enjoying this book and not wanting it to stop!

Everyone On This Train is a Suspect – Benjamin Stevenson (5 stars)

I think I have found my new favourite crime writer! I love this feeling of loving a book so much, reading the sequel, and then loving that book just as much if not more! Knowing you have a brand new series and author to follow along is an amazing feeling. Going into this book I was not nervous. Normally, when I love the first book in a series I worry I won’t love the next one as much but this time around I just knew I would love it. The writing style is just as hilarious and witty, the narrative structure is just as engaging, and the side characters are just as interesting. I found myself invested very easily and loved following along with Ernest. Stevenson has such a great way of writing first-person dialogue, I am normally a 3rd POV girlie but this is my favourite 1st POV book. The storyline this time is a lot easier to follow and I found it to be structured more clearly than in the first book which made the reading experience flow a bit more. The ending shocked me which is amazing as I am normally super good at guessing who the murderer is in crime novels. I also respect Stevenson’s desire to be fair to the reader and give you all the information you need to solve it in the novel. There is no weird out-of-no-where plot twist or anything. Everything is on the page.

Winter Recommendations 2024

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Another season is upon us. I love winter until January 2nd. After that I want Spring to arrive straight away. Once Christmas and the hype of the new year has died away then I want Spring to sweep me up and away from the cold and the damp. But to make the winter time a bit easier here are some recommendations that I think work well with the season.

  • Title: Murder at Holly House
  • Author: Denzil Meyrick
  • Series: Inspector Frank Grasby #1
  • Format: Paperback
  • Age Rating: Adult
  • Genre: Historical Mystery


Plot: A village of secrets. It’s December 1952, and a dead stranger has been found lodged up the chimney of Holly House in the remote town of Elderby. Is he a simple thief, or a would-be killer? Either way, he wasn’t on anyone’s Christmas wish list. A mystery that can’t be solved. Inspector Frank Grasby is ordered to investigate. The victim of some unfortunate misunderstandings, he hopes this case will help clear his name. But as is often the way for Grasby, things most certainly don’t go according to plan. A Christmas to remember. Soon blizzards hit the North York Moors, cutting off the village from help, and the local doctor’s husband is found murdered. Grasby begins to realise that everyone in Elderby is hiding something – and if he can’t uncover the truth soon, the whole country will pay a dreadful price…

  • Title: Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone
  • Author: Benjamin Stevenson
  • Series: Ernest Cunningham #1
  • Format: Paperback
  • Age Rating: Adult
  • Genre: Murder Mystery


Plot: I was dreading the Cunningham family reunion even before the first murder. Before the storm stranded us at the mountain resort, snow and bodies piling up. The thing is, us Cunninghams don’t really get along. We’ve only got one thing in common- we’ve all killed someone. My brother, my step-sister, my wife, my father, my mother, my sister-in-law, my uncle, my step-father, my aunt. Even me. When they find the first body in the snow, it’s clear that only a Cunningham could have committed the crime – and it’s up to me to prove it.

  • Title: The Bear and the Nightingale
  • Author: Katherine Arden
  • Series: The Winternight Trilogy #1
  • Format: Paperback
  • Age Rating: Adult
  • Genre: Historical Fantasy


Plot: At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn’t mind–she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil. After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows. And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa’s stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent. As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed–this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse’s most frightening tales.

  • Title: The Christmas Swap
  • Author: Talia Samuels
  • Series: Standalone
  • Format: Paperback
  • Age Rating: Adult
  • Genre: Romance


Plot: Margot Murray is a newly single, high-flying businesswoman with no interest in a cutesy seasonal romance. Ben Gibson is an unlucky-in-love sweetheart in need of a woman to bring home for the holidays. Together, they make a pact: Margot gets two blissful weeks away from London in a picture-perfect manor, in exchange for posing as Ben’s girlfriend. The story can only go one way. Margot is sure to fall in love for real. And she does. With Ben’s sister, Ellie.

October 2024 Wrap Up

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October is officially over and I must say that I actually put in the effort into reading spooky books for this month. I have spent the year trying to steer away from themes but I can’t not read spooky books in October. Anyway let’s jump into my thoughts.

  • I read 9 books this month
  • I DNFd 1 book this month
  • Genre: 2 horror, 2 non-fiction, 2 thriller, 1 fantasy, 1 sci-fi and 1 sport.
  • Gender of authors: 5 women and 4 men
  • Race of authors: 6 white authors, 2 asian author and 1 black author
  • Age range: 8 adult and 1 YA
  • Format: 5 hardback, 3 eBook and 1 paperback
  • 4.1 stars average rating for the month

Endless Night – Agatha Christie (DNF)

Now I RARELY dnf Christie books. I just tend to really enjoy her work but this book just dragged on for ages with barely plot and just a character meandering around and I hated his internal dialogue. I did google the plot and I guessed the twist so while I probably would have enjoyed the ending and the reveal it just took forever to get there. Literally, I had read 90 pages and it was no closer to a single dead body.

Graveyard Shift – M.L. Rio (3.5 stars)

This was a weird book to rate as on one hand I felt that the plot overall was interesting but I felt that the writing and the plot structure was lacklustre. I found the beginning to be really slow to get into and the ending to feel abrupt and underdeveloped. But I really enjoyed the middle and I like the characters. So it was more of a middle of the road experience.

The Woods All Black – Lee Mandelo (4 stars)

Now this was a horror book! I loved the setting of this book, rural American town where nothing happens but attending church, spooky woods, scary cult like leader. I am sat! The trans rep in this as well as the discussions of body autonomy, safe sex was a breath of fresh air compared to the oppressive environment out main character finds himself in. I like the mystery and I could easily read more books of our MC going to various backwater towns and looking after townspeople. I enjoyed the body horror element as well.

Want – Gillian Anderson and Anonymous (4 stars)

I am not sure really how to review this book as it’s very subjective to each individual but I had a great time getting into the mind of these women. Some of them made me laugh, cry or just sit and contemplate my life!

Rewitched – Lucy Jane Wood (5 stars)

I had the absolute honour to interview Lucy Jane Wood at my bookstore’s final event for 2024. It was a great way to end the year and I had an amazing time. Thankfully, I loved this book with my entire heart. I loved the cosiness of it, the characters, the relationships, the way magic system was super fun, the plot went down a road I actually didn’t expect which was great. I can’t wait to see what this author does next.

Ring Shout – P Djèlí Clark (5 stars)

Mr Clark is up there with authors that just don’t disappoint! Every single book he has written has been incredible and this book was no exception. Amazing characters, tear-jerking moments, action-packed and twisty plot. I just love a good P Djèlí Clark book!

Ancillary Justice – Ann Leslie (5 stars)

Now, I love reading a book that gets the cogs turning. I like feeling that my brain is getting a work out. My goal next year is to read more fantasy and sci-fi books that really get me thinking and this book was one of those inspirations. The plot, the characters, the world-building, the way gender is used and how different cultures are represented, discussions of colonialism made for an incredibly interesting read!