Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Was Reading On This Day Over the Last Ten Years

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This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is: “Books I Was Reading On This Day Over the Last Ten Years”.

I’m not sure if my list is entirely accurate – I track my reading through Goodreads and found it easy enough to find the books I’d marked as finished on or just after 11th August each year, but that doesn’t mean I was necessarily actually reading them on that date. Anyway, I’m sure it’s close enough!

Here are my ten books, beginning with 2025 and going back through time to 2016.

2025 – One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie – I’ve been taking part in the Read Christie challenge every year for the last few years, so it’s not surprising that there are two Agatha Christie novels on this list! The one I read last August is a Poirot mystery in which he investigates the murder of a dentist.

2024 – Eighteen: A History of Britain in 18 Young Lives by Alice Loxton – An entertaining nonfiction book containing biographies of eighteen historical figures, with a focus on how their first eighteen years shaped the rest of their lives.

2023 – Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith – Only a small part of this psychological thriller is actually set on a train, but it’s the scene of a very significant meeting between a pair of strangers who find themselves discussing a plan to commit two perfect murders!

2022 – The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper – Ancient Rome is not usually a favourite setting of mine, but I found this novel about a group of prostitutes working in a Pompeii brothel completely absorbing.

2021 – The Sussex Downs Murder by John Bude – A British Library Crime Classic first published in 1936 and one of many John Bude novels to feature Superintendent William Meredith. I enjoyed it, but found the solution to the mystery too easy to guess – something I don’t say very often!

2020 – Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie – The second Christie novel on my list and my favourite of the two. This time it’s a Miss Marple mystery – the final Miss Marple novel to be published, in fact – and I found it a particularly atmospheric one.

2019 – The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware – our narrator Rowan Caine arrives at Heatherbrae House in Scotland to find that she is just the latest in a long string of nannies in a very short time period. Could the ghostly occurrences taking place in the house be the reason?

2018 – Post of Honour by RF Delderfield – The second book in Delderfield’s A Horseman Riding By trilogy is set during the First World War and explores the impact on the lives of the inhabitants of Devon’s Sorrel Valley.

2017 – Shadow of the Moon by M.M. Kaye – I read this as part of a readalong and loved it, which was no surprise as Kaye’s The Far Pavilions is one of my all-time favourite books. Both books are set in India but are completely separate novels and this one takes place before and during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857.

2016 – Exposure by Helen Dunmore – I loved this book which on the surface is a Cold War spy novel but has so many extra layers it becomes something quite different, exploring the consequences of one decision on the lives of a man and his family.

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Have you read any of these?

Troubled Waters by Ichiyō Higuchi – #WITMonth

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Translated by Bryan Karetnyk

August is Women in Translation Month and I’ve chosen to start with a collection of short stories by an author often described as Japan’s first professional woman writer of the modern era. Born Higuchi Natsuko in 1872, she was the daughter of a peasant who had just managed to achieve samurai status a year before the Meiji Restoration period began, leading to the samurai caste being abolished. After her father’s death, Higuchi and her mother and sister were left struggling financially and Higuchi decided to support her family through her writing. Using the pseudonym Higuchi Ichiyō (in Japanese, the first name comes last), she had her first story published in a magazine in 1892 and went on to write more stories, poems, essays and a diary before dying from tuberculosis at the age of just twenty-four.

This new collection from Pushkin Press contains five of her stories published between 1893 and 1895. The first, A Snowy Day (Yuki no hi), is a beautifully written story in which our narrator looks back on her school days, when she fell in love with an unsuitable man, and reflects on the disillusionment she now feels due to decisions made during that time. Although it’s the shortest story in the book, it has a powerful emotional impact and was the perfect introduction to Higuchi’s work. The second story New Year’s Eve (Ōtsugomori) was even better – probably my favourite of the five. It follows O-Mine, a young woman working as a maid in a rich household, who asks her employer for an advance on her salary so she can help her uncle who is ill and struggling financially. Her employer agrees then cruelly pretends to forget, leaving O-Mine contemplating stealing. I particularly loved the ending which is ambiguous but also very satisfying.

Growing Pains (Takekurabe) is a novella-length story and another I enjoyed. It tells the story of a group of young people living in Yoshiwara, Tokyo’s red light district, and revolves around a feud between two rival gangs, one led by Chōkichi, the son of a construction foreman, and the other by Shōtarō, a pawnbroker’s son. We also meet the shy, serious Nobu, whose father is the local priest, and fourteen-year-old Midori, a bright, lively girl who is being groomed to become a courtesan like her older sister. As this group of children grow older they begin to discover that their hopes and dreams for the future are unlikely to come true as their paths have already been laid out for them by their parents and society. I loved all the insights we get into Japanese culture and the summer and winter festivals, and because this is the longest story in the collection, there’s more time for character development as well.

Karetnyk states in his introduction at the beginning of the book that he has tried to preserve Ichiyō’s classical Japanese writing style, which means there are no quotation marks around dialogue, with sentences and paragraphs often running together into one long section of prose. I found the first three stories easy enough to follow, but for some reason the style was more of a problem for me with the fourth, Troubled Waters (Nigorie), and I sometimes struggled to tell where one person had finished speaking and another had started. For that reason, this story wasn’t one of my favourites, but it’s still a striking depiction of the fate of courtesans, focusing on O-Riki and one of her clients, who has become infatuated with her.

The final story is This Mortal Coil (Utsusemi) and it’s another very short one. It explores a young woman’s overwhelming feelings of guilt that cause her to descend into mental and physical illness. I found it the weakest of the five stories in the book, but it was still interesting and apparently this is the first time this particular story has been translated into English. I would definitely recommend this collection as a whole for what it tells us about Meiji-era Japan and the lives of women during that period. For me personally, most of the Japanese literature I’ve read has been crime, so it was good to have the opportunity to try something different!

Thanks to Pushkin Press Classics for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 15/20 of 20 Books of Summer

The Boleyn Secret by Alison Weir

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Alison Weir has written so many novels about the Tudors it’s surprising that she’s still able to find different angles and perspectives to write from. In The Boleyn Secret, she tells the story of Kate Carey, daughter of Anne Boleyn’s sister Mary and, some believe, Henry VIII himself. There have been other books about Kate, but I haven’t read any (apart from where she’s mentioned as a minor character), so reading a whole book from her point of view was something new for me.

Katherine Carey (referred to as Kate throughout the book, so I will do the same) was born in 1524 to Mary Boleyn and her husband, William Carey, However, as Mary was having an affair with Henry VIII around this time, many historians have suggested that he was the true father, although this has never been confirmed and Henry never acknowledged Kate as his daughter. For the purposes of this novel, Weir assumes that the rumours were true and that Kate was aware that Henry was her father. She uses this idea to explore how this knowledge may have impacted on Kate’s life, how she discovered it and whether she wanted it to be known.

The book begins with the twelve-year-old Kate witnessing the execution of her aunt, Anne Boleyn (another story that has never been confirmed). We are then taken through the whole of Kate’s life, encompassing her close relationship with her cousin and half-sister Elizabeth (the future queen), her marriage to Sir Francis Knollys, her view on key historical events such as Henry VIII’s next four marriages, the reigns of Edward VI and Queen Mary, religious change and turmoil, and finally the long reign of Queen Elizabeth and the downfall of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Having read all of Weir’s Six Tudor Queens series and several of her other Tudor novels, a lot of this felt repetitive as I was just seeing the same events from yet another perspective. However, there was still plenty of new material, mainly surrounding Kate’s family life with Francis and their sixteen (yes, sixteen!) children. Kate and Francis appear to have had a genuinely happy marriage, a nice change from all the unhappy marriages that often fill the pages of historical novels! I particularly enjoyed the part of the book where they, as Calvinists, go into exile in Europe during the reign of Mary I and her Protestant burnings. Weir admits in her author’s note, though, that this episode of their lives is poorly documented so she had to use her imagination here.

Elizabeth is a huge presence in Kate’s life; they are very close from childhood and Kate loves her as a sister, although she’s never quite sure whether Elizabeth knows the truth about their relationship and is afraid to bring the subject up herself. Elizabeth is presented as a complex person of many contradictions: she can be exceptionally generous and thoughtful, but also incredibly selfish; she often seems cold-hearted and appears to be jealous and resentful of Kate’s loving marriage to Francis, but she also has a vulnerable side and relies on Kate for friendship and support. It’s frustrating to see how Elizabeth repeatedly finds ways to keep Kate and Francis apart, purely because she doesn’t want to share Kate with anyone else; I don’t think I could have kept forgiving her the way Kate did – but of course, in the turbulent Tudor period it was important to stay on the right side of your king or queen!

Overall, I enjoyed this book but I thought it felt unnecessarily long, a common criticism I have of Alison Weir’s novels. I understand that she wants to include as much information as possible to give a full picture of the subject she’s writing about, but this is fiction, not non-fiction, and I’m sure there must have been things that could be left out or condensed to make the story more fun to read. Still, it was interesting to have the opportunity to learn more about Kate Carey and her family. Alison Weir’s next novel will be The Pretender’s Wife, about Lady Catherine Gordon and Perkin Warbeck, so that’s something to look forward to.

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

Book 14/20 of 20 Books of Summer

No Fair Maidens by Kim Willis

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I’ve read a lot of Greek mythology but very little British mythology, so when I came across No Fair Maidens on NetGalley it seemed like a good opportunity to rectify that. However, I don’t think I read the description of the book properly as it wasn’t quite the exploration of British goddesses that I’d expected but more of a memoir of the author’s own personal journey. Looking at other reviews, it seems a lot of people made the same mistake, but I think as long as you know what kind of book it is before you start, there’s still a lot to enjoy here.

Kim Willis begins by telling us about a time in her life when she began to struggle with mental health issues. She had just been told (wrongly) that she would never be able to have children and was left feeling depressed and empty. It was then that she took a trip to the mouth of the River Severn and drew inspiration from the story of the goddess Sabrina (or Hafren in Welsh), whose name over the centuries became Severn. Sabrina and her two sisters fell to earth in the form of single raindrops and then each chose her own route to the sea, growing and swelling as they went. Willis found it motivating to think of these three women charting a path for themselves with no maps to show the way – and this led her to investigate the stories of other mythical British women.

I had heard of some of the women featured in the book; Morgan le Fay, who appears in the Arthurian legends usually as King Arthur’s half-sister, is probably the most famous, but I was also already familiar with Melusine, the water spirit who turns into a snake for several days each month. The others I knew little to nothing about – Coventina, Arianrhod, Scáthach and my two favourites, Cerridwen and Gwendoline. I won’t say too much about any of the individual women as you may prefer to discover their stories for yourself, but all of them are fascinating and, interestingly, they are all associated with water in some way.

However, relatively little time is spent on the actual myths; most of them are told in just a few pages embedded into each chapter. Much more attention is given to the author’s own reactions to learning about the myths, how she found them inspiring and healing and how they gave her the strength to move forward. Although I appreciate her courage in being so open and honest with the reader about her life and her mental health, I didn’t personally find any of this particularly interesting and struggled to identify with her personality and way of life. I’m sure other readers will like this aspect of the book and find it helpful; it just depends on what you’re looking for, I think.

I did enjoy reading about the author’s travels around England, Scotland and Wales to get to the source of each of the stories and stand on the land where our eight mythological women may once have stood. I’ve been left wanting to know more about these myths – and maybe I’ll actually get round to reading The Mabinogion one of these days!

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

Book 13/20 of 20 Books of Summer

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with water on the cover

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This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is: Cover Freebie (Pick any topic related to book covers. You can make up your own topic or pick one from the list of previous ones!)

I decided to find ten books with bodies of water on the cover – rivers, lakes, seas etc. It was more difficult than I expected but I got there eventually! I have written about all of these books on my blog and have linked to my reviews if you’d like to see my thoughts.

1. The Butterfly Picnic by Joan Aiken

2. Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge

3. The Doctor of Thessaly by Anne Zouroudi

4. The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson

5. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

6. The Murder of My Aunt by Richard Hull

7. Zennor in Darkness by Helen Dunmore

8. The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie

9. The Woman in the Lake by Nicola Cornick

10. Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian

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Have you read any of these? Can you think of any more books with water on the cover?

The Forever Summer by Lulu Taylor

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The first thing to say about this book is that it’s definitely not the light summer read you would probably expect from the cover and title. It’s actually a tale of lies, betrayal and treason set during the rise of the Nazis in 1930s Germany. It’s the first Lulu Taylor book I’ve read and I really enjoyed it.

The novel opens with a brief section set in the modern day, introducing us to Lottie Conway, a young woman who has grown up under the shadow of a family scandal – one linked with the actions of two women at the start of the Second World War. The Conway name has become tarnished by association, although the details have always been vague. When a new blockbuster film is made about the incident, Lottie decides it’s time to speak to the one person who knows exactly what happened: her grandmother, Dinah.

Dinah’s story begins in 1931 when her wealthy friend, Marina, invites her to a dinner party. Here she meets Marina’s cousin, William Conway, whom she hasn’t seen since they were children and they quickly fall in love and decide to marry. The marriage isn’t welcomed by everyone – William’s mother refuses to even speak to Dinah, which she assumes is due to her poor background – but the two are blissfully happy and head to Germany on their honeymoon. They’re planning to visit Rosemary, another of William’s cousins, at her school in Munich, but first William wants to visit the site of the Battle of Blenheim. However, they are not the only British tourists in the area that day…Winston Churchill is also visiting the battlefield, having some time on his hands after resigning from the Conservative shadow cabinet.

The Conways’ lives are changed forever by that chance meeting with Churchill, who believes that William, who works for the Foreign Office, can be of use to him in providing information on activity in Germany and the British government’s response to it. But they also make another new acquaintance in Munich who will have an equally big influence on their future fates: Ernst Hanfstaengl, known as Putzi, a close friend of Adolf Hitler, leader of the increasingly powerful Nazi Party.

The Forever Summer is quite a long book but was a faster read than I expected as I was so gripped by it. I loved the way the author obscures the true intentions of the characters from us, leaving us questioning who can and cannot be trusted. A good example of this is Victoria Gauntlett, one of the women who brought shame on the Conway family; it’s never quite clear whether Victoria is spying for Britain, spying for Germany, a double agent or just an innocent young woman. We only see her through Dinah’s eyes and Dinah is hardly an unbiased observer, as she is jealous of Victoria’s close friendship with William. By the time we reach the end of the book, then, there are lots of secrets to be revealed and some surprising twists to look out for along the way.

What I found most interesting, though, was the portrayal of the mood in Munich during the build to the war. When Dinah first visits for her honeymoon in 1932, she can sense a tension in the air even then; there are already men on the streets wearing brown uniforms with the swastika insignia and disturbing rumours of their plans for Jews. When she returns just three years later, the atmosphere has become much more oppressive; there’s a stronger military presence and Nazi flags line the boulevards and hang from shops and houses. I was also fascinated by the depiction of Putzi Hanfstaengl, a real person although I don’t think I’ve come across him in fiction before. Most poignantly of all, the book explores the question of whether another war was inevitable or if anything could have been done differently during that period that may have prevented it.

I’ll have to investigate some of Lulu Taylor’s other books; I had previously dismissed them as probably not being for me, but I’m interested in trying more of them now.

Thanks to Pan Macmillan for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 12/20 of 20 Books of Summer

Six Degrees of Separation: From Land to Tea on Sunday

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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 Land by Maggie O’Farrell. I haven’t read it, but am thinking about it. I didn’t love Hamnet as much as most people seem to have done, but would like to try more of her books and Land sounds interesting. Here’s what it’s about:

On a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, Tomás and his reluctant son, Liam, are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged and emptied by the Great Hunger, the task is not an easy one. Tomás, however, is determined that his maps will be a record of the disaster.

The British soldiers in charge are due to arrive any day, expecting the work to be completed, but Tomás is sent off course by an unsettling encounter in a copse. His life, and those of his family, will never be the same again. Liam is terrified by the sudden change in his taciturn father. What was it that caused such cracks to open in Tomás and how is Liam, aged only ten, going to finish the mapping, and get them both home?

I’m going to use mapping as my first link. Harvest by Jim Crace (1) explores the reactions of a small rural community to the arrival of a ‘chart-maker’ who begins to measure and map their land – and their discovery that there are plans to enclose their fields and convert them to sheep farming. This is an unusual novel because we aren’t told exactly when or where it is set, leaving everything vague and timeless.

I have read another book with Harvest in the title: Random Harvest by James Hilton (2). This 1941 novel tells the story of Charles Rainier who is injured on a battlefield in France in 1917 and wakes up two years later in Liverpool with no memory at all of the intervening period. I loved this book and was completely taken by surprise by the ending.

Hilton, of course, is the name of a famous hotel chain. A book set in a hotel (though not a Hilton) is The Christmas Clue by Nicola Upson (3). Anthony and Elva Pratt, creators of the game Cluedo, are invited to host a murder mystery weekend at the Tudor Close Hotel – but before they even arrive, they find themselves with a real crime to solve. I found this an enjoyable Christmas read combining historical people and events with a fictional story.

Nicola Upson is better known for her series of novels featuring the classic crime author Josephine Tey in the role of a detective. My next link, then, is to a book by Tey herself: The Daughter of Time (4), in which Inspector Alan Grant has a broken leg and decides to investigate the alleged crimes of Richard III from his hospital bed. Reading everything he can find about Richard and the disappearances of the Princes in the Tower, Grant begins to discover that historical sources can’t always be trusted and that history is written by the victors.

Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry (5) shares a word in the title. Set in Ireland, this novel follows retired police detective Tom Kettle as he looks back at his memories of a case from the 1960s which has been reopened. It involves one of the darkest episodes in the history of the Catholic Church and is not a comfortable book to read but Barry’s writing is as beautiful as ever.

The name Kettle makes me think of cups of tea, so my final book is Tea on Sunday by Lettice Cooper (6). Her only mystery novel, it was published in 1973 but feels like a much older book. The plot revolves around the death of Alberta Mansbridge, found strangled in her home as she waits for her guests to arrive for a tea party. Although the mystery isn’t very strong, the characters make this book worth reading.

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And that’s my chain for August! My links have included: Map making, the word Harvest, Hilton hotels, Josephine Tey, the word Time and kettles.

In September we’ll be starting with either our book group’s current selection or the book that we’re currently reading. As I’m not in a book group, for me it will have to be a current read!