What I Read: September 2025

After a quiet August, my September went off. It was a month of cozy murders, clever detectives, and (just to keep me balanced) one sprawling generational epic. I think it was a month of murde,r rather than anything challenging, to counter balance my challenges at work - but regardless it was a great month. 

Working backwards, I ended with The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon, which I absolutely loved. It’s historical crime fiction at its slow-burn atmospheric best. Then came a run of classic and not-so-classic detective stories. 

I finally met Lord Peter Wimsey Dorothy L. Sayers books Whose Body? Clouds of Witness and Unnatural Death (on audiobook, wonderfully narrated by Richard Meadows), and I was hooked. The narration really brought it alive.

Then I fell down a Maisie Dobbs rabbit hole. I read Maisie Dobbs and Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear. Both are thoughtful, quiet mysteries set in the shadow of World War I. Maisie is such a refreshing detective. She is introspective, kind, and methodical. I am going to read the whole series. 

Australia made a strong showing too, with Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret by Benjamin Stevenson which was pure fun. Plus A Deadly Dispute by Amanda Hampson and Death on the Water by Kerry Greenwood (a Phryne Fisher audiobook). There’s something comforting about returning to witty dialogue, eccentric detectives, and tidy resolutions which I think was what I was looking for recently.

And then there was Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, the outlier of the month. Sweeping and serious.

I began the month with The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith which was heavier and much longer than everything else I read, but still deeply satisfying. It’s probably what tipped the balance of the month from “cozy mystery” to “crime marathon.” I love this series, and while it isn't the best of the series (a little repetitive), I must say that I enjoyed that it was a little shorter than the others. 

September was the month of murder and mystery, but also of comfort reading. It was a great reading month that got me out of my more recent funk. 

Review: Lord Peter Wimsey series by Dorothy L Sayers

I’ve been on an audiobook streak lately now that my new job involves an hour long drive to and from work and recently I have used the time to dip into Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels, my first time reading (well, listening to) her work. As a long-time Agatha Christie fan, I wasn’t sure how they’d compare but I needn’t have worried. These are clever, funny, and have a lot of different layers to them.

I listened to three in a row, Whose Body?, Clouds of Witness, and Unnatural Death, all narrated by Richard Meadows, who deserves his own round of applause. He did an incredible job with the voices. Lord Peter has a slightly flippant upper-class drawl, Parker is the model of a stedy policeman, Bunter has  a slow deferential manner. His narration brings the characters alive and makes you forget you’re listening to a single person.

Whose Body?

The first book introduces Lord Peter Wimsey, upper-class amateur sleuth. A naked body turns up in a bath wearing only a pince-nez, and Peter can’t resist investigating. The plot is intricate and I was hooked immediately to the series. 

Clouds of Witness

This one really stepped things up. Peter’s brother, the Duke of Denver, is accused of murder after a man is found shot outside their family lodge. The trial scenes are gripping, and Peter is able to demonstrate his more serious side occasionally. 

Unnatural Death

This one was probably my favourite of the three. It’s darker  and a little more unsettling. An old lady dies under seemingly natural circumstances, but Peter isn't convinced. What follows is a twisty investigation involving inheritance and deception. It also introduces a new character, a Mrs Climpson who is devout but nosy and is such a fascinating example of people from that time in history. 

That said, Sayers does rely on some conveniently timed coincidences like Mrs. Climpson just happening to pick the exact apartment she needs at the end. Very narratively convenient. 

In short, I absolutely loved these. Compared to Agatha Christie's novels I feel like they are less about solving the murder yourself and more about watching the reasoning unfold. 

Six Degrees of Separation (Oct): I Want Everything to Every Secret Thing by Marie Munkara

  The meme is hosted by Books are My Favourite Best and is described thus: On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book. Each person’s chain will look completely different. It doesn’t matter what the connection is or where it takes you – just take us on the journey with you.

This month we begin with I Want Everything by Dominic Amerena. Although I own this book, I haven't read it yet. I have started it but found it a bit hard to get into and moved onto something else. I did see Dominics Amerena at the Sydney Writers' Festival 2025, speaking on a panel for debut authors. For anyone curious, here is a link to my post about the panel event. 

Green Dot by Madeleine Grey

The compare of the event was Madeleine Gray, an Australian author who wrote Green Dot which I read earlier this year. I really enjoyed Green Dot: Hera’s affair with her older, married boss plays out as a slow unraveling. It's a story about some coping with the inconsistency between what she thinks her life should be, and what her life actually is. 

Bliss by Peter Carey

Bliss by Peter Carey is what then comes to mind. It's a novel about man who realises that his life isn't what it seems and isn't what he wants. A crisis of meaning I suppose you could say - but in a slightly different context to what we see in Green Dot. 

The Secret River by Kate Grenville 

A weird shift perhaps. At first I couldn't quite put my figure on why I thought of The Secret River next, but I think it's because in Bliss the protagonist questions the life that he has built and in The Secret River that moral discomfort is felt more so by the reader watching the immoral acts of the colonists as they invade and take what isn't theres. It could also just be the Australian connection. 

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards 

OK, hear me out. I've gone to the Memory Keeper's Daughter because they are both about control. The Secret River is about control of land and lives. The Memory Keeper's Daughter is also about control of the lives of others. Who gets to decide what is best for others and who faces the consequences of those decisions. 

100 Years of Betty by Debra Oswald

Both of these novel revolve around children separated from their mothers because of societal pressures and shame. In The Memory Keeper’s Daughter a father decides to hide his daughter’s disability by giving her away at birth.Iin The 100 Years of Betty, the protagonist's decision to givs up her baby for adoption is also shaped by the harsh moral expectations of her time. 

Every Secret Thing by Marie Mukara

I read this one a long time ago. In Every Secret Thing the theme of forced familial separation is even more central. Munkara writes from lived history: Aboriginal children removed from families, cultural dislocation, the mission system. It’s a more painful reflection on the cost of forced familial separation, especially when identity is not just personal, but deeply communal.

WWW Wednesday: 17 September 2025

  WWW Wednesday is a meme that is hosted by Taking on a World of Words. It's a very simple premise of sharing with others The Three Ws:

What are you currently reading? 

What did you recently finish reading? 

What do you think you’ll read next? 

Click here to see what I read in August 2025. 

Currently reading 

I have literally just finished Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, and so technically haven't started this yet - but I am about to start Everyone this Christmas Has A Secret by Benjamin Stevenson. This is his thurd book in his Ernest Cunningham series, which is just a fun quirky detective series set in Australia. I find these books quite fun and am looking forward to this. 

Just finished

I just finished reading Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. I was keen to read this because a friend had spoken very highly of it, and it is on the New York Times Best 100 Books of the 21st Century (so far) list. It didn't disappoint. It was a bit slow to start for me, but eventually I got right into it. I enjoy reading a family history that spans throughout the generations.

I also recently finished reading The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith. I know JK Rowling is controversial these days, but I can't help but love this series and I just can't give it up. I really appreciated that this one was quite a bit shorter than the last few, but I do think it was possibly the least interesting mystery that they were working on. It was the romantic tension that kept me interested more than anything else.

What's next?

As per usual, who knows. Only time till tell. 

Review: The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde

I remember really enjoying this book when I first read it, but this time around my reaction was much less enthusiastic. Perhaps I wasn’t in the right mood, but I found myself bogged down in page after page of men lecturing on their personal views of life and morality. Although I remember once finding this interesting it now felt a lot like dreary mansplaining.

For anyone unfamiliar, the story follows Dorian Gray, a beautiful young man in Victorian London who becomes the subject of a portrait. After falling under the influence of Lord Henry Wotton’s hedonistic philosophy, Dorian makes a wish that he could remain young and untouched by life, while the portrait ages instead. Over the years Dorian plunges into a life of self indulgence and cruelty and his body remains yuong and beautiful while his portrait becomes a monster. 

It’s a novel often celebrated as Wilde’s great work of fiction. Looking through other reviews and commentary it’s been described as a warning about vanity, a study of aestheticism, and even an early exploration of queer desire. 

And yet, despite all that, I didn’t enjoy it this time. I could admire the cleverness and understand why it’s considered significant, but as a reading experience I found myself more frustrated than anything else. It’s a reminder, I suppose, that some books resonate at certain times in our lives, and not at others. This was one of those re-reads where the magic didn’t return.

August 2025: What I Read

I started a new job in August. Starting a new job always had its challenges and this new role is definitely not an exception to that rule. One of the side effects of the new job has been far less time for reading. 

Some of this is undoutedly due to stress. The usual stress of starting a new role, but in this case additional stress because of office politics that I have walked into that have surprised me and are challenging me. My ability to concentrate is definitely suffering while I manage the stress and try to keep my intrusive thoughts under control.

On a more practical note, I no longer catch the train to and from work which has reduced the amount of reading time that I have available to me. I plan to handle this by getting this into audiobooks. Already.I have listended to a few and these will start popping up in my monthly overviews and my reviews. I've never really reviewed audiobooks before. I feel like the review will be about the story and also about the listening experience. I will make a point of reading some audiobook reviews to get some tips. 

Like that month, I've done a fair bit of re-reading and a lot less exploring of new works. 

New reads

Whose Body by Dorothy L Sayers, narrated by Robert Bathurst

I can't believe that I am admitting this, but I had never read anything by Dorothy L Sayers. I am a huge Agatha Christie fan, and read many cosy detective novels inspired by that genre, some of which refernece Sayers books (as in Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series). So I dived into Whose Body, on audiobook. Whose Body is the first novel featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, in which he investigates the mysterious appearance of a corpse in a London bathtub, complete with pince-nez but no clothes. I really enjoyed it, but I found the mystery much harder to unravel than in an Agatha Christie novel.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

I finally read an Ann Patchett book after one of my colleagues speaking so highly of her novels. Bel Canto is set at a birthday party in South America that suddenly turns into a hostage situation, but instead of being all tension and drama, it becomes this strange unfolding of developing connection between people who shouldn’t have anything in common. 

Novel About My Wife by Emily Perkins

Novel About My Wife is told by Tom, who looks back on his marriage to Ann and slowly reveals how their seemingly ordinary life in London starts to unravel. I read this for my book club, Litery Wives Club, and a few of us reviewed the nove. You can read the full review here but in short I reacted strongly to this book, but not in a good way. So much was left unresolved and unexplained that it took away from any enjoyment for me, and I finished it feeling more frustrated than intrigued.

Re-Reads

Books that I read in the month of August, but had read previously, were Murder on a Midsummer Night by Kerry Greenwood, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling. 

Review: The Quiet Grave by Dervla Tiernan, dependable but unremarkable

I picked up The Quiet Grave during a busy patch in July when work and life were pulling me in all directions. More specifically job applications, interviews, and all the noise that goes with them. I was struggling to choose a book and then struggling to stick with it. In those times, cosy detective novels or crime procedurals are my fallback because they keep me reading without demanding too much mental energy.

The Quiet Grave continues Dervla McTiernan’s series, following Detective Cormac Reilly and his colleagues as another case unfolds. The story digs into a decades-old disappearance, and as usual for these novels, it's the kind of cold case that threatens to unearth more than anyone wants revealed. As usual, there’s the mix of procedural detail, personal drama, and the push-and-pull between police politics and real justice.

I’ve found myself enjoying this series more with each instalment, (see my review of The Scholar (2) and The Good Turn (3)) so I came into The Quiet Grave with some optimism. But this one didn’t land for me in the same way. The pacing reminded me of the first novel in the series. The resolution to the crime arrives so abruptly that it left me unsatisfied. I’ve also grown to appreciate Peter Fisher as a character, thinking he might take on a stronger role moving forward, but the events surrounding him in The Quiet Grave felt out of character and unlikely. I want to be immersed in the story but the way in which his story came to end took me out of the story and reminded me that I was just reading something that someone had made up. 

That said, McTiernan still delivers a reliable, standard sort of crime novel of the type that is good to have on hand when I just want to keep the pages turning without taxing my mind too much. I’ll keep reading the series when I need that kind of book, but this one reminded me that they’re not particularly special, even if they are dependable.