Quick Book Reviews with Philippa Hall

Another swimming story, and this one has left actual scars. Then I’m joined by crime novelist Ajay Chowdhury to talk about The Patriot, his first heist novel, in which a historian sets out to steal the Koh-i-Noor diamond from the Tower of London and return it to India. No spoilers, as always.

In conversation with Ajay Chowdhury

• Sunrise, birdsong and a five-year crossword streak: his ideal writing morning
• Why he can’t write in cafés
• From helping found Shazam to becoming a crime novelist
• How a rejected pitch and a podcast episode led to The Patriot
• Behind the scenes at the Tower of London, and the door that would have been too unbelievable to write
• Why every part of a heist plan has to go wrong
• AI in the writing world, from compensating authors to “AI slop”
• What he’d change about publishing
• The biscuit that powered the book (and whether it’s even a biscuit)

Books in this episode

• The Patriot by Ajay Chowdhury
• Michael by Bob Mortimer – out 19 November
• Adam and Eve by Jeffrey Archer
• A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas

Also mentioned

• The Waiter by Ajay Chowdhury
• Eden Falls by Ajay Chowdhury
• The Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmyre

Watch on Apple Podcasts

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Get in touch - links:

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | [email protected]

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Today I’m joined by Michaela from What Michaela Reads, one of the most honest voices in the bookish space. We talk about how she built her platform from an attic room, why she accidentally became “the book drama girl”, and how a video about the Kindle price conspiracy changed everything. Then I put ten controversial bookish opinions to her, from celebrity authors and chart-buying to DNFs, free books from publishers and whether you really have to read the acknowledgements. And of course, the all-important biscuit question.

Before that, it’s week one of our book club read, The Only One Left by Riley Sager. No spoilers, just first impressions of the first quarter.

Book club: The Only One Left

We’re reading a quarter a week. Next week we’re reading up to page 193 (just before chapter 24 starts if you’re listening on audio), and we’ll chat again next Friday.

Books mentioned

• The Only One Left by Riley Sager
• Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson
• Dissection of a Murder by Jo Murray
• Fruit Fly by Josh Silver
• The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster
• The Collective by Alison Gaylin
• The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward
• The Last One at the Wedding by Jason Rekulak
• Be Still My Unbeating Heart by Josh Winning

Authors mentioned

John Marrs, Charlie Donlea, M.W. Craven, Jo Callaghan

Find Michaela

What Michaela Reads on YouTube | What Michaela Reads on TikTok | What Michaela Reads on Instagram

Watch the video version

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Get in touch - links:

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | [email protected]

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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The wonderful Louise Candlish is back on the podcast to talk about her new book, A Knock at the Door. A three-year-old girl goes missing on a family weekend away. Eighteen years later, a young woman turns up at her parents’ door claiming to be their lost daughter. Is she really her, or is she an imposter?

Louise tells me:

• why this book feels different in tone from her last few
• its original working title
• how a young intern helped her make the Telegram messages sound authentic
• why she has called this one “imposter noir”

We also talk about:

• her dream writing location, a silent penthouse suite overlooking a royal park
• her nightmare one, a noisy train, and what happened when her husband challenged a fellow passenger on the Stansted Express
• twists and blurbs, and why publishers shouldn’t promise a twist
• the book Louise thinks has the best twist ever
• why e-readers turned her into a speed reader
• my 15 holiday books and their run-in with Athens customs
• the brownie that powered the words

Before that, I review three books:

• What We Ask Google by Simon Rogers. I finished it in a day and it made me feel hopeful about the human race. My non-fiction Christmas present pick.
• The Castle by Jon Ronson. I really enjoyed it, with a couple of stodgy bits.
• The Players Club by Rachel Mills. Lots of people are raving about this one, but it didn’t quite work for me.

You’ll also hear about a retired couple and some spontaneous synchronised swimming.

Books mentioned

• A Knock at the Door by Louise Candlish
• What We Ask Google by Simon Rogers
• The Castle by Jon Ronson
• The Players Club by Rachel Mills
• Eyes on You by Adele Parks
• Fallen Women by Tammy Cohen (out February 2027)
• The Other Passenger by Louise Candlish
• Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
• Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Watch the episode

Quick Book Reviews on Apple Podcasts (video)

Get in touch - links:

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | [email protected]

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I’ve found out something very scary about the Waterstones points system and I have to tell you straight away. Booksellers have reported customers with £300, £900, even over £1,000 worth of points on their cards. Before you start saving yours, there’s a catch in the terms and conditions you need to know about. If you have that many points and can’t think what to buy, I’m putting my hand up to help.

Then it’s the final round-up of our first Book Club read, The One You Least Suspect by Brian McGilloway. I found the first half hard going, not because of the writing but because of what the main character goes through. Then something clicked. I’ll tell you my score and whether I’d read more of Brian’s books. No spoilers.

And the Book Club is carrying on. I share my rules for choosing each month’s book and announce the pick for November, The Only One Left by Riley Sager, a gothic crime thriller BookTube has been raving about. If you want something cosy and uplifting, this probably isn’t for you. If you’re twisted and troubled like me, it’s perfect.

November Book Club reading schedule: The Only One Left by Riley Sager

I’ve given chapters as well as page numbers, so it works for paperback, ebook and audiobook.

• Week 1: up to page 99, just before Chapter 11 starts
• Week 2: up to page 193, just before Chapter 24 starts
• Week 3: up to page 285, just before Chapter 34 starts
• Week 4: finish the book

Books mentioned

• The One You Least Suspect by Brian McGilloway
• The Only One Left by Riley Sager

Watch the episode

Quick Book Reviews on Apple Podcasts (video)

Get in touch - links:

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | [email protected]

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello my fellow bookworms! This week I’m delighted to welcome back the wonderful Louise Penny to talk about her latest Three Pines mystery, Miss Wolcott’s Ghost. Plus I review The Strangers by Naomi Alderman, share another swimming pool story (earplugs, I’m sorry), and reveal the book club picks for the next four months.

In conversation with Louise Penny

Miss Wolcott’s Ghost is book 21 in the Chief Inspector Gamache series, but you can absolutely start here. Louise tells me where the name Three Pines really came from, how her friends found Lost Nation and its forgotten cemetery deep in the Quebec woods, and why this is very much not cosy crime. We talk about courage and cowardice, book covers, dreams, her co-written thriller The Last Mandarin, what she’s reading now, and of course, the biscuit (or butter tart) that powered the writing. No spoilers, as always.

Miss Wolcott’s Ghost by Louise Penny

Book review

The Strangers by Naomi Alderman. Mysterious creatures called mimmoths appear across the world, while the author navigates grief after losing her mother. I loved the dystopian element, but I’m honestly not sure how I felt about the whole. Have you read it? I’d love to know what you think.

Book club: November to February

• November: The Only One Left by Riley Sager
• December: Unsolved by Heather Critchlow
• January: Split Second by R.C. Bridgestock, published by Orenda Books
• February: A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford, out in paperback in time for February

As before, we’ll read a quarter of the book each week.

Also mentioned

• The Last Mandarin by Louise Penny and Melissa Fung
• The Finest Hotel in Kabul by Lyse Doucet
• A Fish Caught in Time by Samantha Weinberg

Watch the video

Watch on Apple Podcasts

Get in touch - links:

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | [email protected]

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello my fellow bookworms! This week I’m delighted to welcome back the wonderful Louise Penny to talk about her latest Three Pines mystery, Miss Wolcott’s Ghost. Plus I review The Strangers by Naomi Alderman, share another swimming pool story (earplugs, I’m sorry), and reveal the book club picks for the next four months.

In conversation with Louise Penny

Miss Wolcott’s Ghost is book 21 in the Chief Inspector Gamache series, but you can absolutely start here. Louise tells me where the name Three Pines really came from, how her friends found Lost Nation and its forgotten cemetery deep in the Quebec woods, and why this is very much not cosy crime. We talk about courage and cowardice, book covers, dreams, her co-written thriller The Last Mandarin, what she’s reading now, and of course, the biscuit (or butter tart) that powered the writing. No spoilers, as always.

Miss Wolcott’s Ghost by Louise Penny

Book review

The Strangers by Naomi Alderman. Mysterious creatures called mimmoths appear across the world, while the author navigates grief after losing her mother. I loved the dystopian element, but I’m honestly not sure how I felt about the whole. Have you read it? I’d love to know what you think.

Book club: November to February

• November: The Only One Left by Riley Sager
• December: Unsolved by Heather Critchlow
• January: Split Second by R.C. Bridgestock, published by Orenda Books
• February: A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford, out in paperback in time for February

As before, we’ll read a quarter of the book each week.

Also mentioned

• The Last Mandarin by Louise Penny and Melissa Fung
• The Finest Hotel in Kabul by Lyse Doucet
• A Fish Caught in Time by Samantha Weinberg

Watch the video

Watch on Apple Podcasts

Get in touch - links:

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | [email protected]

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is it ever acceptable to give up on a book on page one? Should the classics be dropped from GCSE English? And which bookish trend deserves to go on the bonfire?

This Friday is an AUTUMN SPECIAL: the Autumn Book Tag, bookish opinions edition. Ten questions, no preparation, and answers coming straight out of my mouth, so we should all be very worried. Then it is part three of our book club read, The One You Least Suspect by Brian McGilloway, with no spoilers as always.

The Autumn Book Tag

1. Falling leaves: Is it ever acceptable to give up on a book, and how many pages does it get before you do?
2. Clocks go back: With an extra hour to read, would you reread an old favourite or start something new?
3. Back to school: Should we be made to read the classics at school, or does it put people off reading for life?
4. Dark evenings: Does a book have to match the season, or is the "autumn read" just marketing?
5. Halloween: What scares you more in a book, the supernatural or what ordinary people do to each other?
6. Bonfire night: Which bookish habit or trend would you happily throw on the bonfire?
7. Harvest: Is a huge to-be-read pile a comfort or a source of guilt? Is buying books a separate hobby from reading them?
8. Conkers: Reading challenges and yearly targets, motivating or joyless?
9. Cosy jumper: Is "cosy" a compliment or an insult when applied to a book?
10. Prize season: Do prize winners actually make better reading, or do judges and readers want different things?

In this episode

• Why I think you can DNF a book at any point, and why it is always a me problem and never the book
• The honest reason I almost never reread
• Why I would take the classics out of GCSE English and bring in graphic novels and scripts instead (I am expecting flack for this one)
• My confession that I read out of season: Christmas books in summer, summer books at Christmas
• What goes on my bonfire, and it will not surprise regular listeners
• Why buying books has to be a separate hobby, or we are at situation critical in this house
• Cosy fantasy versus cosy crime, and why I like my crime a bit meaner
• The year a prize shortlist left me so incensed I have not done it since, and why I think the longlist is often better than the winner

Book club, part three

The One You Least Suspect by Brian McGilloway, with no spoilers as always.

is still very dark and troubling, even more so in this section, and I worry about some of these characters so much. And yet I am fully locked in and cannot wait to read the final quarter. Thank you to Tony for the brilliant suggestion of splitting book club sections by chapter instead of page number, so it works whether you are reading the hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook. If we do this again, that is how we will do it.

Coming up

Episodes on bookish judging and on celebrity novels, because I have views. And I will be back on Monday with another author interview.

I would love to know your answers to the tag, and what you are thinking about the book club read.

Watch on Apple Podcasts

Get in touch - links:

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | [email protected]

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Five days, twenty strangers, eighty-four miles of whitewater and no way out. Today I am talking to bestselling thriller author Noelle W. Ihli about The Last to Drown, the book that has put me off whitewater rafting for life. Before that, three book reviews, and a swimming pool mystery I need your help with.

Three book reviews

• A Knock at the Door by Louise Candlish (out 5 November). A three-year-old goes missing on a weekend break. Eighteen years later, a young woman arrives at the door claiming to be her. I thought I knew where this was going and I was wrong. This could be Louise's best book yet, and she will be joining me to talk about it in a few weeks.
• The Angel of Death by Trevor Wood. The third DCI Jack Parker book. An anonymous killer in Newcastle is offering the terminally ill a dignified escape, while Jack tries to hide his own early onset dementia diagnosis. Superbly written crime with a fascinating lead, and now published by our friends at Orenda Books.
• Wreck by Catherine Newman. I listened to this on audio while swimming and laughed out loud in the changing room. Funny in places, much more moving than I expected, and a family you want to sit with at the dining table. The narration is spot on.

Author interview: Noelle W. Ihli on The Last to Drown

The Last to Drown follows Kaia, recently widowed, on the rafting trip her husband always wanted to take. Seven years earlier a guide murdered a group of rafters on the same stretch of river, and the true crime community has never stopped asking questions. We talk about:

• The family rafting trip in Idaho that gave her the idea, and why her guides were "slightly concerned" by her questions
• Writing 500 to 1,000 words a day, and making herself sit there like a naughty child in time out
• Why she cannot write on a plane or in an airport
• Grief at the heart of the book, and the conversation with her husband that inspired it
• Writing with real survivors in mind, and the line she will not cross
• Being a true pantser who does not know how her characters will get out
• Survival as a group effort and not something you do alone
• Where to start with her books: The Last to Drown or Gray After Dark
• The candy drawer that powers the words: peanut butter M&Ms and Twizzlers

Noelle is reading

• Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
• The Witch by Freida McFadden
• The forthcoming book by John Marrs

And finally

If you wear a swimming cap but leave all your hair out underneath it, please tell me why. I am intrigued.

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Get in touch - links:

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | [email protected]

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's past my bedtime, my microphone has given up the ghost, and I've got something to get off my chest: the National Year of Reading. I've been having a dig into where the money is going, and by my calculations the £150,000 set aside for libraries works out at around £41 per library. That's a fair few biscuits, but not many books.

So I'm putting forward some ideas of my own for getting adults reading again:

• Book monitors: volunteers in tabards helping nervous shoppers find the right book, the way a good cheese shop lets you try before you buy
• Making reading cool again, with more famous faces seen with a book in hand
• Audiobooks and graphic novels as an easy way in
• Five minutes a day, with reading streaks to keep you going
• Libraries on trains for long commutes and delays
• World Book Day for adults: a book voucher for everyone, no dressing up required (and maybe a free biscuit)

Are my ideas ridiculous? Have you seen the National Year of Reading making a difference in schools? I'd love to know what you think.

Then it's our October book club roundup of The One You Least Suspect by Brian McGilloway. I've read the second quarter, up to around page 188, and share how it's making me feel, with no spoilers. If you're not reading along, you can stop listening at that point.

I'll be back on Monday with an author interview.

Watch this episode on Apple Podcasts: Quick Book Reviews with Philippa Hall on Apple Podcasts

Get in touch - links:

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | [email protected]

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is a special one — a full interview with Ian Rankin on The Heights, his first standalone thriller in nearly two decades. But first, a confession: I've just been away for the weekend and had a small crisis about how some people can remember every name — actors, characters, everyone — while I can't hold onto a single one. Is it just me? Answers on a postcard (or better yet, in your own colour-coding system, which is apparently what I need).

Then it's on to the books. I'm reviewing three with no spoilers, before sitting down with Ian to talk about how a short story character, Detective Gillian Gish, refused to let him go; why Tottenham and a gleaming Hyde Park high-rise became the perfect collision of two Londons; and why he thinks readers have fallen out of love with police procedurals in an age of institutional corruption. Ian also tells me how the book was written almost entirely at sea, and what would happen if I sent him to write in a tiny, sweltering Tokyo apartment instead. Plus: his verdict on the correct way to eat a chocolate hobnob.

This week's reviews:

• Someone Just Followed You, Liane Child — a propulsive, unsettling look at the world of kidfluencers, told mostly from a teenager's perspective
• Hum, Helen Phillips — winner of the Climate Fiction Prize 2026; gripping, reflective, slightly dystopian, and hard to put down
• The Eyewitness, Naomi Williams — a quick, twisty read about a woman whose eyes shut tight for 48 hours at a time, and the fear that someone is watching when she can't see

Featured book:

The Heights, Ian Rankin

That's this episode — spoiler-free reviews of Someone Just Followed You, Hum, and The Eyewitness, plus Ian Rankin on The Heights.

Get in touch

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | [email protected]

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.