I read eight books in July, the same as last month and close to my customary reading rate. Here are the three I enjoyed the most. Links from each title will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads (mostly the latter as I’m behind with reviews).
Check out all the books I’ve read so far in 2025 here. If we’re not already friends on Goodreads, send me a friend request or follow my reviews.
My thanks to Swift Press for my copy of Green Ink and Mantle for The Art of a Lie via NetGalley.
There Are Rivers in the Skyby Elif Shafak (Viking) – the brilliantly realised tale of three characters living alongside two rivers, centuries apart, who are linked by a single drop of water and an epic poem
Green Inkby Stephen May (Swift Press) – the story of Victor Grayson, the real life firebrand socialist MP turned secret-service informant who vanished without trace one night in late September 1920
The Art of a Lieby Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Mantle) – an enthralling historical mystery set in Georgian London
What were the best books you read last month? Have you read any of my picks?
Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading.
Thursday – I published my review of Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee.
Saturday – I took part in the #6Degrees of Separation meme forging a bookchain from The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden to A Light of Her Own by Carrie Callaghan.
New on my shelves
Edith Holler by Edward Carey (Pushkin Press via NetGalley)
Norwich, 1901: Edith Holler spends her days among the eccentric denizens of the Holler Theatre, warned by her domineering father that the playhouse will literally tumble down if she should ever leave.
Fascinated by tales of the city she knows only from afar, young Edith decides to write a play of her own about Mawther Meg, a monstrous figure said to have used the blood of countless children to make the local delicacy, Beetle Spread. But when her father suddenly announces his engagement to a peculiar woman named Margaret Unthank, Edith scrambles to protect her father, the theatre, and her play-the one thing that’s truly hers-from the newcomer’s sinister designs.
Teeming with unforgettable characters and illuminated by Carey’s trademark illustrations, Edith Holler is a surprisingly modern fable of one young woman’s struggle to escape her family’s control and craft her own creative destiny.
Still reeling from the chaos of their wedding, Evelyn and Richard arrive on an idyllic Greek island for their honeymoon. It’s the end of the season and out at sea a storm is brewing.
They check in to an exclusive hotel, the Villa Rosa, where the proprietor Isabella ― a strangely intense woman of indeterminate accent ― flirts outrageously with Richard while treating Evelyn with a rudeness bordering on contempt. Isabella tells them the story of ‘the sleepwalkers’: a couple who stayed at the hotel the year before and drowned in a tragic and unexplained accident. It starts to feel like the entire island is obsessed with ‘the sleepwalkers’, but what at first seems like a fun tale to tell before bed quickly evolves into a living nightmare.
Caught in a web of deception and intrigue, where nothing and nobody are quite what they seem, Evelyn and Richard discover that their island paradise may in fact be hell on earth and that their only means of escape is to confront dark truths about themselves and those they love.
This is the unforgettable story of how one family’s grief transformed into a lifesaving gift. With tremendous compassion and clarity, Dr Rachel Clarke relates the urgent journey of a young girl’s heart and explores a history of remarkable medical innovations , stretching back over a century and involving the knowledge and dedication not just of surgeons but of countless physicians, immunologists, nurses and scientists.
What I’m currently reading
I’m very close to finishing the audiobook of The Mirror & the Light, I’m reading The Best of Intentions from my NetGalley shelf and The Body in the Ice, the next book on my 20 Books of Summer list.
Look out for…
Book Review: The Mare by Angharad Hampshire
Book Review: Green Ink by Stephen May
Book Review: There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
What Cathy Read Next... 