Murder at the Spirit Lounge by Jess Kidd

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This is the second book in Jess Kidd’s new 1950s mystery series, Nora Breen Investigates. I enjoyed the first one, Murder at Gulls Nest, but I thought this one was even better. It’s not essential to read them in order as they are completely separate mysteries, but you’ll have a better understanding of some of the characters and their relationships if you do.

In the previous book, former nun Nora Breen arrives in the English seaside town of Gore-on-Sea to investigate a friend’s disappearance. With that mystery now solved, she has decided to stay on at the Gulls Nest guest house for the winter so she can look for a job and build a new life for herself in the town. Soon, though, Nora finds herself caught up in another mystery – the murder of medium Doreen Chimes during a séance at her Gore-on-Sea ‘spirit lounge’. The séance had been attended by a small group of guests including Nora’s new friend, Detective Inspector Rideout, and there’s reason to believe that all of their lives could now be in danger.

With Rideout himself a possible target, along with the other séance attendees, he and Nora need to track down the murderer as quickly as possible. The only clue they have are the letters E.V.E. – part of a message Mrs Chimes was supposedly receiving from the spirit world at the moment of her death. Who is Eve and who was the message intended for? To find out, Nora will need to ask a lot of questions – and, fortunately, she’s just been offered a job as reporter for the Gore-on-Sea Herald, which gives her the perfect excuse to speak to people and hunt for information.

One of my favourite things about the first book was Nora’s relationship with Rideout and I was pleased to see it develop further in this book (although if you’re hoping for a great romance, I think there’s still a long way to go). Nora also has another suitor, the photographer Hosmer, so I suspect someone is going to be disappointed! There are plenty of other colourful characters as well, such as Irene, the Gulls Nest housekeeper, whose cooking leaves a lot to be desired, eight-year-old Dinah, who doesn’t speak but watches and listens, and even Father Conway, the seagull who taps at Nora’s bedroom window every morning.

The mystery is an interesting one and with this being the second book in the series, I felt that we got straight into the action more quickly than in the first book as less time needed to be spent introducing the main characters and setting the scene. I had my suspicions about the identity of the culprit early on and I was right, but there were still other things that I didn’t guess and I enjoyed watching Nora and Rideout carrying out their investigations. With Rideout’s life at risk, a lot of the detective work falls to Nora, much to his frustration! This also gives his assistant, Constable Griggs, a chance to get more involved and his help proves invaluable to Nora towards the end. Another important clue is provided by one of Doreen Chimes’ cats, whom Nora rescues from the medium’s house and brings home to Gulls Nest.

Overall, I found this an entertaining novel, slightly stronger than the first one. I love the 1950s seaside setting and will be looking out for more books in the series. First, though, I’m looking forward to reading Jess Kidd’s new standalone novel, Little Spark, which is being published in July.

Thanks to Faber and Faber Ltd for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Gigi and The Cat by Colette – #ReadingtheMeow2026

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Translated by Roger Senhouse (Gigi) and Antonia White (The Cat).

I wasn’t sure what to read for this year’s Reading the Meow (a yearly cat-themed reading event hosted by Mallika), but then I came across this pair of stories by the French author Colette – Gigi, first published in 1933, and The Cat, which first appeared in 1944 as La Chatte. I’ve never read anything by Colette and have been intending to for a long time, so I thought this would be a good opportunity. Only the second story fits the Reading the Meow theme, but as this Vintage Classics edition includes both, I’m reviewing Gigi here as well.

I’ll start with The Cat, which is novella length and follows a young newly married couple, Alain and Camille. Alain, an only child, has grown up at the centre of his mother’s world and although he finds his new wife attractive, he doesn’t feel ready to leave behind the comforts of his family home to embark on a new life with her. This is frustrating for Camille, particularly after they move temporarily into a friend’s apartment and she discovers that Alain keeps sneaking back home to visit his mother and his beloved Russian Blue cat, Saha. Alain misses Saha so much that eventually she comes to live with them and from this point it becomes obvious that there’s only room for one female in Alain’s heart – and it’s not Camille! As the days go by, Camille grows more and more jealous of her husband’s cat until she finally decides that she needs to take action…

I found this a dark, unsettling story and although it’s also quite a simple one on the surface, there’s a lot of psychological depth. Camille and Alain are complete opposites in terms of personalities – Alain is quiet, sensitive and introverted, while Camille is lively and outgoing – and they begin to irritate each other as soon as they’re married. They have very different outlooks on life, with Camille being ambitious and forward-thinking and Alain struggling to move on and leave his childhood behind. Saha has been his companion for many years and is his last connection to the safety and security of his past, so Camille finds herself competing not just against the cat, but also everything the cat represents. I suspect she and Alain would have discovered their incompatibility anyway, but Saha’s presence makes it happen much more quickly!

Gigi is about half the length of The Cat and is a much lighter story. The title character, Gilberte (known as Gigi), is fifteen years old, that awkward age where you’re not quite an adult and not quite a child. Her mother is preoccupied with her career as a singer in a Parisian music hall and has left most of Gigi’s upbringing to her grandmother and Aunt Alicia, who are grooming her for life as a courtesan, like themselves. With Gigi’s mother, who works for a living, as a warning of what happens if a woman fails to find a wealthy man to support her, Gigi is being educated in all the skills her grandmother and aunt consider necessary for her future – dancing, table manners, rolling cigars and knowing the value of expensive jewels. The only man currently in Gigi’s life on whom she could try out these skills is family friend Gaston Lachaille. Grandmother and Alicia begin making plans for Gigi to become Gaston’s mistress, but it seems Gigi herself has other ideas!

Gigi is fun to read (if you ignore the morals of two older women pushing a fifteen-year-old girl into a relationship with a thirty-three-year-old man) and is a story about choosing your own way in life and doing what you want to do rather than what other people think you should do. It’s certainly a more uplifting story than The Cat, although I personally found The Cat more interesting and a perfect choice for Reading the Meow.

Have you read either of these stories? What else should I read by Colette?

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Book 1/20 of 20 Books of Summer

Some previous cat-themed reads – #ReadingtheMeow2026

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This week Mallika of Literary Potpourri is hosting her annual Reading the Meow event, a celebration of cats in literature. I’m hoping to post a new review later in the week but first I thought it would be interesting to look back at some of the other cat-related books I’ve read.

I’m only listing books here that I’ve actually reviewed on my blog. I’m sure I read more before I started blogging!

The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr by ETA Hoffmann – A fascinating 19th century German classic partly written in the form of a memoir narrated by Murr, an unusually intelligent cat who has taught himself to read and write.

We’ll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida – A Japanese novel about a clinic which prescribes not medicine but cats. Entertaining, but a bit too bizarre for me!

Thomasina by Paul Gallico – The story of a young Scottish girl and her beloved cat, Thomasina. I loved the Disney film as a child but didn’t get round to reading the book until Reading the Meow in 2024.

Jennie by Paul Gallico – Another cat-themed Gallico novel in which a boy awakens after an accident to find that he has been transformed into a white cat. I enjoyed it, but think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I’d read it at the target age!

The Cat Saw Murder by Dolores Hitchens – The first in a mystery series starring elderly spinster detective Miss Rachel Murdoch and her black cat, Samantha. All of the other books in the series have cat-related titles, although I haven’t read any more of them yet.

Gobbolino, the Witch’s Cat by Ursula Moray Williams – This lovely book from 1942 about a witch’s cat who just wants to live an ordinary life with a family who love him was one of my childhood favourites.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov – A weird and wonderful Russian classic with several unusual characters including Behemoth, the demonic black cat who is part of the devil’s entourage. I must read this book again one day!

Have you read any of these books – or any other books about cats?

Historical Musings #95: Walter Scott Prize Winner…and some more books to look out for in 2026

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Welcome to this month’s post on all things historical fiction!

First of all, congratulations to Alice Jolly, who has won this year’s Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. The winner was announced at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose, Scotland yesterday, chosen from a shortlist of five books.

The winning novel, The Matchbox Girl, is one of the shortlisted titles that I haven’t read yet. It tells the story of Adelheid Brunner, a mute autistic patient of Dr Hans Asperger in the Vienna Children’s Hospital during the 1930s, while the city is occupied by the Nazis. I’m not sure if I’ll like it as it seems to be written in an unusual style, but I do have a copy of it and will try to get to it soon.

Moving on, last December I posted a list of upcoming historical fiction being published in 2026. Now that we’re halfway through the year, more titles have been announced so I thought I would post an updated list below for the rest of the year. This is simply a selection of books that have caught my attention for one reason or another – some are review copies I’ve received, some are new books by authors I’ve previously enjoyed and others just sounded interesting.

Dates provided are for the UK and were correct at the time of posting.

JULY

The Scandalous Ladies Football Club by Frances Quinn (2nd July 2026)

Venus, Vanishing by Rebecca Birrell (16th July 2026)

The Forever Summer by Lulu Taylor (30th July 2026)

The Valley of Ravens by Barbara Erskine (30th July 2026)

AUGUST

Little Spark by Jess Kidd (13th August 2026)

Henrietta by Sophie Irwin (13th August 2026)

Agrippa by Robert Harris (27th August 2026)

SEPTEMBER

The Snow Witch by Kirsty Ferry (3rd September 2026)

Cold Sunset by William Boyd (3rd September 2026)

The Newer World by Sebastian Barry (8th September 2026)

The Midnight Guests by Alex Hay (10th September 2026)

Our Noble Selves by Kate Atkinson (10th September 2026)

The Housekeeper by Rose Tremain (17th September 2026)

The Wine-Dark Sea by Victoria Hislop (24th September 2026)

OCTOBER

The Weight of Angels by John Boyne (1st October 2026)

The Puffin by Michelle Lovric (8th October 2026)

Royal Witch by Philippa Gregory (20th October 2026)

NOVEMBER

The Bells of Fortune by Leonora Nattrass (5th November 2026)

The Christmas Tree Murders by Katie Lumsden (5th November 2026)

Orlando by Harry Whittaker (5th November 2026)

Numb Were the Beadsman’s Fingers by Alan Bradley (5th November 2026)

Thorns in the Hollow by Laura Purcell (26th November 2026)

DECEMBER

Domain of Darkness by Marisa Linton (3rd December 2026)

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Are you interested in reading any of these? Which other historical novels should I be looking out for before the year of the year? And what do you think of Alice Jolly winning the Walter Scott Prize?

The Witch’s Stone by Kirsty Ferry

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Jess Morgan is a genealogist and historical researcher who has returned to the area of Northumberland where she grew up to work on a new project looking into the history of a ruined chapel. There are plans to make it part of a Heritage Trail for tourists, so some interesting facts about the site are needed. Reacquainted with an old school friend, Nate, who is managing the project for the heritage group, Jess begins investigating the chapel’s past and discovers links with an ancient stone known as Isabel’s Stone – or the Witch’s Stone – and a woman called Eliza who is buried in the chapel graveyard.

A second thread of the novel is set in 1888 and follows Eliza, the twenty-two-year-old daughter of Lord and Lady Stratford of Stratford Chase. Eliza is recovering from an accident she suffered several months earlier which left her with damage to her spine and unable to remember what happened. All she knows is that Lucian Ashcombe, the man she loves, was somehow involved and was sent away, forbidden to see her again. But now Lucian has returned – and so has another man, Benedict Rochford, her intended husband. Can she trust either of them? If only her memories would come back!

Jess and Eliza are linked by a third woman: Isabel, the witch, whom it’s said can be summoned by running three times around her stone. I was interested to read at the end of the book that Kirsty Ferry was inspired by a brief record in an old book of a witch with an evil eye and a sinister cat who lived in a cottage near Brinkburn Abbey. Ferry’s portrayal of Isabel, the Brinkburn Witch, is much more sympathetic; she appears to the protagonists in times of need, tying the two storylines together. The two narratives merge further when Jess, who is staying in a room at Eliza’s old home, Stratford Chase, now converted into a hotel, begins to slip between past and present, and when Nate discovers an old hunting knife which seems to wield a strange power over him.

There are some supernatural elements, then, but they never completely dominate the novel; the focus is on the personal stories of the characters with Jess researching the history of the chapel and trying to rebuild her life after her recent divorce and Eliza struggling with her amnesia and looking for a way out of the marriage her parents and brother have planned for her. I was much more interested in Eliza’s story at first as it was where all the drama was taking place, but later in the book the two threads come together so well that it’s hard to separate one from the other. Not everyone in the story gets a happy ending, but that’s reality and I still found the final chapter very satisfying. I also loved the setting – not enough books are set in Northumberland! The fictional Stratford Chase and the ruined chapel are located in the Simonside Hills near Rothbury and the author describes the landscape beautifully.

This is the first Kirsty Ferry book I’ve read; she has written a large number of others and I’m not sure if any of them appeal to me, but I’ll certainly be looking out for The Snow Witch, due to be published later this year!

Thanks to Boldwood Books for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with handwriting on the cover

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This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is: “Books with Handwriting on the Cover (Or fonts that look like handwriting. Titles, subtitles, covers with letters on them, etc.)”

1. A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie – Many editions of Agatha Christie’s novels have her signature on the cover, so this was an easy choice to start my list. In this one, Miss Marple investigates the poisoning of a businessman who is found dead with a handful of rye in his pocket.

2. The Valley of Adventure by Enid Blyton – Enid Blyton was a big part of my childhood and her Adventure series was one of my favourites. I particularly loved this one and Castle of Adventure. As with Christie’s books, her signature usually appeared on the cover.

3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows – This novel about life in German-occupied Guernsey during the Second World War is written in the form of letters, which makes the writing on the cover very appropriate.

4. Myself When Young by Daphne du Maurier – As the title suggests, this is du Maurier’s autobiography and focuses on her childhood and early adulthood. The book ends just after her marriage so we don’t get any thoughts on her later life.

5. Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini – I loved this classic novel set during the French Revolution! The flamboyant calligraphy on the cover suits the theatricality of the main character, Andre-Louis Moreau, who joins a Commedia dell’Arte acting troupe as part of a larger plan to avenge the death of his friend in a duel.

6. Nelly Dean by Alison Case – A retelling of Wuthering Heights written from the perspective of the servant, Nelly Dean. An interesting idea, but I’m glad Emily Brontë chose to tell Catherine and Heathcliff’s story instead of Nelly’s! The title font looks like it could be handwritten, doesn’t it?

7. Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon – This is the eighth book in Gabaldon’s Outlander series and is set mainly in 1770s America during the Revolution. I loved the first three books in this series, but the later ones not so much. I assume the font here is intended to look like writing in blood.

8. The Lost Book of Salem by Katherine Howe – We follow a 20th century history student as she attempts to track down a spell book belonging to Deliverance Dane, one of the women accused of witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The cover itself looks like a book with a pretty handwritten font.

9. Miss Granby’s Secret: or The Bastard of Pinsk by Eleanor Farjeon – The subtitle is written in handwriting on the cover, which is quite apt because The Bastard of Pinsk is an unpublished manuscript written by Adelaide Granby, who has recently died. Her niece inherits the manuscript and reads it, hoping to learn more about Aunt Adelaide and a possible secret love.

10. The Silk Merchant’s Daughter by Dinah Jefferies – This novel follows the story of the daughter of a silk merchant living through a turbulent time in the history of French Indochina, the group of former French colonial territories which included Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Several of Jefferies’ other book covers also use a similar elegant font.

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What do you think of these covers? Can you think of any others that have handwriting on them? And have you read any of the books I’ve listed here? I’m away in the Lake District this week with limited internet access but will reply to comments when I can.

Six Degrees of Separation: From The Post Office Girl to The Tiger’s Wife

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It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for another Six Degrees of Separation, hosted by Kate of Books are my Favourite and Best. The idea is that Kate chooses a book to use as a starting point and then we have to link it to six other books of our choice to form a chain. A book doesn’t have to be connected to all of the others on the list – only to the one next to it in the chain.

This month we’re starting with The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig. I haven’t read it, but here’s what it’s about:

It’s the 1930s. Christine, A young Austrian woman whose family has been impoverished by the war, toils away in a provincial post office. Out of the blue, a telegram arrives from an American aunt she’s never known, inviting her to spend two weeks in a Grand Hotel in a fashionable Swiss resort. She accepts and is swept up into a world of almost inconceivable wealth and unleashed desire, where she allows herself to be utterly transformed. Then, just as abruptly, her aunt cuts her loose and she has to return to the post office, where – yes – nothing will ever be the same.

My first link is a very obvious one, inspired by the mention of post offices – I’ve chosen The Postmistress by Sarah Blake (1). It tells the story of a postmistress (or postmaster as she prefers to call herself) in a small town in Massachusetts during World War II. Although I found this book a bit disappointing and couldn’t connect with the characters, I did enjoy the insights into how the war was affecting the lives of American people in the period just before the US officially joined the conflict.

Another book that explores life in America during the war is Elisabeth Sanxay Holding’s 1947 novel, The Blank Wall (2). I really enjoyed this one! It follows Lucia Holley, who is left at home with her teenage children while her husband is serving in the Navy and finds herself covering up a series of crimes in an attempt to avoid a family scandal. I loved the way Holding blends the details of Lucia’s domestic life with elements of suspense and danger.

The name Lucia appears in the title of the first book in EF Benson’s Mapp and Lucia series, Queen Lucia (3). First published in 1920, this is a humorous novel about a small community presided over by Emmeline Lucas, who really does regard herself as queen of the village! This book wasn’t entirely to my taste and I haven’t continued with the next one yet, but I read it at the start of the Covid pandemic and it was just the sort of light read I needed to take my mind off things.

The word Mapp made me think of maps and mapmakers. In The Bird King by G Willow Wilson (4), a mapmaker in Granada’s Alhambra palace is accused of sorcery when it’s discovered that he has the ability to draw magical maps of places he has never visited. He and his friend, Fatima, flee across 15th century Spain in search of the legendary island of Qaf, said to be the home of the King of the Birds. This is an unusual novel, combining history, myth and fantasy.

Court of Lions by Jane Johnson (5) is also set, at least partly, in the Alhambra. This is a dual timeline novel. Although I found the modern day storyline too melodramatic and some of the threads linking the two periods were unconvincing, the historical storyline is fascinating, covering the life of Sultan Abu Abdullah Muhammad (known as Boabdil) and the fall of Granada in 1492.

From lions to tigers for my final link! The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht (6), which won the Women’s Prize for Fiction (then known as the Orange Prize) in 2011, is set in an unnamed Balkan country and follows a young woman who decides to investigate the circumstances surrounding her grandfather’s death and discovers a link with an old folk tale involving an escaped tiger. I remember finding it interesting but I still haven’t read any of her other books.

And that’s my chain for June. My links have included: post offices, America in WWII, the name Lucia, maps (or Mapps), the Alhambra and big cats!

In July we’ll be starting with Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke.