My Top 10 Books of 2025 – Part One
Here are my favourite ten books of 2025 Part One, not counting audiobooks. Quite a disparate selection for a change. Audiobooks to follow.
Late Venetian by GN Lawson
If you are looking for a fast paced thriller, Late Venetian is not for you. But it’s already one of my favourite books of 2025 so far. I’m not sure why – maybe because the two main characters are in their late seventies looking back (no I’m not that old!), but there are still so many things I can identify with. First of all, I live in Gloucestershire where they move with the children, but while I am an art fan and paint a bit, I have never ventured into politics.
The book is written from the points of view of Laura (who is Jewish as was my mother), and Teddy, whose turn of phrase made me laugh. I once worked with someone who always referred to her parents as the ‘Aged Ps’, so it made me laugh when Teddy uses that phrase (though he more usually refers to them as Ma and Pa). For those who like me had to look it up, it’s from Dickens’ Great Expectations. There are so many other words and phrases he uses that made me chuckle and even laugh out loud. Not very PC though, so don’t be shocked or offended. I’ve met a few ‘Teddys’ and that’s just how they speak.
For my full review click here
The Teacher of Auschwitz by Wendy Holden
No matter how many books I read about the holocaust, ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ never ceases to shock and disgust me. How anyone can carry out this level of cruelty is beyond me, particularly on children. If it ever ceases to upset me, then there is something very wrong.
The Teacher of Auschwitz is different from the books I have read in the past. It is told from the point of view of a young Jewish man named Fredy Hirsch. It’s based on a true story, and many of the other characters are also real. I can’t pretend it won’t upset you, because it will and it should. The worst parts are about the children who Fredy is trying to protect by teaching them about hope and survival. He does this through sport, art, poetry and drama, enlisting the help of others with the relevant skills.
For my full review click here
A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power
When I was in my teens in 1970 I saw the film Little Big Man with Dustin Hoffman. What stuck with me was a scene in which a fleeing Native American woman was shot from behind by the US troops, killing the baby she was carrying on her back. It has never left me. I fear the horrendous scene with Blanche at school will be the same.
While Little Big Man is set decades earlier (mid 1850s), the treatment of Native Americans hadn’t changed by the last century. Regarded as savages who needed to be ‘civilised’, they were forced to adopt Catholicism with all its cruelty and prejudice. They were sent to ‘Indian’ schools, forced to go to church and were not allowed to speak in their own language.
The level of cruelty is astonishing, as is the lack of respect for their culture. It was virtually wiped out. In The Council of Dolls, we follow three women – grandmother Cora at the start of the century, her daughter Lillian in the 1930s and Sissy, growing up in the 1960s.
For my full review click here
The Axeman’s Carnival by Catherine Chidgey
The whole book is written from the point of view of Tama (short for Tamagochi), a rescued Magpie. I kid you not. It’s very strange to start with when he is in the egg (says someone who has written a short story from the point of view of a spider), but once you realise what’s going on it makes sense.
Tama is devoted to Marnie who rescued him and soon learns tricks and human speech. He repeats everything she says, actually he repeats everything he hears, including foreign languages, and a lot of swear words. So be careful what you say in front of him if you have something to hide. Because sooner or later he’ll remember that incriminating phrase or sentence. The author is very clever with this, because he naturally doesn’t understand what he is saying, though occasionally he appears to.
For my full review click here
Not My Country by AE Dean
It’s been years since 75-year-old Louise has seen a homeless person on the street. After all, they were all ‘homed’ and settled years back. So seeing one is a shock.
Her comments on immigrants are typical of her generation – are economic migrants taking places from true refugees from war torn countries? She’s not sure, but we need to stop the boats, the traffickers. Many people I know would agree with that. Isn’t it one of the reasons we did Brexit? We’d lost our national identity and wanted our sovereignty back. As a second generation immigrant of Polish/Jewish heritage, it’s never been my view. But my parents were welcomed with open arms and post-war my father became a civil engineer and worked in the UK all his life.
For my full review click here
Small Fires by Ronnie Turner
I know it’s supposed to but Small Fires really freaked me out. All those horrific folk tales. It’s like nothing I’ve ever read before.
Sisters Lily and Della killed their parents (allegedly though it was never proved) and fled to a remote Scottish island, a place filled with superstition, folklore, and belief in the Devil. I was waiting for Christopher Lee to appear and start building a Wicker Man.
Everyone who lives there appears to be mad, but in reality it is fear. Some of the stories – many based on Celtic/Cornish folklore – are horrifying, as children’s folk tales often are. The Boy at the Bottom of the Sea, Aine’s Well, The Poor Maidens etc have all been written by the author to enhance the back stories. Others you may recognise, like the stories of Gaia, Charon the Ferryman, the Dryads, the Pleiades. They are often told to children as a warning, like the story of Baba Yaga from my Polish heritage.
For my full review click here
Little Red Death by AK Benedict
Little Red Death is like nothing I’ve ever read before. It starts off with a killer obsessed with fairy tales, a kidnapped author called Katie forced to rewrite the Brothers Grimm stories so he can re-enact them, and a threat that she will die if she doesn’t keep writing. So it becomes about her or the victims in the stories.
What a dilemma! Does she even believe he’s serious. Well she soon finds out he is – deadly serious – literally. And the murders are pretty nasty with the bodies laid out in line with the fairy tales they represent. How can Katie escape and who is The Wolf anyway? He wears a wolf mask so she never sees his face.
For my full review click here
Killing Lily by Jillian Gardner
Killing Lily was absolutely brilliant. I love anything to do with cults and this certainly did not disappoint. It has always fascinated me how people get sucked in, but for Mae and Lily, they were born at Sunnyside, so didn’t know anything about life ‘outside’. That is, until true crime podcaster-posing-as-dove-breeder Charlotte arrives the day before Lily’s wedding.
At Sunnyside there are ‘good’ women and ‘bad’ women. Good women will find eternal salvation in heaven, while bad women will go straight to hell. Lily is good, while Mae is bad. Bad women suffer punishment at the hands of the terrifying Lou, including beatings and Thought Correction. If anyone leaves, their possessions are ceremoniously burnt.
For my full review click here
The Grapevine by Kate Kemp
I’m not sure who I disliked more – Cecil – outwardly racist, misogynistic and homophobic. At least I could have a go at him if I wanted to. Or Helen – involved in the church, hypocritical, always involved with something. I felt for her husband, who we know will eventually snap. Tammy is Helen and Duncan’s twelve-year-old daughter, around whom the story revolves, more so than the murder, which at times is almost incidental.
This is Australia (and many other so-called civilised countries) at its worst. When the murder takes place, fingers immediately point at the Laus, Hong Kong Chinese with a secret. Or is it Joe and Zlata from Yugoslavia? The victim was Italian – does that make his family suspicious as well? I was a second generation Eastern European immigrant at my convent school ten years before The Grapevine, but while I was considered ‘other’, maybe a bit exotic (I wish), I never encountered this level of racism. Or if I did I wasn’t aware.
For my full review click here
Son by Johana Gustawsson & Thomas Enger
I’m just gobsmacked! This is SO good. Typical Scandi/Nordic Noir, it’s hard-hitting, gritty and quite graphic. More than ‘quite’ actually. I’m sticking my neck out here, but it’s probably one of the best crime novels I’ve read in years.
Kari Voss, psychologist and expert on body language and memory, lost her son when he disappeared on his ninth birthday seven years ago. No trace of him has ever been found. She also lost her beloved husband a few years earlier. She is alone, with only her work to keep her going and the hope that her son is still out there somewhere – alive. She barely sleeps.
Then her friend Chief Constable Ramona Norum, asks for her help with a new case.
For my full review click here
