Top Ten Tuesday: Books for Armchair Travellers

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This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is: “Books for Armchair Travellers”

There are lots of ways I could have approached this topic, but the ten books I’ve chosen are set in places that I’ve never visited and probably never will. It was nice to have the opportunity to ‘see’ them through the pages of these books!

1. The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna (Sierra Leone)

2. The English Girl by Katherine Webb (Oman)

3. Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton (The Falkland Islands)

4. The Missing Sister by Dinah Jefferies (Myanmar)

5. The Gabriel Hounds by Mary Stewart (Syria and Lebanon)

6. The Predicament by William Boyd (Multiple locations including Guatemala)

7. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (Afghanistan)

8. Death in Zanzibar by M.M. Kaye (Zanzibar)

9. Islands of Mercy by Rose Tremain (Borneo)

10. Scales of Gold by Dorothy Dunnett (Multiple locations including Mali and The Gambia)

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Have you read any of these? And have you been to any of these places or, like me, are you only likely to visit them from your armchair?

Some thoughts on Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights (2026)

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I hadn’t intended to go and see Emerald Fennell’s new Wuthering Heights adaptation as I’d been put off by the trailer and the early reviews being almost universally negative, but I wasn’t doing much else yesterday and made a last minute decision to go, in the hope that it wouldn’t be as bad as it sounded!

Wuthering Heights is one of my favourite books and I’m under no misconceptions about it being a ‘romantic love story’, no matter how much the book and various film versions may have been marketed that way. I first read it when I was thirteen and I wasn’t particularly interested in reading romance novels at that age anyway, so I loved it for the dark, twisted, passionate Gothic novel it is. To me, it’s the perfect book and I would probably be critical of any adaptation that’s not completely faithful. I tried to go in with an open mind, although I knew it would be difficult.

There’s been a lot of criticism of the casting of Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, due to him not being the ‘dark-skinned gypsy’ Emily Brontë describes (we don’t know exactly what his racial background is, but the general consensus is that he’s not white like Elordi). Interestingly, Fennell has cast Asian actors in the roles of Edgar Linton and Nelly Dean, taking away the whole idea of Heathcliff being looked down upon because of his skin colour. As for Edgar’s sister, Isabella, she’s reduced to a comedy character in this version, with a silly, childish voice (and there’s a strong implication that she’s actually enjoying the abuse she receives from Heathcliff). The biggest problem with the casting, though, at least for me personally, was 35-year-old Margot Robbie playing Cathy, a brown-haired teenager in the book. She was completely wrong for the part, with her age, her blonde hair and bright red dresses, all of which kept breaking any immersion in the story that I was starting to feel.

As usual, the whole second half of the book is missed out (so no younger Catherine, Linton Heathcliff or Hareton Earnshaw), eliminating some of the novel’s important themes and subplots. I don’t understand why it’s apparently so difficult to adapt the whole book – yes, there would have to be flashbacks, a framing story, shifting timelines etc, but surely that’s not impossible to deal with? In this version, there’s also no Mr Lockwood, which means we don’t get the famous ghost scene – and most inexplicably, no Hindley Earnshaw. Instead, the characteristics of Hindley and his (and Cathy’s) father, old Mr Earnshaw, are combined into one character, played wonderfully by Martin Clunes, who does a great job and is the star of the show, in my opinion! Leaving out Hindley, though, removes the whole storyline involving his rivalry with Heathcliff and later, Heathcliff’s scheme to take revenge.

Despite everything I’ve said, this wasn’t a bad way to pass a few hours on a cold, wet Sunday afternoon and I’m sure other people were probably enjoying it more than I was. The film does at least look great – beautiful cinematography, dramatic Yorkshire Dales scenery and dark and brooding interior sets. If you’ve seen it, let me know what you thought. I’m particularly curious to know whether it worked better for people who’ve never read the book or don’t love the book as much as I do.

The Killer Question by Janice Hallett

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I love Janice Hallett; her books have an unusual style and format that I know doesn’t work for everyone, but it does for me and I’ve enjoyed all of her adult novels so far. The Killer Question is another good one, this time with a plot revolving around one of the staples of British culture: the pub quiz.

Mal and Sue Eastwood have recently become landlords of a country pub called The Case is Altered (the name refers to a new piece of evidence that emerges in court and could change the outcome of a case). The pub is in a lonely location at the end of a road that leads nowhere and previous landlords have struggled to attract customers, but the Eastwoods are sure they can make a success of it. One of their plans is to start hosting a weekly quiz – Mal loves trivia and is looking forward to compiling his own sets of questions.

Mal’s Monday night quizzes prove popular and soon several teams are coming back week after week to join in. Some of them just see it as a chance to have fun with their friends, but others are much more competitive. Then, one night, a new team arrives, calling themselves The Shadow Knights, and they win the quiz with an almost perfect score. They win again the next week and the next, until Mal becomes convinced that they must be cheating – if only he could find a way to prove it. But soon Mal and Sue will have bigger things to worry about, because a man’s body has been pulled from the nearby river and the police have come to question them…

Like Hallett’s previous novels, this one is written entirely in the form of texts, emails, WhatsApp messages, transcriptions of conversations and other forms of media. Having read other reviews, this definitely seems to be something people either love or hate, and as her books are all written in the same way I think trying one or two of them should be enough to give you an idea of whether her style is for you or not. Personally I find it very clever, because only getting to know the characters through what they choose to reveal of themselves in a text or an email allows for all sorts of surprising twists and revelations. And the twists come one after another throughout the second half of this book, none of which I saw coming in advance!

Although there is a subplot set several years earlier, involving a kidnapping and a police investigation known as Operation Honeyguide, I found this book less complex than some of Hallett’s others so it could be a good place for new readers to start. I also loved the quiz element of the story, seeing how seriously some of the teams take their performances and the lengths they go to in their efforts to win. The arrival of the mysterious Shadow Knights causes a lot of disruption, with some of the existing players becoming angry and determined to beat them. There’s also a lot of humour; I particularly liked the WhatsApp group formed by Mal, Sue and the other local pub landlords, where they share one-star reviews posted by disgruntled customers!

I certainly won’t be giving this book a one-star review as I thought it was excellent – maybe slightly too long, but the format made it a quicker read than it would otherwise have been. I’m looking forward to her next book, The Silent Appeal, coming later this year.

The Tower by Thea Lenarduzzi – #ReadIndies

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This month Karen of Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings is hosting #ReadIndies, celebrating books from independent publishers. I’ve never read anything published by Fitzcarraldo Editions before, so this seemed a good opportunity to read one of their books.

The Tower is a difficult book to describe. It’s not quite fiction, but it doesn’t feel like non-fiction either. It’s a memoir but it’s also an essay and an ode to the power of storytelling. The book follows an author known only as ‘T.’ – presumably Thea Lenarduzzi herself – as she becomes obsessed with the story of a young woman, Annie, who developed tuberculosis in the early 20th century and, according to local legend, was locked away by her father in a tower specially built on the family estate. After living there in isolation for several years, she is said to have died from the disease and although the house has since been demolished, the tower still remains.

T. becomes completely fixated on Annie and her tragic life, determined to find out everything she can about her illness, her imprisonment and her death. She spends a lot of time researching the history of TB, its symptoms and the various treatments, also looking at the lives of famous sufferers such as the author Katherine Mansfield. She visits the now abandoned tower, speaks to historians and archivists and listens to tales told by local residents. All of this is covered in the first two sections of the book and I found most of it fascinating. T. goes off on a lot of lengthy tangents and meanders from one subject to another, but in general Annie’s story was very compelling…

Until, suddenly, we discover that everything we – and T. – thought we knew about Annie may not necessarily be completely accurate after all. In the third section of the book, Lenarduzzi switches from writing in the third person to the first person and becomes herself again, instead of a character known as T. This final section takes the form of a long discussion of storytelling, raising lots of intriguing questions. What is a story and who chooses how it should be told? What is it that draws us to certain stories and not others? As Lenarduzzi explains:

Perhaps for now I should simply say that we don’t always tell the story we want to tell. We can’t always choose our place in it, nor how it ends, or even if it does. That, reader, is the stuff of fiction.

The Tower, then, wasn’t quite what I expected, but it’s a book that surprised me several times and left me with a lot to think about at the end! Thea Lenarduzzi has written another book, Dandelions, inspired by her family history, which sounds equally interesting.

The House of Fallen Sisters by Louise Hare

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Louise Hare has written several historical novels set in various periods, but this is the first one I’ve read. I’ll probably be looking for her others as I enjoyed this one – it has an interesting setting and an engaging heroine and it explores a little-known episode from British history.

It’s December 1765 and Sukey Maynard is running away from home – home being Mrs Macauley’s brothel in Covent Garden. It used to be her mother’s place of work, until she died when Sukey was very young, and since then Sukey has been cared for by Mrs Macauley and her family. Now that she’s fourteen, her virginity is about to be auctioned off to the highest bidder and she’s decided to flee rather than stay and go through with it. Before she gets very far, she encounters a young man who has been badly beaten and wounded, and she helps him reach a doctor, who agrees to treat him. However, this delay means that Sukey finds herself captured and taken back to Mrs Macauley.

The rest of the novel follows Sukey after she returns to the brothel and prepares to face whatever life has in store for her. At first her position is better than she expected as she catches the eye of a wealthy client whom she hopes will become her ‘keeper’, but what will she do if he changes his mind? The lives of Sukey and the other girls in Mrs Macauley’s establishment are difficult, uncertain and often unpleasant, but Hare shows us how even in the bleakest of circumstances, small acts of friendship and kindness can make a big difference. Although Sukey makes some enemies, she also makes some good friends and I enjoyed watching her various relationships develop.

There’s a mystery element to the story, which unfolds as young women begin to go missing, both from Mrs Macauley’s house and from the surrounding area, thought to have been lured away by a mysterious figure known only as the Piper. We find out what’s happening to the women earlier than I expected, but this allows Hare to take the story in some interesting directions as Sukey and her friends look for revenge.

Another subplot revolves around Jonathan Strong, the young man Sukey rescues after he is beaten almost to death. Strong really existed and his story is a fascinating one as he was a slave whose owner brought him to London from Barbados and he became the subject of an important legal case regarding slavery and the abolitionist movement in Britain. Sukey herself is mixed race, which gives her an added interest in his fate, and she and her friends try to help Jonathan in any way they can throughout the book. William Sharp, the doctor who treats him, and his brother Granville Sharp are also real people. This is the first time I’ve read a novel in which the Sharps and Jonathan Strong appear, so I found that aspect of the story fascinating.

Although I’ve read other novels about women in Sukey’s position (I highly recommend Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White and Elodie Harper’s The Wolf Den), the addition of the Jonathan Strong storyline made this one well worth reading as well. The book is published in the UK tomorrow, 12th February.

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

Walter Scott Prize Longlist 2026

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The longlist for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction was announced last Thursday! Thanks to this prize, I have discovered lots of great books and authors and always look out for the longlists and shortlists; in fact, trying to read all of the shortlisted titles since the prize began in 2010 is a personal project of mine (you can see my progress here).

There are twelve books on this year’s longlist and here they are:

Venetian Vespers by John Banville

The Two Roberts by Damian Barr

Eden’s Shore by Oisín Fagan

Helm by Sarah Hall

The Pretender by Jo Harkin

Boundary Waters by Tristan Hughes

The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly

Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko

Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet

Once the Deed is Done by Rachel Seiffert

The Artist by Lucy Steeds

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood

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As you can see, I’ve only read two books from this year’s longlist, but I liked both, particularly Seascraper, and wasn’t surprised to see them on the list! I’m not planning to try to read all of these books, but I was already intending to read Benbecula and some of the others look appealing as well. I’ll be looking out for the shortlist announcement in April!

Have you read any of the longlisted books?

Classics Club Spin #43: The result

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The result of the latest Classics Club Spin has been revealed today.

The idea of the Spin was to list twenty books from my Classics Club list, number them 1 to 20, and the number announced by the Classics Club represents the book I have to read before 29th March 2026. The number that has been selected is…

2

And this means the book I need to read is…

Trouble With Lichen by John Wyndham

Francis Saxover and Diana Brackley, two scientists investigating a rare lichen, discover it has a remarkable property: it retards the aging process. Francis, realising the implications for the world of an ever-youthful, wealthy elite, wants to keep it secret, but Diana sees an opportunity to overturn the male status quo by using the lichen to inspire a feminist revolution.

As each scientist wrestles with the implications and practicalities of exploiting the discovery, the world comes ever closer to learning the truth . . .

Trouble With Lichen is a scintillating story of the power wielded by science in our lives and asks how much trust should we place in those we appoint to be its guardians?

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I hadn’t really expected to get this one, for some reason, but I’m glad I did as I’ve enjoyed all of the other Wyndham novels I’ve read. It’s nice and short as well!

Have you read this book? What did you think of it?