Guilty by Definition by Susie Dent - my first five-star review of 2026

What could be better than a mystery set in Oxford that features four amateur sleuths who love words?  In this crime fiction debut, Martha Thornhill had been working in Germany for ten years until she is encouraged to apply for a job back home as the senior editor of the Clarendon English Dictionary. She likes her job but there’s a little tension with her three coworkers: Martha knows elegant Alex Monroe could have led the department as effectively as she while Simon Turner is still disappointed he wasn’t chosen.

The Couple in the Photo by Helen Cooper

Title: The Couple in the Photo
Author: Helen Cooper
Publication: Putnam, trade paper, 2023
Genre: Psychological suspense
Setting: Present-day Britain

Description: When Lucy married Adam, his two best friends from university, Cora and Scott, also became her closest companions. The two couples live just minutes apart in Leicester, their four children are inseparable, and they even bought a weekend cottage together and spend all their free time rehabbing it. But one day when Lucy casually glances at a coworker’s honeymoon photos, she sees one of Scott with another woman in the Maldives when he was supposed to be in Tokyo.

Literary Trails, British Writers in Their Landscapes by Christina Hardyment

Title: Literary Trails
Author: Christina Hardyment
Publication: The National Trust/Harry N. Abrams, hardcover, 2000
Genre: Nonfiction

Hardyment is a British writer who more than shares my love of literary pilgrimages. This oversized, illustrated book contains eight chapters of essays, pictures, vignettes about particular authors, timelines, maps, and more.