Here are my favourite ten books of 2025 Part Three, including audiobooks, as I haven’t listened to enough to have their own post this quarter. As usual quite a disparate selection.

The Empty Cradle by Lisa Rookes

This was so good. I’m not sure how a story could be scary, creepy, and really funny at the same time. I think that’s because it’s so well written it can be serious, dark and hilarious without ever being in bad taste or offensive (though there is a bit of swearing. Get over it).

Amy and Joel have the perfect life. Or so it seems. They buy houses, do them up and flip them for a nice profit. Except Joel is desperate for a family, and Amy is struggling to get pregnant. Then all at once, Amy has lost the cottage she had put in a sealed bid for, found out her pregnancy test is negative, and discovered that Joel is having an affair with her best friend.

For my full review click here

One For Sorrow by Sarah A Denzil Isabel Fielding #1

I know some people had an issue with the plot twist, but I didn’t see it coming and I don’t care. And yes the ending went into the realms of the sublime to the ridiculously far fetched, but again I don’t care because it’s fiction and I found it highly entertaining. If I wanted mundane I’d watch a soap opera (no thanks) or read a cosy crime (which I do as well).

I think one of the things I loved the most about One For Sorrow is not knowing whether Leah is innocent. ‘… a young woman with a sweet, gentle nature, someone she could never see as a murderer.‘ according to Leah. And the reader doesn’t have a clue either. And I’m not saying, because that would spoil everything.

For my full review click here

Mrs England by Stacey Halls

I got this audiobook from Borrowbox. It’s such a great service from the library and it’s free. Plug for our libraries, but let’s get on with the book itself.

As you know Gothic mystery / horror is one of my favourite genres, particularly the ones where an often feisty governess (in this case she’s a children’s nurse) takes a job at a remote house in the countryside. It’s spooky with shadows on the walls of corridors and messages written on mirrors, and the master is dark and broody. And handsome – obviously. The mistress is often ill (or dead) or locked in the attic (think Jane Eyre). Or supposed to be dead, but lives in the attic. But I digress.

For my full review click here

The Betrayal of Thomas True by A J West

This book is undoubtedly a masterpiece, a modern classic, but it was hard to read at times. The way people were treated was unbelievable, with punishments as cruel as they could possibly be. The bull defies imagination. Who could come up with something like that?

Thomas True is the son of the reverend and his wife in Highgate. The reverend is a cruel man who regularly beats his own son and even puts him in the pillory to be stoned and ridiculed. Thomas eventually runs away to London where he meets first Jack and then Gabriel and becomes a patron of Mother Clap’s molly house, where gay men could be themselves, but risked execution if caught. As someone whose usual historical novel is Gothic mystery of the Victorian period, I was out of my comfort zone with Georgian England.

For my full review click here

An Evil Mind by Chris Carter (Robert Hunter #6)

This is definitely my favourite so far, even without Garcia at Robert’s side. In An Evil Mind, Detective Robert Hunter is called by the FBI to help with a case. There’s been an accident in the car park of a diner, and the truck that was hit has a surprise in the back. A freezer containing half a ton of oven chips? Cookie dough flavoured Häagen-Dazs? No, two severed heads. After all, this is Chris Carter, what else would we expect?

The case has immediately been handed over to the FBI. They have someone in custody, but he is asking for Robert, and him alone. Who is this man and why Robert? All is soon revealed, but can he believe that the suspect is innocent, and that he was simply delivering the truck.

For my full review click here

The Wish by Heather Morris

In 2004, when my younger son was in sixth form, 15-year-old Laura E. was diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia. More than 400 people turned out to give blood samples to The Anthony Nolan Trust one Thursday night in a bid to save her life, even many who didn’t know her. She needed a bone marrow transplant.

I remember sitting with my sister-in-law crying as we read of the failed transplants, and how she chose to let go. It was one of the bravest and saddest things I’ve ever read.

A lot of books make me cry, but this one had me in tears for much of it. Maybe it was because of the memory of that brave girl, or I would have done so anyway, but The Wish handles it so sensitively. It never shies away from the feelings of anger as well sorrow.

For my full review click here

The Familiars by Stacey Halls

I read The Foundling by this author with my online book club in 2020. I adored it, but not sure why I didn’t pick up another of her books until I listened to Mrs England just over a month ago. I loved that as well, so I thought I’d better listen to The Familiars. I used Borrowbox from the Library for both.

The Familiars is based on the real case of the Pendle Hill witch trials in Lancashire in 1612. ‘The trials occurred during the reign of King James I, a staunch believer in witchcraft who introduced the death penalty for it.’ The characters in the book are mostly real people of the time, but the story is pure fiction.

For my full review click here

The Howling by Michael J Malone

In the first book in the Annie Jackson series, we had flashbacks to the time when witches were strangled and their bodies thrown on a blazing pyre. In Book Three, The Howling, it’s about wolves.

Jean and Mary are sisters who have fallen out. One lives in a great hall, while the other lives in a hovel with her son Andra and two daughters. It’s the year 1707 and Andra saves a wolf cub, which he calls Laddie. He is the last wolf left in Scotland, as all the others have been killed. As Andra and Laddie become close, their souls begin to merge as one. Andra knows that if the wolf takes over he will be lost forever. Hundreds of years later, Drew has flashbacks to Andra’s life and his relationship with Laddie.

For my full review click here

The Therapy Room by OMJ Ryan

I couldn’t stop reading this – it’s real edge of your seat stuff! I started one evening but fell asleep with an hour to go, woke up at 6 am and finished it.

Initially, we know very little about Shelly, only that Olivia believes she did something so terrible fifteen years ago that it destroyed her life and that of her family. We don’t know what to believe, but no matter what it was, Olivia’s methods of getting revenge made me cringe. I couldn’t justify what she did for any reason whatsoever.

For my full review click here

Nine Dolls by Rupa Mahadevan

I’m not sure why I am finding this so hard to review. Maybe it’s because the plot is so twisty and intense. Maybe it’s because there are a lot of characters, and I initially struggled to remember who was who. But mainly I think it’s because I gave up trying to work it out and let myself go with the flow.

Firstly, I must say that I find festivals from other cultures really fascinating and I had never heard of Navaratri, the Hindu Festival of Dolls, and as we are told in the book blurb, the dolls ‘are not toys. They’re part of a sacred tradition’. Once set up, they must not be moved till the festival is over, so when someone starts moving them, and the scenes playing out represent each of the character’s deepest, darkest secrets, it becomes very sinister.

For my full review click here