This Week in Books – 24-09-25

This Week in Books is a feature hosted by Lipsy at Lipsyy Lost and Found that allows bloggers to share:

• What they’ve recently finished reading
• What they are currently reading
• What they are planning to read next

A similar meme is run by Taking on a World of Words.

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Another busy weekend, and so I’ve not had a lot of time for reading. I finished The Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas but I didn’t enjoy as much as I expected to.

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.

Exhilarating, suspenseful, and subversively funny, in The Sleepwalkers Thomas takes elements of Daphne du Maurier and Patricia Highsmith and blends them with her own unique sensibility to create an unforgettable thriller of rare intelligence that cements her reputation as the most exciting and original author of her generation.

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I’m currently reading Murder at Gulls Nest by Jess Kidd, and I absolutely love it! Nora Breen is a fantastic character.

The first in a sparkling new 1950s seaside mystery series, featuring sharp-eyed former nun Nora Breen.

In a house like Gulls Nest, curiosity might prove fatal . . .

After thirty years in a convent, Nora Breen has thrown off her habit. Her fellow sister Frieda has gone missing and it’s up to Nora to find her. Nora’s only clue is that Frieda was last seen at Gulls Nest boarding house. So she travels down to the seaside town of Gore-on-Sea, takes a room and settles in to watch and listen. Over dubious – and sometimes downright inedible – dinners, Nora gathers evidence about the other lodgers. At long last, she has found an outlet for her powers of observation and, well, nosiness.

When one of the lodgers is found dead, Nora decides she must find the murderer. Not least because she suspects the victim knew Frieda. Could solving this mystery help her to understand what has happened to her friend?

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I really do want to read this soon!

She wants him. He’ll take Everything.

London, 1839. Bonnie is running from a terrible crime. She and her lover Crawford have gone too far this time, and now she needs to disappear.

When Crawford secures her a position as lady’s maid in a grand house on the Thames, Bonnie thinks she has found safety. But Endellion is a strange place, haunted by the recent death of its mistress. As Bonnie comes to understand the family who live here, she begins to question what secrets might be lying behind the house’s paper-thin walls. Because Crawford is watching, and perhaps he is plotting his greatest trick yet…

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And that’s my week in books! What are you reading this week? Let me know in the comments! 😎