Best Reads August 2025

It’s been a month of crime/thriller reads and historical fiction, plus a couple of crime and historical combinations which I really enjoy. It’s also been a month where I found it difficult to concentrate because finally, after five years of brown tiles, lime green walls and cupboards with no handles we have been able to afford to renovate the kitchen. So for two weeks we have had no ceiling, no floor and no hob. As of Monday, we will be cooking in the garden until everything is back together again. I am not good with chaos so if you can imagine me wedged into a corner on the sofa with the contents of every kitchen cupboard taking up the study and other end of the living room. Hopefully only two weeks left to go. It can’t come soon enough. The other half is building the seating area under the pergola at the bottom of the garden. It feels like a symphony of drills and hammers at times but it will be lovely to be able to go and sit outside and read with roses growing around me. So much to look forward to in September with some fantastic reads on the list too. ❤️ 📚

Unbelievably this is the third novel from Kate Foster and firmly puts her on my ‘must-buy’ authors list. They’ve all been worthy of a place on my best reads list but I think this is her best yet. Maggie is a young girl from Fisherrow whose father is a fisherman and her mother ons of the fishwives who help bring in the catch, clean it for market and then repair nets ready for the next day’s fishing. She, her parents and sister Joan live in a one bedroom cottage but Maggie dreams of a life so different to this, where there isn’t back breaking work and she’s not at the mercy of her father’s drunken temper. So when ambitious trader Patrick turns up at the door, looking for somewhere to keep goods for making perfume she senses a chance. She knows Joan is prettier but she would make a far better wife to help him in his business. Luckily he sees this in her and after a short courtship they become married and set up home in a cottage in the village. They are happy until suddenly Maggie gets the news that a press gang has been to the hotel and Patrick was one of the men taken for the navy. Somehow Maggie finds herself travelling to London, to build her new life. At a stopover in Kelso she takes a couple of weeks to stay and earn some money. She knows now she is pregnant and conceals it, to keep on working. So how does she come to be in Edinburgh a few months later, being sent to the gallows on charges of concealing a pregnancy and killing her baby. Yet miraculously she survives the hanging, how and what she chooses to do with her second chance at life are the main contents of this brilliant novel. I loved the history, the growing up that Maggie does on her journey and how brilliant an advocate Kate Foster is for these women she finds in historical documents, often in dire situations at that time for ‘crimes’ it’s hard to comprehend today. Most of all I loved the bold, feminist take on Maggie’s life and the links that could be made with modern day politics. Brilliant.

My second historical fiction read of the month was this mesmerising and clever thriller from Laura Shepherd-Robinson that’s jumped straight onto my books of the year list. The Art of A Lie begins in a confectioner’s shop called the Punchbowl and Pineapple, run by the newly widowed Hannah Cole. This is the late 18th Century and Hannah grew up in the shop that was started by her grandfather. Her husband Jonas had been her father’s apprentice and now she must keep their shop running for it to be handed to his cousin. Jonas was found down river, washed up by the Thames with head injuries and missing anything of value including a watch given to him by Hannah that used to belong to her grandfather. Novelist and magistrate Joseph Fielding visits Hannah to say he is investigating Jonah’s murder, for he doesn’t think it’s as cut and dried a case as it might seem. Thank goodness for the lovely William Devereux, a friend of Jonas’s who introduces himself ar the funeral. He calls on Hannah at the shop, hearing of Joseph Fielding’s interference in the case and hoping to be of help. He gives her his grandmother’s recipe for iced cream, thinking it may be a hit with her customers and could tied her over until the case is closed and Jonas’s estate is released. Laura tells this tale so cleverly, drifting between narrators and shocking us with an aspect of their characters or the case. Both are fascinating and not necessarily what they appear to be at first. With each revelation I became more and more intrigued with this cat and mouse game and the psychological make up of those involved. Hannah is an astute businesswoman, good at reading people quickly and usually accurately. It’s hard to tell at times who is scamming who and I was so utterly entranced I was still thinking about it a week later. Simply brilliant in its setting, historical background and the constant simmering tension.

A modern thriller this time from one of the Queens of the genre and this really was an up to the minute tale of secrets, lies and murder. Gwen is an older widow, living in a complex of smart apartments in a nice area. She has decent neighbours, some of whom she might call friends. When her nearest neighbour Alex is looking for a new lodger she meets one of the candidates, Pixie. They start chatting and she is pleased to hear when the Britpop one hit wonder decides to offer her the room. Pixie gets a job at the bakery and cafe that Gwen frequents and they get on very well, so Gwen is disturbed to hear what sound like arguments from across the hall. She also catches a phrase that sounds like ‘you knew the deal when you moved in. When she catches up with Pixie she’s disturbed to hear that the deal involves sex in lieu of rent. She confronts Alex and takes Pixie in, writing a complaint to the building’s governing board. Her neighbour Dee tells her that she talked to her daughter Stella about it and she’s been making a documentary news item about the growing ‘sex for rent’ scandal. Would Pixie like to be interviewed? Soon the story is out of control, Alex is angry and denying everything and Gwen is public enemy number one. I loved how ‘of the moment’ this was with Gwen at a loss when it comes to freelance investigative journalism, sex for rent, trad wives and influencers. As she starts to feel out of her depth, those around her continue to manoeuvre and manipulate until life will never be the same again. This was so tense and the eventual murders most unexpected indeed.

I had the luck to read two Mark Edwards novels in August. a throwback to last year and this, his brand new thriller. The Wasp Trap was the jokey name given to a side project. While trying to form an algorithm for one of the first ever online dating apps, a group of university students have another idea. Each one specifically chosen by their professor, Sebastian, they are the best in their fields and are spending their summer at his mansion in the country. Will tells our flashback story, the creative who is meant to be coming up with a name for their site he is also hopelessly un love with Sophie but too scared to make a move. Together they come up with ‘butterfly.net’ but it’s Lily who comes up with a side project – an algorithm that could identify psychopaths. Statistically one of them could be and since they’re serving as guinea pigs for the dating apps why not for this? Now decades later they are gathered again, this time at Theo and Georgina’s mansion – the couple got together that summer and are married with two daughters. Strangely, they announce that one of their daughters is missing so it seems an odd time to have a dinner party. They also have caterers which is unusual for them, so Will isn’t shocked when it turns out to be a cover. The fake chef is Callum and he gives them an ultimatum- he’s giving them an hour to think and when he returns he wants to know the secret from that summer. If the secret isn’t divulged then someone will die. The tension rises as the hour ticks down, who has a secret? How do they know which is the right one? As Callum comes back into the room they’re left in no doubt that he means business. The rising and falling of tension is pitch perfect and in between the action we get flashbacks to that summer where more than one person is holding a secret and we start to wonder who exactly was the psychopath that Lily was searching for.

My final recommendation for last month is this last novel in the historical fiction quartet about the agony aunt of the Women’s Friend, a magazine running during WW2. It was lovely to be back with the gang and particularly Emmy Lake as they enter the final and arguably most difficult stretch of WW2. After five years of war both the team and their readers are tired. As a way of boosting morale at the magazine Emmy suggests they all decamp to Bunty and Harold’s in the countryside. As Hitler’s V1 and V2 bombs start to hit, it will certainly be safer. Emmy strongly feels they all need a boost in order to keep supporting and inspiring the women who read their magazine. If they’re tired and the magazine suffers, how will their readership keep the fight going? Emmy throws herself into rural life and is soon organising games nights, competitive knitting and planning the very important wedding of their officer administrator Hester and her fiance Clarence. She also has a phone call from the ministry to travel abroad and report from the French field hospitals and even manages to mastermind a break into husband Charles’s barracks before they’re both deployed. Emmy has no idea how much she’s going to need those around her in the coming months as her hardest test is yet to come. On their return to London she receives a telegram to say that Charles is missing, presumed captured in enemy territory and she has the agonising wait for the confirmation letter. Then Hester receives a blow when Clarence calls to say he’s being deployed in three days, two days before their planned wedding. Hester is inconsolable and after catching Emmy in a moment of frustration, she disappears. However, Emmy isn’t one to dwell on her misfortunes for long and I wondered what schemes and plans she would hatch next. 

The author doesn’t let us forget the sacrifice and loss in people’s lives, but still manages to bring in humour and a defiantly upbeat, make do and mend attitude. This is the closest I’ve seen Emmy come to breaking point and it’s hard to when you’re the one whose role it is to buoy everybody else up. As she finds out though, those who she’s helped and supported are so happy to be able to return the favour and support her. This is a set of books I always recommend, to women of all ages, because it’s so easy to relate to one of the characters and absolutely root for them. The main impression I take away from them is that sense of female solidarity. The instinct we have to come together, share the load and make each other’s lives a little easier from taking on someone’s children all the way down to being there with a meal or a shoulder to cry on. Emmy uses her writing to do the same and triumphs in being exactly what the magazine promises – the Woman’s Friend. 

Here’s a hint of what I’ll be reading in September: