With 2025 done and dusted, it was time to assemble my review summary for the year. Here it is:
Rating Scale:
***** Fantastic! You’ve gotta read this one!
**** Great. Well worth a look
*** OK. You may enjoy it.
FICTION
Contemporary Women’s Fiction
***** “Second Act at Appleton Green” by Kate Forster
**** “The Wisteria Crescent Chronicles” by Kate Forster
**** “Days at the Morisaki Bookshop” by Satoshi Yagisawa
Crime/Thriller/Mystery
***** “The Death of Dora Black: A Petticoat Police Mystery” by Lainie Anderson
***** “Miss Caroline Bingley Private Detective” by Kelly Gardiner & Sharmini Kumar
***** “The Deadly Dispute” by Amanda Hampson
***** “Melaleuca” by Angie Faye Martin
***** “The White Feather Murders” by Laraine Stephens
***** “Crook Manifesto” by Colson Whitehead
**** “The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies” by Alison Goodman
**** “Trouble Is What I Do” by Walter Mosley
**** “How to Seal Your Own Fate” by Kristen Perrin
**** “The Death Mask Murders” by Laraine Stephens
Horror/Suspense
***** “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson
***** “The Lottery and Other Stories” by Shirley Jackson
**** “We have always lived in the castle” by Shirley Jackson
**** “The Eerie Book” by Kirsty Logan (Ed)
**** “Sight: The Delta Girls Book One” by Juliet Madison
Humour
***** “Gone with the Windsors” by Laurie Graham
**** “Is Your Cat A Psychopath?” by Stephen Wildish
Literary
***** “Where The Guava Tree Stands” by Leah T. Williams
**** “Tales from the Cafe” by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Romance/Rural Romance
**** “August Reunion” by Juliet Madison
Science Fiction/Fantasy
***** “Murder in Retrograde” by Greg Hickey
***** “The Midwich Cuckoos” by John Wyndham
NON-FICTION
Arts
***** “Retro Melbourne” by Fred Mitchell
***** “Melbourne Ghost Signs” by Sean Reynolds
**** “Tokyo Jazz Joints” By Phillip Arneill
**** “How to be Parisian wherever you are” By Anne Berest, Caroline de Maigret. Audrey Davis & Sophie Mae
**** “Under A Modern Sun: Art in Queensland 1930s-1950s” by GOMA
**** “Beyond the best Dressed” by Esther Zuckermann
Biography/Autobiography/Memoir
**** “The Complete Terry Thomas” by Robert Ross
History
***** “Hiroshima Peace Memorial Exhibition Guide” by Hiroshima Museum
****. “Hitler’s Third Reich in 100 Objects” by Roger Moorhouse
Literature/Writing
**** “Book Curses” by Eleanor Baker
**** “The Dictionary People: The unsung heroes who created the Oxford English Dictionary” by Sarah Ogilvie
Self Help
***** “Return to Center: 52 Weekly Strategies for Peace, Strength, and Joy” by Juliet Madison
**** “Every Cowboy Knows How To Tame His Anger” by Ostap Vyhovski
Social Commentary/Politics
**** “The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want” by Emily M Bender & Alex Hanna
**** “Faking It: Artificial Intelligence in A Human World” by Toby Walsh
*** ½ “Why do people queue for brunch?” by Felicity Lewis (Ed)
True Crime
***** “Groomed: A memoir about abuse, the search for justice and how we fail to keep our children safe” by Sonia Orchard
**** “The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective” by Sara Lodge
**** “Dark City: True stories of crimes. cock-ups, crooks & cops” by John Silvester
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Sarah Jackson 