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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