I started the year with Percy Jack and the Lightning Thief, mainly motivated to read it after watching the Disney+ show was released in December 2023. 12 year old Percy Jackson discovers that he is a demigod and has to come to terms with newfound powers, only to be accused by the sky god Zeus, of stealing his master lightning bolt. With help from his best friend Grover, and fellow demigod, Annabeth Chase, Percy must find the master bolt and restore order to Olympus. 

It was a good read, though probably a little young for me (I am not 12 years old), but I like how Riordan merges greek mythology and modern life together in the world of Percy Jackson. It takes a while for Percy and Annabeth to get along and trust each other which I thought was realistic, and I liked that the protagonist is a male character. With the filming of Percy Jackson and the Olympians season 2 well under way, I think I need to read The Sea of Monsters before it airs. 

As it is a novella, I read Kill Joy in a couple of hours on holiday in April. The prequel to Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder trilogy, Kill Joy takes the reader back before Pippa Fitz-Amobi had decided what her EPQ was going to be about. In the novella, Pip is not in the mood for her friend’s 1920’s themed murder mystery party, pretending that their town of Little Kilton is actually an island called Joy. However, as Pip starts to get involved with the role of fictional detective, she can’t help but think about another case all those years go. One that with a conclusion that doesn’t sit right with Pip.  

As a big fan of Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder trilogy, I was looking forward to reading Kill Joy and was not disappointed. A quick easy read for me, I devoured it in about 2 hours (I think). It sits well as a prequel to the main trilogy, and works as a nice introduction to the character of Pippa Fitz-Amobi, but it’s not essential reading for the rest of the series. A nice pallet cleanser if you’re wanting a change of genre, that doesn’t take up too much time.

This is the beginning of an recurring theme in my reading, both Kerry Greenwood books, and murder mystery genre. The Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher (yes that is her name) is travelling on the train to Ballarat for a week’s holiday, but the journey turns of to be far from the restful trip she was planning: a girl who can’t remember anything, rumours of white slavery, the body of an old women missing her emerald rings. Phryne, along with her ladies maid Dot, must work through the clues to arrive the truth before anothe rmurder is announced. And for Phryne, find a little time for a discreet dalliance and diversion with a rowing team of young men. 

Set in 1920s Melbourne, Australia, I find the Phryne Fisher mysteries  fascinating. There’s elements of Britain and British things (money is shillings etc), but at the same time, it’s most definitely Australian. More than once I have been reminded that I know very little about Australian history.

Whilst on holiday, Hercule Poirot, the famous belgian detective, is on holiday in Egypt, when Linnet Doyle, a wealthy socialite, is killed onboard the steamer Karnak. Drawn into another mysterious plot involving the ex-fiance of Linnet’s husband Simon, Poirot must figure out who killed Linnet before someone else is murdered or the killer get away. 

Death on the Nile is most likely my favourite book of all time, to a point I read it at least once nearly every year. There’s something about the characters, the exotic location of Egypt, the 1920s/30s feel of the story, plus the plot itself that makes me want to read it over and over again. 

I told you there was a recurring theme as this is my second Kerry Greenwood books, and third murder mystery. Whilst running late for a gala performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore, Phryne Fisher deals with some thugs comes to the rescue of a chinese man, Lin Chung, and his grandmother, before being briefly mistaken for a deity. She later reaches the safety of the theatre, only for her night to be interrupted again with a bizarre death onstage. Are there any links before the absurd plot of Ruddigore, the Chinese community in Melbourne, or the actors (and ghost) on stage at His Majesty’s Theatre? Only the Honourable Miss Phryne Fishher can figure it out. 

Ther character of Phryne Fisher is one of the main things that constantly draws me back to the books. She’s a very modern woman for a series set in the 1920s; a single woman, who has no desire to marry, have children, and is also wealthy. In every book I’ve read in the series, Phryne even has an intimate relationship with a different male character. The books would be very different Phryne was married or not as modern.

In The Green Mill Murder Phryne Fisher is caught up in a murder on the dance floor at The Green Mill, whilst dancing to the music of Tintagel Stone’s Jazzmakers. A dance competition is in its lasts hours when one of the competitors collapses on the ground. Phryne follows the clues from dark smoky jazz clubs and across the sky as she uncovers a complicated family tragedy from the Great War, and men who fought in it. 

What I really liked about this book was the ‘personal’ impact of the Great War. At least three of the characters in The Green Mill Murder fought in Gallipoli in Turkey from February 1915 to January 1916. The campaign lasted 260 days and resulted in an estimate total of 130,000 deaths, of which at least 26,000 were Australian. Reading this book, you hear first hand accounts from characters that fought in Gallipoli and the impact this particular campaign had. 

However, what I didn’t really enjoy was the jazz music side of it. As a habitual audio book listener, I have only ever listened to the audiobooks of Phryne Fisher and loved them. With The Green Mill Murder, Greenwood included jazz songs that the narrator Stephanie Daniel had to sing/speak, without music in a southern American accent. The first time around was fine, but it got a little tedious as the audio book went on. It’s fair to say that I would probably skip them if I could. 

This is book that has to be listened to, not read. Andrew Lincoln reading Quidditch Through the Ages outloud is spectacular. This is a book that I read listened to over and over again through the library Borrowbox app, so muchso that I actually purchased it from Audible so I could have my own copy. 

At 3 hours, 10 minutes, Quidditch Through the Ages tells the history of the wizarding sport Quidditch, relatively quickly. Andrew Lincoln gives voices to every character, from Dumbledore’s foreward at the beginning, and when he’s reading first hand accounts of events relating to Quidditch. Sometimes I forget that it’s a middle aged man reading the book. It is an excellent performance.

On top of that, the audiobook has extra content in the form of commentary on the 2014 Quidditch World Cup from Rita Skeeter (Annette Badland) and Ginny Potter (Imogen Church), who provide commentary on the opening ceremony and every match in the Quiddith World Cup from Peru. 

The only book that I could possible read at Halloween this year was, of course, Halloween Party by Agatha Christie, featuring her belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. At a Halloween party in the small town of Woodleigh Common, a teenage girl, Joyce, loudly declares that she saw a murder happen once, but that she didn’t know it was a murder. As Joyce is known for telling tall tales, everyone dismisses her announcement. However, when she is discovered drowned in the apple bobbing bucket, Poirot and his friend Ariadne Oliver (a mystery novelist), must determine two things; who killed the girl, and what did she witness?

Whilst it is called Halloween Party, the only thing that makes it remotely halloween-y is that it starts at a halloween party. There are no ghosts or spooky happenings. Just a murder mystery for Poirot to solve. Ariadne Oliver is a nice addition, giving Poirot someone to bounce ideas off and discuss that case. Christie created Ariadne Oliver as a sort of caricature of herself; Oliver is a mystery novelist with a swedish detective called Sven Hjerson.

Halloween Party is the perfect cozy mystery to curly up with during autumn, and I highly recommend the audiobook, read by Hugh Fraser (who played Captain Hastings in the TV series). I would also like to note that whilst Halloween Party was the inspiration for A Haunting in Venice, the two are not the same plot.

To round off the year, I returned back to middle grade fiction, though this time for a ghost story. 

Set in an alternate version modern-day Britain, which has been experiencing an event called ‘the Problem’ the past 50 years. Throughout the country at nighttime, ghosts have been appearing and attacking the living. Agencies have been created to fend off the ghosts and protect the public. But the only people who can sense ghosts are children and teenagers, which they slowly lose as they reach their twenties. The Screaming Staircase is the first book in the Lockwood & Co series, following Lucy Carlyle as she joins the Lockwood & Co agency, the only supernatural agency in London run by under 18 year olds.  

It was a good read, and I did like that the ghost angle of the story, instead of another middle grade/ young adult book about witches. I haven’t decied if I will read the other books in the series as there are other books I want to read first but I might return. Whilst the first two books were adapted by Netflix, unlike Percy Jackson, Lockwood & Co was cancelled after one season. That being said, I found the adaptation reasonably faithful to the first book.