15th August 2026

I've been meaning to read this classic novel for years, and finally bought a copy last summer, only now getting to actually read it. I was nervous, because it's a big book of many densely packed words, and felt likely to be dated. But I surprised myself by getting into it quite quickly.

The narration definitely feels older - similar in some respects to other books I've read from the 60s, but also unfamiliarly formal in some respects. Time passes in a non-linear fashion, where we're often told what's going to happen and then step back to watch it. Similarly with a lot of events happening in parallel, we get to rewind every now and then for a chapter elsewhere leading up to the same event.

The plot is interesting, although very meandering, and I'm still not entirely sure whether there's a main plot or if it is just a generational family story with social commentary mixed in.

The characters are I think what makes it such a classic. There's a rich cast, although almost entirely men (at best there's one scene where two women have a conversation that's only tangentially about a man), and learning about them and their personal journeys, motivation, ways of thinking, and the shades of grey that make them up was the most compelling part of the experience for me.

The book is from the 60s, and does contain the sort of racism and sexism, and a lot of violence, that I have learnt to expect from novels of that era. The author does well for the most part to present it as the characters being racist and sexist rather than the narration, but in a few places it does feel like the presentation is a bit too bought into reprehensible beliefs.

But I definitely enjoyed reading it more than I expected to, and will probably return to read more by Puzo in the future.

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15th August 2026

The third novel on the series serves as a sequel to both of the first two, bringing a character from the second book into the setting of the first, as she relocates her entire life looking for something that's missing in her life.

This is a D&D-style fantasy setting, but loses some of the cosiness of the previous two novels to take us out on the road adventuring more, with more combat, danger, and peril.

It's a fun little adventure but I do think it's lost some of the charm by becoming more adventurous and less about building something. While the character and her journey are definitely interesting to read, they intentionally inspire a different set of emotion in the reader, and I think I was expecting more of the same instead.

There's lots of humour though still, and mystery connected to it, as we try to work out what exactly this quest is all about.

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25th July 2026

It's the usual chaos at Linbury Court as Jennings and his somewhat unwilling accomplice Darbishire set of on an adventure inspired by a fishing rod.

If you've read any Jennings novels before then this is more of the same - things that seem entirely reasonable to schoolboys become perplexing to their teachers, and the reverse.

There was one moment which, reading again now I'm older, made me properly cringe - which isn't a reaction I think I've had to these books before.

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25th July 2026

Another great Fethering mystery, in which we rejoin Carole and Jude to attend a "private view" of unsuitable art at the local gallery.

The characters remain comically opposed in their approach to things, and are just a pleasant break between books that take themselves more seriously.

There is a lot going on though, and following all the different threads to conclusion takes a little mental effort - but it's the journey that's important.

Just what I was looking for.

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25th July 2026

I ordered this book many months ago and so by the time it arrived I'd entirely forgotten what it was that attracted me to it in the first place. My immediate reaction was surprise that it's not science fiction. I've no idea what had given me that impression... perhaps the cover from a distance looks like a spacecraft travelling through the void? But up close it's clearly a school child with interesting lighting.

Anyway, it's not that.

This is a 1980s boarding school story, and the tale of a new student who has arrived for the sixth form, a teacher who has been there for many years, and a frustrated doctor. There's also a feature of faxes, which helps with immersion into the 1980s.

What I also didn't expect is the humour. Although it's also a serious story with a lot of bad things happening, it's presented with humour, both in the characters and the narration. This stood out immediately with a really great section in chapter two which perfectly set my expectations for what was to come.

I enjoyed spending time with these characters, and gradually learning more about them and their backgrounds. Everything's presented very naturally, and the narrative flows perfectly. Just the right amount of revealed at each stage to tease the reader without having to spell every single thing out, and there's plenty to digest once it's all over.

Very happy to have found this.

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18th July 2026

A delightful collection of early Pratchett short stories, aimed at kids but perfectly accessible and entertaining for older readers too.

It's almost Pratchett Light. There's less complexity and less subtlety than in his later works, but you can still see the beginnings of what would later emerge.

There's a lot of humour, but also a lot of morals - not heavily, but there just to guide the story and guide the reader.

Many of the stories share a common setting, in a parody of the real world, and that's quite fun to visit multiple times and see how he's used the slight fantasy version to poke fun at society.

A good set of fun tales.

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11th July 2026

The second novella in the Threadneedle universe, this one appears to be a standalone not directly related to the other books.

We meet Miranda, a misunderstood teenager who struggles with relationships, obsesses over rules and perception, and is frustrated by how she's treated. She finds a mystery box in the attic, which starts to upset the delicate balance of her existence in magical ways.

I found it quite an emotional novella to read, with a lot going on, and with a lot of sympathy for the character, despite her also having shortcomings that I can imagine frustrating those around her. There's a lot going on in her head and for a short book it can be quite overwhelming to experience.

A really interesting story, and I enjoyed spending time with it.

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11th July 2026

Raven and Fisher return... surprisingly younger than I thought they were... for another series of unfortunate incidents as someone close to them suffers an untimely death that's in need of delicate investigation.

As always with this series, some of the subject matter is pretty bleak. It's historically accurate and dives into some of the darkest aspects of 18th century society, and doesn't always make for the most pleasant of reading experiences.

Despite that, the plot is captivating, and as a reader I constantly wanted to continue and find out more about what was going on. The characters also continue to be compelling, and it's been fascinating to see them and their relationships grow and change over the series - although as I said, I'm shocked to find their entire adventures have happened over just 7 years of story.

I don't know that I feel comfortable recommending the book, because there are elements that are difficult to read, but it is a good book and highlights aspects of the past that would be easier to forget, and probably shouldn't be, because they do still reflect on things in current society.

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11th July 2026

The Queen is back, but it's fairly early in her reign and she's on the royal train to Scotland when something unexpected is spotted from the window.

It's a great mystery, following the clever spin of the series where the main investigator must never be revealed and must work through intermediates.

Like a classic spy novel, we get to visit exotic locations, and discover plots within plots. There's some classic jokes as well.

A really lovely series that I'm really enjoying collecting.

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29th June 2026

The final episode of the HRMC trilogy sees the various witches of the coven facing their own personal issues, which they'll need to overcome first if they're going to also deal with the big bad...

I enjoyed the book and revisiting the characters and world, but imagine I could have enjoyed it more if the first two novels were fresher in my memory.

I think my main issue with this was that it's not great to be reading apocalyptic fiction during what feels like an actual apocalypse. It wasn't quite the diversion I needed last week.

But I also felt like the story had moved away from where I'd felt it had started - it's become a big epic war, and I wanted more about the characters and their lives. But that is the way of narrative.

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20th June 2026

Ava and Luke's second mystery box from their dad's attic contains a wealth of leftover documents from a deadly 1983 school trip to the Natural History Museum in London.

As usual with Janice Hallett's novels, we're told the story through messages and documents, rather than a prose narrative. And so we learn things naturally as the characters at the time chose to document them.

It's a clever story with lots of threads that gradually unravel and reveal the story to the reader. The only thing that felt a bit weak to me was the wrap up at the end, which felt like it could have been longer and more dramatically presented.

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20th June 2026

Not my usual choice of reading matter, but I've been enjoying listening to John Green's various podcasts, so thought it worth a try.

It's a mix of emotion, history, and a tiny bit of science as Green tells the story of Tuberculosis in humanity, entwined with the story of his Sierra Leonean friend Henry's experience with the disease.

The book is structured into well-sized chapters which fit into a short reading episode, and allow for regular breaks to avoid the nature of the content overwhelming the reader. I found that this meant I could read one chapter at a time and intersperse them with reading something much much lighter.

I've learnt a lot from this about tuberculosis, but also global politics and economics. There's a lot to think about and I think it'll be sitting in my mind for a long time to come.

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13th June 2026

The long-awaited sequel to Bored Gay Wereworlf sees our favourite former title character and his friends move to London, to help look for a missing person.

It took me a little bit to get back into things and remember where we were, but once I'd got into the flow the narrative floated me along in a delightful funny and serious look at the world from an urban fantasy perspective. In this sense it's doing what sci-fi always has and should be able to do, engage with an entertaining story while shining a light back on the real world.

My suspension of disbelief did struggle at a couple of points, and these are nothing to do with the plot, but instead just locations that the author chose for the characters to hang out. Both times were in real food-related chains, and both times they weren't realistic - one in terms of how the characters behave there, and both in terms of what the characters ordered. This was worse the second time, because there was a heavy point made of characters eating something which is so totally not what's on the menu of that establishment.

That gripe aside, I enjoyed a fun romp of an investigation, characters learning from D&D, actual character development, mystery, new characters, and even action scenes, which aren't usually my thing in novels.

Hoping for a book three!

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6th June 2026

An excellent second mystery for the early 20th century barrister and his police constable friend.

I was a bit dubious whether my interest in this series would survive a second book, and early on I didn't think it was going to, but as the story progressed it became more and more gripping and I found myself racing through to the end.

There are some elements of the plot that are quite uncomfortable from a 2020s point of view, particularly issues which are seem in almost entirely the opposite light now, 125 years after the novel is set. This adds a surprising sense of historical realism.

I'm left in two minds over whether or not I'll pick up the third book when it comes out.

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30th May 2026

Bob's back with a standalone third novel, where we meet recently-redundant bathroom-furniture salesman Matt as he gets drawn into a series of complex situations.

In style and tone, it's remarkably similar to Mortimer's previous novels. It almost feels in places like it wants to be a sequel about the same character, but the plot didn't work, so he's been recast. It's very much more of the same in a new setting.

I love how utterly random it can be, while still maintaining a totally plausible plotline throughout and all the pieces coming together in the end. It's artfully constructed to tell the story in a fantastic way.

I've really enjoyed another story from Bob Mortimer - it's like the ones he tells on TV but that just keeps going.

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30th May 2026

The double-Os are back for the third entry in Kim Sherwood's trilogy, and there's so much going on it's hard to know where to start.

It's an intricate plot weaving together threads of many characters. There's a lot of reliance I found on remembering what happened in the first two books, and that is not always my strong suit, so in places I was stumbling a bit. Once that's past though it's a fast paced novel that feels very movie-like as well as being traditional Bond style.

There's so many references to pick up on, and as a long-time fan it is a bit weird in places seeing a Bond novel that's updated to be set now but still making references to things from the original novels and films, with everything having been time shifted in his backstory. And yet that still makes it a lot of fun.

I've really enjoyed this trilogy, and am a bit sad that we probably won't see most of these characters again. But James Bond, of course, will return.

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23rd May 2026

A new Janice Hallett novel is always a delight. Once against presented in 'found footage' form, we read the text messages and emails between a group of publicans and pub quiz regulars as their habits are threatened by suspected quiz cheats. And of course a suspicious death.

I love these books, and find them so incredibly readable. I made it through this one in just three days (aided by long train journeys) as it's so compelling and flows so easily.

The plot is enrapturing, particularly as a pub-quiz-goer myself and recognising many of the tropes presented. But there's so much to notice and so much to learn about the characters and their relationships.

I've read enough of these now to start to spot some of the clues as they are revealled, but I never guessed where the overall story was going to go.

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23rd May 2026

In this new Star Trek Picard novel, set somewhere between the many epilogues to the series, we get to visit Seven, Raffi, Crusher, Guinan, and Picard and a host of other familiar characters as they're drawn into a mysterious plot to change time.

It's a fun trip around the Next Gen era as the time travel plot device gets used to revisit some big moments from the canon and see them from new perspectives, all while taking part in a thiller-style investigation, and learn more about some of the occasional guest aliens.

It feels nicely episodic, which fits the feel of Picard season 3 - small chunks that make up a big story - and that means it moves at a decent pace throughout as we flow through each.

I did feel like the climax suffered a little though - perhaps my reading pace picked up toward the end - and this felt a little bit flat to me.

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17th May 2026

The Dahlia's return for a mystery in London's West End - two as the stars of neighbouring plays and the third as a national treasure who uses her status to her advantage repeatedly in this setting.

As always, it's a fun outing, with a novel setting for the now-familiar characters, continuing to explore their backgrounds, their relationships, and their crime-solving abilities. I like how we can see them developing as well as dealing with what the plot throws at them - it feels like real people rather than perfect heroes.

I'm impressed by how freqently these books appear, and really happy that we have such a reliable series to read.

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9th May 2026

The eighth book, on second reading 16 years later, has the feeling of being about moving the chesspieces around the board to get them ready for the next bit of exciting play.

Structurally, we spend a chunk of chapters with each grouping of characters, rather than their stories being interspersed throughout. This provides good focus in a long tale and probably reduces confusion, but does mean if you're trapped as a reader in a part you enjoy less, you might struggle to get to the bit you really want.

On my previous reading I commented on barely believable coincidences, but I think that's not so troublesome this time round - one of the well-established concepts by this point of the story is that the trio of Rand, Perrin, and Mat have a magic to them which causes coincidences. On reflection, that's quite a genius bit of worldbuilding from Jordan to have right from the start and run through the series to justify all sorts of things.

It's not the greatest story as a standalone book, and from memory marks the point where the books became more functional and formulaic. That said there's some bits I strongly remember that still haven't arrived and are only being hinted at, so I'm keen to see them arrive in the next couple of books.

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26th April 2026

I picked this up expecting a comic crime caper of some sort. It's not not that, but it's also not really that either in a way that I felt I could continue reading. I got to around page 150.

It's the story of three main characters who meet on/after a train journey in the 70s, all of whom are telling it in first person from the perspective of their older self 50 years later. The chapters rotate through the different narrators in turn. One is an inept actor, one a police officer, and one a contract killer. Two of the three felt unlikable, and that wasn't sufficiently balanced out by the third.

I just struggled to get into it. The narrative never felt like it was going anywhere fun or interesting. The characters almost all felt like victims of circumstance, but not in a way that seemed comedic.

Eventually I had to give up and move on to something I was going to enjoy more.

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19th April 2026

I picked this up having read and enjoyed Hays' previous novel, although with a little trepidation as it's not my usual choice of genre.

I was absolutely hooked and raced through it over the course of a weekend (aided by two long train journeys). The story is gripping, the characters compelling, and the mystery itching to be solved.

Some of the twists I saw coming, but many of them were surprises.

That said, it probably is darker than what I'd normally choose to read and I'm definitely on the lookout now for something different to distract me instead.

While I've given it the full five stars, I'm not sure that means I'll keep reading more by Hays - I'm happier in a lighter world of fiction.

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19th April 2026

Ex-Nun Nora Breen heads to the coast to follow up on her dream of being a detective when her friend seemingly disappears.

I enjoyed this mnystery - it makes a good use of the period and setting, and introduces a rich variety of characters and scenarios to explore. The main character is particularly compelling and we're drip fed her background and motivation throughout.

It is however quite dark in places, and I think I was expecting something a little lighter.

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18th April 2026

This collection of Brandon Sanderson's non-cosmere shorter works spans a variety of stories of a wild variety of lengths, some of which I've read before. There's some good stuff, but reading it all back to back got a bit much.

So hard to summarise, but here goes - one statement per story.

Knowing what's coming makes it much sadder. Non-typical interesting little story that makes you think. Cute and clever. Moderately horrible and unusually violent. A hard-to-like character in layers of world building. Surprisingly short yet actually quite interesting. Rough at first then came together. Starts slowly but ends excitingly. Short and weird as a standalone. Not as engaging as I'd have liked.

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29th March 2026

I enjoyed Curtis' previous two books so picked this up without really thinking about it. It feels quite different - being a fantasy story rather than science fiction, and I don't think I enjoyed it as much (although given I do read a lot of fantasy, I'm not sure the genre can really be credited with that).

It's the story of two young women from very different backgrounds, both coincidentally on a similar quest, though for very different reasons.

I read a lot of the book in one go on a flight, and this felt a good way to tackle it. I think my experience suffered from more fragmented reading once back home and that made it feel slower paced.

I can see that Curtis' next book is a sort-of sequel, and I'm not sure if I'll read that, or wait and see if she returns to science fiction.

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29th March 2026

The Rector is back, and there's a period drama being shot on location at the manor house, with many of the familiar locals helping out with the crew or as supporting artists. And of course, because this is a murder mystery, there's a murder.

It's a nice twist on the series, bringing some fresh faces into the location while also making the most of the regulars. The ongoing story feels comfortable and develops, and the new story provides a good mystery.

That said, the timeline seems to flow weirdly. Most of the book takes place on a single day, but then at the end we seem to skip through several days quite rapidly and if anything the end feels rushed, despite me taking longer to read it.

A nice entertaining read though and a series that I hope to keep coming back to.

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7th March 2026

The third book in Rob Rinder's series about the fictional junior barrister Adam Green sees him assigned a variety of cases, including a protestor who is accused of murder, and a soldier who is accused of a different murder.

I continue to enjoy the narratives, including the character's relationship with his mother, and with his female colleague whose interest in him he seems entirely unaware of, which adds much needed comedy to offset the potentially quite bleak aspects of the plot.

In this book, I'm not sure I understand how the various aspects of the plot are meant to gel together - it felt like two separate stories happening in parallel, almost as if neither idea really worked as a whole novel... but I was expecting some sort of overlap or thematic reflection between the two that never really transpired.

I'm not sure how I feel now about continuing with the fourth book - it might be that the enjoyment level isn't quite high enough.

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28th February 2026

A good fourth book in the series, introducing a new character and with an exciting adventure for the main character in the mix as well.

It gets pretty dark for what's nominally a book for younger readers, but doesn't tend to focus too much on that aspect as the immediate impact on the characters themselves is the focus.

I didn't feel massively inspired though to return to read the final book in the series any time soon. I think this book was about the right length and the thought of one twice as long isn't super appealling.

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21st February 2026

It's 1952 and shortly after Felix's famous incident with the shark (the one from the books, not the much later version of the same event from the films). We get to follow some of his physical and mental recovery, and his job switch from CIA to private detective, alongside a classic espionage thriller.

It feels a clever balance of three things - modern novel, homage to the Bond novels, and period piece. Particularly at the start there's a few references that feel familiar to Fleming's original style, and similarly later on some of the big set pieces feel very Fleming in scope. Then the adventure proper begins and seems a well done exploration of the time from a 2020s point of view.

The plot is complicated, with a lot of characters and a lot going on. It was tricky in places to keep my head around this, but it felt recognised by the character and author as well, and that helped with recaps and ensuring we could follow along at the right pace.

A good exploration of the character, and an interesting adventure too.

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21st February 2026

It's taken me months and months to get through this book, despite the hype, and despite having bought one of the special editions. I have two contrasting views - one on the story, and one on the reading experience.

The story is great. It's a massively extended version of a short that I'd read before, and explores the Cosmere far into the timeline. As such, there's a lot of references to other worlds previously and not-yet explored, which is both great, but also a bit weird because I feel like I'd have prefered to watch those worlds grow more chronologically to understand them better.

The main characters are really interesting - a solid contrast between Sixth, a trapper, exploring a new place for the first time and seeing things with new eyes, bringing us along for the ride, and Starling, a dragon, trying to look after her really diverse crewmates despite having lost most of her abilities.

The problem I think I had the most though was the form of the special edition - and this is potentially a small silly spoiler if this is the version you've got and not read yet. There's a very clever artistic twist, where after starting out like a normal book, something in the plot triggers the pages to invert, and then for most of the book it's printed in silver ink on black paper. While this looks great at first, it quickly became a nuisance to actually read - the light has to hit the pages at exactly the right angle for the ink to be visible. I think that's the main reason it took me so many months to get to, just the awkwardness of holding such a big, heavy tome at the perfect angle for each page.

So, recommended in the regular edition (assuming it doesn't have the gimmick) for the story.

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21st February 2026

I have mixed feelings abuot this jigsaw-based murder mystery. I've read another of Bennett's novels before, and enjoyed that, but this time felt more brutal and the characters, at least initially, less likable.

It's a well constructed mystery, with lots of suspects, lots of clues, and a result that you can just about get to before the characters.

There's a ton of backstory, almost too much, to uncover amongst the characters, and I felt like it was a little overhwleming and distracting, having to deal with some of the characters and their interactions. This is where the unlikable main character was a problem for me, and I think that's one of the two things that stopped me feeling like I wanted to race through, and I almost decided to give up.

The second is the crimes themselves. I don't generally like seeing from the baddie's point of view, and this book does a fair amount of that. Partly that's interesting because it has a different take to many places I've seen it before, but again it made for a second unlikable character.

I probably wouldn't choose to recommend this one, and I'm put off reading more from the author because of it.

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8th February 2026

This coffee table book covers the three films of the Kelvin Timeline - but mostly it covers the first one, and then less of the latter two.

There's a few pages on each element, from uniforms, to aliens, to sets, and ships. Each section has a small amount of text, with some commentary or insight from the design team. And then lots of images, schematics, paintings, and occasionally photots or screencaptures of the finished product.

While there are a lot of pictures, some of them felt very small, and I found it hard to really take in what the text wanted me to. The image captions weren't always as clear as I would have liked which imag or images they mapped to, and there didn't feel like as much of a narrative between them as perhaps I would have liked.

Some of the drawings had been replicated in a faint blue colour on white pages, which felt an odd choice and made them hard to see in detail - it felt like a better contrast would have helped.

Overall I was left feeling underwhelmed and that it didn't do the job as well as equivalent books from the 1990s.

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8th February 2026

The seventh book is another exciting entry in the series, and moves around the characters with a good frequency - we get long enough to feel like it's not flitting, but not so long we get bored of any particular plotline before shuffling to the next.

And there's a lot happening, we spend time with all the main characters and they are all on their own journeys in this one, in differing parts of the world, and dealing with different problems.

I really enjoyed it, and was almost tempted to go on to book eight straight away. There's things happening now that I don't properly remember from before, which is interesting. The climax of this one though did feel like it came out of nowhere, so I'm not sure if my lack of memory meant I missed some of the hints that it was coming.

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1st February 2026

The third Paperback Sleuth adventures sees Cordellia hired to find the rumoured elusive final book in a series of WW2 thrillers, and once again this leads to people really wanting to kill her.

It's fun and silly and gripping. There's so many characters that we meet who are larger than life, and yet totally fit into this world.

I read the entire book in the course of a 3-hour flight, which felt a bit of a waste of such a good book, but also did the necessary job of keeping me entertained and distracted from the real world.

My only worry is that there are no more announced stories in this world, and I've really loved reading them so far.

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1st February 2026

I don't remember how this book ended up on my wish list. I don't remember where I bought it from. I felt nervous going in. But I really loved it.

Two adult siblings attempt to Christmas with the rest of their chaotic family, but find a time machine in the middle of the night and transport themselves back to 1984 and really mess up the timeline.

It's a great idea. The writing feels a bit rougher than normal books that I read - it has a very informal tone, and has the feel of not having been through quite the same amount of editing. And yet somehow for once this doesn't actually detract at all.

I read most of the book on a 3-hour flight, and it felt exactly the right sort of tone and pace for this. Really fun, engaging, and distracting.

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1st February 2026

The second of Natasha Pulley's books that I've read and wildly different from the first in terms of setting, and yet really similar in tone.

This is the story of Thaniel, a civil servant and telegraphist in 19th Century London, as he's caught up in significant events for the Japanese and Irish communities.

It's a complex blend of historical fiction and fantasy, with exotic clockwork, timey-wimeyness, and a range of really interesting characters with rich and varied backgrounds.

I found it incredibly readable and am both delighted and slightly wary of having discovered that there are sequels.

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17th January 2026

I was a bit dubious going in after not enjoying Hindle's previous murder mystery as much as I had hoped, but luckily I was wrong and this one's great fun.

It's New Year's Eve, and a murder mystery party has been organised to try to drum up some business from the dilapidated local hotel - but everyone's got a challenging life at the moment and are looking for ways to solve it... which may or may not include killing off one of the players.

It's a really clever little classic mystery, with a solid cast of characters with proper backgrounds, connections, and unresolved histories. I liked the various point of view characters, and that we got to spend time in several heads, not just one. The more contemporary setting was nice but didn't detract from a story that feels pretty timeless.

I did manage to spot the conclusion coming, but I don't think that's a negative at all - the perfect mystery is the one the reader solves just before the characters.

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17th January 2026

This prequel to the first book in the series gives some extra background to how the situation at the start came about. This confusingly makes it chronologically the middle book of the series, but as far as I can tell they can be read in any order and still work.

However my memory of the first book, after just two years, is too hazy to really understand all the context and how it fits in - whether there are overlapping characters or settings, or whether it's just serving to set the scene for the world.

As a standalone, I think it struggles a bit. Part of the beauty of the main books of the series is the depth and the detail and the amount of slow steady worldbuilding that can happen, and deep relationships that the reader can develop with the characters over the course of a thousand pages. This skips all that and feels shallow by comparison.

This book is split into two halves called Before and After. Which makes sense from the perspective of most of the plot. But one thread only appears in the Before half and isn't followed up on in the After, which felt very weird and like a forgotten or pointless bit of plot. Perhaps had I better memory of the original novel it would fit more comfortably, but as I read it came across as a mistake.

Ultimately I suppose I'm mostly disapointed that this wasn't a big main book in the series, and didn't deliver the level of enjoyment I was hoping for.

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10th January 2026

Deep into the Chronicles of St Mary's now, we find Max preganant and heading toward having to stop jumping back to witness historical events in contemporary time. As always, chaos ensues.

I found this book incredibly readable. It's funny and action-packed and the narrative flows at the perfect rate to hold my interest.

Yes it's silly, and nobody's thinking about fancy pants awards, but it's entertaining and ultimately that's what I'm looking for in storytelling.

I can't quite believe how much fun these books are, and I'm wondering why I don't pick up the next one sooner each time.

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3rd January 2026

I a run-of-the-mill 1992 adventure, the Hardys repeatedly visit New York after one of their friends buys a counterfeit baseball card, and the whole world acts as if this is the biggest possible crime that anyone could ever commit.

There's possibly the most peril of the entire series - every chapter seems to see the brothers knocked out, locked up, dropped on, or otherwise endangered leading to massive cliffhanger fatigue.

Educational, perhaps, but not the most engaging.

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