Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure by Rhys Bowen

Ellie Endicott is stunned when her husband of 30 years tells her he wants a divorce to marry a “smart, pleasant,” much younger colleague. Once she has recovered from her shock and humiliation, she admits – to herself, at least – that she didn’t love him. As Ellie wonders what is next for her, Mavis, her cleaning lady, persuades her to consult a solicitor:

Two 2025 Novels

Some light reading:

Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez (2025)

When Samantha Diaz brings a stray kitten to the neighborhood vet, she is shocked to be told it needs expensive surgery and should be put to sleep. Annoyed with the unfairly handsome vet, she vows to raise the $10,000, which she does on social media. 

August 2025 Reading

My favorite August books were the two historical fiction novels - Niccolò Rising, which I had carried unread to Bruges and back in May (I suppose it was too layered for airplane or train reading but how I wished I had read it before our trip) and the fourth Emmy Lake book. I am sorry to see that series come to an end, although I am sure the author has other projects in mind. I read a few more of my 20 Books of Summer but still have five left. I would have completed more except for a host of library books all appearing at once with non-renewable deadlines. I’m sure these five can wait a little longer but I need to impose one of my occasional moratoriums on library books so I can read some of the books piled around my house. The (poor) books are always with us . . . .  Speaking of poor, the worst book of the summer was The Great Misfortune of Stella Sedgwick (see below). Thank goodness I got this from the library!

The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths

When Griffiths concluded her Ruth Galloway mystery series (of which I am a big fan), I expected she would concentrate on characters already introduced in her other books. Instead, she has launched an intriguing new series with another quirky, outspoken heroine, a police detective who finds herself in the midst of several mysteries.

At Bertram’s Hotel by Agatha Christie #ReadChristie2025

Sometimes even Miss Marple needs a break from St. Mary Mead, and when her nephew, Raymond West, and his wife offer to treat her to a holiday, Miss Marple asks them to send her for a week or two to Bertram’s Hotel in London. She had stayed there as a child and heard from friends who’d stayed there recently it was like stepping back into an Edwardian idyll. 

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson

Last week, I participated in a focus group on “Financial Attitudes,” and spent an interesting two hours with a small group of women, all single and all contemplating how to finance their retirement. Due to some of the questions from the two moderators, the pessimism was contagious – we all began to think we’d never be able to afford to retire and read all day – so I was in a very suitable mood to begin this book and deeply sympathize with its heroine.

The Spring of the Ram by Dorothy Dunnett

1460: The second in The House of Niccolò series begins with the youngest de Charetty: Catherine, who has been sent to Brussels to stay with family friends and acquire some polish. Big mistake, Marian! Catherine immediately falls for a handsome entrepreneurial-type, Pagano Doria, who is no better than he should be (but has very nice teeth). We know this because he persuades this child to elope with him; presumably he knows she is an heiress.

A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith

This debut mystery, set at the turn of the 20th century at London’s Inner Temple, brings to life the arcane, fascinating world of Britain’s legal elite. Sir Gabriel Ward is a quiet but brilliant barrister, sometimes overlooked by his colleagues because he spends all his time in his Temple rooms or his professional chambers, just yards apart. His routine is upended one morning when he finds a dead body on the threshold of his chambers - the Lord Chief Justice, whom he has known since childhood.

Six Degrees of Separation – from Ghost Cities to Fortune’s Folly

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where it ends up. This month’s starting point is Ghost Cities by Siang Lu, a satirical novel that begins with a Chinese-Australian character being fired from his job at the Chinese consulate in Sydney because he misrepresented his language skills and only speaks English.

The Steam Whistle Theatre Company by Vivian French – 15/20 Books of Summer

The Pringle Players are down on their luck and decide to head north from London for new opportunities. Inspired by the train that will take them to the small market town of Uncaster, Pa Pringle gives the theatrical troupe a new name for their new venture: The Steam Whistle Theatre Company.  

Niccolò Rising by Dorothy Dunnett – 14/20 Books of Summer

It’s hard to know where to start with this dazzling book but, after a slow start, it became so compelling I had to switch from the leisurely pace of the audiobook to a trusty paperback. That also helped with the typically Dunnett vast array of characters, as the actual book has a proper list of those involved, most of whom are “recorded in history,” as is noted a bit smugly. Her best known series, the Lymond Chronicles, is set during the 16th century. In Niccolò Rising, which turned out to be book one of eight, she sets the scene in 1460 and her hero is not a member of the landed gentry like Francis Crawford but a lowly 18-year-old apprentice for a Bruges dyer. 

July 2025 Reading

The Kitchen Front and The Demon of Unrest turned out to be my favorite books this month and, as always, I enjoyed a Vera Stanhope mystery by Ann Cleeves. This detective has really grown on me. I listened to four audiobooks in July and am now in the middle of a very long one – 23 hours – which Hoopla will reclaim before I am done (luckily, I have an actual book as well).

Dear Miss Lake by AJ Pearce: a WWII story

In the fourth – and equally delightful as its predecessors – book about Emmy Lake, it is 1944, the war seems endless, and even the upbeat staff of Woman’s Friend magazine are exhausted by the need for nonstop positive messaging:

Nightshade by Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly can’t write fast enough for me now that I have caught up with nearly every one of the 39 books he has written. So, of course, I was pleased to hear he was launching a new series that features Detective Stilwell (either the author deliberately did not give him a first name or I missed it), who exposed the sloppy work of a fellow detective. His reward – no support from Internal Affairs; lots of animosity from Rex Ahearn, said detective; and exile to a remote but beautiful part of Los Angeles County, Catalina Island. 

WWW Wednesday - August 13

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Spell the Month in Books - August

Spell the Month in Books is hosted by Reviews From the Stacks and occurs on or near the second Saturday of each month:

Apples Every Day by Grace Richardson (1965). This is a quirky boarding school story about Sheila, spending her first term at a progressive school in Canada where you only go to class if you are in the mood.

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie #ReadChristie2025

Christie taps into the near-universal fear people have of the dentist in a mystery where the anxious patients were so busy quaking they became unreliable witnesses when poor Mr. Morley is murdered, practically in front of their eyes!

The Active-Enzyme Lemon-Freshened Junior High School Witch by E.W. Hildick – 13/20 Books of Summer

Alison McNair and her sister are on vacation in Upstate New York with their parents and older brother when they succumb to measles, so they are bored and miserable in their recovery, giving Allison (12) even more opportunity than usual to lord it over Jeannie (7). She tries telling stories, then turning Jeannie’s doll into a vampire, which ends in disaster:

The Black Honeymoon by Constance and Gwenyth Little - 12/20 Books of Summer

Miriel Mason has been supporting the war effort as a nurse and has been assigned to a difficult yet affluent patient, Richard Lang. Distracted by his attractive nephew, Ian, a lieutenant on furlough, Miriel has just married Ian on the strength of five days’ acquaintance. In the taxi after the civil ceremony, he explains he has no money so they need to spend their honeymoon at Richard’s house – but not to worry, it will be private because Richard is in the hospital and his elderly sister Violet never leaves the house. 

Six Degrees of Separation― from The Safekeep to The Woman in the Library

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where it ends up. This month’s starting point is The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden, which is described as a twisted tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the same house in the Dutch countryside.

Strangers in Time by David Baldacci - a WWII Novel

With a title like this, I was expecting time travel but, in fact, this is a historical novel set during WWII that brings together three individuals into a found family. It is London 1944, and Molly, 15, has lived in the country as an evacuee for five years and is finally returning home. She is worried that she hasn’t heard directly from her mother for years and, with no warning, her father has stopped paying a stipend to the family that housed her. When Molly reaches her house, appalled by the devastation she finds in London, only the housekeeper is there to greet her.

The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris by Evie Woods - Paris in July

After years of nursing her mother through a final illness in Dublin, Edie Lane realizes she needs to challenge herself by doing something different. Searching online, she finds a job as the Assistant Manager of a bakery in Paris, which seems perfect – her parents had honeymooned in Paris and always talked about visiting as a family and her father is a pastry chef. But when Edie reaches La Boulangerie sur la Rue De Compiègne in Paris, she learns her mistake: her new employer is La Boulangerie sur la Rue de Paris in Compiègne, an hour north of Paris!

The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan – a WWII historical novel from my 20 Books of Summer

Unexpected friendships and a cooking contest bring together four women in an English village during WWII in this enjoyable historical novel. The story begins with in 1942 with Audrey Landon, a widowed mother of three boys whose husband was shot down by the Germans.

Desperate not to lose their home, Audrey has eking out her pension with baking for the neighborhood, as well as humbling herself by asking for a loan from her affluent but unsympathetic sister and brother-in-law.

Cher: The Memoir, Part One

I have never been a particular follower of Cher and I don’t recall ever watching her television show(s) but there was something about the description of her recent memoir – as well as the way she has reinvented herself over the years – that intrigued me and caused me to put it on my Fall 2024 Reading List.

Here is the publisher’s hyperbolic description:

The extraordinary life of Cher can be told by only one person . . . Cher herself.

The Shell House Detectives by Emylia Hall - a series launch

Ally Bright is a recent widow living with her dog in the picturesquely named Shell House on the Cornish coast. Like any of us, she is startled when a young man bangs on her door late at night. It turns out that Ally’s husband Bill, a compassionate policeman, had put this young man in prison but offered to help him when he got out. When Lewis was released, he returned home, only to find that his grandmother’s house is gone – an ostentatious new house, Sea View, has been built there instead.

June 2025 Reading

June was a varied month of reading and I particularly enjoyed The Eights, with its depiction of the early years of women at Oxford, and Death at the White Hart, a mystery by the creator of Broadchurch. I also continued with Val McDermid’s Karen Pirie series and Martin Edwards’ Lake District mysteries.  There were also some disappointments like the much-hyped All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman - it's hard to appreciate a protagonist who leaves her young child alone to go sleuthing and blacks out from partying!

Chocolate Chip Scones

This is a family favorite that comes from the Williams-Sonoma Chocolate cookbook.  Usually my niece Alexa or my sister Clare makes them but I had a craving the other day and made them for myself.

WWW Wednesday – July 16

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

The Hanging Wood by Martin Edwards – 10/20 Books of Summer

In the fifth Lake District mystery by crime fiction expert, Martin Edwards, a cold case becomes linked to a present-day disappearance, and Daniel Kind and DCI Hannah Scarlett join forces again to investigate.

Spell the Month in Books – July

Spell the Month in Books is hosted by Reviews from the Stacks and occurs on the first Saturday of each month or maybe later. This month, I chose books I read when I was about sixth grade.

Just Dial a Number by Edith Maxwell (1971). I don’t think any teen who read this book ever forgot it:

“Someone tried to kill me,” Cathy gasped into the phone.

The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson

In The Demon of Unrest, Erik Larson looks at the months leading up to the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, starting with the gallantry of Southern life (for the ruling class only) and the election of Lincoln, which agitated slave owners who assumed he would challenge their way of life and their prosperity.  As revealed in this narrative, the months leading to the attack on Sumter seem like a train careening off the tracks but with many moments when it seems someone should have been able to stop it.

Past Tense by Catherine Aird – 9/20 Books of Summer

Janet Wakefield is very surprised to be notified that her husband’s Great-Aunt Josephine (not known to either of them) has died in a nearby nursing home. Bill is in South America for business so she reluctantly tries to organize a funeral and reception:

Six Degrees of Separation – from Theory & Practice to The Shell House Detectives

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where it ends up. This month’s starting point is Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser (2024).  It won the Stella Prize, which recognizes Australian women's writing but does not get much attention in the US.

Death at the White Hart by Chris Chibnall

Detective Sergeant Nicola Bridge grew up in Fleetcombe, a small village on the English coast, and has moved back there with her family for a new start. When a man is murdered and left on a road in the middle of the night, tied to a chair with a stag’s antlers affixed to his head, even experienced Nicola is puzzled. 

Old Baggage by Lissa Evans – 8/20 Books of Summer

Mattie Simpkin fought valiantly for women’s right to vote as one of Mrs. Pankhurst’s militant supporters: speaking in public, arrested five times, force fed at Holloway Prison, but now, years later, with a small independent income, lives with her devoted friend, Florrie, near Hampstead Heath.

May 2025 Reading

Three books really stood out this month. I had to go to multiple shops in London to find the new book about Maeve Kerrigan, The Secret Room, but it made my flight home from Amsterdam most enjoyable. I also really liked Know Your Newlywed by Hillary Nussbaum and Heather Taylor, a fake relationship romance, and Lost Lorrenden by Mabel Esther Allan.

Lost Lorrenden by Mabel Esther Allan

Phoebe Lyndhurst has gone to boarding school since she was nine, spending holidays with her grandparents in London, while her parents work in South America. One rainy July, she falls in love with a painting at the National Gallery:

The picture was of an old, grey stone house, with twisted chimneys and mullioned windows. There was a terrace that dropped to a lawn and brilliant flower-beds, and in a corner under a tree a party of ladies was having tea.

My Top Ten Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the Second Half of 2025

I am plenty busy with my 20 Books of Summer, my book group, and piles of library books everywhere but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about the books being published in the second half of 2025 for That Artsy Reader Girl’s weekly Top Ten Tuesday:

Crooked House by Agatha Christie - 7/20 Books of Summer #ReadChristie2025

In this standalone mystery, which she described as one of her favorites, Christie used a nursery rhyme as inspiration:

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.*

Books 5 and 6 from my 20 Books of Summer

Two books featuring troubled young women from my 20 Books of Summer:

The Fifth of March by Ann Rinaldi (1993)

Rachel Marsh is an indentured servant to John and Abigail Adams, minding their children and becoming involved in the events leading up to and following the Boston Massacre on the Fifth of March in 1770.

WWW Wednesday – June 18

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading Two New Books

I am listening to Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister (2025), which starts with a bang. It’s Camilla’s first day back at work after her maternity leave (do women usually get nine months in Britain or is her employer very generous?) but, before she’s even had time for coffee,

Trophy House by Anne Bernays – 4/20 Books of Summer

Dannie Faber has a comfortable life as a children’s book illustrator; her children are adults and she splits her time between affluent Belmont, MA and Cape Cod, which she prefers. Her husband Tom teaches at MIT and joins her at the Cape, which is her happy place, when he can. When she isn’t working, she has local friends, including Raymie, with whom to gossip about neighbors who don’t fit in. Primary among these is a millionaire who is building an enormous, hideous house less than half a mile from the Fabers.

The Eights by Joanna Miller – 3/20 Books of Summer

In this debut historical novel, which begins in October 1920, four very different young women arrive at Oxford to be part of the first female class actually allowed to matriculate. Brilliant but awkward Beatrice has always been in the shadow of her suffragette mother and yearns for friends; shy Marianne, only child of a poor minister, already wishes she hadn't come, for complicated reasons; 

Two Books for Reading the Meow 2025

Curiosity Thrilled the Cat by Sofie Kelly (2011) 

(audiobook narrated by Cassandra Campbell)

Kathleen Paulson left Boston after a romance-gone-bad and accepted a job in Mayville Heights, MN as a head librarian supervising a big renovation. She has made friends, acquired two kittens, Owen and Hercules, but the construction at the library is not going as well as she had hoped. One morning she goes to get advice from a friendly carpenter at the Stratton Theater but, instead, finds a dead body –

The School Run by Ali Lowe – 2/20 Books of Summer

Someone from my school story enthusiasts group recommended this book about three mothers eager to get their 12-year-old sons into a prestigious secondary school in Australia and I knew it would be a fun read for my sister, who works in admissions at the Catholic school I attended.

Six Degrees of Separation - from All Fours to The Wonder Test

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where it ends up. This month’s starting point is All Fours by Miranda July (2024).

The Matchmaker by Aisha Saeed – 1/20 Books of Summer

In this contemporary novel that includes elements of suspense, Nura Khan, a third-generation matchmaker who has grown her business to new heights, realizes she can’t guarantee her own perfect match – especially when someone is trying to sabotage everything she has worked for. 

April 2025 Reading

This post is much later than usual because of my trip to England, Belgium, and the Netherlands! I didn’t get much reading done once I got off the plane at Heathrow, but I did manage to acquire several books, which I will share later.

My favorite books in April were The Wedding People by Alison Espach and Wild Dark Shore, a haunting, angst-filled story set in an exotic location.  Whether or not you liked it, it was the sort of book that captures your attention even after you finish reading it. I also enjoyed The Far Country by Nevil Shute.

20 Books of Summer – 2025

When Cathy of 746 Books announced last year that she would not be hosting 20 Books of Summer this year after ten successful years, Emma of Words and Peace and Annabel of AnnaBookBel both volunteered to take it on, so thank you to Cathy and to them and welcome to the Summer of 2025 with my choices:

The Summer Guests by Tess Gerritsen

In The Spy Coast, one of my favorite books of 2025 to date, Gerritsen introduced an appealing group of retirees, led by former spy, Maggie Bird. After years of restless traveling, trying to escape painful memories, Maggie wound up in Purity, Maine, where she had several friends from her CIA days. 

A Sunday in London - April 2025

On our Sunday in London, we got up early to attend Mass at my mother’s favorite church, St. Etheldreda. It is a small but beautiful Catholic church that dates from the 13th century. It is dedicated to Etheldreda, the Anglo-Saxon saint who founded the monastery at Ely in 673.