This year, my resolution is to write more book reviews – I always appreciate my own readers leaving reviews, so I’m leading by example!

I did rather a lot of reading during January. The long winter days, and some very unpredictable weather, meant being cosied up with a good book was especially tempting. It was quite a mixture of material as well! Here are a handful of the highlights…

I absolutely loved reading Road Ends by Mary Lawson. I’ve now read three of her books, all of which have been great. She writes deep and thoughtful books, often about families, exploring characters and relationships in really captivating ways. Our protagonists here are Megan, Tom and their father Edward and the book is set in a small-town community in the north of Canada where everyone knows everyone else’s business, with Megan’s story taking place in the swinging sixties of London. It alternates between different voices and timelines, which takes a bit of getting used to but draws you deeper into each character and story. I was right there in the warmth of Harper’s diner, in the freezing interior of the library, in the cab of the snowplough or inside the shockingly neglected family home (where Tom eats cereal from the lid of a saucepan rather than washing the dishes…)

My other top fiction for January was a very very different one – Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene. It’s a spoof about the intelligence services and the Cold War, set in Cuba. And while it’s knockabout funny, it also conveys an increasing background sense of menace. The manager of an unsuccessful vacuum cleaner franchise gets recruited into the intelligence community…which should tell you straight away that we’re in for some entertainment. He embarks on manufacturing intelligence reports from a collection of fake agents, whilst submitting technical drawings of imaginary military installations based entirely on the parts of his vacuum cleaners. It’s preposterously daft – until things start coming true. It’s been such a long time since I read any of Graham Greene’s work but I loved returning to it.

I’m usually alternating between fiction and non-fiction, and quite often it’s for research – either for my own books, or to broaden my knowledge! January was no exception, and I did quite a bit of reading around the Edwardian period in London which was very interesting. I’ve especially enjoyed Andrew Saint’s London 1870-1914 which is fill of fascinating information about everything from politics, to architecture, industry to socio-demographics, the history of housing and transport…

Then, heading off in another tangent completely, I read Taste by Stanley Tucci. Food-based reminiscences missed in with recipes and fuelled by his passion for Italian ingredients, cooking, eating and sharing…it was entertaining and hugely readable, as well as having very poignant and touching moments about family and health. I’m not usually an avid chef, but am feeling very inspired to try some of his recipes.

If you’ve read anything great recently, pop a comment below!

And if you want to see what else I’ve been reading lately, you can find (and follow) all of my book reviews on Goodreads. I also share some of my favourites on Facebook.