Important Notice: Fraudulent Behaviour

I’ve just become aware that an individual is impersonating me and contacting authors using a Carpe Librum email address from a gmail account. They're using my likeness, my logo and valid links to my social media channels and Carpe Librum website address.

These scammers are offering inclusion in The Carpe Librum Guide to Books which isn't a thing and now never will be. This is fraudulent behaviour and has no connection to me or my blog.

To clarify:

• I don't charge authors for book reviews or collaborations
• I don't solicit paid review opportunities via email
• I only communicate using the following email address: tracey@carpelibrum.net

If you receive - or have received - a message that appears to be from me but does not come from the email address listed above, please treat it as suspicious.

Next steps, I plan to report this to Scam Watch and lodge a complaint via Google.

Carpe Librum has been a labour of love these past 20 years, so for scammers to misrepresent me, give authors false hope and trick them into fraudulent collaborations in my name makes me sick. I'm incredibly grateful to the author who did their due diligence and checked with me first and swiftly brought this to my attention. Thanks Steve, your vigilance helps protect the wider writing community.

Carpe Librum!

Review: Devil's Wolf by Paul Doherty

Devil's Wolf by Paul Doherty is the 19th book in the medieval mystery series featuring Sir Hugh Corbett, The Keeper of the Secret Seal. It's September 1311 and as the personal envoy of King Edward II of England, Corbett has been sent north to investigate the veracity of an anonymous letter received by the King promising information that could allow England to exit from the war with the Scots.

Finding himself caught up in the events of the north, Corbett - along with his loyal servants Ranulf-atte-Newgate, Senior Clerk in the Chancery of the Green Wax and Chanson, Clerk of the Stables - must get to the bottom of a series of murders in order to find out what's really happening.

Following the same formula as the 18 books which have preceded Devil's Wolf, Corbett interviews informants, allies and foes; gathers clues; organises his observations; eliminates suspects and contemplates all of the information without sharing with anybody before making his big reveal at the end. Naturally his life is threatened a number of times as the villain/s attempt to disrupt his investigation and evade the King's justice.

Despite being extremely well researched, I have started to question my commitment to this series and was curious to know whether I was reading from a place of obligation or pleasure. I decided to go back and look at the star ratings I've given to each of the 20 books I've read by Paul Doherty; noting the first one I read of his was The Cup of Ghosts from the Mathilde of Westminster series. I was actually quite shocked to find that overall, the average rating for the books I've read by this author between 2006-2026 was 3.27 stars.

Given these stats and the fact that my copy of Devil's Wolf has been on my shelf since 2018, I've decided to stop reading any more of his books. Doherty is a prolific author and there are still 6 more books in the Hugh Corbett series - Death's Dark Valley (Book 20), Hymn to Murder (Book 21), Mother Midnight (Book 22), Realm of Darkness (Book 23), Banners of Hell (Book 24) and Immortal Murder (Book 25) published in 2025 - but I think I'm going to leave it there.

There's also the small matter of how much space these books take up on my bookshelf as I've kept them all. Usually when a book is a 3 star read for me I move it on unless it's signed or has some particular sentimental value. If I can, I might try and sell these online as nobody in Australia is offering them as a set like this. At the very least, I'll enjoy freeing up some additional space on my bookshelf.

This is the longest series I've ever read from the beginning and I didn't get to the 'end' which is disappointing, but there are just too many good prospects waiting on my TBR pile to be held captive to a series for nostalgic reasons. Are you continuing to read a series out of a sense of obligation or completionism?

Now that I've made my decision it feels quite freeing, so as I bid farewell to Sir Hugh Corbett, here are the books in order complete with links to my reviews:

(Book 1) Satan in St Mary's
(Book 2) Crown in Darkness
(Book 3) Spy in Chancery
(Book 4) The Angel of Death
(Book 5) The Prince of Darkness
(Book 6) Murder Wears a Cowl
(Book 7) The Assassin in the Greenwood
(Book 8) The Song of a Dark Angel
(Book 9) Satan's Fire
(Book 10) The Devil's Hunt
(Book 11) The Demon Archer
(Book 12) The Treason of the Ghosts
(Book 13) Corpse Candle
(Book 14) The Magician's Death
(Book 15) The Waxman Murders
(Book 16) Nightshade
(Book 17) The Mysterium
(Book 18) Dark Serpent
(Book 19) Devil's Wolf

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: The Woman in the Seal Skin by Lauren Keegan

* Copy courtesy of Simon & Schuster *

Orkney is made up of approximately 70 islands and is located off the north coast of Scotland. It's an isolated part of the world and with an average yearly temperature of 8 degrees celsius I can only imagine how inhospitable it must have been in the 17th century. The Woman in the Seal Skin by Lauren Keegan is set in Orkney in 1695 and is a dual narrative told by our main character Malie and her friend Henrye.

Malie's father is a fisherman and after her mother slipped into the sea and was never seen again, he raised Malie and her brothers alone. Brought up listening to tales of selkies, Malie has always been told her mother was a shape-shifting woman who shed her seal skin to seduce her father.

"Selkies slip from their seal skins and seduce lonely fishermen, but a Finnman takes the form of man and seduces lonely wives. Men, women and the sea, all at their mercy." Page 46

Living on the coast, Malie has an affinity with the sea and now that she's married and expecting her first child, she finds it difficult to resist the pull of the water. With little to no female agency in a male dominated family, Malie is also in an oppressive marriage with few real friends to confide in or lean on.

"My elder brothers circle us like a shiver of sharks." Page 295

The weather is harsh, the living conditions are rough and Malie's life feels stifled and unendurable at times. In fact the harsh environment and desperate conditions reminded me of The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, set in Norway in 1617.

I read this atmospheric book while on a cruise and being on the ocean certainly enhanced my reading experience. Admittedly, the temperature was warm and humid and I wasn't suffering any of the deprivations Malie was facing on a daily basis, but the author was still able to make me feel cold, hungry and fearful just the same.

"While there was once only fear bubbling beneath my skin, there is something else rising to the surface. Something fierce and uncontrollable. Something wild. Something that simmered in my mother's body too. I believe it's rage." Page 150

The Woman in the Seal Skin by Australian author Lauren Keegan is an historical fiction novel set in Scotland about nature, folklore, motherhood, loss, resilience and domestic violence and will appeal to fans of Hannah Kent and Kiran Millwood Hargrave.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: A Far-Flung Life by M.L Stedman

* Copy courtesy of Penguin Random House *

A Far-Flung Life by M.L Stedman is going to be in My Top 5 Books of 2026 list, without a doubt. I finished it last month and I still have a long reading year ahead of me but this Australian historical fiction novel blew me away.

Stedman begins this family saga with the history of the MacBride family who took up country in Western Australia (WA) in the 1800s and established Meredith Downs; an outback sheep station. We join the current MacBride family in 1958 and the author provides an excellent overview of the brutal and unforgiving landscape, describing the fierce nature of the heat, the sun, the wind and the rain and their power to both nurture and destroy.

"Everything that can do you good can also do you harm here - that's just the way of it." Page 7*

The MacBrides have worked the land for generations and family is everything, so when an unexpected tragedy takes place - mentioned in the blurb - the trajectory of their lives takes a dramatic turn. A Far-Flung Life is a generational family saga about life, love, purpose and family that also carries more than its fair share of secrets, heartbreak and loss.

Somehow the beauty of the landscape, the ever present demands of Meredith Downs and the resilience of the characters prevent the narrative from becoming too bleak or dispiriting. By contrast, I felt hopeful, optimistic and energised by the steadfast and inspiring characters doing their best to move forward.

As a kid, my family lived in outback New South Wales for 2 years and we had friends who owned vast sheep stations so I read about the diaries and ledgers of Meredith Downs with great interest.

"There are the ledgers; the wool returns; the vermin records; the Field Book of Meteorological Observations for the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne; the cricket score books; and the little greasy shearing tally books stained with lanolin from pulling them in and out of a shirt pocket as you count the wool clip run by run, shed by shed, day by day." Page 49

Diaries are kept of every day events including sheep bought or sold, new motor vehicles, paddock rotations, staff changes and more to enable the station to provide information to the tax man, Lands Department or Undersecretary for Lands in the case of drought relief.

In addition to being character-driven, the novel seems to be a deep reflection on the inevitable passage of time and its impact on the landscape and the people who inhabit it.

"On any old outback property, you can see them, the skeletons of dreams. Houses long abandoned, windmills rusting, fence posts splintered, tank stands collapsed: every one of them was once a hopeful beginning." Page 64

The ready understanding that many generations have been before us and we will soon join them in history is something I love about Ken Follett's novels. He also writes about the passage of time and the evolution of families from generation to generation and it was brilliant to read such an accomplished Australian point of view of our colonial history.

"Every wreck, every ruin is the vestige of a dream, lasting long after the body of its dreamer has been received back into the earth with love or remorse or indifference." Page 64-65

A Far-Flung Life is being promoted by the publisher as 'the biggest Australian novel of the year' and I wholeheartedly agree. I was moved by the characters and their individual plight, and felt a genuine connection to Meredith Downs despite being a proud city dweller and reading this at sea while on a cruise.

In 2012, I read and reviewed The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman and gave it a glowing 5 star review. In an interview with Good Reading recently, I was impressed to read about the detailed level of research Stedman has been conducting since then in order to write A Far-Flung Life and it's definitely been worth the wait. Stedman now has two stellar Australian novels under her belt and I'm sure this is going to be another huge bestseller.

Highly recommended and you can read an EXTRACT here.

* I read an ARC so the page numbers quoted may vary in the final copy.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!