Some books that I've enjoyed recently - June 2025

I decided it's time again for another post about some books that I've loved recently! I track all the books that I'm reading over on Goodreads, and these are books that I've awarded a five star rating. 

First up are a couple of re-reads:

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is one of my favourite books, and I've read it several times. It's set mainly in Saint Malo in occupied France and follows the story of Marie-Laure, a young blind woman and Werner, a young German man. Their stories are told through flashbacks as they grow up, and their stories collide when Marie-Laura begins to work for the resistance using her radio and Werner is enlisted to use his talent with the devices to track them down. It's really well written and I enjoy seeing the very different stories come together.

I also re-read Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler. Delia is a 40-something woman who, when out at the beach one day with her unappreciative family, goes for a walk and doesn't come back. She starts a whole new life, finding her own place to live, a job and new friends, which is something that I think many people have fantasised about! There's a lot to unpick about her relationship with her husband and how she has found herself at that point and although I don't find the ending particularly satisfying I do find it an enjoyable read

Next a couple that I picked up in charity shops:

The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly was a book that I had never heard of, but I was interested to read it because it is inspired by the puzzle book Masquerade by Kit Williams which I remember reading about when I was younger. Masquerade was a picture puzzle book which contained clues leading to a buried golden hare. In this book, the narrator's father has created a similar book which contains hidden clues to various parts of a golden skeleton. Over the years people have become obsessive about finding all the pieces, in particular the final missing pelvis, and some even believe that they need to kill her in order to complete the skeleton. I did find the book a little long and rambling, but the excitement of the story was enough to keep me caught up in it!

Then I spotted The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré which I was keen to read. Set in Nigeria, it tells the story of a teenage girl called Adunni who longs for an education but instead is married at the age of 14 by her father, after her mother has died. She manages to run away and finds work as a maid, and although her situation there isn't much better she is determined to improve herself. It's a difficult read in terms of the content, but it's very well written and kept me hoping that Adunni would find her escape and have the happy ending that she deserved.

Finally a couple that I've inherited:

My copy of The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy belonged to my Grandma, and I retrieved it recently when visiting my Mum. It contains all three novels and two interludes and it's a long read - it took me several weeks! It was a little difficult to get into at first because there are many characters (often with the same names) and complicated relationships, but I'm glad that I stuck with it because once I got going I really enjoyed it. It follows the members of an upper middle class English family at the beginning of the 20th century. I enjoyed it for the well-written and fleshed out characters, the descriptive settings, and how it reflected a changing society.

Hurricane Force: The Story of the Storm of 1987 by George Hill was one of my Dad's books, a non-fiction account of the Great Storm which hit mainly southern England in October 1987. It was a few days before my 8th birthday and I do have some memories of that night - hearing the roaring wind, a tree falling down on the main road, my poor Dad's greenhouse being flattened - but it was really interested to read about the wider events in both my area and further afield, as well as across the Channel. The book was written soon after the storm and it is rather pessimistic when it talks about the long-term impact of the storm. I do remember the huge uprooted trees in the forest, but I feel like the recovery from the storm wasn't as bad as was predicted, for example Chanctonbury Ring near me was significantly damaged but it was replanted and is now pretty much regrown. Although of course it has been nearly 40 years, time flies!

Quite a varied selection of books this time I think!

Photo credit Josh Hild via Unsplash