December 2025 Update

It’s the last month of 2025 and I’ve got six books to report on.

The last one I talked about was Our Wives Under the Sea, which led me from the word ‘Under’ as follows:

• Whispers Under Ground – Ben Aaronovitch (comedic fantasy)
• The Horse Whisperer – Nicholas Evans (romance)
• Blue Horses – Mary Oliver (poetry)
• Red, White and Royal Blue – Casey McQuiston (LGBT romance)
• A Corner of White – Jaclyn Moriarty (Young Adult (YA) fantasy)
• An Atlas of Extinct Countries – Gideon Defoe (geopolitics)

My video summary is as follows, or if you prefer to read, see below.

Whispers Under Ground (3 stars) is the third in a comedic fantasy series of books about a trainee wizard in the London Metropolitan Police. I loved the concept of an undercover division investigating funny business, and the jokes are on point, but I really should have started at book one. There is the usual recapping you have to have in a series, which is good enough to get you up to speed, but it still feels like you’ve come late to a party and everyone’s chortling about something that happened earlier. This book follows Peter as he investigates crimes in the London Underground. There is a very satisfying chase underground, and it is fundamentally a police procedural, so if you like process, you’ll enjoy this.

I actually purchased The Horse Whisperer to keep the book chain going. It was a smash hit bestseller which was made into a film. It started well with a thrilling conflict and multiple perspectives and turned into a redemption story set on a ranch in Montana, but I found the romance contrived and didn’t like the ending.

I had Blue Horses on my bookshelf and possibly wouldn’t have picked it up if it weren’t for the book chain. It’s a poetry book, so I dipped in and out. There is a strong nature theme as well as a groundedness I enjoyed. I find poetry hard to review as one person’s trash is another’s treasure. I enjoyed contemplating meaning with this book.

Goodness knows how it was recommended to me, Red, White and Royal Blue. It’s the ridiculous premise of both the US presidential family being treated as peers with royalty, and of there being a female, divorced US president. Those implausible concepts being got out of the way, we then have the son of the president falling for a prince in the UK, which actually feels like the most believable part of the book. The romance is quite sweet, if you can get over how silly it is.

A Corner of White is a YA novel about multiple worlds and two teenagers who manage to communicate between them. It reminded me pleasantly of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, and also, because of the focus on colour, of Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey. I liked the friendly nature of the world of Cello, and there is a satisfying reveal at the end leading into the next novel in the trilogy, which I think I will look out for.

An Atlas of Extinct Countries is a geopolitics book, giving a brief run down of a 48 countries which no longer exist for a variety of reasons. Amusingly, the reasons can seem flippant ‘the price of beef jerky’ for example, but do tend to be grounded in truth. Some sad stories here, many of which involve (exclusively male) megalomaniacs playing king and exploiting people to serve their egos. An entertaining way to learn about geography and history.

So, 2025 is over and I’ve read 31 books, most, not all, through my chain. I’ll do a wrap up of my 2025 reading project and how my to-read list is going in a future blog.