Well one of my Aims at the start of this year, as in most years, was to increase my reading.  I don’t know about you but I do go through phases of reading non-stop and then only reading a bit a day and of course there is the inevitable reading slump which seems to affect everyone at some point.  I have also got myself out of my reading slump by listening to books through the BookBeat App when I am working.  This has definitely helped and some of the books have been really successful and others not so much but that happens with hard copy books too.  

Anyway onto the books I have read and listened too in November 2025 so far;

Thisa is a hard copy book which I started last month and have about twenty pages left.  It is about the three Dahlias and them investigating a murder at the Castle in Scotland where they have been invited to  the wedding of their dear friend and the Laird of the Castle.  The castle gets cut off by a bad snow storm and also loses power and then the murder happens.  Not only is a young woman dead but she is wearing the wedding dress and a diamond necklace which had gone missing!  Why and who did it?  It is a gentle read with no horros in it and I have thoroughly enjoyed it.  Just waiting to see who the murderer is!!!!

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This is one of the hard copy books I am not sure of!  I sort of liked it but then the more I got into the book the more I did not like the main character at all!

Dinah Marshall meets up with her old Oxford University friends for a weekend away but she was not invited the first time round, she was invited because one of the other friends could not make it.  So Dinah knows she is second best.  It does not help that she did not finish University with her friends but that was another story.  They are staying in a fabulous home in one of the Home County villages whilst the owners are holidaying abroad.  To Dinah this home represents everything her life is not, her small flat would fit into the sitting room and her job at the local cafe does not provide her with much money.  She becomes obsessed with the owners of the home and starts to stalk them, putting herself on the fringes of their group and then miracle of miracles she gets drawn into their group, but it will end in murder.

Dinah is not a likeable person and the more you get to know her the more you don’t like her but then she has to put up with a very pushy younger sister who treats her like her third child and a mother wo does not care about her at all, she is seen as just a nuisance and her sister has spies reporting on Dinah’s behaviour to her!  Therefore you begin to feel sorry for her but then she does something and you are right back to the you could quite cheerully smack her!!!  This is where I got to with this book and at the end it is a bit of a mess.  Would I read another one  of Ruth Irons books?  Probably not but I did give it four stars.

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I gave this Four Stars as well because again I was not sure about the story and again the ending was not quite right!

Two couples, one bad decision a death and a cover up!  Kirsten and Nick are driving home after a weekend away in Devon when they are involved in an accident and a man is killed.  Instead of calling the autorities they decide that they will cover it up including taking the dog that the man was walking!  

Amy & Greg have been married for ten years and are expecting their first baby together.  When Greg fails to come hom from a short dog walk Amy begins to worry and calls the Police, their friends and his parents.  The Police first think that Greg has left because of his life changing, baby on the way, his business is slow, been married for ten years.  However Any knows that Greg would not leave her and something is wrong but they cannot find him or their dog Rusty.  Amy decides to investigate his disappearance herself and vows to get justice and if she cannot get justice then it will be revenge!

The story wa good although in parts slightly annoying.  There is a twist in the end but then the final bit is a bit far fetched so hmm.  Definitely one I would not read again.

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This I listened to whilst doing a job on Thursday and finished it on Thursday as well!  I loved it!  If I could give it more stars I would!

DI Barton is about to retire but he is not sure if he actually wants to.  His loving wife Holly has put up with so much over the years and now their children, one at University and one about to go, are older he wants to give Holly time to do what she wants to do for a change.  However there is one last case he needs to deal with before he leaves and it is an unusal case.  Firstly he has to help his young neighbour who has been abandoned by her husband with their almost one year old son.  He finds her stood in her living room with no heat or lights on and a knife in her hand.  She has not done anything but she is stood looking into the distance, her son is safe upstairs in his cot.  He taks her and the little boy home and Holly moves into high gear getting her warm and feeding the baby.  He knows they are safe.

The same thing cannot be said for a member of the local Book Club.  He and his wife went home after the meeting at the beginning of December and whilst he was in his study have a nightcap whisky he falls to sleep never to wake up.  It is assumed he died of a heart attack until the Pathologist finds no heart disease.  DI Barton and his team take on this last case to find the murderer before he strikes again, although he may already have done so.

This story is well written, DI Barton and the characters are very likeable and he goes about his investigation without any fanfare but does so in a way where he gets answers without too much stress.  It is funny in places and there is no angst in it.  All in all a great read with a good ending.  There are several of the DI Barton books so I am now able to go back and read the others which is always a bonus finding a new set of books!

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As we are going into the third week of November, the third “Ber” Month, I have got out my “Christmas” books which I love to read at this time of year, all those cosy Christmas books with the odd Christmas murder thrown in!!!!  I will let you have a list next month.  

I have also started to listen to this on my Book App.  I have seen a lot of recommendations for Riley Sager books and as we know what one person likes is not always liked by someone else and this may be the case with his books!  I am 20% of the way through this and will be listening to it whilst I am cleaning but the Narrator, Stephanie Cannon, her voice is a little hard to listen to!  She comes across as a little girl playing dress up!!!  I will contine to see how it goes but not sure yet!

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That is my round up for November.  December is looking good as I got quite a few Christmas books on my TBR shelf from last year.  As the nights are drawing in fast, it is now dark by 4.15pm, it is the perfect time of year for reading by the fire.  Hopefully by the end of today I will be able to finish my book and then start another.  I hope you lovely lot are able to find time to read over the weekend. 

Hugs & Love Susie & Coco xx

As you, who have followed me for a while now, know I love crime/thrillers as my book of choice but being a Gemini I also love fantasy books, historical books, the very occasional romance book and novels too!  So you could say any book.  However it has to be the right book!!

What do I mean by the right book?  Well, although they say “do not judge a book by its cover” I do.  If the cover does not look right or I don’t like it then generally I don’t like the book itself.  I know that is perhaps shallow but it has stood me in good stead with my choice of books.  This is part of what I am going to tell you about.  Audio books.  The App I am using, and it has been very good, is BookBeat.  They have varying Memberships and depending upon how much you want to use the App depends upon the cost.  I am on the top amount because I am using it quite a bit but they do a try out for 30 days free.  I tend to listen to the Books when I am at Eldest’s working there and it has been really good and I also listen to them on the drive home tool

Now this was the book I was reading and listening to on our October Friday Book Club and I had just started it.  Well It was a little slow to start with but I thought it would pick up when Liv got to the Library and then meeting Evar.  It didn’t!  It was dreadful, it was boring, the characters were flat and they never seemed to get anywhere.  The story was just about them being in the Library and doing well not a lot.  Mr Lawrence kept referring to things but nothing ever happened.  So I got to page 480 out of 576 and then DNF’d it!  The worse part; it is Book One of a trilogy and I also have the other two books and all three are now in my donate pile!  Can I tell you what a huge disappointment this was and I loved the cover!

This is my next book that I am reading, not listening to.  Now this book is another story in a series of The Dahlia Stories, which I have not read before., so I will be able to go back and read the others.  Rosalind, Caro & Posy are used to playing the part of Dahlia Lively Detective in films but they have discovered a talent for investigating real life crimes.  They are all invited, with their partners, to a high society wedding at Christmas in a Scottish Castle and no sooner have they arrived when a dead body is found on the beach beneath the castle wearing a very expensive diamond necklace and a wedding dress!  Will the wedding be called off or can the three lady “detectives” solve it and help the bride and groom?

I have only just started this but so far it is giving very cosy, blanket and cup of tea vibes, not forgetting Coco curled up next to me. 

Now I listened to this over two days and gave it five stars!  However if you are not in the mood for a trial, especially based in the British legal system then you may find this borning.  However as it is the field I worked in for ten years  it brought back so many memories and I could follow all the ins and outs of it. 

A retired teacher  leaves his home on New Year’s Eve to buy a bottle of champagne for him and his wife to toast the New Year in as their original plans were cancelled due to the weather.  Whilst he is out he comes across three male 17 year olds who attack him and he loses his life.  All three are charged with Murder and the three Defence Barristers are busy trying to defend their Clients whilst blaming the other two for the murder.  The Preosecuting Barrister is busy trying to prove that all three did it but the evidence starts to show a different story.  Over the course of the chapters we get to hear from all the defendents and their back stories until we get to the conclusion of the case and the Jury retire to consider their verdict.  There are a few twists at the end of the book.

I really enjoyed it but as I say a few people have said that they found it boring and basically too much talking!

Finally I come to  “His and Hers” by Alice Feeney whose books I have seen around but never read any of them. Again I listenend to this one and began it on October 12th and finished it on the 15th.  I did give it five stars as I did think the story was good and the narration of the male parts was done by Richard Armitage.  Now if you don’t know who he is, he played Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbitt and he does have a very distinctive voice!

Anna Andrews is a newsreader for the BBC News Lunchtime programme, a job she has been doing since the previous news anchor went on maternity leave and then got pregnant straight away after the first baby.   So Anna has enjoyed a few years in the top spot.  This has been her salvation after a traumatic few years when her marriage to Jack ended in divorce.  He was busy with his job as a DCI in the Police and then there was their daughter.  Her colleague comes back to work and Anna is transferred back to being a roving reporter and her first assignment is back in her childhood village of Blackdown and where all her problems started.  A woman is found dead in the woods and as Anna begins to report on it she discovers it is an old school friend of hers and Jacks and then Jack is suspected of knowing something about the death.  Can they prove tht he had nothing to do with it and find out who the actual killer is?  

My only complaint of this book, and I was talking to DH about this, is that I guessed who the baddy was by the middle of the book!  Now is this because I have read so many thriller/crime books over the years that I have become so habituated to these stories?  I got to the end of it and although I did enjoy it, I also felt a little flat when the ending came with a sort of shrug of the shoulder!  What I am also concerned about is, is it because I am listening to these books instead of reading them?  Do you not gain the same enjoyment listening to a book as you do from actually holding the book and reading it?  I am going to see how this goes with the book I am currently reading as opposed to the one I am currently listening to!

I am going to get some reading done this weekend, along with my quilting and a few other home jobs which need finishing too.  The weather is forecast to be not very nice with a possible storm coming through on Sunday, but Coco and I will be tucked up at home and DH will be at the swimming pool.  Hopefully it will have passed over by the time he needs to pack all the equipment up!  

Have a wonderful Literary weekend you lovely lot.

Hugs & Love, Susie & Booky Coco xx

Welcome to Susie’s Friday Book Club for October!  It has been a busy month since our last Book Club Friday for my reading and also Jayne’s and my Book Club Book too.

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This was Jayne’s pick for our Book Club for September.  When we went for lunch Jayne was telling me that it took her a while to get into the book but when she did she loved it and the ending and she liked all the characters.  I completely disappointed her by my review; I absolutely hated it!!!!  She was mortified but I said no this is the whole point of a book club, you are not going to like every choice and she may not like my Choice for October!  

I started to read this but found it heavy going from the start, so I swapped to listening to it but still found it heavy going.  I did not get into the characters at all and in fact did not like them very much either.  The fact that she was left completely on her own as a young child to fend for herself and then when she made some money with her drawings into books and finally got back with the man who, as a boy, had helped her and then she died! No not my cup of tea at all.  I did think this when it was first published but I did finish it for Jayne, but is it not a book I would pick for myself.

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I also read this in September, “The Countdown Killer”.  A killer is tracking people down and killing them and making a DVD about it, one of which finds its way into the hands of DCI Cara Elliott.  The murdered man is found and they work out that there is 48 hours between the time of abduction and the death and so far the victims have gotten away with various crimes by being found not guilty in court, so is this revenge?  When the killer finds out he is being investigated he kidnaps a police officer on the team, who now have to race the 48 hours to find him and get him back and find the killer before he kills again.

The story was good, but the ending was a  little flat!  I read and listened to this but the audio, the Narrator was doing all the voices and the men came across as either sounding like they had a heavy cold or stupid, which really put me off the audio!  In the end I gave this three stars!

This is my next book I have just started to read.  I love books about books or bookshops or anything to do with books so this was definitely coming home with me!

It is a fantasy book where Evar has been trapped within the vast library which is older than Empires and larger than cities.  Livina has always lived in a tiny settlement on the Dust but both their lives collide in the Library where Evar thinks he will never be free and Liv wants to be there forever!  Can they make it work?

I have read the first 50 pages and it has been a slow start although now that Liv is at the Library it is picking up a bit.  This is the first of three books so it may be that Mr Lawrence is building the characters and stories, but I will wait and see how I feel when I have finished this book!  

Finally this was my Pick for September for Jayne’s and ,my Book Club book and I will tell you all about it next Friday after Jayne and I have had lunch on Tuesday!

I hope you have had a great week, good weekend to come and you can find some time to read, whatever else you are up to. 

Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx