Caro’s Bookcase

June 26, 2026

Scotch Mist by Dorothy Lambert

If you read my last review, you will know how much I loved Dorothy Lambert’s All I Desire (1936). It was such an easy book to love. The epitome of a gentle read. When I picked up Scotch Mist (1936), I was hoping for more of the same. I’m happy to report, I found Scotch Mist to be even more delightful. Not only does it contain the same sharp, witty dialogue that can be found in All I Desire, it also has many beautiful descriptions of the Scottish Highlands. In my review of All I Desire I compared Lambert’s writing to Molly Clavering, and if anything Scotch Mist is an even closer match to Clavering’s books. I’m most eager to pick up my third Lambert. But first, let me tell you about my newest favourite title from Dean Street Press, Scotch Mist.

Thirty-four year old Alison lives with her friend Jane in a London apartment. Jane is an architect and Alison is a designer/artist. Together, they run a reasonably successful interior design company. It’s not been easy work. The women used to do the practical side of the business themselves, the painting, wallpapering, etc., but more recently they have been able to focus their efforts on the management and design side of things.

There are only two clouds in the sky—but they are dark ones—and that is Alison’s mother and sister, who keep showing up uninvited to the women’s apartment and sponging off of Alison. Lady Caroline and her daughter Pamela fancy themselves part of the leisured class without actually having the money to carry it off. So when Alison manages to get her mother and sister off her hands, Jane encourages her to take a holiday. She loads up the car with practical clothes, brushes, paint, and canvas, and heads off to the Scottish Highlands in search of artistic inspiration and adventure.

When the mist lifts, Alison is surrounded by stunningly beautiful views, a handsome laird, who will whisk her off her feet—if she lets him—and his timeworn ancestral home turned hotel, just waiting for the right decorator to bring it back to life.

On her first night at Glenlochart House she happens to be the only guest. To make certain that both the prickly housekeeper, Mrs. McCaig, who doesn’t approve of single ladies staying in a bachelor establishment, and the laird, Neil McPherson, know she isn’t a single lady on the lookout, she dresses accordingly.

[S]he attired herself in the form of evening dress that she and Jane had adopted when, in their professional capacity, they stayed in the houses they were engaged in decorating, or when they attended dinners or “At Homes” in the course of their career, which they took very seriously. It was something of a pose and an excellent advertisement. (34)*

When she comes down to dinner, Neil is astute enough to understand the gesture Alison is making with her outfit of “well-cut black velvet dinnerjacket and pleated white silk shirt worn with a neat black tie and straight close-fitting skirt to her ankles” (35). But if Alison is trying to disguise her femininity with a more masculine outfit than an ordinary evening dress, the outfit is a failure.

[H]e realised that with all her suggestion of masculine severity she conveyed also a feminine hint of allure that was probably quite unconscious on her part, for her intention was quite obviously to submerge the fact of her sex in a display of independence and claim for sex-equality. (35)

Ultimately, Neil decides she is more striking in this outfit than she would be in an “ordinary evening frock, and the hint of feminine vanity was provocative and disturbing” (35-36).

Neil is impressed by Alison, and she is not blind to his attractions, as she notices him from their first meeting on the misty moors, but they both keep their distance on this first evening. So perhaps Alison’s outfit has the desired effect, after all. But there is an instant connection between the two, an unsaid appreciation that gives the reader hope the two will find love despite not acknowledging to themselves they desire it. There is an occurrence early on when the housekeeper refers to Alison as “yon spinster body”, which at first Alison laughs at, but when Neil, finding it funny, casually repeats the remark, Alison is quietly hurt (40). Spinster is a name she can revel in as long as she doesn’t feel she is the butt of a joke.

Early on in the novel, Neil and Alison go for a walk over the high moors behind the house. Alison admires the views, mapping out plans for which ones she will paint, which is the purpose of her trip, to make paintings Jane and her will sell to their interior design clients, and be able to afford to stay in “this paradise” (43). Her silence provides Neil with opportunity to observe her unnoticed.

It was rough going, steep glens to scramble down and climb up, rocks to surmount, and finally the long slope down to the road again. Alison was a good walker. She had a swinging stride that crossed the moorland with ease. She was part of it all. Her tweed skirt was sensible, and she wore a gay Fair Isle jumper, for the wind was keen in spite of the sunshine. The sun glinted on her red-gold hair, ruffled by the wind, and she was flushed and eager-looking and feminine, and more attractive than Neil thought possible. (44)

I believe it is in this moment that Neil falls in love with Alison. She moves across the moors “with ease” and she is “part of it all”. She fits. With her sensible clothes and flushed face, she suits the place. I think the deeper meaning behind this passage is that Neil not only finds her attractive in this setting, but as we are first introduced to him on the moors “coming out of the mist so suddenly”, he is part of the landscape, too (29). They both fit. And if they both fit the landscape belonging to Neil’s ancestral home, it isn’t much of a stretch to see that the two will fit each other, too.

But as Shakespeare so aptly wrote, “the course of true love never did run smooth”, and there are a number of misunderstandings and distractions to keep the two apart. This book is full of characters that are intended to make you laugh and to highlight how much of a catch both Alison and Neil are.

On Alison’s second day at Glenlochart House, a father and son arrive for the fishing, as the clientele at this hotel generally do. Andrew Tosh and his son Roddy are so abysmal that when they showed up I knew Alison’s mother and sister were bound to descend on Glenlochart House eventually, too. In a letter to Jane, Alison describes the Toshes as such:

‘Two simply dreadful people arrived this afternoon, father and son. I’ve hardly spoken to the old man, but he offered me champagne, unless I could suggest something better. By that time, however, I had had more than enough of Roddy (the son), a terrible young man who tells one about all his wealth and what he does with it.’ (71)

They sound like the perfect pair for Lady Caroline and Pamela. Pamela’s cruise has fallen through when she is forced to quarantine because one of her party contracts measles and she winds up destitute at Jane and Alison’s apartment. Lo and behold, Pamela winds up reading the letter Alison has written to Jane. The Highlands sound like the perfect place to quarantine, not that Pamela has any other option, but to follow Alison to Scotland, when Jane throws her out. I won’t go into how Lady Caroline winds up on the doorstep of Glenlochart House too, as the circumstances are much too crazy to be explained succinctly. Besides, experiencing the whole insane situation first hand as it plays out is much more fun. Lambert’s flair for situational humour is just one of the aspects of her writing that make this book a delight from start to finish.

To close, I want to share what is my favourite passage from the book. More than the descriptions of nature, the witty banter, the funny situations, I love this part because it captures something I have felt myself.

The wonder of the hours on the loch would be the most beautiful memory of her life, so beautiful to be almost a pain. That was how she always felt about beauty. The possibility of happiness she had never considered. (208)

Thank you to Dean Street Press for kindly sending me a copy of Scotch Mist for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own.

My review of Dorothy Lampert’s Staying Put (1941), will be posted in a couple of days. Hope to see you then! In the meantime, it’s not too late to preorder your copy of Scotch Mist. Scotch Mist, All I Desire, Staying Put, and Harvest Home are being republished under Dean Street Press's Furrowed Middlebrow imprint on 1 July 2026.

*All page numbers are from the ebook and may not correspond to the paperback edition.

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June 25, 2026

All I Desire by Dorothy Lambert

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book that was as easy to enjoy as Dorothy Lambert’s All I Desire (1936). Hermia Carlisle retreats to a small village in southern England with the mistaken belief she will be able to lead a quiet life where she can get on with her writing career. But how could she have known that there she would come across not one, but two, people from her past. With the help of her daughter Jeremy—yes, you read that correctly—Hermia has a successful writing career, but one thing after another seems to distract her from her writing. In amongst the chaos, she still manages to get swept away by the current “situation” she is working out in her head. Hermia’s writing is inspired by these “situations”. It’s no wonder. Her life seems to always have been full of the most unbelievable situations, which lend well to her stories.

This book was light and frothy, without being annoyingly so. The little world of Holm Street was such a delightful and idyllic place to spend time. It was such fun to get swept up in all the drama that seems to arise out of almost nothing. Although, it did make me wonder why anyone would think a small little community would be the right place to go looking for peace and quiet! In Holm Street, there is always something going on. Between teas, the cricket, meetings of the women’s institute, village fêtes, plays, and neighbours stopping by at any odd hour, not to mention people from one’s past dropping in—as if out of the sky—to stir things up, it’s a wonder Hermia manages to get any writing done.

Not that she writes the books herself, exactly. We find out early on that Jeremy, who acts as her mother’s secretary/personal assistant/housekeeper cleans her mother’s books up, rewriting them to help them land with a more modern readership. Jeremy just drops that truth bomb into a conversation with her mother, and Hermia is shocked. She believed Jeremy was simply typing her novels up for her. Meanwhile, Jeremy has been rewriting Hermia’s books without her knowledge! Hermia isn’t entirely pleased to hear that she essentially writes situations which her daughter reworks, but she must admit, book sales have risen significantly since Jeremy started working with her.

Mother and daughter cause quite the stir amongst their fellow villagers. When Jeremy shows up to watch the village cricket match, she is snubbed by one of the other young women for not wearing a hat or stockings and looking “so common, just like a beachcomber”.

It was cricket that Jeremy came to watch, and the spectators did not interest her in the slightest degree. Being an astute young person she was perfectly aware of the interest she had created. Mrs. Fenwick’s disapproval made her chuckle. Mrs. Marsh’s share of curiosity, Alberta’s indifference, Chrissie’s deliberate rudeness and Daphne Fenwick’s hostility were all noted and dismissed. “Washed out!” Jeremy’s shoulder twitched in a faint shrug, and she turned her back on Holm Street society. (39)*

This village community which is inhabited by an eclectic array of characters is described with a wonderful sense of humour. Dorothy Lambert’s writing reminded me a lot of another Furrowed Middlebrow author I love, Molly Clavering. If you enjoy Clavering’s writing, I feel sure you will appreciate Lambert’s. I think Clavering’s writing is a bit more descriptive in terms of scene setting, while Lambert’s prose has such ease that it feels deceptively simple. I have no doubt it takes a lot of effort and skill to write a book that flows as well as this one does.

That isn’t to say that Lambert doesn’t write beautiful descriptions, as well as sharp dialogue. The following passage provides a positively delicious description of the landscape when Ian, a mechanic at the local garage, drops Jeremy’s car off.

Later that evening lan cleaned and polished the baby car and drove it to the Manor. The rain had ceased and the mass of storm clouds was dispersing in feathery trails over a clear greeny-blue sky, while the evening sunshine was pale and watery. The road was covered with wide pools of water here and there, and Ian drove carefully to avoid getting the nicely- cleaned car mud-splashed. The gate was open and he drove straight in and up the drive, which was still weed-grown and untidy. The old red-brick house had climbing roses hanging on its walls, and a straggling mass of yellow honeysuckle grew round the hall door, scenting the air with its lovely fragrance. The big trees on the lawn dripped heavily from their rain-soaked foliage, and the grass was sodden. The long shadows lay across the green grass, and Ian, who was susceptible to atmosphere, felt oddly thrilled at the beauty of the quiet scene—almost, he thought, one of enchantment, the tall trees so dark against the clear, pale sky, the grass in the deserted garden so vividly green with the fingers of yellow sunlight slanting across the masses of untidy rambler-roses and making them uncannily bright and colourful.” (69)

Isn’t that lovely?! Lambert beautifully sets the scene for a meaningful moment between Ian and Jeremy.

But as I said, Lambert is great at writing sharp, witty dialogue, too. There is a particularly funny interaction between the judgmental Mrs. Marsh and the vicar, which looks as though it could last indefinitely, as Mrs. Marsh is too interested in talking about Holm Street’s newest inhabitants to pick up on social cues. Thank goodness, Mr. Bunyard, the local carpenter, comes to the vicar’s rescue.

“There!” said Mr. Bunyard suddenly, pointing. “Over there in that car, ma’am—that’s her.” [meaning Hermia]
A car was travelling slowly along the road across the Green, and Mrs. Marsh turned and scuttled away to the corner in order to see the occupant as it passed.
“Oh,” remarked the Vicar, “so that really is the person who is causing so much excitement.” Mr. Bunyard made a gesture of indifference.
“Bless you, sir, I don’t know who it is, but it seemed a good way to escape. Mrs. Marsh, she’s a bit of a sticker.”
“Oh, good egg!” exclaimed the Vicar delightedly. “You’re a man of resource, Bunyard, a man of resource!” (23)

There are too many funny interactions in this book to count. It was a joy to be immersed in all of the little tiffs and squabbles between these characters.

I always enjoy learning more about the authors Dean Street Press republishes through reading the introductions they publish alongside. Elizabeth Crawford provides this insight into Lambert,

We know nothing of Dorothy’s life with her parents, sister, one surviving brother and three servants in the ‘big house’ of Roskeen, nor anything of her education. However, from her Irish novels one might deduce that she relished an outdoor life, felt comfortable with neighbours from all levels of society, and had a hearty appetite for life’s possibilities. (8)

The other tidbit I gleaned from Crawford’s introduction is that Lambert, whose life spanned the years 1884 to 1967, published her first book, Redfern M.F.H. (1929), when she was forty-five years old. I always find it encouraging when I hear about a writer publishing their first book in the second half of their life. (It means there is still hope for the rest of us who desire to see their stories in print, but haven’t yet accomplished the feat!) Lambert went on to publish twenty-seven books over twenty-four years.

This is the first Dorothy Lambert book I have read and it won’t be my last. Thankfully, it is among four of this author’s books which are being republished on 1 July 2026 by Dean Street Press under their Furrowed Middlebrow imprint. The other titles are Scotch Mist (1936), Staying Put (1941), and Harvest Home (1950), all of which I will be reviewing in upcoming posts. Back in 2020 Dean Street Press republished another of Lambert’s novels, Much Dithering (1938), which I have yet to get my hands on, but I will no doubt want to read if her other books are anything like All I Desire.

Thank you to Dean Street Press for kindly sending me a copy of All I Desire for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own.

My review of Dorothy Lambert’s Scotch Mist will be posted tomorrow. Hope to see you then!

*All page numbers are from the ebook and may not correspond to the paperback edition.

June 23, 2026

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Last Sunday night I picked up Virginia Evans’ The Correspondent. I’ve seen this book everywhere. It is a book that everyone seems to be raving about. It just came out last year, and yet it has been receiving the kind of hype that makes you feel like you’re late to the party if you haven’t already read it. I have to admit, I don’t normally gravitate towards the book everyone is talking about. Part of me thinks, “Everyone else is reading it. I don’t have to.” For whatever reason, if a book sees this kind of popularity I am less inclined to read it. In normal circumstances, I would have given The Correspondent a miss, or else waited a decade before picking it up. But my friend Leslie, who goes by the handle @readerlyjoy over on Instagram, gave this book a glowing review back when it first came out. I trust Leslie’s judgment. If she loves a book, then it is more than likely I will too. And so I started reading this book on Sunday night, just expecting to dip into it before bed, and ended up reading most of it in one sitting. I’m a slow reader. It was a late night. But from the moment I started reading, it was as though I had entered some sort of fugue state. I came to on page 153 to realise I had left a candle burning that should have been extinguished hours ago. Whoops! Perhaps, make sure all open flames have been extinguished before you start reading this book.

The Correspondent tells the story of Sybil Van Antwerp through letters, mostly ones that she has sent herself, but we are privy to a few of the replies she receives, as well. The letters start 2 June 2012 and end on 15 January 2022, though she has been writing letters her entire life. I have the same hesitancy over epistolary novels as I do short story collections. I seem to think that with each letter I have to recommit to the book. I’m not sure I’ve ever read an epistolary novel that actually made me feel that way. (I guess I must have done. Because how else could I have gotten this crazy idea in my head?) But this most assuredly was not my experience with The Correspondent. See the candle incident.

On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings Sybil sits down to write her letters. She writes for an hour or two at a time, and if she hasn’t finished her correspondence by the end of the week, she writes on Saturdays, too. She writes to her brother, her best friend, her daughter (sporadically), the president of the university where she wants to audit courses, the customer service representative of a DNA testing company, the authors of her favourite books, and she writes an ongoing letter to an unknown person which is never sent. In her professional life Sybil was the clerk to a judge who has recently died. She has been retired for some time, but it’s clear she still misses this part of her life. Long divorced from her husband, she lives alone and rarely sees her two children. Letter writing has always been her preferred way of communicating, helping her to make sense of the world. She reaches out to people many of us would never consider writing to, like Joan Didion, Ann Patchett, and Larry McMurtry.

In a letter to a young girl who interviews Sybil for a school project, she writes, “I write to anyone that strikes me. Friends, lawmakers, editors, teachers, diplomats, authors. Authors are my favorite.” (122)

What I love about this book is that Sybil, who is in her early seventies at the start, is still in the process of becoming the best version of herself. She grows as a person, as a mother, she finds her way to forgiving others, and, so importantly, she finds a path to forgiving herself for something that she has spent decades punishing herself for. This is a book about grief, friendship, falling in love, community, and family, complicated relationships and all the things we try to tell ourselves “don’t really matter”, but in fact matter very much indeed. Sybil isn’t always a likeable person—who is?—but throughout the course of this book she grows. Her life gets bigger. The other lovely thing is that she is surrounded by all of these beautifully flawed people who are figuring it out, too. No one has it all figured out. Not in real life, and not in this book. Communicating, however we can, is a start to forming relationships, but to build bridges sometimes we have to meet people halfway, and be willing to get the words wrong once in a while.

I write slowly. A letter might take me an hour or more. I do not rush. I think through each sentence. My hand does not get tired. You mustn’t rush. When you rush you pen things you didn’t mean and you tire. It takes patience to say exactly what one means, to think of the right word. Sometimes I write a draft and mark it up, then write a clean copy to send. I believe one ought to be precious with communication. Remember: words, especially those written, are immortal. Sometimes, Caroline, the easiest inroad is to begin with a thank you, for a gift or a kindness or a letter, you know, and then take it from there. Answer every question they’ve asked, and ask your own, and you will have created a never-ending circuit of curiosity and learning. (123)

It’s an undeniably romantic way of looking at letter writing, but in some cases Sybil’s preference for writing over other forms of communication keeps people at a distance, as she finds out at the book goes on. We aren’t meant to always find the right word. Being able to communicate is undeniably precious, but we shouldn’t be precious with our communication. Holding our words close is problematic. As someone who can obsess over being properly understood, I can sympathise with Sybil. I also know that keeping my words close has only ever led to greater misunderstanding, in part, because even when you find the right words there is nothing to say that they will be understood in the way you intended them. But that is, perhaps, a conversation for another time.

A year or so ago when I was considering starting a YouTube channel I heard another creative give some advice that resonated with me. I’ve since heard the same idea put a number of different ways, but the gist is, “If your first try is perfect, you waited too long.” I think the same holds true for communication. It’s always lovely to feel you expressed yourself clearly the first time. But if you are constantly seeking perfection in yourself, chances are you are going to expecting it from others, too. And you have got to think, if your primary means of communicating with your friends and loved ones is through letter writing, not just the written word, but letters sent through the post, then it is going to be really hard to get at the deeper issues, as they come up. When one is curating their thoughts into such a tidy narrative, how much is getting left out? Likely all the difficult, messy bits. In the mess lies a certain beauty and quite often the truth of ourselves can be found buried deep below. If we aren’t exposing the mess, we might never find the treasure hiding underneath. At the end of the book, Virginia Evans beautifully handles what this looks like. And it wasn’t until I sat down to write this review that I got that. So yeah, I appreciate this book even more now.

I’ve been away from social media for about five months now to grieve the death of my dog Clark, so I’ve only just discovered The Correspondent won the Women’s Prize for Fiction this year. Unlike some years, I haven’t read all of the titles on the Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist this year, nor the Shortlist, so I cannot weigh-in on the other books, but I will say that I'm not at all surprised The Correspondent won such a prestigious award. It is a remarkable book.

Now, I must hurry off to the library because there are about 103 people queued up for this book. I will be adding The Correspondent to my list of books I want to add to my personal library, because this is one I’ll be returning to, for sure.

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January 21, 2026

Best Books of 2025 — My Top 10 Favourites

First off I should clarify that this is a list of favourite books that I read in 2025. It is not a list of favourite books published in 2025. Although, there are two books here that do fit that description.

Secondly, I know what my number one book of the year is, but while I did try to come up with an order for the remaining nine books it felt arbitrary. After a month of trying to rank them, I gave up. In 2024, I couldn’t even come up with a top 10, it was a top 29. I never did publish that post, because by the time I had whittled the list down to 11 books, it was February, and the moment had passed. In 2023, I was only able to get the list down to 32 books! And a top 32 books of the year just sounds mad. What I can tell you with certainty about this list for 2025 is that every book deserves to be here.

Thirdly, I have made a YouTube video to compliment this post. Where I fail at eloquence I believe I make up for in enthusiasm. You can judge for yourself. (Watch the video here.)

And now, here they are, in no particular order, the Top 10 Best Books I Read in 2025.

The Woman in the Hall by G.B. Stern (1939)

We are starting off strong with a chunky book from the British Library Women Writers collection. Lorna Blake, a professional beggar, solicits money from the select rich by calling on them at home and spinning a story that all but ensures she has money in hand by the time she walks out the door. The rush of swindling promises excitement that is lacking in the rest of Lorna’s life. Like a gambler who cannot kick the habit, Lorna goes out again, and again, dragging one or the other of her daughters, Molly and Jay, with her. Molly soon dreads hearing that they are going out “Visiting”, but Jay develops her own complicated fascination with the task.

I thought I saw where this one way going, but it turns out I didn’t have a clue. I enjoyed reading this one slowly. This is such a rich text for unpicking the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters, and between sisters. But there is also a feeling of foreboding as the net tightens around Lorna, which makes this book a bit of a page-turner. Read it fast or slow, I cannot recommend it enough. (Read my full review of The Woman in the Hall here.)

Spring Begins by Katherine Dunning (1934)

I was completely swept away with Katherine Dunning’s novel, The Spring Begins. Her descriptions of setting are gorgeous. The women in this book are so well described, and you cannot help but feel for each of them. And I think she does a fantastic job of capturing the tension, unease, and vulnerability of being a woman, especially—I assume—a woman in domestic service in the 1930s.

Despite the title, this book is set in the heat of summer. The spring referred to is a figurative one alluding to the awakening of three women. Lottie is a young nurse maid who cares for the two Kellaway girls, and is painfully innocent and fearful of the world of men. Maggie, the Kellaways’ scullery maid, is more knowing of men, but perhaps not as experienced with them as Cook seems to think. The oldest of the three women, Hessie, is a spinster and governess to the two Benson girls at the nearby rectory. When her younger sister gets engaged she faces a crisis.

I loved seeing Lottie’s love for the children she looks after, Maggie’s strong sense of self, but Hettie, turned out to be the real wonder for me. It took me longer to warm up to her, but the journey she must travel in her awakening takes her the furthest. I won’t spoil how her story progresses, but I will say it is not the only aspect of this book that took me by surprise.

I loved this book. It is not plot-y, but how the narrative alternates between these three women’s perspectives kept me glued to the page. (Read my full review of Spring Begins here.)

London Particular by Christianna Brand (1952)

This is my favourite book the British Library have republished in their Crime Classics collection. London Particular is atmospheric, thrilling, smart, twisty, and provides a good dose of humour to boot.

On a typically foggy November night in 1950s London, a couple are trying to find their way to a dying man, after receiving a strange phone call to a doctor’s surgery urging someone to come quick. They arrive at the house to discover the man has been murdered.

When Rosie’s brother becomes a main suspect, she enlists the help of family friend, Inspector Cockrill, to aid the police in their investigations. Cockie is sharp, smart, dependable, and so very likeable.

In the long, white firelit drawing-room the victim bowed and smiled and reeled off his devoirs before the serious work of the evening should begin; within the radius of one fog-bound mile, were these seven people, one of whom was very shortly going to murder him.

This book kept me guessing through to the very last stunning sentence.

I highly recommend picking this one up if you like character driven mysteries with intricately woven plots that will keep you reading well past your bed time. (Read my full review of London Particular here.)

The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White (1936)

This book is battling it out with London Particular as my favourite book in the British Library Crime Classics collection.

The wheel was still spinning for her.
And since their fates were interlinked it was spinning also for Miss Froy.

Having seen her friends off a couple of days ago, Iris Carr is left to travel home from her European holiday by herself. While waiting at the train station, she collapses in the hot sun. Feeling ill and disoriented, she is bundled into a packed compartment as the train pulls away from the platform. She gets a cold feeling from her fellow travellers, and has the odd impression that they don’t like her.

Thankfully, a woman, who introduces herself as Miss Froy, befriends Iris and noticing she doesn’t look well, takes her under her wing. Feeling better after a cup of tea, Iris drifts off to sleep.

When Iris awakes Miss Froy is no longer sitting across from her. At first Iris assumes the woman has just stepped out of the compartment, but as time goes on, Iris’s worry builds. Iris questions her fellow passengers about the missing woman, but they all say they don’t know who she is talking about. The suggestion is made that Iris has dreamt the woman up, a side effect of the heatstroke she is recovering from.

At first, Iris even doubts herself. But the more she thinks of all the details that chatty Miss Froy shared with her, Iris becomes certain that Miss Froy is not simply a figment of her imagination.

Miss Froy is missing and her fellow passengers must be lying about it. But who would want to harm a middle-aged governess, who herself claims not to have an enemy in the world?

This is a beautifully written book, full of atmosphere, tension, and—a rare thing to find in a mystery thriller—hope.

If the plot sounds at all familiar that’s because this book was adapted for film in 1938 by Alfred Hitchcock under the title The Lady Vanishes. And a very good adaption it is, though much more humorous and lighthearted than the book. (Read my full review The Wheel Spins here.)

The Christmas Egg by Mary Kelly (1958)

I absolutely loved this book. I read it during the festive season and it was exactly what I wanted to be reading. Snowy, Christmassy, and thrilling!

A Russian princess who many years ago escaped the Russian Revolution for London is found murdered in her flat. It is rumoured she fled Russia with a chest of jewels, which her grandson had seen recently, but there is no sign of the priceless gems at the scene. What follows is a compelling mystery which escalates to the dramatic climax which takes our detective to the Kentish countryside decked out in snow-covered glory.

Just thinking about the final few chapters of this book makes me want to read it again before the winter is over, and write a proper review for it while I’m at it!

Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper (1965)

This is book one in The Dark is Rising Sequence. My friend, Mary, gifted me this book with a beautiful bookmark she had painted and three tea bags, with the suggestion that I spend a lovely day drinking tea and reading this book. One day in late summer, I did just that.

Great-Uncle Merry meets siblings, Simon, Jane, and Barney at a train station in Cornwall, the land of King Arthur. And King Arthur just so happens to be Barney’s favourite hero. Then he finds a parchment in his uncle’s attic, an old map that will send them on a quest to find a grail. That would be exciting enough. But little do they know, they are caught in a battle between good and evil which has them lost between two worlds.

Set in summer amongst a seaside village with cliffs that plunge into the wild sea hiding caves and crevices for great adventures and intrigue. Wonderfully tense, exciting, and — the essential ingredient when good and evil are battling it out — hope.

I loved this book so much that I was daunted by the task of trying to articulate my feelings about it. I can’t think about this book without feeling a longing to sit down with it again. Save this one for a summer day and binge it in one sitting.

Pat of Silver Bush by L.M. Montgomery (1933)

Patricia Gardiner is a young girls who lives with her family on their farm, Silver Bush, on Prince Edward Island, Canada. One day is much the same as the next on the farm, until they are not. From starting school and getting a baby sister, to attending her aunt’s wedding, through to Pat’s own first romance, she grows up and manages the changes as best she can but always comes back to her home, Silver Bush, the one place that doesn’t change. Well, not too much anyway.

I started this book in the third week of September and only just finished it in December. This is a book that made me feel a lot. I wanted to savour it, but I also found myself not wanting to read too much at once. Big feelings are best felt in small doses, I find. I recognise that my strong feelings for this book might not be shared by others. I identified with Pat to a great extent, and at the risk of sounding a bit silly, this book and her character made me feel seen.

In the end they found a beauty spot … a deep, still, woodland pool out of which the brook flowed, fed by a diamond trickle of water over the stones of a little hill. Around it grew lichened spruces and whispering maples, with little “cradle hills” under them; and just beyond a breezy slope with a few mossy, grass-grown sticks scattered here and there, and a bluebird perched on the point of a picket. It was all so lovely that it hurt. Why, Pat wondered, did lovely things so often hurt?

I think it’s a special book, even when compared to the many other wonderful books Lucy Maud Montgomery has written. But beyond my admiration for Maud’s ability to capture what it is to grow up as a girl who loves home and feels everything deeply, this is just a great book. It is full of nostalgia and longing for childhood, and I don’t think it is a stretch to suggest that Maud explored her own feelings of longing for Prince Edward Island when she was writing this book. There is no big plot, just small moments in a young girl’s life, appreciating nature, happiness, and heartbreak, and sometimes, all of these things at once.

The Eights by Joanna Miller (2025)

Since I stopped using Goodreads, I started keeping a Books Read list. Next to each title I write a short note to myself. Usually, it’s no more than a sentence, sometimes it’s just a few words. Next to this one I wrote, “what’s next for these women???” I would love a follow up book to this one, not because I didn’t think the ending was satisfying, but because I didn’t want to be without these women in my life.

Joanna Miller’s debut novel was an absolute treat. I found myself trying to spin out the time I got to spend with the four women in this fabulous book. Even so, the time went by much too quickly.

1920 — Oxford University has for the first time in its 1,000-year history admitted female students as full members of the university. In October, at the start of Michaelmas term, four young women move into Corridor Eight of St. Hugh’s College. Beatrice, Dora, Marianne, and Otto couldn’t be more different, but soon the unlikely quartet become the closest of friends.

Not everyone is happy about women being allowed in the university and from the first day the foursome find themselves facing that opposition head-on.

Outside of living on the same floor at their college, these four would not likely have been attracted to each other. But the combination of living in close proximity, the common goal of getting an Oxford education, and an incident they experience just after meeting, all create the perfect circumstances to make their friendship not just believable, but feel natural and true.

What first attracted me to this book was the time and place in history in which it is set. I felt thoroughly immersed in the world of this well-researched novel. I marvelled at how many rules were imposed on the women students that were required of their male contemporaries, and the references to Winifred Holtby, Vera Brittain, Agatha Christie, and Thomas Hardy gave me a little thrill.

But what makes this book such an endearing one is the friendship that forms between Beatrice, Dora, Marianne, and Otto. I appreciated that they were never in competition with each other. These women are individually such bright lights, but together they shine even brighter.

I want to thank Kathryn (@_the_book_bug_ on Instagram) for bringing this book to my attention. After reading her review I couldn’t get the book out of my head. A day later, I pre-ordered it. (Read my full review of The Eights here.)

Love Divine by Ysenda Maxtone Graham (2025)

This book begins on a blustery day in early January in the village of Lamley Green. People are just waking up, making hot cuppas, and opening the curtains. But the curtains at 12 Holly Grove remain closed as letters of condolence are pushed through the letterbox.

Lucy Fanthrope, whose husband Nick, respected lawyer and dependable member of the church choir, died unexpectedly on New Year’s Day. The letters are variable in nature, some touching, some funny, in many the writers come across as shockingly self-involved.

We are privy to many perspectives across the wide range of characters who live in this village. Everyone is connected in this small community both to each other and through the parish church, St Luke’s, which is currently without a resident rector and suffering through a long interregnum.

There’s Carol, who volunteers to do the church coffee service. Vicki and Eliot who are facing the uphill battle of running a B&B. New to the village, Chantelle will stop at nothing to get her daughter into the oversubscribed church school. And then there is my personal favourite, Hugh. Newly retired schoolmaster, who lives with his dog Odo, and has every piece of his clothing on a numbered rotation.

The characters in this book are either facing loss or are going through a phase of transition in their lives. Maxtone Graham does a wonderful job of capturing how as one is facing supreme sadness and loss, life is dotted with moments of beauty and joy.

I shed more than a couple of tears while reading this book, but I mostly giggled, smiled, smirked, and nodded along to the ridiculous, funny, endearing, relatable bits in this glorious book. I wholeheartedly loved it. Set over the course of year, starting in January, this would be a great book to pick up right now. (Read my full review of Love Divine here.)

If you’ve made it this far, you deserve a metal. Instead, let me tell you about the best book I read in 2025...

Crooked Cross by Sally Carson (1934)

I read Sally Carson’s Crooked Cross back in April, when it was first republished by Persephone Books. Even then I knew it was going to be among my top ten this year, and I was all but certain it would be in the number one slot. It’s just that kind of book.

It is a powerful account of the rise of Nazism in Germany and how it affects one family in a small Bavarian market town in the mountains south of Munich. It begins at Christmas 1932. The Klugers are happy and looking forward to the future with optimism for the first time in years. The younger son has joined the Nazi Party and the elder son who has been unable to find work soon joins up too. The daughter Lexa, is engaged to Moritz Weissmann, a surgeon with a bright future. Moritz and his father, celebrate Christmas with the Klugers and the two families already feel joined. In the new year, Hitler is elected Chancellor, and everything changes.

Moritz loses his job at the hospital because he is Jewish, and he is unable to find another. With no money coming in, Moritz and his father are forced to move to a one-room flat. Soon Lexa’s brothers, Erich and Helmy, are telling Lexa that surely she must see that she has to give Moritz up because he is a Jew.

All her muddled ideas and thoughts, her worries and anxieties for Moritz had a reason, a point, an ending now. This was her loyalty; this was where she had to act. This was her moment, the moment for which she must have been waiting.

This book is powerful. It’s moving. It’s devastating. Hard to believe it was published in 1934, just a year after some of the events in the novel take place, and without the hindsight of what was going to happen in Germany. This is not a cosy book, but it is so important. Everyone should read this book. (Read my full review of Crooked Cross here.)

Final thoughts

In general, I read a lot of books that are either out of print or have recently been republished, so I’m not surprised this is evident in this list. But what I was surprised about is that half the books on this list were originally published in the 1930s. And a quarter of the books I read this year were from this decade. The only decade that was close to that were the 2020s, with 22 per cent, and almost half of those books were published in 2025. I have never before tracked the publication years of the books I’ve been reading. I started thinking about it when I heard Simon Thomas from the Tea or Books? podcast talking about his Century of Books challenge.

Like I said at the start of this post, I read so many wonderful books this year that it was very difficult to narrow the list down to just 10. I am not a decisive person and I hate having to pick favourites, because it is so definite. To state the obvious, once you pick a favourite book or top 10, you are leaving out any number of wonderful books that you may have read over the course of the year. It feels a bit harsh. Frankly, it feels mercenary to me. But I strive to champion the very best books, always, which is why I feel it is necessary to put myself through this decision making torture.

I would love to know if there are any reading stats that you like to track, or have decided to start tracking in 2026. And what was the best book you read in 2025? Or best books? I, of all people, can understand if you cannot pick just one.

Some of the books in this post were sent to me by publishers, but as always, all opinions on these books are my own. Thank you British Library Publishing and Slightly Foxed for being so generous to me in 2025.