My July Reads
July was a busy month for me as I had a writing deadline and spent most of the month frantically trying to finish the first book in a brand new series. Anyway, despite that, I did take most evenings off, and I found it relaxing and pleasurable to lose myself in the fruits of some other authors’ hard work as a way of winding down!
In July I read five books. I didn’t tick anything off my 2025 Book Bingo (I really will have to up my game on that!) but naturally, I read July’s choice for the Read Christie 2025 Challenge.
So here they are, the five books I read last month.
One Night at the Chateau by Veronica Henry
One night to fall in love.
One summer to change everything...
Over the last few months, Connie's whole world has fallen apart. Her husband's run off with an older woman, the magazine she works for has gone bust and she's having to sell the family home. So when her beloved godmother, Lismay, begs her to help run the beautiful Château Villette, it couldn't come at a better time...
No one knows the château quite like Connie. She spent a blissful summer there in her twenties, learning to cook delicious French food for the guests, ironing the lavender-scented sheets - and trying to resist the very handsome neighbour, Remy.
As soon as she arrives, it's clear that the château is close to crumbling and Connie knows she's going to have her work cut out. Could it be the fresh start she didn't even know she needed - and will she find a way to save the château, before it's too late?
Click to buy
Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie
(The July choice for the Read Christie 2025 Challenge)
Agatha Christie’s personal memoirs about her travels to Syria and Iraq in the 1930s with her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan, where she worked on the digs and wrote some of her most evocative novels.
Think you know Agatha Christie? Think again!
To the world she was Agatha Christie, legendary author of bestselling whodunits. But in the 1930s she wore a different hat, travelling with her husband, renowned archaeologist Max Mallowan, as he investigated the buried ruins and ancient wonders of Syria and Iraq. When friends asked what this strange ‘other life’ was like, she decided to answer their questions by writing down her adventures in this eye-opening book.
Described by the author as a ‘meandering chronicle of life on an archaeological dig’, Come, Tell Me How You Live is Agatha Christie's very personal memoir of her time spent in this breathtaking corner of the globe, living among the working men in tents in the desert where recorded human history began. Acclaimed as ‘a pure pleasure to read’, it is an altogether remarkable and increasingly poignant narrative, a fascinating, vibrant and vivid portrait of everyday life in a world now long since vanished.
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The Hungry Tide by Val Wood
As the sea claims the land, can she claim the love she deserves?
In the old fishing town of Hull, Sarah Foster's parents have been fighting a constant battle with poverty, disease and crime. When her father Will, a whaling man, is involved in a terrible accident at sea, their lives became even harder.
But Will's good deeds of the past pay off as John Rayner decides to rescue the Fosters. John provides them with work and a house on the estate owned by his wealthy family. It is at this new home on the crumbling coastline of Holderness that Sarah is born - and grows into a bright and beautiful girl, and a great source of strength to those around her.
As John grows closer to Sarah, he becomes increasingly aware of his love for her. But could these two very different people ever make their love story truly work?
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The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend
Friday January 2nd
I felt rotten today. It's my mother's fault for singing 'My Way' at two o'clock in the morning at the top of the stairs. Just my luck to have a mother like her. There is a chance my parents could be alcoholics. Next year I could be in a children's home.
Meet Adrian Mole, a hapless teenager providing an unabashed, pimples-and-all glimpse into adolescent life as he writes candidly about the dog, his parents' marital troubles and life as a tortured poet and 'misunderstood intellectual.'
Forty years after it first appeared, Sue Townsend's comic masterpiece continues to be rediscovered by new generations of readers.
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The Little Bakery on Wishing Well Lane by K.T. Dady
The Little Bakery on Wishing Well Lane:
There’s only one thing Ava Hart loves more than Carter Drew, and that’s his aunt’s bakery where she works. But when his aunt dies and leaves half the business to Ava, Carter isn’t happy.
Can their friendship survive when they both want different things?
Click to buy
There you go! Humour, saga, romance, and memoir. I hope you find something among these that you’d like to read. See you next month for my August reads.
Happy reading.
