Io saturnalia!

Or as we mostly say nowadays, Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays.

News Flash! The Loyal Centurion just 99p/c.

My publisher - bless him - has surprised both me and you with a pre-Christmas gift price for my latest book, The Loyal Centurion. Here’s the link, if you want to read it yourself on Kindle, or send as an ebook gift to that tricky-to-buy-for loved one. [Not saying anything, but looking at you, my lovely blokeish readers!]

My books of 2023

I’ve chosen an eclectic mix, in reading order, of five books I enjoyed this year. These are beyond the terrific ones by fellow authors I’ve already featured in 2023. I haven’t read as much as I planned and hoped, but that’s often the way with writers. I’ll do better next year!

1. Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr

   Written by the author of All the Light We Cannot See (currently streaming on Netflix, and not a shabby adaptation either), this story is built of a palimpsest of timelines, in which one revered and precious ancient text is the lynchpin. The action ranges from the fall of Constantinople, through modern-day Idaho, to the far future. What binds the times together is the passionate love of reading. You can see why it appealed to me! It feels more like a David Mitchell than Doerr’s previous book, and is as clever an intertwining of plots and characters across time as you could hope to meet. And the characters are wonderful! Not an easy read, but do persevere.

2. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus

   A famous blockbuster, and another high-profile TV adaptation, this was for me the ultimate feminist tale, wrapped into a fabulously amusing and horrifying portrayal of American culture of the fifties/sixites. The heroine, Elizabeth Zott, is a strange character who teaches a whole nation far more than they might have expected to learn. A triumph.

3. Death in the East, by Abir Mukherjee

   I’m on more familiar territory here. I’ve become more and more impressed by Abir Mukherjee’s Sam Wyndham series. This is the fourth of his crime novels set in the British Raj of the twenties. Sam, a former British soldier turned policeman is working in India, with his Indian colleague Sergeant Banerjee. But Sam’s London past reaches out to his present day in the hills of Assam, and the coils of a very entertaining mystery begin to compress around him…

   Great read, pacy, twisty, and with the main characters becoming more and more fascinating.

4. Billy Summers, by Stephen King

   Regular readers of my newsletters will know how much I enjoyed this return to straight thriller territory, by the master of masters. I won’t repeat my previous review; just to say if you haven’t read this, it’s Stephen King back at the top of his game. If you don’t cry buckets at the (surprise) ending, you’re not human!

5. Weyward, by Emilia Hart

   I actually listened to this book on Audible, where it won the listeners’ top award for 2023. It is not really my usual territory, and for a while I wasn’t sure I would enjoy the mix of historical feminism threaded with gothic fantasy. But I do like a twisty multi-layered plot, and this book has that in spades. Without spoiling it for you, it’s about three very different generations of the same Cumbrian family, whose stories are told in turn, and gradually begin to twine round each other and eventually coalesce. If like me you are concerned about the erosion of hard-won human rights all about us, especially affecting women, you might find as I did that you become more and more sucked into this book. A few flaws of editing — a beadier eye to English history might have helped — but a great read anyway.

And that’s my lot for 2023. It just remains for me to wish you the very jolliest of seasonal celebrations, with some reading time if you can. Heavens know we need it!