This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is “Animal Companions (These animals can be real or fantasy!)”

The ten books I’ve listed below are all books I’ve read and reviewed on my blog and feature a range of different animal and bird companions.

1. Nighteyes in the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb – The wolf Nighteyes is much more than just a companion to FitzChivalry Farseer in Hobb’s epic fantasy series, but to say any more would be a spoiler!

2. Bob in Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie – Poor Bob the dog gets the blame when his mistress falls down the stairs in the night. It’s up to Poirot to find another explanation!

3. Cuthbert in The Bells of Westminster by Leonora Nattrass – Cuthbert, Susan Bell’s talking parrot who lives in the Deanery of Westminister Abbey, is the star of this historical mystery set in 1774.

4. Cafall in The Grey King by Susan Cooper – In this fourth book in the Dark is Rising sequence inspired by Arthurian legend, Cafall, a sheepdog with silver eyes, is the friend and companion of Bran Davies.

5. Solovey in The Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Arden – The magical horse Solovey is a companion to Vasya, the heroine of this excellent fantasy trilogy set in a version of medieval Russia.

6. The dolphin in This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart – Not exactly a ‘companion’, but the dolphin in this book forms a bond with Lucy, our narrator, and becomes an important character in the story.

7. Flush in Flush by Virginia Woolf – I loved this short novel written from the perspective of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel.

8. Rocinante in Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes – An eccentric gentleman of La Mancha, inspired by tales of romance and chivalry, renames himself Don Quixote and sets out in search of adventure mounted on his trusty steed, Rocinante!

9. The lion in Circe by Madeline Miller – In this beautifully written Greek mythology retelling, the witch Circe is banished to the island of Aiaia where a female lion becomes her closest companion.

10. Behemoth in The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov – My tenth and final animal companion is Behemoth, the demonic black cat who is part of the devil’s entourage in this weird and wonderful Russian classic.

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Have you read any of these? Can you think of any other books with animal companions?

This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is “Books that feature travel”.

This will be an easy topic for those of you who read a lot of non-fiction travel books, but as I don’t I’ve had to stick to fictional travel instead. Here are ten novels that feature people going on a journey, pilgrimage or voyage of some kind. I’ve tried to include several different genres and different methods of travel!

1. Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome – J, Harris and George go on a bicycle tour through Germany’s Black Forest in this lesser known sequel to Three Men in a Boat.

2. The English Girl by Katherine Webb – A young Englishwoman travels to Oman in the 1950s, where she meets a female explorer who crosses the Empty Quarter desert.

3. Wonder Cruise by Ursula Bloom – A single woman in her thirties wins some money and decides to spend it on a Mediterranean cruise, the first time she’s ever been abroad.

4. To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey – Colonel Allen Forrester leads a (fictional) expedition up Alaska’s Wolverine River to chart previously unmapped territory.

5. The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks – A dystopian novel in which a group of passengers embark on a four thousand mile train journey aboard the Trans-Siberian Express.

6. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce – A man sets out on foot from his home in Devon to visit a dying friend in a hospice five hundred miles away.

7. Strangers in Company by Jane Aiken Hodge – Marian Frenche is on a tour of major Greek archaeological sites when a series of accidents begins to befall members of the party.

8. A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle – A murder mystery set on a cruise liner crossing the Atlantic in 1924.

9. Pawn in Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett – Francis Crawford of Lymond travels across Europe and North Africa in search of a child who may or may not be his son.

10. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne – The ultimate travel novel, in which Phileas Fogg attempts to circumnavigate the world in just eighty days.

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Have you read any of these? Which other books featuring travel have you enjoyed?

This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is “Books with the Word “[Insert Word Here]” in the Title”. I picked the word House as I’ve reviewed a lot more than ten books with that word in the title, which meant I had plenty to choose from and could cover a range of genres.

1. The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne – Published in 1922, this is Milne’s only detective novel (although he did also write a spoof, Four Days’ Wonder). It’s a lot of fun and I wish he had written more of them!

2. This House is Haunted by John Boyne – A wonderfully entertaining and atmospheric ghost story set in Victorian England and featuring a governess who takes a position at a house which appears to be haunted.

3. The Valentine House by Emma Henderson – This dual time period novel is set in the French Alps and follows several generations of the Valentine family from 1914 to 1976.

4. The Labyrinth House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji – An imaginative Japanese crime novel set in a house built in a labyrinth design and inspired by the Minotaur myth. I enjoyed this much more than The Decagon House Murders by the same author (which could also have been on this list).

5. The Professor’s House by Willa Cather – Moving house causes Professor Godfrey St Peter to reflect on his life and his memories of a former student. This was my first Willa Cather book and I found it slow but beautifully written.

6. A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde – A collection of four fairy tales by Oscar Wilde. Although each one has a moral, they are also very entertaining! The stories are quite dark in places (like many fairy tales), but I think they’re suitable for both children and adults.

7. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett – The story of a brother and sister and their connection to the house in Philadelphia where they grew up. I hadn’t expected to enjoy this as much as I did!

8. Great House by Nicole Krauss – A novel made up of four separate stories, linked by an antique writing desk that once belonged to a Chilean poet. The desk touches the lives of each of the main characters in some way and you need to read all four stories to fully understand how they are connected.

9. The House by the Sea by Louise Douglas – Our narrator inherits a house in Sicily and intends to sell it until she discovers it’s hiding some intriguing secrets. This book combines mystery and romance with some beautiful descriptive writing.

10. The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier – This time travel novel is set in the author’s beloved Cornwall and moves between the 1960s and the 14th century. I love du Maurier and this is one of my favourites.

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Have you read any of these? Which other books with House in the title have you read?

This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is “Books on My Spring 2025 To-Read List”.

I have a lot more than ten books I’m hoping to read this spring, but here’s a selection of them:

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1. That Dark Spring by Susannah Stapleton – I haven’t read Susannah Stapleton’s previous non-fiction book, but her new one, about a true crime in 1920s Provence, sounds fascinating.

2. The Versailles Formula by Nancy Bilyeau – I was very excited to see the next book in the Genevieve Planché series on NetGalley last week.

3. Traitor’s Legacy by SJ Parris – The first in a new series of historical thrillers set in Elizabethan England.

4. Written on the Dark by Guy Gavriel Kay – A new book by GGK is always something I look forward to. This one is set in a world based on medieval France.

5. The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster – I enjoyed Kate Foster’s last novel, The King’s Witches, so I’m hoping this one will be just as good.

6. The Elopement by Gill Hornby – A sequel to Hornby’s Godmersham Park, about Jane Austen’s niece, Fanny Knight.

7. Linden Rise by Richmal Crompton – When I was looking for books published in 1952 to read for the upcoming 1952 Club, I remembered I had this one on my Kindle. Not sure what else I’ll read yet.

8. White Corridor by Christopher Fowler – My recent Six Degrees of Separation post reminded me about the Bryant and May series. I enjoyed the first four books and this is the fifth.

9. The Eagle and the Hart by Helen Castor – Another non-fiction book, this time about the relationship between Richard II and Henry IV. I’ve already started it, but it’s so long I think it will take me the rest of the spring to finish it.

10. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene – One of the final few books on my Classics Club list. It will also be the first book I’ve read by Graham Greene.

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What are you planning to read this spring?

This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is “Books that Include/Feature [insert your favourite theme or plot device here]”. There were lots of different options here! After some thought, I decided to list ten books with characters who have doubles and are either mistaken for them or decide to impersonate them.

1. The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier – I’ve read all of du Maurier’s novels and I think this is one of her best. John, an Englishman visiting France, meets his exact double, Jean de Gué, a French count. As they are both dissatisfied with their current lives, John ends up impersonating Jean, taking his place at the family château with interesting results!

2. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens – This is probably my favourite Dickens novel, featuring one of my favourite characters, Sydney Carton, who bears a strong resemblance to Charles Darnay, a Frenchman on trial for treason in 1780s London.

3. The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope – One of the most famous impersonation novels of all time is this 1894 classic by Anthony Hope in which an English gentleman, Rudolf Rassendyll, impersonates the King of Ruritania to save him from a treasonous plot.

4. The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas – This is the final book in Dumas’ d’Artagnan series which began with The Three Musketeers. The first half of the novel revolves around one of the musketeers, Aramis, and a plot involving a man imprisoned in the Bastille who resembles the King of France and is forced to hide his face behind an iron mask.

5. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins – This is another favourite of mine! It begins with drawing master Walter Hartright’s meeting on a lonely London road with a mysterious woman dressed all in white who has escaped from an asylum. The next day Walter takes up a teaching position at Limmeridge House in Cumberland where he finds that one of his students, Laura Fairlie, bears a striking resemblance to the woman in white…

6. The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart – I love Mary Stewart’s books, including this one, in which Mary Grey is approached by a man who has mistaken her for his cousin, Annabel, and persuades her to impersonate Annabel as part of a scheme to inherit his great-uncle’s fortune.

7. The Mark of the Horse Lord by Rosemary Sutcliff – This book appeared on my recent Top Ten Tuesday list of books set in the ancient world, but it fits perfectly with this week’s topic as well. In Roman Britain, Phaedrus, a slave, is asked to impersonate King Midir of the Dalriadain, whom he closely resembles and who has been overthrown by a usurper queen.

8. The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim – The title says it all! This entertaining impersonation novel from 1920 begins with Everard Dominey meeting his doppelganger in an African desert and coming up with a plan to steal his identity.

9. Dance of Death by Helen McCloy – Published in 1938, this is one of a series of detective novels featuring the psychiatrist Dr Basil Willing. The body of a young woman is found buried in snow in a New York street and is quickly identified by the police – but the mystery deepens when they interview her cousin, who looks very like the dead girl and claims she had been asked to impersonate her.

10. Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie – This is a standalone thriller rather than a detective novel. Our heroine, Hilary Craven, encounters a British secret agent in a Casablanca hotel who persuades her to impersonate a dying woman whom she resembles. He hopes she will be able to locate the woman’s husband, one of a group of scientists who have disappeared. Maybe not one of Christie’s best, but I still enjoyed it.

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Have you read any of these? Can you think of any other books where a character has a double and/or impersonates them?

This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is “Books Set in Another Time”.

This is perfect for me as historical fiction is one of my favourite genres. There are many different ways I could approach this topic, but I’ve decided to list ten books I’ve read that are set in the Ancient World (most of my historical reading is set in much more recent periods). To make the list more fun, the final two books aren’t just set in the ancient past, they were also written then.

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1. Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie – Christie’s only historical novel is set in Ancient Egypt and deals with a series of murders in the household of the priest Imhotep. The book is written mainly from the perspective of Imhotep’s daughter, Renisenb, who has just recently returned to her father’s home after being widowed and finds that many tensions and rivalries have formed between the family members during her absence. It’s an unusual Christie novel, but one I really enjoyed!

2. I, Claudius by Robert Graves – This is the first part of Graves’ fictional autobiography of the Roman emperor, Claudius, who ruled from AD 41 to 54. This book deals with Claudius’ childhood and his experiences during the reigns of his three predecessors, Augustus, Tiberius and Caligula. I found it a bit intimidating at first due to not being very familiar with the lives of the emperors, but I did enjoy the book and am still planning to continue with the second one.

3. The King Must Die by Mary Renault – This is the first of Renault’s two novels about the life of Theseus, the Greek hero most famous for the slaying of the Minotaur. One of the things I loved about this book and its sequel, The Bull from the Sea, is the way Renault gave logical, rational explanations for the various aspects of the myth instead of magical ones, which made the two books feel more like historical fiction rather than mythology retellings.

4. Babylonia by Costanza Casati – This book is set in the 9th Century BC at the time of the Assyrian Empire and tells the story of the legendary Semiramis, who is thought to be based on the historical Assyrian queen, Sammuramat. I had never read a book set in this period before, so I found it fascinating. It’s also beautifully written and I would happily recommend it to anyone interested in reading about periods of Ancient history other than Greek, Roman or Egyptian!

5. The Mark of the Horse Lord by Rosemary Sutcliff – This book is set during the time of the Roman Empire, in what we now call Scotland and the north of England. The story follows the gladiator Phaedrus who becomes part of a plot to impersonate King Midir of the Dalriadain. Although it’s marketed as a book for younger readers, I found it had a lot to offer adults too.

6. House of Names by Colm Tóibín – Set in Ancient Greece, this is a retelling of the tragic story of the House of Atreus, described in Aeschylus’ trilogy, the Oresteia. Written from the perspectives of first Clytemnestra, then her children Orestes and Electra, I wasn’t very familiar with this story at the time when I read Tóibín’s novel, but having read several other retellings since then I think I might get more out of this one if I read it again.

7. The Cicero trilogy by Robert Harris – I’m cheating slightly here because this is three books, not just one: Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator, which together tell the story of the Roman statesman and lawyer Marcus Tullius Cicero, as seen through the eyes of his slave and secretary, Tiro. I loved all three of these novels and had never imagined reading about Roman politics could be so exciting!

8. Priestess of Ishana by Judith Starkston – I’m including this one because it’s the only book I’ve read set in the Bronze Age. It’s historical fantasy but set in a world based on the real Hittite Empire and the main character, Tesha, is inspired by the historical Puduhepa, a priestess of Ishtar. There are three other books in the series, but I’ve only read the first one.

9. The Odyssey by Homer – The first eight books on my list are historical fiction, but the final two are works that were both set and written in the ancient past. There are many different versions of Homer’s Odyssey, and I read a translation by T.E. Lawrence from 1932. It was very readable and captured the excitement of Odysseus’s adventures, but I would be interested to see how a more modern translation compares.

10. The Epic of Gilgamesh – This epic poem was written on a set of clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia which were discovered in the 19th century and are believed to date from around 2000 BC. It tells the story of Gilgamesh, a powerful Sumerian king, and his relationship with his friend Enkidu. I read a translation by Andrew George and found it surprisingly easy to read and also very enjoyable.

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There are several more books I could have included on this list, but I had to restrict myself to ten and wanted to represent as many different periods and locations as I could.

Have you read any of these? Which other books set in the Ancient world can you think of?

This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is “New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2024”. There were lots of authors I tried for the first time last year, but the ten I’m listing below are all authors whose work I enjoyed and would consider reading again.

1. Benjamin Myers – I read Cuddy early last year and although I wasn’t sure at first if it would be my sort of book, I enjoyed it much more than I’d expected. I have The Gallows Pole waiting to be read!

2. Alexander Lernet-Holenia – Count Luna was a great book – so unusual and thought-provoking! I’m pleased to see there are more of Lernet-Holenia’s books available in English translations.

3. Tove Jansson – I finally read my first Moomin book, Finn Family Moomintroll, thanks to last year’s #MoominWeek. I might read more of them at some point, but would also like to try one of Jansson’s adult books.

4. Charlotte Armstrong – I didn’t know where to start with Charlotte Armstrong’s books, but I think I made a good choice with Mischief. There are lots more to explore now!

5. Clare Whitfield – I loved Clare Whitfield’s Poor Girls, about the fascinating Forty Elephants gang. Now I’m looking forward to reading her previous novel, People of Abandoned Character.

6. Akimitsu Takagi – Takagi’s The Noh Mask Murders is one of the best Japanese crime novels I’ve read so far. I would like to read more of his books, although I think there’s only one other currently in print in English – The Tattoo Murder.

7. Penelope Mortimer – I read a short story by Penelope Mortimer in A Different Sound, a collection of stories by women authors of the mid 20th century. It was one of the highlights of the book and made me want to read more of her work.

8. Kate Foster – I read Kate Foster’s The King’s Witches last year and enjoyed it, so I’m looking forward to reading my review copy of her new novel, The Mourning Necklace.

9. Jane Thynne – Midnight in Vienna, a thriller set in the 1930s, is the first Jane Thynne novel I’ve read, but I’m sure I’ll be reading more of them now. I really liked this one!

10. Alice Loxton – I read very little non-fiction in 2024, but I did enjoy Alice Loxton’s Eighteen, which explored the history of Britain through the lives of eighteen famous young people. She has written another book about Georgian London which also sounds interesting.

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Have you read books by any of these authors or would you like to? Which new authors did you discover last year?