Review: Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her family and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and travelled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But these two estranged women come together at their father's deathbed standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, to hear the one last promise he extracts from the women in his life. 

 It begins with a story like no other. A captivating, mysterious love story that spans sixty-five years and moves from war torn Leningrad in the 1940's to modern-day Alaska. The three women are brought together by a story so unexpected and extraordinary that when Meredith and Nina finally learn the secret of their mother's past and uncover a truth so terrible, it will shake the very foundation of the family and who they think they are. 

Following the death of their father, sisters Meredith and Nina must come together and care for their elderly mother, Anya, a woman who is cold, distant and never offered them the warmth of a mother's love. This has had a major impact on their family dynamics. Meredith and Nina have bonded deeply with their father but their ability to love in their own personal relationships has been stymied by the lack of complete love they have experienced as children. Winter Garden traces their journey coming to understand their mother as she fulfils her husband's dying wish to share her life story with her daughters. 

The narrative shifts between past and present as Anya slowly shares the story of her experiences caring for her family during the Siege of Leningrad. What unfolds are her traumatic experiences of love, loss, starvation, deprivation, the brutality of war and the horrific toll it took on her family. Meredith and Nina unexpectedly come to support their mother as she gradually comes to terms with her trauma, and through the sharing of her life story the family gradually begin to forge new bonds. 

I read The Women by Hannah last year, another exploration of the impact of war through the eyes of the women who experience it and Winter Garden didn't disappoint. In fact, when presented with a twist in the final pages of the book I was caught by surprise when it brought me to tears. I say it caught me by surprise because in truth there were times when I was reading the novel that I felt like something was missing. Hannah's exploration of the sisters' emotional development didn't always feel as deep as it could have and the behaviour didn't always feel true to character. I also couldn't help but be reminded of Paulina Simmons's exploration of the Siege of Leningrad in The Bronze Horseman and in comparison, Winter Garden left me a little wanting. I accept that's probably an unfair comparison given The Bronze Horseman is an historical novel set during the siege and Winter Garden is a far more contemporary novel that explores the Whitson family dynamics. That's why I was caught surprise when I was brought to tears by the end of the novel. 

 Winter Garden explores how our own personalities and lives are shaped by our parents, family dynamics, childhood experiences and in this case intergenerational trauma caused by war and displacement. 

What I am coming to really appreciate about Hannah's writing is how capable she is of immediately creating a connection between the reader and the characters. I fall straight into her stories so naturally and look forward to reading more by her.

3.5 / 5 stars: I was caught by surprised at this novel's impact on me and I recommend it. 

Review: Conclave by Robert Harris

I went into Conclave not really knowing what to expect, which is often the best way to read a book. I ended up listening to it as an audiobook, and that turned out to be a great choice. The narration by Roy McMillan was excellent and really suited the tone of the story. This was one of those books where I kept looking for excuses to keep listening.

The novel is set almost entirely within the Vatican, following the death of a pope and the closed-door process of electing his successor. Cardinal Lomeli is tasked with overseeing the conclave, responsible for keeping order and ensuring the rules are followed as the cardinals gather and voting begins. As the days pass, tensions rise, alliances shift, and secrets start to surface. What looks, on the surface, like a solemn and sacred process slowly reveals itself to be far more complicated.

What surprised me most about this book was how compulsive it was. There is very little in the way of obvious action. No chase scenes, no dramatic confrontations. Instead, the tension builds quietly and steadily through character, atmosphere, and the gradual uncovering of what each man wants and what he is willing to hide.

Harris really leans into the reality of religious leadership. There is surprisingly little actual religion in the book. Faith exists, but it often feels secondary to ambition, power, ego, and fear. These are men who are supposed to be spiritual leaders, but they are also ego-driven men in power and that tension makes the whole thing feel unsettlingly real.

The setting adds to that sense of claustrophobia. Locked rooms, whispered conversations, carefully chosen words, and the constant sense that everyone is watching everyone else. By the time the story reaches its conclusion, the pressure has built so effectively that even small moments feel loaded with meaning.

I did not expect to enjoy this as much as I did, but I found it hard to stop. It is smart, tense, and quietly gripping, and the audiobook format only heightened that experience. This was a really satisfying read, especially if you enjoy novels where the drama comes from people, not plot twists or spectacle (although I'm not going to lie, there is a plot twist).

4 stars: for being such a compulsive read.

Review: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

I picked up Piranesi after hearing it recommended on the ABC Radio National Top 100 Books of the 21st Century countdown, and it turned out to be one of those books that feels quietly special while you are reading it, and then keeps revisiting you afterwards.

The story is told through the journals of Piranesi, who lives in an enormous House made up of endless halls filled with statues. The lower levels flood with the tides, the upper levels are dry and calm, and the House seems to provide everything he needs (albeit not much). There is only one other person in his world, someone he calls the Other, who visits occasionally and is searching for some kind of hidden knowledge. As Piranesi records his days, small details begin to feel off, and gradually you realise that there is much more going on than he understands.

That is about as much as I want to say about the plot, because this really is a book you should discover slowly.

What I loved most about Piranesi was the feeling of it. The world is mysterious and magical, but it also feels incredibly real. Clarke builds it so carefully that you accept it almost without question, even when you do not fully understand how it works. I could see it clearly in my head, and I did not want to leave it.

In a strange way, it reminded me of the stories I used to make up as a child. Those imagined worlds that felt complete and absorbing and totally logical while you were inside them. I think that has a lot to do with Piranesi himself. He moves through his world with such openness and appreciation. He delights in it. He notices things. He is grateful for what he has. That straightforward way of seeing made the book feel both gentle and profound.

The writing is beautiful but very restrained. It never feels like it is trying too hard. The mystery unfolds slowly, and even when the book ends, it feels like there is still more there to think about. I finished it with the sense that I had not fully unpacked everything yet, and I liked that.

I kept wishing I was reading this as part of a book club. It feels like the kind of book that would only get better through conversation, because there is so much in it that could be interpreted and discussed. Power, knowledge, memory, identity, and the stories we tell ourselves.

This is strange, thoughtful, and beautifully made. I really loved it.

4.5 stars: Near perfection and highly recommended. 

Review: The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman

I’ve really enjoyed the Thursday Murder Club series. It has been one of those dependable, easy reading comfort series for me, with familiar characters and just enough mystery to keep things moving. I picked up The Impossible Fortune expecting more of the same but this one really let me down.

The story kicks off at Joyce’s daughter’s wedding, which should be a fun starting point. During the celebrations, Elizabeth is quietly approached by a man who claims someone is trying to kill him. From there, the Thursday Murder Club finds itself tangled up in a complicated mystery involving missing money, secret storage facilities, and people who are not quite who they seem. As usual, the group pokes around, asks questions, and follows a trail of clues.

That's the plot but the problem for me was that none of it felt interesting. The mystery itself was boring and instead of building real tension, the book relies heavily on chapters that end with mini cliffhangers. After a while this just became annoying rather than compelling. 

By the middle of the book I was already losing interest, and toward the end I was skimming just to see how it would all wrap up. The resolution, when it finally arrived, felt flat and anti-climactic. There was no real sense of surprise or satisfaction, just a feeling that I had spent a lot of time getting to a fairly underwhelming conclusion.

What disappointed me most is that this book felt like a repetition of ideas from earlier in the series without the spark that made those books work. The characters are still likeable, but they are no longer enough to carry the story on their own. Everything started to blur together, and the whole thing felt like much of a muchness.

I did finish it, but more out of obligation than enjoyment. After loving this series for so long, it is a shame to say that this might be where I stop. The Impossible Fortune was not terrible, but it was boring, and that is somehow worse.

If you are a long-time fan, you might still want to read it just to keep up with the characters. But for me, this one confirmed that my time with the Thursday Murder Club may be over.

2 stars: While I recommend the first book of this series, I wouldn't recommend continuing. 

WWW Wednesday: 14 January 2026

 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?

What am I currently reading?

I am currently reading The Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah. I really enjoyed The Women last year and have The Nightinglale on my TBR list for this year. Hannah's books are so easy to read - from the moment I start reading them I am engaged and it feels so natural, like I am there with the characters. The Winter Garden is about the relationship between two young girls and their cold mother, as they come to understand more about her and how she came to be the way that she is. 

I am also re-reading The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie ahead of the release of the netflix adaption shortly. 

What did I just finish?

Bunny by Mona Awad. Wow. I still don't quite know what to make of this book but I do know that I was thinking about it for days afterwards. What a crazy, gruesome journey. It follows Samantha who is undertaking a creative writing degree at a university, and her experiences as she joins a clique of seemingly sweet girls she terms the bunnies. It seems to begin as a story about the academic experiences and evolves into a surreal horror story. Did I love it? I mean, no - but it has had a lasting impression on me which I think says something positive about the story and the writing. 

What will I read next?

Who knows? Where ever my mood takes me.

2025: A Year in Books - Reflections

Quick stats

Books completed	75
Fiction	72
Non-fiction	3
Australian authors	25
Female authors	61
Translated fiction	2
Crime fiction	39
Re-reads	21

If I had to sum up my reading for 2025 then I would say:

 

2025 was a steady reading year for me. I returned to familiar voices, found comfort and order in crime fiction, supported Australian authors, and mostly chose books that could live alongside my busy life rather than take me away from it.

Crime fiction: structure and entertainment

If I define crime fiction broadly, including murder mysteries, detective novels, young adult fiction and crime series, then I read 39 works of crime fiction in 2025 - 53% of my reading. Crime fiction clearly dominates for me. In some ways I find this surprising because I wouldn't identify as someone who particularly prioritises crime. I think what it shows is that crime is almost a default reading mode for me, but hopefully not in a shallow way. 

I return frequently to:

• Golden Age crime (Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio March)
• Series detectives (Jacqueline Winspear, Kerry Greenwood, Dervla Tiernan, Robert Galbraith), and
• Contemporary Australian crime (Benajamin Stevenson, Jane Harper, Christopher White, Sulari Gentill). 

I obviously favour series and familiar detectives, contained worlds and narrative momentum and resolution. My reflections on this are that crime fiction offers me a reliable narrative structure with a clear beginning, middle and end. It offers me something grounding when my attention is stretched or limited, thus providing a way to stay connected to reading even when I am busy. Crime for me isn't about chasing thrills or gore. In crime fiction I find order and often familiar voices to keep me grounded.  

Crime as a default reading mode also means that when I read a non-crime books they stand out for me even more. Crime fiction offers the reliability and my other reading offers me something new and different. 

Deep affection for Australian writing

Books by Australian authors made up 34% of my reading in 2025, and they appear constantly across many different genres:

• Crime (Kerry Greenwood, Jane Harper, Bejamin Stevenson, Sulari Gentill)
• Contemporary fiction (Madeleine Grey)
• Literary fiction (Charlotte Wood, Hannah Kent, Peter Carey)
• Non-fiction / Memoir (Hannah Kent, Helen Garner). 

I take from this a desire for places, people and experiences that I recognise and characters that feel culturally legible and emotionally familiar to me. Common experiences and emotions can be found throughout the world of course, but reading Australian fiction is something that I do deliberately as well to support Australian authors. 

Reading as comfort and continuity

There is a lot of re-reading that pops up across the year (specifically 28% of my reading), for example the Harry Potter series, Phryne Fisher series and books by Agatha Christie. A lot of these books I read at night time when I can't sleep or listen to as audiobooks while I am driving to and from work. This is about reading for continuity - keeping it up even when I am tired or distracted. 

It isn't nostalgia, so much as maintenance reading - books that hold me steady. 

Serious literary fiction but selectively and intentionally

I did read some challening and weighty books by authors such as:

• Han Kang
• Colson Whitehead
• Percival Everett
• Peter Carey
• RF Kuang
• Min Jin Lee
• Ann Patchett
• Claire Keegan

But I read them more sparingly than other types of fiction, and when considered in light of the order in which I read books, they are surrounded by crime or other comfort reads. I reflect that I still want depth and ambition in my reading but not at the expense of enjoyment or momentum in my reading overall. This means that I was more deliberate about which books I chose and was careful not to attempt books that asked something more of me than I was able to give. 

Kindness, morality and human decency

Even across genres there was a throughline of ethical choices, how people behave under pressure, small acts against large systems and compassion in constrained circumstances. Even my crime reads are more about the humane that the brutal. 

Books where I see this include:

• Small Things Like These
• The Soul of Kindness
• Bel Canto
• Pachinko
• The Women
• Wicked

The year of audiobooks

Finally - this was the very first year that I explored the world of audiobooks - inspired by the 2 hours of driving that I need to undertake to get to and from my new office. Because I was listening to them while driving, my audiobooks choices we more about practical reading - rereading or light reading. I will definitely be listening to more audiobooks in 2026. 

That's me for 2025 - looking forward to 2026. 

December 2025: What I Read

December was a slow month. December contains my birthday, the lead up to Christmas, Christmas itself and I was also distracted by challenges at work and the usual activities of day-to-day life. With that in mind I really only finished 3 books. The first was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a book I read at night when I was in the grips of my usual insomnia. 

Interestingly, the only other books I completed in December 2025 were both audiobooks. The first was Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These, which I had been trying to borrow fro mthe library for a long time but the wait list must be huge. It first became available as an audiobook so I took the chance and borrowed it. What a book. This might be the stand out for 2025. It does so much in such a small novel. I highly recommend and will review it more fully to do it justice. 

The other book I finished was Disney Adults by AJ Wolfe. I picked this because I will be visiting Tokyo Disneyland for the second time in 2026 and on my first visit I was so overcome by emotion at being at Disneyland for the first time (in 2024) that I actually cried on more than once occasion. The strength of my reacton suprised me so it felt natural to listen to Disney Adults when I found it was a free option on Spotify. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Was it a great work of writing? Probably not. The audiobook was narrated by the author which meant that the enthusiasm for the topic was palpable, but the entire book read more like a blog post than a work of non-fiction. 

Worth a quick mention - I didn't finish A Gentleman in Moscow, but I will try it again in 2026. 

Six Degrees of Separation (Jan): From Brooklyn Colm Toibin to Orbital Samantha Harvey

 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 is wildcard month, with the request that we start with either the last book in our December chain, or the last book that we read in 2025. I didn't participate in the meme in December, so I am starting this month with the last book I read in 2025, which was Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. I was very taken with this book, as I am sure many other people have been before me. It follows the story of Eilis, a young Irish woman who migrates from Ireland to New York in the 1950s in search of work and a new life. It's about migraton and homesickness and understanding where you belong in the world.  It was so easy to read, I felt I slipped into the world and didn't emerge again until the novel was complete. 

Devotion by Hannah Kent (referenced here) is another beautiful and this time lyrical work of fiction about migration of people looking for a new life and a protagonist who is driven to remain where she feels she belongs, alongside those that she loves. 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (my review here). Without saying too much, the beyond the grave narration in The Book Thief connects it in my mind to Devotion  by Hannah Kent, not to mention that they are both written by two of my faviourite Australian authors. 

Unfinished Business by Sulari Gentill (my review here). This is a bit of a jump, but this came to mind next because it is authored by another Australian author who I have read a lot of. I particularly love Gentill's Rowland Sinclair Mysteries, but I thought of Unfinished Business because I have been reflecting on my 2025 reading and particularly on the high concenration of crime fiction that I explored. 

Heavenly Pleasures by Kerry Greenwood. I turn next to Heavenly Pleasures as it was the last work of crime fiction that I read in 2025. Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series has a special place in my heart and I was upset to hear of her passing earlier this year. I decided to explore her Corinna Chapman series and  was disappointed to find that I didn't enjoy it all. There was so much minute description of everything that the characters did - from opening doors and watching television to cooking dinner and doing the laundry. I think that was part of what the charm of the series is supposed to be but I was bored by it. 

Green Dot by Madeleine Gray (my review here). What connects Heavely Pleasures to Greent Dot is that they are both rooted in their respective cities, Melbourne of Heavely Pleasures and Sydney for Green Dot, and both use real landmarks and streets and suburds to situate their stories in real contemporary Australia. In both books the city is an important part of the setting the mood of each novel. With Green Dot in particular I was familiar with many of the places and suburbs mentioned which contributed to how I visualised the novel as I read. 

Orbital by Samantha Harvey (referenced here). Not an obvious choice but Harvey in Orbital equally created a strong sense of place, albeit in an unconventional way. Rather than being set in a city or even a country, Orbital is set in a shared shifting envirfonment of a space station. There is constant movement as the world spins underneath them, and yet the characters and still and unmoving in their small cacoon above us all. 

Books I abandoned in 2025

I’m not someone who usually abandons books. Not because I’m morally opposed to it, or because I think finishing everything you start makes you a better reader. It's just that once I begin something I tend to want to see it through. There’s a quiet satisfaction in finishing, even when a book isn’t quite working for me. Usually I find if I give the book enough time I can become engrossed enough in the story to see it through. And yet, the older I get the more I’m aware of using my time wisely. Life is probably too short, my pile of unread books is too long and there are too many other competing interests and claims on my time to keep pushing on with something that never really asks to be finished.

With that in mind I thought I would have a quick look at the 3 books I abandoned in 2025. 

The first was Joe Cinque's Consolation by Helen Garner. Joe Cinque was in the ABC Radio National Top 100 Books of the 21st Century Count Down, which was my reminder to pick it up. It's written by one of Australia's most talented authors and covers the trial of a famous murder case in the Australia Capital Territory. It's often hailed as a meaningful exploration of culpability, evil and the gap between moral behaviour and the law. It seems that many people have a strong emotional reaction to this book, finding significance of Garner's exploration of these themes. I didn't and I believe I know why. For some years I was a trial lawyer, responsible for defending many accused perpetrators of terrible crimes. I've had occasion to see these issues first hand. I've seen the awful things that people can do to one another. I've seen behind the scenes the awful things that have often been done to them earlier in their lives. I've seen where the law convergers from what would commonly be thought of as fairness. It's usually for a reason that hard to discern. I couldn't finish the book because it wasn't anything that I hadn't see or explored myself.

The second was Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Hurari. This was another one that the ABC count down had recommended to me, but that ultimately I found the pace a little slow and the information a little uninteresting to my particular tastes.

The third was A Gentlemen in Moscow by Amor Towles. I really wanted and expected to enjoy this book, especially when it came third in the ABC Radio National Top 100 Books of the 21st Century Count Down. And yet, despite giving it a good go, I didn't find myself becoming lost in the story in the way that I expected. It might be that I needed to perservere a little longer - I could see that it was a more of a character driven slow-burn novel. Unfortunately though, I had borrowed this one from the library and it soon became clear that I wasn't going to finish it before it was due to be returned. So, I returned it early. Unlike Sapiens, however, I won't give up on this one entirely. With any luck it will reappear in my 2026 reading list as a finished book.