I’ve read quite a few books in the last month, thanks to NetGalley, and some were better than others.
Endeavouring to be more organised and helpful to my readers, I’m just going to include on my blog books which have just been or are about to be published, rather than those not due to be released for months hence.
And, following in the footsteps of my old friend from the lifestyle and fashion blog, Is This Mutton, I’m only going to include reviews of three stars and over. (Sadly, I’ve had a few two-star ones in recent months. You can read my reviews of these and others on the Goodreads website.)
I can’t imagine anyone wanting to read a book if a reviewer thinks it’s duff. And it’s a bit soul destroying for authors to get a pasting online – writing is a tough enough world as it is.
However, saying that, I’m going to include my review of the latest John Grisham novel, because I was expecting such great things from this esteemed and prolific author. And, besides, his career is not going to nosedive just because a nobody from Dorset said she didn’t like his book.
No Friend To This House by Natalie Haynes ****
Published September 2025.
In her latest retelling of the Greek myths, Natalie Haynes turns to Jason & the Argonauts and the Medea story. The tale of the handsome hero who seizes the golden fleece, with help from the witch, Medea, is well-known, particularly to those of us brought up with the 1960s classic movie.
The Medea story, as told by Greek playwright Euripides and first performed in 431 BC, is a staple of the stage even to this day, with various adaptations and audiences trying to make sense of why the protagonist murders her two sons.
Tying the two halves of the story together in the one novel was always going to be a challenge. The first half is a swashbuckling quest and the second is a dark tragedy. But who better to meld the two together than Haynes, a writer, broadcaster, classicist and comedian whose novels include Stone Blind (about Medusa) and A Thousand Ships, which sees the Trojan War from the perspective of the women involved.
No Friend to This House centres on the roles played by Jason and Medea – and the Greek gods as puppeteers – in seizing the golden fleece from the far eastern edge of the Black Sea and taking it to Colchis, encountering dreadful obstacles along the way. Medea’s magic enables them to get through their ordeals.
They end up in Corinth, married with children, and then Jason announces he is in love with Glauke, the princess, and is getting wed. Medea enacts a terrible revenge, but is it any wonder? She’s been deceived by her conniving husband. But killing her sons? How on earth can this be explained?
Haynes does so with aplomb – no spoilers here, but there is a final plot twist – in a nuanced and layered story, with multiple narrators and viewpoints. Highly recommended.
(I first reviewed this book for the Historical Novel Society.)
Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall ***
Published March 2025.
I came to this wanting to love it as I’d heard so much about it. I thought it might be a sort of British version of To Be Sung Underwater (2011) by Tom McNeal. I adored that novel.
Set in rural Dorset in the 1950s and 1960s, Broken Country sees Beth’s world turned upside down when her first love comes back into her life.
Grieving for Bobby, the young son she lost, Beth makes a momentous – and reckless – choice. It can only lead to heartache and pain.
Spoiler alert: it does.
Broken Country is a story of loss, love and betrayal. Part thriller, part courtroom drama, the reader will be on the edge of their seat when this is made into a film by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine production company, which also made Where The Crawdads Sing.
Readers raved about that book, as they are raving about this one. I was not a fan of the former – but if we all liked the same fiction, it would be a very dull world indeed.
Broken Country is a good yarn. The ‘heroine’ is not very likeable but this cracking story will become a book club favourite and convert well to the big screen.
I could see the denouement a mile off but, even so, it was a satisfying ending which tied up loose ends, although I felt cheated by Beth, as a first person narrator, telling me only half a story and leaving the juicy bit until last.
The Widow by John Grisham **
Published October 2025.
A down-at-heel lawyer with gambling debts and a failing marriage takes on a new client. She is seemingly a wealthy widow who wants him to take a look at the will prepared by another lawyer in town. Our protagonist soon realises the other lawyer has carved out a sizeable chunk of her fortune for himself – can he help her out while, at the same time, solve some of his own financial worries by being a little dishonest himself?
I’ve read some cracking John Grisham books in the past but, sorry, this isn’t one of them. It was a huge disappoinment and lacking the urgency and intrigue of Grisham’s earlier work.
The relationship between the main character and the widow drags on, as does his family story, with lots of telling and not much showing. Then a court case ensues, followed by a wrongful imprisonment and then another character who comes into the frame only in the third part. And then it ends very abruptly to the point that I thought I was missing some pages from the Kindle. Apparently not.
I skim read in the end, wanting to know what had happened and why, but it was quite a few nights’ reading I will never get back.
Maddie Grigg 