I'm actually hijacking this related book because what I read was a webcomic which referenced it.

Joe vs Elan School.

https://elan.school/

I knew that these troubled kids schools and gay conversion camps were terrible places. But none of the media I'd watched or read put me in the room. This webcomic does, and it is a shocking read, showing psychological torture that broke everyone. I nearly broke by proxy, but I could not stop reading it.

I am just not the audience for this book. I think the writing is fine. I'm just too old to want to watch characters be young and stupid in this way.

I read a couple of Andrew Mayne's recently and this is probably my favourite because it is straight serial killer book.

I think he is a really solid thriller writer, good quick pacing and imaginative, adventurous stories. I would highly recommend for readers who love Tom Clancy/Reacher/Pattison/Dan Brown etc.

His characterisation is a B- for me, not terrible, but a little under baked. But good enough for a fun beach read.

Miss Marple in Space. We are in the POV of Dorothy and she is a strong character who works well. It started strong and then fizzled out for me. The secondary characters felt very weak and Dorothy did not really interact with any of them to any depth. It really felt like the story was missing a dimension, and it badly needed a Watson.

What stood out was the largely positive Mother-Daughter relationship. A woman can have a messy life and still make her daughter feel loved. A daughter can be her own complex character. I really enjoyed the setting, I'm Irish and it felt very true to the time and place.

A lot of space is left open for character exploration, the slow pace may not work for everyone.

TW Sexual assault and rape, handled thoughtfully.

First book was a five for me, this book is a four. Still love the world, still love Ana, there is a new character who I enjoyed. Half a point off because one aspect of the mystery was very obvious to me. Half a point off because Din in this book has a bit of a change in personality that I don't think was entirely justified. Will I read the next one, absolutely.

This was my reminder to check in on Tchaikovsky's work more often. He's so prolific that he went off and wrote a whole series without me noticing. This is fantasy for Adults, complex themes, political and magical shenanigans, excellent world building, dark but not grimdark. I always enjoy his characters, and I trust him to write female characters very well. I'm not a huge fan of multi-pov but he is such a skilled writer he pulls it off. 4.5 stars

This is a very well executed medium stakes SF book. Doesn't require a lot of investment, gives you a good time, but has a little bit of substance to it too. There is a sense of the ridiculous and a touch of hope to relieve the dystopian elements. I'd give it a 4 star, entertaining but not with the sparkle, sparkle of a 5 star.

Book 2 is out on the 1st of April, so I decided to do a re-read to have it all fresh in my head. Still holds up second time round. Absolute pure enjoyment.

Overall I enjoyed it and would recommend for fans of the series. Esp since we get a little bit of Maia. But this is the book where her naming system defeated me. I was able to stay on top of it in the past. However this one has a lot of references to the previous books and characters. I spent a lot of time thinking, 'am I supposed to know who this person is?' When they were a minor character in a five year old book.

Detective Kaga Book 2: I was so impressed by Malice the 1st book in this series and this one I also really loved. It has a really inventive structure which lifts it out of the ordinary and made me feel like I was wandering through a hidden gem of a neighbourhood in Tokyo. I found the mystery really satisfying and the tone is warm without being saccharine. I think Higashino is one of my new favourite authors.

Swan is a good writer, and I still recommend ppl try this book, but I don't think he is the writer for me. I really enjoyed two of the POV's of this book. But the third and arguably the central POV, the plot just didn't feel logical to me and the characters were irritating. Very frustrating when a writer does 90% very well, but that 10% is like a stone in the shoe that leaves you limping to the finish line in severe pain.

I don't want to give this too much of a hard time because it's mostly fine. All the ingredients were there, but the overall result was a little bland. It's set in the early 70's when London was swinging and that seeps in here and there, but the style felt very old-fashioned. Worst of all are a couple of toxic relationships, where borderline DV is treated as romantic.

KJ Charles is an excellent Romance novelist but unfortunately I don't enjoy romance. So I was delighted to discover she had written a historical mystery set in turn of the century Oxford. Enjoyed the characters a lot, there is a little romance but it was well integrated into the plot. Mystery was well done. Overall very solid, strong pick.

If Rick and Morty did a Fantasy Book. I know a lot of Fantasy fans are craving 'just a fun adventure story' and this delivers on that. It's sex positive without being smut. It's LGBTQ+ positive but it's incidental to the plot. I had fun reading it, about four stars worth of fun. Not going to be a waste of anyone's time to read it but depends on your sense of humour if it hits fully or not.

2 stars because at times the mystery did spark to life, but I couldn't say that made up for the characters. Non of whom were worth the trees who died for this book. There is a world where a love story between a 15yrold and a 30yr old could be part of an interesting nuanced exploration. But here it is handled so incredibly badly. The author turns himself inside out to justify the unjustifiable. So many moments I was repulsed by this story.

This really hit my sweet spot, a real mystery lovers mystery. I've had mixed luck with Japanese detective novels, I've always liked that they really go for intricate puzzle type mysteries but sometimes I have found that has been to the detriment of the characterisation. This was very strong on both. Probably best to go in as cold as possible and just let it unfold.

There is so much to enjoy in this book. The First Nation perspective, the heroine, the magic system. I wish the plot was a tad more propulsive because of it's target audience. Nevertheless I do think this will be one that the sort of kid who reads Watership Down and Lord of the Rings at 11 will absolutely love. As an adult reader I enjoyed myself, which was a surprise because boarding school books are not my fave, I will read on in the series.

Clark is excellent at characterisation, I really enjoyed her exploration of character and the context of their lives. Being contemporary and dealing with social media was really interesting and handled very well. I was very much immersed in the story for the majority of the book. I didn't enjoy the meta commentary but could ignore it mostly. More literary than mystery. Bright Young Women and Notes on an Execution adjacent.

I was enjoying this book up to a point, a Gaulish warrior traveling through Caesar's Rome to Persia. The perspective was interesting. I felt like it was going to be a solid rec for people who love Shogun etc.

Then it got to Greece and the portrayal of two young teens sexuality was deeply horrible. It's a subject that takes a delicate hand, but this went somewhere beyond being clumsy, into territory that I found deeply repulsive.

This is a pick x1000.

If you enjoy SF and LitSF I would highly recommend this. It's very short, it's beautifully written, and is highly political. I want to force strangers in the street to read it. So please stack add, go read the first chapter, let yourself get sucked into the writing.

YA mystery set in a 1930's British Girls Boarding School. I honestly wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did. I think what really worked is that it actually felt like a group of teen girls with realistic dynamics and personalities. In addition it had good pace and tone. Easy, entertaining read.

Struggling with this one. There is definitely something to it, I am being drawn in. But I am also being distracted and irritated by a lot of choices made by the writer.

An accident with multiple fatalities has happened on board a colony ship. Yet rather than focus on this accident and it's big consequences the MC is focusing on everything else, her past, her relationships.

I'm so annoyed, but still want to find out what happens so can't DNF.

Wow that book is something. A bucket of cold water into the face, but in a bracing and energizing way. Was absolutely hypnotised by the writing and protagonist. It is not fun, but it asks some really interesting questions.

This is more litfic than genre SF, and some of the worldbuilding feels fudged. But that is not the point of the book. Also the ending leaves you dangling. Intentionally and I loved it, but I know some ppl hate that.

This is a very well executed book. Plot is strong, even the pop culture elements like the podcast don't feel like empty buzz but are an important mechanism in the story. Lucy the MC is great, very enjoyably messy character. There is a really interesting perspective on Domestic Violence which adds a bit of heft to what is otherwise a beach read type book. Nothing truly original but a very enjoyable read with broad appeal

Ann Cleeves has rock solid craftsmanship. This was a very satisfying and well executed read. But where as the Vera books are often A's for me, I would rate this as a B. I think it is really interesting to have a character who is recovering from a intensely religious childhood and being shunned as a young adult. But he simply doesn't have the vividness of Vera. Still went on to read and enjoy the next two books in the series.

It's a bail but I'm not mad at it. I think it is a very well executed cross between Bridget Jones Diary and Dexter. If you are in the mood for graphically violent female rage then I would defo try it. Lots of respect for Skuse as a writer.

But you know I recently unsubbed from Netflix because I felt it was funnelling serial killer content into my head. And this is a bit murderporny, just enough to cross a personal line.

Finally! A five star read. I was beginning to wonder if I was the problem. Everything I read this Autumn had some flaws that turned them into obstacle courses I had to drag myself over to finish. So just the sheer pleasure of being able to read a book fluently from start to finish makes this a pick, but its also so good!

Honestly I think every woman over 30 should try T Kingfisher and this would be a great place to start with her.

I largely enjoyed this book but not as much as the first one. Emily and Wendel's relationship remained sweet and entertaining. But I found most of the secondary characters felt anemic, including Emily's niece who I don't feel needed to be there at all, as well as the underwhelming big bad. Plot has a few ex machina moments where Wendel just does magic.

Still an easy entertaining read that has it's moments. A four star rather than a five.

The Will of the Many was one of my favourite reads this year. So I decided to try Islington's first trilogy. And while I can see flashes of the writer he is going to become, his execution of this debut work isn't at the same standard. I'm not mad at it, it is just a bit harder work than I'm in the mood for at the moment.

Janice Hallett is a very clever writer and this certainly has some very clever moments to it. But ultimately I didn't enjoy the reading experience. The character motivations seems thin and overall it just didn't hang together. I feel bad because I do think her books are ambitious and I'd like to reward that originality. But maybe I'd point you towards the Twyford Code or Alperton Angels instead because those are much stronger picks for me.

Classic detective short stories where science and forensics play a crucial role.

The problem is the science and forensics are so antiquated that it's really hard to stay in some of these stories. This is coupled with a lot of very stiff and pompous style stories. Overall very few are enjoyable so I'd give this particular anthology by the British Library Crime Classics a pass.

Leckie is not for everyone, she doesn't spoon feed, but writes for adults with adult vocabulary and complex themes, that go pretty weird in places. I cannot begin to describe what happens in this book, literary, sci-fi, twisty politics, horror, but also kind of cozy. I would urge people to just jump in and if the visceral bits are too disturbing, just bail.

I loved it, I don't think it was perfect but by god was it original. Strong pick!

I largely enjoyed this book. YA Fantasy with plenty in it for Adult audiences to enjoy. It is basically the opposite of Grimdark and I think lot of people would enjoy a fantasy adventure which is refreshingly free from cynicism. I think it goes a touch too far in the opposite direction for my taste and feels a little naive. I think the plot is good and the worldbuilding largely successful with a note on the Lau that I'll include in a comment.

Really enjoyable anthology of mystery short stories, some by my favourite writers and some by new to me authors. Can't recommend it enough.

This is a collection of short stories. I'm slumpy at the moment so finding short stories easier to digest.

Feel likes these stories were written by Atkinson to purge some weird little ideas and characters out of her brain. There is a bit of mystery, a bit of Spec Fic and a lot of oddness. I found them very enjoyable but they might not be for everyone.

I got 25% in and realised I just didn't believe in the characters. Normally a book which is character focused is my jam but this is written in quite a flowery style where the character reactions are heightened in a way that read melodrama to me.

I feel like this is on a bit of hype train at the moment, and while I'm sure there is an audience for it, maybe approach with caution if you do prefer an economical style.

This uses the concept of the multiverse in a really interesting way, to explore how small differences in circumstances and personal choice change people. The characters in this books are vivid, flawed and engaging. The plot has some solid twists and turns. The themes deal with complex ethical questions. Maybe not for those who like hard science in their SF, but for those of us dying for some good adult SF, it's a strong pick.

Saw this recommend on booktube with the very nice Del Ray cover on the right. Went to check the sample and was confronted with the hideous H&S UK cover on the left. I was viscerally repulsed. Wondering if it's just me or do other ppl find it hideous. Feel really sorry for the author.

I read Maxwell's other book, Ocean's Echo first and it was a five star for me. This is more of a 4, a very solid debut. Their ability to create vivid interesting characters is very evident in this book but the world building is a little muddier, the plotting a little weaker. Still a very enjoyable read and it was nice to see how much of an improvement they had btw the two standalone books. Still a pick, but also go read Ocean's Echo.

I wanted to love this book. There are moments from it that are seared into my brain in the best possible way. The quality of the writing is excellent and the world is unique. A deeply political allegory set in a parallel reality with mobile phones and magic side by side. Fans of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, NK Jemisin and China Mieville should give it a go.

Ultimately I just couldn't connect with the MC. For those who do, likely it will be a 5*

I was sick this weekend and I blew through this whole series over a couple of days in bed. Very readable, enjoyed the ride. That being said KJ Parker does re-write the same characters over and over. It is a problem. If they could hold the attention of my foggy brain then that has to be a major plus point, but certainly there are a few ruts he's been digging into for twenty years now where I'm like oh we're doing this again. Soft pick.

Yup, give me all of these RJB can write. A fantasy-mystery, this combines two of my favourite genres. But it is way more about the fantasy world and the characters than it is about the mystery. The mystery chugs away doing it's job but the fantasy world is spectacular and the character unique and engaging. I would highly recommend it for fans of Martha Wells Raksura books and Katherine Addison Speaker for the Dead books. Easy 5 stars.

After finding the first book a 4, this was a 5 for me. I just thought it explored such interesting themes. Ironically I think for a lot of ppl who thought book 1 was a 5, will find this a 4 because we spend less time with the main MC's. I understand how this would disappoint some people. I just felt like this was a book that engaged my adult brain fully which is what I had been craving in the previous book. A quality series so far.

I just read the first two books in this series. Both are picks. They have complex, layered and unique world-building. MC's are very engaging. There is a romance subplot but no spice. I have always considered Lawrence a very good writer, but he is definitely stepping up a level here. I'm too old for coming of age stories to be 100% in my lane. I think it will be a 5 star book for a lot of fantasy fans but it's a 4 for me.

This was a lot of fun. Character driven queer SF romance. The focus was on developing the male characters and a deep emotional bond between them. Supporting that was a plot of twisty politics and space magic. Not one for the hard SF fans. But there was substance, medium stakes and very good execution

Edit
I gave this book a so-so originally and now I'm revising to a pick. Why, because I keep thinking about it. I still think there is a disconnect between the first third and the rest of the book. But that is less important now a few months down the line. The ending just keeps swimming into my consciousness and making me think.

This has been getting a lot of hype but when I checked the premise and saw that it was Chosen One goes to Murder School in Ancient Rome, I lost my initial enthusiasm. I decided to proceed and was glad I did because this is a complex and well executed book, suitable for a range of readers from older YA to Adult. I can see why it gets the hype it does and while I'm not on the 'this is the best book ever train' I did enjoy it a lot. Strong pick.

I was wary of this, so many cosy reads lately I have found too saccerine. But this is in the vein of the Lady Trent books and I enjoyed it a lot. The main secondary character is Irish and I was very pleasantly surprised to find zero hint of stage Oirishness in the book. Strong pick.

Somehow the town of Salcombe is both toxic and cozy. Coming to life for the summer the small community of frenemies are backstabbing each other one moment and enjoying wholesome summer fun the next. I have huge admiration for how Rosenblum yoked those two opposing forces together to create characters we love to hate. There are mystery elements but really it is a social satire eviscerating rich New Yorkers, perfect summer read.