August 2025 - Reviewed

Change is afoot! It’s the first day of Spring here in Sydney and for those of you in the other hemisphere I guess it is the first day of Autumn! I’ve been in Australia for over six years and I still find the inverted seasons difficult to get my head around. It just feels so wrong to be warm in December and cold (relatively speaking) in July. Perhaps when I’ve spent as long here as I did in the UK, I’ll get the hang of it but there’s still a long way to go!

I had a slower reading month than normal; I returned from the North Territory in the first week and was so tired that it took me a while to find my feet. I then swept off to the Blue Mountains for a week of night shifts which did at least get me reading again.  I can get a lot of reading done on site, especially if the work is simply checking that the tradies have done their work correctly. There can be long hours in between being asked to look at something and I like to curl up under a tower light with an e-book on my ancient iPad mini. This, along with a lot of driving with audiobooks, allowed me to read seven books this month and this is what I thought of them.

August Reading!

The Elsewhere Express – Samantha Sotto Yambao

I’ve not read any previous work by Sotto but her editor sent me what may be the politest email I’ve ever received and asked me to read it. I was rather intrigued by the blurb and decided to give it a go. The Elsewhere Express is a train formed of a series of liminal spaces, constructed from the daydreams and memories of humans in the real world. Two passengers board the train at the same time and must navigate the carriages to find their compartment or risk being thrown from the train. But it’s more than a simple adventure, both passengers are wrestling with guilt and grief, and the train is not exactly as it seems. A delicately layered dream of a book that glimmers with the promise of hope after grief, The Elsewhere Express will carry you to the stars. 

No Highway – Nevil Shute

The latest in my readthrough of Nevil Shute and probably my least favourite so far. This is set in post-war Britain and follows an odd but brilliant scientist who identifies a major problem with the aircraft that covers the Trans-Atlantic route. This uses Shute’s favourite narration method: a tangentially related senior man retelling the story who sometimes knows things that he could not possibly have found out. I struggled with this one because I didn’t find the brilliant scientist anything like as brilliant or endearing as he was supposed to be, I didn’t like the way the women in the story were restricted to gentle-parenting the men rather than doing anything themselves, and the fun bit of the blurb – an adventure through the Canadian wilds – was restricted to a few days. I did like seeing Gander Airport in a book (Come From Away fans unite!) and I found it very interesting that the fatigue problem with the aircraft that Shute used as the plot driver turned out to be a real issue a few years after this was published. 

Most Secret – Nevil Shute

My second Shute of the month and a much more enjoyable read! This one is set in the middle of WWII and follows a rag-tag group who use a fishing boat to attack Nazis off the Breton coast. I am always going to be on board for a bit of Nazi hunting and derring do and this had a lot of it. The handful of British officers who joined this mission were well drawn, with different but believable motivations, some of which were really quite devastating. I found the varying portrayal of French reactions to the occupation very interesting, from those who were actively resisting and risking their lives, to those who were collaborating without the slightest qualm. Not a bad place to start if you’re new to Shute.

Struck Down Not Destroyed – Colleen Dulle

My all time favourite tv show is The West Wing. In the pilot episode, Chief of Staff Leo McGarry is talking to an evangelical minister, and they have the following conversation:

Reverend Caldwell: Why does he insist on demonizing us as a group?

Leo: Because your group has plenty of demons.

Caldwell: Every group has plenty of demons.

Leo: You don’t have to tell me about it, Reverend. I’m a member of the Democratic Party.

I think about this last quote a lot, as a cradle Catholic who has a contentious relationship with the church and as such, I found this book a really reassuring read. Dulle is a Vatican reporter and this book is about her wrestling with the demons of the church; the abuse scandals, the role of women, internal corruption. She writes about having her faith challenged and the simple support of knowing that other people are having their own battles. I felt better in my faith for knowing there are Catholics like her having these conversations and asking hard questions. I really liked this book and Dulle’s perspective and I would be interested to read more of her writing. 

A Kiss of Crimson Ash – Anuja Varghese

A seriously under-rated perk of being an author is getting sent books to blurb. I have pretty wide-ranging taste but I do occasionally get books I wouldn't necessarily pick up from the shelf and I often find I enjoy them much more than I expected to! Anuja Varghese's debut romantasy novel A Kiss of Crimson Ash is one of these. It follows four characters: a thief, a queen, her new husband, and the courtesan he is in love with; as they trace a multifaceted divine conspiracy that is gripping cities and kingdoms across a great empire. It's a finely balanced book, by parts epic in scale and alluringly intimate, filled with heat and magic.

How to Survive Camping: The Lady in Chains – Bonnie Quinn

Guess who finally got her hands on the next How to Survive Camping book! After hoovering up the first book back in June, I have been harassing my agent (Quinn and I have the same agency) to send me more and they finally delivered! I am so happy to report that this is just as good as the last one, full of dark humour, Americ

an-gothic cryptid adventures and mundane campground drama. Interestingly I think this book has the first in-text confirmation that the setting is American, this was implied but not stated in the previous novel. It definitely feels American; sheriffs, guns, general vibes, but I wasn’t sure if Quinn was being deliberately ambiguous on the location. Either way, add this to your TBR and read the first one while you wait!

Stone & Sky – Ben Aaronovitch

This is the tenth book in the Peter Grant series – one of the rare series I have stuck with into the double digits! This instalment follows Peter as he heads north to Aberdeen on holiday and is dragged into a missing person case haunted by multiple cryptid animals. I like Aberdeen and I appreciated all the geological references and the insights into the oil industry, and Peter is as entertaining as ever. I was a little disappointed to learn that this book split the narration between Peter and his cousin Abigail. I never particularly took to Abigail when she popped up in previous books and though I liked her more in this one I still wanted more Peter and was grumpy whenever we switched to an Abigail chapter. One of the aspects of these books I always enjoyed was how realistic they felt as police procedurals, even with all the magic, but the inclusion of Abigail, and to a certain extent Beverley, made this feel less grounded. I am always keen for more female voices in the text but I would really prefer more from Sahra or Stephanopoulos or even Agent Reynolds from the FBI. I will probably only re-listen to this once or twice rather than the half dozen times I have listened to the series highs of The Hanging Tree or Whispers Underground.

That’s it for me this month, see you next time!