Review: Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel is the second book in the Wolf Hall trilogy by Hilary Mantel and commences in September 1535. Thomas Cromwell is about fifty years old now and holds the title of Master Secretary. I'm reading this as part of the Wolf Crawl slow read and was pleased to discover the superb writing in evidence in Wolf Hall is also present here. The connection between the two books is absolutely seamless, despite the three years between publication.

Cromwell is a formidable man and we are quickly reacquainted with him in the opening pages.

"No one knows where he has been and who he has met, and he is in no hurry to tell them. He never spares himself in the king's service, he knows his worth and merits and makes sure of his reward: offices, perquisites and title deeds, manor houses and farms. He has a way of getting his way, he has a method; he will charm a man or bribe him, coax him or threaten him, he will explain to a man where his true interests lie, and he will introduce that same man to aspects of himself he didn't know existed." Page 7

I love the frequent references to history in the book, a time when the forest stretched ahead for days and the forefathers of England - the giants - left their standing stones. This haunting atmosphere permeates the pages and the present here in Bring Up the Bodies. On every page I experienced the weight of foreknowledge, as Cromwell reflects on the ghosts of the past, while he is a ghost of the past to us, the reader.

This gives the writing a melancholic feeling, given we know who will succeed and who won't and the ultimate fate of the primary characters.

"It's not just the past you think of, as you ride these fields. It's what's latent in the soil, what's breeding; it's the days to come, the wars unfought, the injuries and deaths that, like seeds, the soil of England is keeping warm." Page 9

Cromwell has been an excellent father and mentor and it was interesting to see the qualities and attributes he prizes in his son Gregory and which were important 500 years ago:

"Gregory is a fine archer, a fine horseman, a shining star in the tilt yard, and his manners cannot be faulted. He speaks reverently to his superiors, not scuffling his feet or standing on one leg, and he is mild and polite with those below him. He knows how to bow to foreign diplomats in the manner of their own countries, sits at table without fidgeting or feeding spaniels, can neatly carve and joint any fowl if requested to serve his elders. He doesn't slouch around with his jacket off one shoulder, or look in windows to admire himself, or stare around in church, or interrupt old men, or finish their stories for them." Page 27-28

I've been listening to Lux by VOCES8 while compiling this review over several days and it's an album containing ethereal music covering 400 years of choral music. It perfectly embodies the feeling of history I tried to convey earlier and I can almost imagine I'm standing behind Thomas Cromwell in Westminster Abbey when I listen to it.

In Bring Up the Bodies, Cromwell tries to convince Queen Katherine to obey the king's wishes and the dialogue between them is fascinating. Here's a taste of Katherine's anger whilst speaking to Cromwell.

"There is a pause, while she turns the great pages of her volume of rage, and puts her finger on just the right word." Page 106

That word, in case you're wondering is contemptible. However just as he failed to persuade Thomas More to change his mind and take the oath, Katherine also proves to be immovable.

The king is through with Anne Boleyn after she continues to fail to give him an heir and relies on Cromwell to bring her down to make way for Jane Seymour. Cromwell does so by finding evidence of adultery against her, which is treason and punishable by death. Cromwell needs guilty men, so he finds men who are guilty and in carefully preparing his evidence and witnesses, Cromwell makes use of the opportunity to take out some of his enemies or weaken their houses.

King Henry is just as fearsome and narcissistic as ever, and his tempers shift without notice. Cromwell can read the king's mood better than any man and knows just how to manipulate him to achieve the desired outcome, although still at considerable risk.

"You can be merry with the king, you can share a joke with him. But as Thomas More used to say, it's like sporting with a tamed lion. You tousle its mane and pull its ears, but all the time you're thinking, those claws, those claws, those claws." Page 249

Anne Boleyn's downfall dominates the plot in Bring Up the Bodies, but there's also plenty of time to witness Cromwell's steady rise in power, the expansion of his wealth and family dynamics. He (Cromwell) has carefully mentored his young charges and Rafe is now a trusted man in the king's service. His advice to Rafe though is chilling.

"Look, he says: once you have exhausted the process of negotiation and compromise, once you have fixed on the destruction of an enemy, that destruction must be swift and it must be perfect. Before you even glance in his direction, you should have his name on a warrant, the ports blocked, his wife and friends bought, his heir under your protection, his money in your strong room and his dog running to your whistle. Before he wakes in the morning, you should have the axe in your hand." Page 417

The late Hilary Mantel was the first British author and the first woman to win the Booker Prize twice, and I totally get it now. Bring Up the Bodies is an epic character study of Thomas Cromwell and the writing is extraordinary, with a phrase to savour on every page.

I've already started reading the final book in the trilogy The Mirror and the Light and am loving it so far. It's 880+ pages though and the slow read will take us until the end of the year, when I imagine I'll be feeling bereft to have finished.

And now no more for lack of time.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: Chasing Evil by Robert Hilland and John Edward

Chasing Evil - Shocking Crimes, Supernatural Forces, and an FBI Agent's Search for Hope and Justice by Robert Hilland, John Edward and Natasha Stoynoff might end up being my favourite audiobook of 2026, although we still have a few months before the end of the year.

Written from the first-person perspective of Robert (Bob) Hilland, Chasing Evil is largely about his career as an FBI Agent. In the late 1990s, Hilland was working on the cold case of serial killer John Smith when he noticed the rise of John Edward's popularity as a psychic on the radio.

A resolute skeptic convinced of Smith's guilt but desperate for new leads on the case, Hilland reached out and made an appointment to see psychic medium John Edward. The year was 1998, and he took along a number of items belonging to a missing woman from the case and threw in some control items from female colleagues as a test of sorts. At the end of the meeting, Hilland's entire world view had shifted. John Edward identified the control items immediately and communicated information that he couldn't possibly have known, making Bob a believer in the spirit world in a matter of hours.

John agreed to work with Bob on the condition that his involvement was off the books and completely off the record. This surprised Hilland - thinking John would want to capitalise on the involvement to boost his reputation and profile - but readily agreed. We're told that this reluctance of Edward's came from a fear of disappointing or embarrassing his father who worked in the NYPD and who had asked him not to work with Police.

Reading a book about their collaboration naturally made me wonder how they went from keeping John's involvement secret to his agreement to be the subject and co-author of this book, but unfortunately this change was never explained. In the face of this glaring omission I can only assume John felt more comfortable for his work with the FBI to become public following his father's death, but this is pure supposition.

Hilland worked on a number of cases in his career but it's fair to say John Smith was his white whale, and was responsible for multiple deaths and disappearances. Chasing Evil was published in 2025, and I had to exercise a huge amount of self discipline and restraint not to look up the cases he was investigating to find out what happened. Instead, I waited for Hilland to tell me as the book unfolded and ended up listening at additional times during the day in order to hasten the process.

The audiobook is narrated by Hilland and Edward and early on there seemed to be a lot of sound effects added - creepy music, the sound of writing on a whiteboard - but thankfully these featured less and less as the audiobook went on. Co-author and collaborator Natasha Stoynoff helped to bring both of their experiences together in the book which felt cohesive and flowed exceptionally well.

Throughout his career, John's psychic ability helped Bob find bodies, make arrests and close cases. They worked so closely together that after 25 years they became as close as brothers. It was a touching relationship developed over a shared interest in fighting against evil and I got the sense they chased evil together; making the title entirely appropriate.

I read and enjoyed Crossing Over by John Edward in 2011 and have seen him perform live in Melbourne several times. I eventually stopped going or reading any more of his books because I found his delivery style a little arrogant. He's so confident in his gift, and he receives and delivers his information so quickly that he often comes across to me as insensitive. With so many people wanting readings and so many spirits hounding him to be heard, I imagine the pressure to be something akin to being an author in a signing line with a massive queue and a tonne of fans on his side of the desk pushing and shoving for his attention. In an environment like this he's unlikely to stop and pause and have meaningful interactions with a select few people, but prioritise quantity over quality but the end result can seem a little uncaring. Not long after finishing this book I saw that John Edward is returning to Melbourne in December and after reading this book and admiring his work again, it felt like the perfect time to go and see him. I can't wait.

Chasing Evil by Robert Hilland and John Edward is highly recommended for fans of true crime, skeptics and believers alike and I loved it!

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: Five by Ilona Bannister

* Copy courtesy of Harlequin Australia & Harper Collins *

I love a book with an enticing premise, and Five by Ilona Bannister has just that. Five commuters are waiting on a train platform and in five minutes the next train to London is going to arrive and one of them is going to die. The unnamed narrator takes us away from the present so we can get to know the back stories of each of the five characters and how they came to be standing at the train platform that morning.

We're introduced to mother Emma and her out of control child Gideon, Sonny, a young man who has gambled his life away, a cranky older woman named Mrs Worth who's refusing help even though she's having a medical episode and a successful looking businessman named Liam.

"There are many other mundane but poignant details we could explore in the lives of these ordinary commuters, but we have time constraints. Let's just say that you've seen them before, on some other train platform in some other suburb, weighed down by bags and coats and unmet goals and unrealised dreams." Page 20*

As you can see, the narrator breaks the fourth wall to address the reader directly and I came to see the narrator as the author herself, occasionally breaking into the story to communicate directly with me.

I love people watching and always wonder about the lives of those passing me by; or am I passing them by? Other characters on the platform are given nicknames like Bad Back and To Do List, and while on the periphery of this story, we're also given insight as to their behaviours and choices on the train platform.

Fans of Benjamin Stevenson will love the author's sense of humour and the way in which she foreshadows precisely what will happen, leaving the reader to reach the destination on their own. The thrilling nature of the plot is supported by surprisingly deep character development and the back stories of these five flawed characters really made me sit up and take notice.

This next quote is from a scene where Liam - one of the five main characters - is sitting with his brother and mother watching TV. It's an excellent example of the author's writing style and such a relatable family moment. That moment suddenly becomes shockingly poignant and I found it very moving.

"She sips her sweet, sweet tea and thinks to herself for the thousandth time in twenty years that she really should launder those curtains, and regrets that now she won't have the chance, as a thunderclap no one else can hear explodes inside her head. The pain is immense, but she sees her Liam, so big and muscular and broad and handsome pointing at the screen and making his brother laugh. As the feeling drains from her left side, Doreen regrets that she never had the money to fix the gap between his teeth that she knows secretly bothers him, but that she has always loved. The last thing she sees before her vision is lost and another blood vessel explodes in her brain is her Danny, smiling with the box of biscuits in his lap. As her breath stops, Doreen can still hear his hoarse, gasping laugh as Liam says something rude about the lady on stage impersonating Barbra Streisand. Lads, she thinks, her lads, and the word feels like a smile. And as the mug of tea drops from her hand and her soul leaves the room, she regrets nothing at all." Page 211*

At the end of the book, the death is revealed and the narrator addresses the reader about their feelings on who survived, who died and whether there was any disappointment about the outcome. I certainly had my preference for who was going to survive and who wasn't but this fourth wall questioning was so engaging I felt sad it was all over. I also enjoyed reading about the aftermath for some of the characters and immediately wished Bannister was in a book club to discuss it all.

Five stars for Five by Ilona Bannister, very highly recommended! (Why don't you take five minutes to read a sample, you won't regret it).

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

* I read an ARC so page numbers may vary.

Review: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Intro

The first time I tried to read Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel it was 2010 and I found it completely inaccessible. There were too many characters named Thomas - indeed, Mantel notes in the book half the world was called Thomas at the time - and I couldn't follow who was speaking. Regrettably, I had to set it aside despite my love of historical fiction and interest in the Tudor period.

It wasn't until last year when a book buddy of mine (thanks Andrea!) recommended I join Wolf Crawl with her - a year long slow read hosted by Simon Haisell from Footnotes & Tangents - that I agreed to give it another chance. The challenge is to read the entire Wolf Hall trilogy by Hilary Mantel over the course of the year and I'm so glad I took the plunge. Check out my sign up post for more about the series and the challenge.

Review

Wolf Hall is all about the life of Thomas Cromwell, servant of King Henry VIII yet it's not told in the first person. Cromwell is hardly ever referred to by name and instead he's referred to as 'he'. Once Simon had explained Mantel's unique writing style it was like a key had been turned and the book finally opened up its secrets to me.

The novel begins in 1527 when Cromwell is in the service of Cardinal Wolsey, although the reader is also treated to a few flashbacks from his youth. If you're at all familiar with Tudor history, you'll know Thomas Cromwell has been portrayed as the villain who drafted the framework for Henry VIII to break with Rome and make himself Supreme Head of the Church of England so that he could annul his marriage to Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. Cromwell was also responsible for the dissolution of the monasteries, reforming the English government and engineering Anne Boleyn's eventual downfall and ultimate execution.

In Wolf Hall, it's clear early on that the author is going to deliver an intimately refreshing and somewhat favourable view of Thomas Cromwell.

"Thomas Cromwell is now a little over forty years old. He is a man of strong build, not tall. Various expressions are available to his face, and one is readable: an expression of stifled amusement. His hair is dark, heavy and waving, and his small eyes, which are of very strong sight, light up in conversation: so the Spanish ambassador will tell us, quite soon. It is said he knows by heart the entire New Testament in Latin, and so as a servant of the cardinal is apt - ready with a text if abbots flounder. His speech is low and rapid, his manner assured; he is at home in courtroom or waterfront, bishop's palace or inn yard. He can draft a contract, train a falcon, draw a map, stop a street fight, furnish a house and fix a jury. He will quote you a nice point in the old authors, from Plato to Plautus and back again. He knows new poetry, and can say it in Italian. He works all hours, first up and last to bed. He makes money and he spends it. He will take a bet on anything." Page 25

Cromwell's dedication and devotion to Cardinal Wolsey early in the book was touching and admirable. When Wolsey is unable to secure the papal annulment for Henry he falls out of favour with the King yet Cromwell remains fiercely loyal and somehow manages to avoid the scandal and Wolsey's subsequent arrest for treason.

I've read countless books set in the Tudor period - too many to mention here - and each have their own take on these historical figures and I relished Mantel's version of Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More in particular. The depth of Mantel's knowledge of history and the classics is astounding and thanks to Simon's weekly articles, I was able to appreciate her subtle references to ancient and Tudor history that I otherwise would have missed.

Simon always closes each week's challenge update with 'and now no more for lack of time' so I enjoyed seeing it pop up twice in Wolf Hall in letters from Cromwell's son Gregory. What a terrific sign off.

The mere fact the events in Wolf Hall occurred some 500 years ago means we know precisely what's going to happen to each of the characters. This foreknowledge of their inevitable fate imbues the novel with a ghostly sense of melancholy that I found deeply moving.

Here Thomas More is speaking to Cromwell about the death of his father:

"It's strange, Thomas, but since he went, I feel my age. As if I were just a boy, till a few days ago. But God has snapped his fingers, and I see my best years are behind me." Page 230

Each death haunts Cromwell and his grief weighs heavily on his shoulders, painting a sympathetic view of the man. Naturally Henry VIII has a large presence throughout the book, and under Mantel's treatment he comes across as a grandiose narcissist. I've heard this quote attributed to Henry VIII in other historical fiction novels but it's a favourite and I loved seeing it here:

"If I thought my cap knew my counsel, I would cast it into the fire." Page 217

By the standards of Tudor nobility, Cromwell was low-born yet his rise is a direct consequence of his ability, work ethic, ambition and dedication to the King and I was gratified when he was appointed to the position of Keeper of the Jewel House in 1532, where he's able to oversee the King's incomings and outgoings.

Throughout it all, Mantel gives Cromwell some stellar dialogue and I found myself unexpectedly chuckling every few pages. Here Cromwell takes issue with a woman's manner of addressing him:

"If a man spoke to you in that tone, you'd invite him to step outside and ask someone to hold your coat." Page 378

Cromwell comes across as a diligent fix-it man and while he makes a few enemies along the way, courtiers soon show deference to him:

"He, Cromwell, is no longer subject to vagaries of temperament, and he is almost never tired. Obstacles will be removed, tempers will be soothed, knots unknotted. Here at the close of the year 1533, his spirit is sturdy, his will strong, his front imperturbable. The courtiers see that he can shape events, mold them. He can contain the fears of other men, and give them a sense of solidity in a quaking world: this people, this dynasty, this miserable rainy island at the edge of the world." Page 427

Despite his abilities, Cromwell is unable to persuade Thomas More to take the Oath of Succession which recognised the King's marriage to Anne Boleyn, their children as heirs to the throne and acknowledging the King as Supreme Head of the Church of England, thereby denying papal supremacy.

Thomas More explains his predicament:

"You cannot compel me to put myself in hazard. For if I had an opinion against your Act of Supremacy, which I do not concede, then your oath would be a two-edged sword. I must put my body in peril if I say no to it, my soul if I say yes to it. Therefore I say nothing." Page 513

The scholarly debates between Cromwell and More were fascinating and More's eventual execution for treason at the end of Wolf Hall was a harsh blow to Cromwell.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel could be one of the best books I've ever read and is an automatic nomination for My Top 5 Books of 2026. Fortunately I still have two more books to go in the series and up next is Bring Up the Bodies but now, no more for lack of time.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey

This was a brilliant read! The Secret Rooms - A True Gothic Mystery by Catherine Bailey is the result of a tonne of research delivered in a gripping narrative non fiction style that had me telling multiple people about it before I'd even finished.

If you'd asked me if I cared about the life of the 9th Duke of Rutland and his family, I'd have said no. What about the history of Belvoir Castle? I'd probably have given it a Google, marvelled at the impressive architecture, looked at any available images of the interiors and then moved on. So why did I pick this book up? In one word? The blurb! (Or is that two words?) The blurb contained a really good mystery I wanted to know more about and I love when rooms are locked for decades and then re-entered.

In 1940, John the 9th Duke of Rutland was one of Britain's wealthiest men, yet he died holed up in the servant's quarters of Belvoir Castle. Living out his last days secluded in an area comprising five damp rooms, doctors firmly encouraged him to move to luxurious accommodations elsewhere in the castle but John refused.

After his death, John's son closed up the rooms and they remained locked and untouched for sixty years. Author and researcher Catherine Bailey was one of the first to be granted access to these rooms and there she discovered what John had been feverishly working on right up until his death. Of course I wanted to know, don't you?

The Secret Rooms was published in 2012 and it's mentioned in the blurb so it's not a spoiler to say that John was an obsessive collector and had been organising and cataloguing his family's correspondence. The family archive contained hundreds of files spanning nine hundred years of history and contained tens of thousands of documents. On closer inspection, the author discovered that letters for three distinct periods in John's life - in 1894, 1909 and 1915 - had been removed from the collection. Why? Was he trying to hide something? And what was it?

Bailey draws on the contents of the available letters and diary entries in addition to military records and other sources in order to piece together what happened in John's life during these periods that he was trying to conceal.

Belvoir castle is in Leicestershire and built in the Gothic style with 356 rooms and I loved learning about it. It's an impressive looking structure and thankfully the book includes a comprehensive floor plan which was incredibly useful.

"The servants - maids of all descriptions, odd-job men, footmen, the flag man, the hall porter, the telephone boy, the boiler stoker and the stewards' room boy - were seated on the two benches that ran either side of a long table beneath a photograph of King George VI." Page 14

Of course, this wasn't all of the servants, you also have the housekeeper, butler, valet, chaplain, coal carriers, watermen, watchmen, lamp men and more. It's like Downton Abbey on steroids.

"In 1899, the castle had a groom of chambers, a house steward, an usher of the hall, a chef, a pastry chef, a confectioner, a plate butler, a clockman, a steward's room boy - and housemaids, kitchen maids, scullery maids, footmen, odd-job men, and porters galore." Page 169

"In the castle's grounds, there were hundreds more: grooms, stable lads, dairy maids, studmen, brewers, rat catchers, mole catchers, millers, mechanics, gardeners, groundsmen, gamekeepers, river keepers, huntsmen, kennelmen, slaughtermen, stockmen, horsemen, farm hands and woodsmen." Page 169

Bailey explains that in 1914, there were thirty Dukes - the highest honour the Crown could bestow - and they enjoyed privileges that seem scarcely credible to today's reader. This family had ruled over the neighbourhood for eight hundred years and some of the scenes described of family funerals held on the estate were extraordinary.

The astute among you will have noticed that one of the gaps in John's family correspondence occurred during the First World War and it's fair to say that a good deal of the research Bailey relates takes place during the war. This may deter some readers, however the author strings the narrative together so well by including telegrams (damnation!) and letters that keep the pace trucking along and on topic.

Bailey takes the reader along for the ride and has distilled John's life to a ripping tale and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to the bottom of the three 'secrets'.

In the Acknowledgements section of the book, the author thanks her mother Carol for deciphering and typing out the many thousands of letters she found. I have so many questions about this and the book that I'm currently trying to track down the author in order to invite her to conduct an interview with me for Carpe Librum. Catherine, if you're reading this, I'd love to know more about your research for this book so please get in touch.

The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey contains family secrets and cover ups, overzealous matchmaking, military movements and misdeeds, cryptology, pathological behaviour, aristocratic abuse of power and a privileged way of life many of us cannot begin to comprehend.

Highly recommended and an unexpected contender for My Top 5 Books of 2026.

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!

Review: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab

I enjoyed The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab so much that it made My Top 5 Books of 2021 so I decided to give her 2025 release Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil a try. First and foremost, this is a well written historical fiction novel with multiple female character points of view. All three characters eventually intersect in this plot spanning multiple centuries and multiple countries.

Alice is our contemporary character in 2019 and a student at a university in Boston. Feeling adrift, a one night stand changes the course of her life and sets her on a path of regret and revenge. In 1521, Maria is aged 10 years old and living with her family in a small town on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. We meet the third character Charlotte/Lottie later in the book and we pick up her backstory from 1827 in London.

This is a character driven book about these three women:

"In fairy tales, big things happen in threes. Three children. Three beds. Three roads. The third bite is poison, the third gift is great, the third door always leads home." Page 338

Now that I've set the scene and have your attention, it's time to drop a bomb... this is a sapphic vampire romance. Yep, you read that right. The paranormal romance genre rarely features in my reading schedule but I took a chance on this based on the strength of the author's writing. And I was right!

The writing in Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is beautiful. The personal challenges and internal struggles faced by all three women kept my attention and the gothic setting was sublime. As they age over decades and centuries, vampires in Schwab's world start to lose touch with the values and characteristics that made them human.

"Now and then, she wakes to find another little corner of her emptied, some aspect crumbled away in sleep. Perhaps it was a shard of insecurity. A sliver of regret. Sabine probes her mind, trying to find the nature of the absence, like a tongue searching for a missing tooth, but never does." Page 265

Schwab addresses the topic I was most interested in when reading the Anne Rice Interview with the Vampire series: what is it like to be immortal? (Don't worry, there are no sparkly vampires here). The author examines the toll it takes on all three of the characters, including the challenges they face maintaining their existence in the world without revealing their secret nature and evading the dangers that pursue them.

This statement from a male vampire to one of our characters reminded me of the relationship between Lestat and Louis:

"If you wish to stay, then you may do so as my guest, and I will be your gracious host. But you will live as I do, by a certain set of rules. There will be no skulking about in shadows, no victims stolen from the street and cast in the canal. I will show you how to savor every soul you take. How to claim space, and bend minds, how to enthrall, enchant, and masquerade. How to be the last one they think of when the bodies go missing." Pages 206-207

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is a unique genre-blending novel that defies easy categorisation and will appeal to a range of readers as a result. Straddling historical fiction, fantasy and queer romance and championing strong feminist characters, this book may appeal to you even if you don't like vampire novels. And if you believe books about vampires aren't for you, consider this:

"And here is the awful thing about belief. It is a current, like compulsion. Hard to forge when it goes against your will, but easy enough when it carries you the way you want to go." Page 401

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab is about female agency, love, power, hunger, control, rage and revenge and is highly recommended for Anne Rice fans.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Cape Fever by Nadia Davids

* Copy courtesy of Simon & Schuster *

Cape Fever by Nadia Davids is a gothic tale of desire and revenge set in 1920s South Africa. Soraya is hired as the live-in house maid and companion to Mrs Hattingh in a grand house in an unnamed British colony which could easily be Cape Town.

The novel begins in a seemingly familiar upstairs downstairs historical fiction style plot I've read and loved before. The list of daily, weekly, fortnightly and monthly chores Soraya is expected to carry out feed this fascination and the class distinction is clear.

Separated from her betrothed and letting Mrs Hattingh believe she can't read or write, Soraya accepts a generous offer from her employer to write a letter to him once a week on her behalf. This becomes a weekly ritual for both women that seems genuine and generous in the beginning as they sit together, read his reply and compose a response.

"It's as though she's shown me a door, told me about the riches that lie beyond it, opened it very slightly, enough for the warm gold glow behind it to spill out, just a little, with both of us knowing she can shut it whenever she likes." Page 73

Soraya comes from a Muslim community and the juxtaposition of the two cultures is ever present, with Mrs Hattingh continuing to assert her dominance and superiority at every opportunity. The writing is evocative and I particularly enjoyed her description of smells. I'm going to include the full quote here so that you can enjoy it and I can read it again and again in the future.

Soraya notices that in big houses with high ceilings and long corridors, the smells of people disappear into nothing.

"In the Quarter, smells stay. There's the smell in our houses of incense burning both now and fifty years ago, of a thousand meals past and the ones bubbling on stoves this minute. Sticking to every wall, woven into every curtain, the reek of chopped onions and pressed garlic, the trace of scattered methi, diced chilies, dried bay leaves; of spices - whole, roasted, ground, cast in hot oil - and of meat braising, bones boiling, fat spitting, broth cooking, sugar burning, rose water steaming, tea brewing, mint leaves just torn, ginger beer just poured. It's the smell of more in good times and of keeping an eye in lean ones. In our house, also, the whiff of my mother's soaps, the sweet jasmine my father planted at the front gate, the sticky heat of my and my sisters' sweat, the rush of the tides my brother brings back with him from a day at the beach and the fish he carries, still on the hook, sea fresh, glassy-eyed, salt crusted, scales shining." Pages 30-31

After reading this I desperately wanted to visit Soraya's house and inhale some of those scents, and absorb the swirl of life and history that had taken place there.

Constantly in each other's company, Soraya is unable to leave her position as her family desperately need her wages to get by, yet the relationship between the two women slowly begins to sour until it reaches an exciting and unexpected climax.

"She walks away, her slight frame straight, arms soft and graceful, once a girl who would have practiced with a book on her head, and I marvel that she can so easily show me her back when the kitchen is full of knives." Page 151

Cape Fever by Nadia Davids is a slow burn gothic psychological suspense thriller about class, colonialism, power, loneliness, love, loss, grief, secrets and betrayal and I loved it. Highly recommended.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

My Top 5 Books of 2025

2025 was an excellent year of reading for me. I read 65 books, gave 5 star ratings to 13 of them and when it was all said and done, I enjoyed putting this list together of My Top 5 Books of 2025.

I'm pleased with the variety in this list, with two books from publishers, one backlist book from 2017, two historical fiction novels, two debut novels, one Australian author and one audiobook. I started compiling these Top 5 Book lists in 2014 and this is the only time two memoirs have made my Top 5 list in the same year so that's a first!

Here are my Top 5 Books of 2025 in the order I read them:

1. Dunstan by Conn Iggulden

Set in the year 934, this is the story of a young boy raised to become a Benedictine monk, but who went on to become an Abbot, Bishop and Archbishop and reform the English Church.

Dunstan was canonised after his death and became England's favourite saint for almost 200 years, but according to this reimagining of his life, in addition to defeating the devil, he was also a liar, murderer and maker of Kings. Published in 2017, Dunstan by Conn Iggulden was a fascinating tale of talent, intellect, vengeance, duty, miracles, exile and ambition.

2. The Names by Florence Knapp

It's 1987 and Cora sets out to register the name of her newborn son. She has three options, go with family tradition and name him Gordon after her controlling husband, name him Julian which means sky father or give him the name his nine year old sister suggests which is Bear, because it sounds soft, cuddly and kind but can also be brave and strong.

The novel then splits into three narratives for each of the names and we catch up with the three boys every seven years to see how their lives turn out.

The Names by Florence Knapp is a carefully considered exploration of each of the three lives and a remarkable debut. I found myself recommending it a lot and it was definitely a standout favourite for the year.

3. All The Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert

A memoir about relationships, love and addiction, the author lays her soul bare to the reader, declaring early on that she is a sex and love addict, romantic obsessive, a fantasy and adrenaline addict, a world-class enabler and a blackout codependent.

All The Way to the River is a celebration of love, an exploration of death and grief with some light moments and even a little humour. Far from a misery memoir, the author undertakes the most unflinching look deep within herself to understand her actions and behaviour on the deepest level and I found it incredibly illuminating.

Gilbert then embarks on the painfully slow process of rebuilding her life after it had been shattered; thus giving hope to all who read her words. This is possibly the best memoir I've ever read.

4. Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton

This memoir documents the author's life changing experience finding a baby hare (leveret) on a country lane near her home in the English countryside. From the outset the author strived not to stroke or cuddle the leveret, believing it should remain wild and one day be released into its natural habitat.

Dalton's detailed observations and interactions with the leveret were endearing and greatly entertaining and I enjoyed following her experiences narrated by Louise Brealey. Ultimately I'll remember Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton for the nature writing and sheer wonder of raising a wild animal in a domestic setting and I found myself wishing I had a leveret to keep me company while I'm reading.

5. By Her Hand by Marion Taffe

Set in Mercia in 910AD, young Freda is inspired by stories, loves to forage in the woods and dreams of being able to write. Lucky to survive a brutal attack on her village by Danish raiders, Freda is placed in a women's abbey where she slowly learns to read and write.

Freda is a feisty character and Marion Taffe expertly brings this period in English history alive, skillfully helping the reader make sense of the complicated politics of 10th century Wessex. The writing was sublime and I can't believe By Her Hand was a debut novel for Australian author Marion Taffe.
______________________________________________________________________

Have you read any of the books on the list or plan to? What was your favourite book/s in 2025?

Carpe Librum!