It’s that time of year again! I know I can’t be counted on much these days to write consistently, or even string together a series of posts with a common theme. Except, perhaps, my yearly roundup of my favourite books. Here it is.
Non-Fiction
Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe
One of the most gut-wrenching non-fiction books I’ve ever read, Empire of Pain is a history of the Sackler dynasty, otherwise known as the family that built an empire on America’s pain and has a major role in the opioid crisis. I’m all too aware of the havoc opioids have inflicted. I attend college in Vancouver and transit through the Downtown Eastside every day, otherwise known as ground zero of the opioid epidemic and the site of a controversial government pilot program.
Empire of Pain delves into the history of synthetic opioids that all began with three brothers, doctors Arthur, Mortimer and Raymond Sackler. Initially, they were horrified at the idea of administering electroshock therapy to patients in psych wards and wanted to find a less traumatic way of treating people. That led to the development of Oxycontin. Noble intentions went by the wayside as the Sacklers used their keen marketing skills to push their products on physicians. Keefe manages to stay sane while you, the reader, suspect you are spiralling into madness learning about how corporate greed led to a physical and mental health epidemic.
Dear Dolly, Dolly Alderton
Raunchy good fun and full of wisdom, Dolly writes with fortitude and offers sage advice on the woes that beget our relationship with our friends, our families, and our lovers.
The Peace, Romeo Dallaire
Dallaire is probably best known for his fateful peacekeeping mission to Rwanda in 1994, when the world utterly and unequivocally failed to stop a genocide. In The Peace, he hashes out the grim details of the Rwandan Genocide again, but with 30 years of perspective now behind him.
After the Holocaust, world leaders got together and said “never again”, but let it happen again nevertheless. “The only thing here are human beings,” a superior told him when he requested help in the early days of the genocide, “and there are too many of them anyway.” Not gold, not oil, just human lives. Dallaire derides the apathy toward human suffering and warns us of the “othering” of people who don’t share our beliefs. He paints a grim picture of the conflicts that may still occur if we don’t engage in discourse.
Fiction
Psykhe, Kate Forsyth
I thought I was done with Greek myths after I went on a reading spree last year. At its conclusion, I decided that there are too many retellings on the market that aren’t at all well-developed. Turns out, myths can still be beautiful if the author has put in the time and the effort to tell them properly, and that’s what Forsyth does with Psykhe.
Set in the Roman Kingdom, Psykhe’s father sends her and her sisters far away from the Etruscan court to the countryside where Psykhe learns the art of healing and midwifery from an old wise woman. Thereafter, the story is as it was told in Metamorphoses, with Psykhe falling for the golden haired Ambrose but forbidden to gaze upon his face. Forsyth is very poetic, and I enjoyed this retelling perhaps more than McNamara’s because of its beautiful prose and original backdrop.
The Berlin Apartment, Bryn Turnbull
Turnbull very quickly became my favourite Canadian author after The Last Grand Duchess, so I couldn’t resist treating myself to my own copy of The Berlin Apartment. What I like best about Turnbull’s writing is how she can bring a scene to life. She’s very descriptive, almost poetic. In her latest, young lovers Lise and Uli are cruelly separated when the Berlin Wall rises between their homes. As the Soviets tighten their grip, Uli becomes increasingly desperate to get Lise out of East Berlin and recruits several university friends to help him tunnel under the wall. But how long can love last in a world divided by concrete and barbed wire?
Maria, Michelle Moran
I genuinely thought Moran was finished writing. After all, her last novel came out roughly eight years ago. So when I saw that she was writing again, I was ecstatic. Known for historical fiction such as The Second Empress, a tale of Napoleon Bonaparte’s young Austrian wife who had to step into Josephine’s shoes, and Mata Hari’s Last Dance, Moran returns with a tale about the real-life Maria von Trapp, whom you might know as the harmonious nun played by Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.
Except, it turns out, the real life Maria was not the patient and understanding motherly figure you thought she was. Maria recounts her life to Hammerstein’s young assistant, Fran, while The Sound of Music is in development. Personally, I didn’t love this format because Fran’s character was underdeveloped, but I can understand why the story had to be told this way. The real life Maria published her life story in 1949 and it would’ve been too similar. But the younger Maria… well, the younger Maria leapt off the page quite literally bursting with song. I was unable to put it down.
The Briar Club, Kate Quinn
The Briar Club is a bit of a departure for Quinn, revolving around eight women with only two things in common, shared lodgings at Briarwood House in Washington DC, and a Thanksgiving bloodbath. Set to the backdrop of the McCarthy era red scare in the early 1950s, The Briar Club is a celebration of female friendship in an era of changing roles for women and a reminder that you never really know who your friends are.
Quite honestly, I found the set up a little confusing. At first I thought each woman was going to reveal a little more about the series of murders that tears the house apart at the end, which gave me serious Where the Crawdads Sing vibes. Later, it became apparent that each woman just had a story to tell that didn’t have any lead up to the gory scene at the end. It felt more like a collection of short stories about women in an era where we love to reminisce about the good ol’ days. As always though, Quinn’s characters leap off the page and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know each and every one of them, which is why this one makes the list.
Funny Story, Emily Henry
After last summer’s Happy Place and this summer’s Funny Story, I’m officially in love with Emily Henry all over again. This time, she had me in stitches as Daphne, dumped by her fiancé after he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend, moves in with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancé’s ex, Miles. There’s no way Daphne and Miles, forced together by circumstances, who have the worst possible thing in common, could possibly fall in love, right?
The Shadow Key, Susan Stokes-Chapman
After years of searching, I may have found a ghost story on equal footing to Juliet Marillier’s Heart’s Blood. Set in 1783, The Shadow Key follows disgraced London physician, Henry Talbot, to a new post in the Welsh countryside at a manor called Plas Helyg. When he learns that his predecessor died under mysterious circumstances, he sets out to find out why, aided by Linette, the unconventional mistress of manor. While I felt the story could’ve moved along at a faster pace, I did feel like the tale was suitably chilly and a real love letter to Wales, which is what the author intended. It was so nice to see Wales through the author’s eyes, which is something I hope to achieve one day with the novel set in Namibia I’ve been promising my grandmother for years.
The Warm Hands of Ghosts, Katherine Arden
A haunting tale of the first world war battlefields. Laura Iven is a discharged nurse still recouping from her wounds at home in Halifax when she loses her parents in the Halifax explosion and receives a letter informing her that her brother, Freddie, is missing in action on the other side of the pond. With no family left, she re-enlists as a nurse, hoping to find out what happened to her brother. Across the ocean, Freddie wakes up after the battle of Passchendaele and befriends a German soldier named Hans. Together, they make their way to a field hospital in search of Laura. It’s a dark story, and yet it oddly gives me the warm fuzzies.
Most Anticipated Books of 2025
Pretty much all of the books that have caught my eye for the upcoming year are penned by British authors… I certainly can’t justify a trip across the pond to Waterstones just to stock up on reading material, but perhaps you’ll let me know your thoughts if you come by any of these titles before I do?
Babylonia, Costanza Casati
From the author of Clytemnestra—who wowed me the most after Madeleine Miller on my quest to find the best retelling of a Greek myth last year—comes a story about the Assyrian empire’s only female ruler, Semiramis.
Boudicca’s Daughter, Elodie Harper
I read The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper this summer and while I didn’t feel inclined to read the rest of the series, I get the sense that I’m going to love Boudicca’s Daughter. I’ll level with you, the Celtic warrior queen holds a special place in my heart, right alongside Cleopatra’s sister, Arsinoe. My lockdown project in the spring of 2020 was a novel about her through the eyes of a much more elusive female figure in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. I doubt that slapdash of a novel will ever see the light of day, but I’m so excited to see how someone else tells her story.
Nephthys, Rachel Louise Driscoll
A retelling of the ancient Egyptian myth of the goddess Isis and her forgotten sister, Nephthys, playing out in the life of a young, Victorian archaeologist named Clemmie. It’s due out in North America at a later date under the title The House of Two Sisters.