February 2026 round up

Posted on March 3, 2026 by Fiona

Despite being a short month February always seems to drag. When will it be Spring?? (I wrote that a couple of weeks ago – but just as February ended the sun finally came out along with the crocuses and snowdrops, so I feel a bit more hopeful now.)

What I read

One good thing about lousy weather is staying home to read.

Quick stats:
18 books read
33 out of 150 so far
10 ahead of schedule
7 BABALs* (Though the book shop barely features in one of them)
1 Val McDermid
4 new authors
7 library books

February’s 5 star reads:

A Werewolf’s Guide to Seducing a Vampire (Glimmer Falls #3) Sarah Hawley
Eleonore has been trapped in a crystal for most of her adult life, only brought out when her witch captor needs an assassin. And then Ben buys the cheap plastic crystal while browsing eBay in a drunken haze. Another fun trip to Glimmer Falls, a magical town full of witches, werewolves, pixies and more.

Broken Ground (Karen Pirie #5) – Val McDermid
The cold cases team expands from two to three, but their new member is Karen’s boss’s lap dog and can’t be trusted. The three are working on solving an old assault case in 1980s Glasgow but then Karen gets involved in another case where a body has been found buried in the Scottish highlands, alongside two motor bikes. The thing is, the motorbikes have been down there since the end of the second world war, but the body only since the 90s… I finished this in less than a day as I couldn’t put it down.

February’s 4 star reads:

Hurrah for the Circus (Mr Galliano’s Circus #2)
More circus goings on including Jimmy making friends with tigers and Lucky being stolen.

Secret Seven Adventure (Secret Seven #2)
A mystery which involves a stolen necklace, strange circular marks in the ground and a pair of red and blue socks.

The Crooked Tome (Curse Breaker Witches #1) – Claire Robyns
I read all three books in this series really quickly. Maddie has to take over her aunt’s bookshop in Stratford-upon-Avon, and she’s not that thrilled about it. It’s not just having to give up her job and move, it’s the fact that the shop has opinions and isn’t afraid to share them, and she won’t only be selling books but breaking curses for a swathe of England. Besides that she has to work with Detective Ross Hamilton who doesn’t believe in magic despite working for a special magic taskforce, and his alternate theories are really quite funny.

The Avon Mirror Curse (Curse Breaker Witches #2) – Claire Robyns
Maddie has another curse to break as the river seems to be attracting magical victims. Detective Ross Hamilton is on hand to make sure she doesn’t drown herself in the process, but he still refuses to believe it’s magic.

The Widow Kiss (Curse Breaker Witches #3) – Claire Robyns
Beatrice Finch’s wealthy husband has died. This is the third time this has happened to her. Ross is wondering if it’s just bad luck or if something untoward is going on, so he asks Maddie to have a look. At first she doesn’t find anything but then she sees Beatrice tending to a very unusual and definitely magical orchid. Or a rare and toxic orchid if you’re Ross.

Heated Rivalry (Game Changers #2) – Rachel Reid
I picked this because I planned to watch the TV series, having seen fans of Red White and Royal Blue would like it. Just shy of ten hours, I listened to this in two days. Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov have always been hockey rivals. The fans, the media, even their nearest and dearest go wild when they play against each other. The only thing is, they don’t actually hate each other, and haven’t for a long time as they are secretly in a relationship.

Slippery Creatures (Will Darling Adventures #1) – KJ Charles
A golden-age pulp-fiction style spy novel. Will has been struggling since the end of the war, and is glad inherits a bookshop from an uncle. It’s a disorganised mess, but trying to sort it out has to come second to the sudden visitors who come in demanding a mysterious letter that Will knows nothing about. Will isn’t inclined to help either side, but he does accept the help of Kim Secretan, that is, until he finds out who Kim really is. Very twisty and turny and nothing is clear right until the end.

The Sugared Game (Will Darling Adventures #2) – KJ Charles
Will has sworn he wants nothing to do with Kim Secretan after Kim walked out of his life, but then Kim suddenly turns up again and asks for his help. Will decides to trust him but starts to wonder if he’s being double crossed again. Another story full of secrets, lies, half-truths and relief as the dénouement finally takes place and it all begins to make sense.

A Legacy of Lies (Bookshop Mysteries #3) – SA Reeves
Bookshop owner Claire is invited to a will reading of a man she didn’t know and is given a clue to start her off in solving a mystery. The man swore he would never tell anyone this secret, but he figured that giving someone a few clues wasn’t the same as telling it. Claire soon discovers a mystery involving an old case of a headless body dumped in the woods, a police detective’s suicide and a whole lot more twists and turns.

Selkies are a Girl’s Best Friend (Mystic Bayou #4) – Molly Harper
Another snarky, funny and action-packed story from Molly Harper. Mystic Bayou is a town full of magique, people with magical powers and abilities including shape shifting. There’s a rift in the woods which seems to be accelerating the development of magique abilities, and possibly turning dangerous. Sonja works for the League – an agency monitoring the rift – while selkie Will has returned to the Bayou to work as a doctor. They have to work together with other league staff to try to resolve the situation while falling for each other.

Always Be My Banshee (Mystic Bayou #5) – Molly Harper
This time both Cordelia (a touch psychic) and Brendan (a banshee) are new to Mystic Bayou, having been called in to assess the artifact found within the rift by Sonja and Will. Cordelia normally can’t touch anyone without being bombarded with visions, but Brendan is technically dead, and so she’s safe around him. Well, apart from the fact that he’s flirting with her and she hasn’t dated in a long time.

February’s three star reads:

Emma – Jane Austen
My first classic of the year, this took me a long time to get through (about three weeks) but for the 15 hour audiobook. It required more concentration than a ‘regular’ book so I tended to listen in smaller chunks. Emma is not very likeable – but I think that’s rather the point – as she goes about assuming she knows best and meddling in the romantic lives of her friends and neighbours and generally getting it wildly wrong.

Five and the Smuggler’s Code (New Famous Five #2) – Chris Smith
I have reviewed this here and here, but in short, Maddie, Fran and Tom end up at Castaway Hill with Anne to try to rescue George, and end up chasing stolen treasure down in the catacombs.

Well Done, Secret Seven (Secret Seven #3)
A slow start where the Seven build a treehouse before meeting a boy with a strange tale about red pillows and Emma Lane. They do figure out what these mean but hand it all over to the police to deal with.

Game Changer (Game Changers #1) – Rachel Reid
I’m not all that sure I would have read book 2 if I’d happened to read this first, and hadn’t known about the TV series. The plot isn’t as interesting – Kip works in a smoothie shop and Scott is a hockey star. There are no out hockey stars so they have to keep their relationship a secret from everyone, but it takes a toll on them both. Also Kip had the weirdest accent, it was supposed to be from the Bronx but I thought it sounded more German while a lot of other people guessed a variety of countries… I sped this up to get through it in three days.

February’s two star reads

The Bookshop at the Cornish Cove – Kim Nash
Another one that on paper I should have loved but didn’t. I like an enemies-to-lovers plot but Dennis is just plain rude and tries to claim they got off on the wrong foot a few too many times. Meanwhile, Nancy has opened a bookshop without a single clue about how to run a business. I actually agree with her about being kind to the planet and not pushing a hard sell on customers, but she’s insufferable about it.

Not yet rated as I didn’t finish them in February:

  • The Official Reading Companion & History Briefings for the Chronicles of St Marys – Hazel Cushion
  • A Deadly Deceit (Bookshop Mysteries #4) – SA Reeves
  • Road Trip With a Vampire (My Vampires #3) – Jenna Levine

What I watched

  • We finally finished Only Murders in the Building, and have watched some more of The Simpsons.
  • I’ve continued with Byker Grove and Call the Midwife but also watched all of Heated Rivalry and started on the latest series of All Creatures Great and Small.
  • My sister and I finished Girl Bands Forever.
  • We watched The Desolation of Smaug one weekend when it was raining (again) and Brodie loved it.

What I did

  • For a lot of the time we were hunkering at home hiding from the rain, but a couple of times the sun came out and I went out for a walk, stopping off on the hill nearby to enjoy the view. We also made it to the beach for a walk and I collected a few bits of glass and pottery and a glass medicine bottle. I don’t think it’s very old but it’s in one piece, and it make a nice little case for some of my mini Lego flowers.
  • Made some soup with Brodie’s help
  • Took Brodie to the park on the inservice day and we read our books together.
  • Built one set of Lego flowers (the dandelion) and half of another flower set. Brodie built me a vase to put them.
  • We started playing the original Broken Sword (a remastered version) and it’s worrying how much I remember considering I first played it at least twenty years ago (but I did play it three, maybe four times?).

What I bought

I have finally added one more magazine to my collection, meaning that I only need three to complete it. I got Volume 4 issue 24 when the seller finally dropped the price. He was selling 3 for £15 which is decent enough, but I only needed one and he had been listing the same 3 at that price for about a year without selling them. They went down to £10 and I thought I’d better grab them before someone else did.

How was your February?

*Books About Bookshops and Libraries

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Monday #781

Posted on March 2, 2026 by Fiona

February is over and we are into March. We are wondering if we can cast aside the puffer jackets now and wear just raincoats. Best not to, though, it could start snowing next week after all.

February round up

and

Putting Enid Blyton on the map

There’s a new trailer out for The Magic Faraway Tree film. Some of the clips are the same but there are plenty of new glimpses of the world they have created.

You can watch it on here:

And I’ll probably do a post on it like I did for the last trailer but I’d better hurry up as it comes out at the end of the month!

 

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The New Famous Five: Five and the Smugglers Code part 2

Posted on February 27, 2026 by Fiona

In my previous post I talked about the characters – and I was glad to see some comments agreeing with me about Anne – and the general story.

Retcons all round

For those of you unfamiliar with the term retcon is short for retroactive continuity, which basically means a new installment/episode of a book, tv or film series introducing material which contradicts earlier information given.

Sometimes these are plausible(ish) like Moriarty coming back from the dead after the Reichenbach Fall (or Dirty Den returning after being shot and falling into the canal, if 1980’s soap references are more your thing).

Other times they are much less possible and open to nitpicking like Dr Grant mentioning Ian Malcolm’s funeral at the end of Jurassic Park, yet him being alive in the next book.

Anyway, there are various things in this book that come off as a bit unbelievable or sometimes plain wrong if you’ve read the original books.

First up there’s a hidey hole in the hallway of Kirrin Cottage (yes, I said cottage, not farm.) George apparently just keeps on finding new ones. I picture the cottage like the room Gerald Whinfrey stays in in Whinfrey’s Last Case from Michael Palin’s Ripping Yarns. There he finds 23 different secret passages which reveal themselves one after another and he has a hard time deciding which one to escape via (also yes, I have referenced that episode in another Famous Five context – Peril in the Night Train.)

Do we really believe that the Five never found any of these when they were younger? The way it’s written implies that George is still finding them to this day.

The whole catacombs map thing is also exaggerated (and I’m not sure it makes sense when you think about it).

First Anne thinks that Clay couldn’t be using the catacombs as they’re dangerous and there’s no known map. Then she remembers that

There used to be one! It’s been lost for countless years, but George must have worked out a clue about where it was hidden.

So it is known, then?

Then we get the flashback portion of the book, set just after the events of Five Go to Smuggler’s Top.

‘Didn’t you say something about a map of the catacombs, Sooty, the very first time we climbed down into the passages from the trapdoor in Marybelle’s bedroom?’ asked George.

‘Yes, there’s supposed to be a secret map hidden somewhere’, [Sooty] replied. ‘That’s what the old stories say. But it was lost long ago.’

I couldn’t even remember them discussing a map of the catacombs before, but it is there – one single throwaway remark.

‘Well, I told you this hill was full of tunnels,’ said Sooty. ‘This pit is down in the hill and these tunnels lead into the catacombs. There are miles and miles of them. No one explores them now, because so many people have been lost in them and never heard of again. There used to be an old map of them, but it’s lost.’

From this point on everyone behaves as if this one map is an established fact.

I’ll save the rest of the not-making-sense for my main nitpicks later.

Inside Smuggler’s Top scenes are set in a tower which does not resemble the only tower mentioned in the original book – where Block was smuggling from. I was going to be generous and say that the house could have more than one tower. But I actually checked the book.

‘That must be Smuggler’s Top, right at the summit,’ said Julian, pointing. ‘It’s like an old building of centuries ago—probably is! Look at the tower it has. What a wonderful view you’d get from it.’

and

The house’s one tower stood sturdily at the east side of the house, with windows all round. It was not a square tower, but a rounded one, and ended in a point.

rather prove my point.

Then we have what’s more of a nitpick than a retcon where George refers to the bedroom with the window seat/secret passage as ‘that bedroom my father stayed in all those years ago‘ and later ‘my father’s room‘. Surely she means Sooty’s bedroom, which Uncle Quentin happened to stay in for a brief period that one time?

Anyway, this room is directly below the tower room that George and Anne were locked in. There’s never any suggestion in the book that the tower is directly above Sooty’s room or that Sooty’s room is in the tower. It doesn’t expressly say it’s not, but given that Sooty’s room is down a long corridor, and the tower has a landing and then a spiral staircase… it seems unlikely at best.

The nitpicks

Now there are certainly nitpicks in the original books. And there are specifically nitpicks that this book tries to avoid and makes almost worse.

In Five Go to Smuggler’s Top they put Timmy into a big laundry basket as obviously he can’t climb down a rope ladder. Yet there are other scenes (which I can’t remember off the top of my head) where Timmy magically appears at the bottom of a ladder without explanation.

This book tries to make sure that doesn’t happen. So Fran puts Gilbert inside her jacket for the first long ladder – but let’s remember that Fran’s a child and Gilbert is a border collie, not a chihuahua. She later abseils down a rocky cliff with him tucked under her arm.

Later George climbs down a slippery ladder with a torch in her teeth, but she and Gilbert land at the bottom with no mention of her actually having picked him up.

On a related note we are also supposed to believe that George, alone, can carry a burly guard up a ladder.

The map/catacombs/train/port thing makes very little sense. To be fair it makes about as much sense as the original spook train in Five Go Off to Camp. To modernise the book we have a proper port with goods presumably being checked as they enter it. To avoid this Clay has built a train track from a warehouse at the port all the way into the catacombs of Smuggler’s Top. And nobody at the port notices them loading their boat (a yacht, not even a cargo ship…) with way more goods than came in the gate? Or the extra people who keep appearing out of the warehouse? Also; wow what an expense that must have been.

To return to the map, well, why are they after it exactly? To stop Clay who they suspect is using the catacombs – but they already say he must have added new tunnels thus changing the layout. Yet the original Five navigate the catacombs several times without the map – including that time in the flashback where they seem to walk straight to the hidden clue to the map without any wrong turns at all.

Which leads me to why did whoever own the map decide to paint over it and hang it in Smuggler’s Top, then leave a clue in a journal in the catacombs?

Minor niggles include:

  • Smuggler’s Top having had lots of high tech security features added but the locks being easy to pick. (There was an element of a trap being laid, so I can let no alarms blaring slide.)
  • The children and Anne having a lengthy conversation right in front of Clay while he presumably waits politely for them to finish, and more conversation during what’s supposed to be a fight scene
  • Belle is said to be acting weird without any sign of her acting weird
  • The secret passage in the Mermaid Inn is accessed by turning a coat hook the right way up. Surely that’s far too obvious and would lead to accidental access?
  • In the heat of the adventure Anne meekly goes back to the inn to call the police. There’s no suggestion of finding a phone at Smuggler’s Top, using a mobile or trying a neighbour, but I suppose they wanted her out of the way so that George and the kids could be the heroes again?
  • Clay takes Gilbert as a prisoner, as in puts him in a crate and loads him onto the train to take to the port. Why? Sure, lock him up to keep him from being a nuisance (obviously they can’t kill him, it’s a children’s book) but it makes no sense to try to smuggle him out with all the valuable goods.
  • The number of times the crown with the big diamond is mentioned. The crown which is always just loose. Not in a box or anything to protect it, just sitting on a pedestal underground and then being carried about in the open.

The illustrations (aside from using a style I’m not keen on) also have a couple of issues. One shows the stolen loot as if it was gold coins and gems spilling all over the floor. While I wouldn’t put this past the folk who keep a crown loose, it doesn’t match the description in the text.

Towards the end there’s an illustration of them having a picnic and Dick has his walking stick next to him, only it’s so short it would never reach the ground if it was in his hand.

Do I have anything good to say about this?

I think Brodie would have enjoyed it, as he has all the discerned taste of an 8 year old and is the target audience.

There’s a nice call back where Alf is looking after George’s dog like he used to look after Timmy.

It was good to reunite three of the five, characterisations aside, and to see Marybelle again. It was almost good to see Smuggler’s Top though the security systems and the modern lift spoiled it, as did much of the plot.

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Letters to Enid part 81: From volume 4, issue 18

Posted on February 25, 2026 by Fiona

Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from Volume 4, issue 18.
September 26th – October 9th, 1956.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

A letter from Susan Herrin, Shiplake, Oxon.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I am very pleased to say that I have saved every magazine from the very first issue. Not long ago, I and my friend Susan and my father, constructed a kite. We bought a six-foot cane, and cut it into two lengths, one 2 feet long and the other 3 feet. One foot away from the end of the longer cane we fixed the shorter one as a crossbar. We bound them together with some strong string. Then we cut slits at each end of the canes, and went round and round the canes with the string, fixing it in the notches. We went round four times, and then knotted the ends together. Then my father cut a piece a little larger than the kite out of his old parachute (the piece was the same shape as the kite). Then I stuck it on to the kite, the extra pieces folded over like a hem. We made a very long tail and fixed it on. We got some kite string and tied it on, and then we went to Christmas Common and the kite flew beautifully.
Good luck to you from
Susan Herrin.

(I have printed your excellent letter, which wins my prize, because I think other children may like to make a kite like yours, Susan!)

A letter from Morag Park, Kirkcaldy.
Dear Enid Blyton,
In our garden there lives a black- bird that we nicknamed Blackie. He sits on Mummy’s knee and chirps a song to her. He has two babies, who can just fly. When they were hatched Blackie brought them to show Mummy. One day we threw some cherries on the grass, and Blackie picked two up and stuffed them into his babies’ mouths, and nearly choked them! Love from
Morag Park.

(You are lucky to have a tame blackbird, Morag. I wonder if anyone else has.)

A letter from Mary Browne, Aviemore.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I had a garden tea some time ago at my grandmother’s house. Along with four friends I worked as a waitress, and my granny and mother baked all the cakes and scones for the teas. I send you £2 Is. od. for your Children’s Home for children who are not so lucky as I am.
Love from
Mary Browne.

(You must have had great fun Mary-and I think you are very kind.)

I had not heard of Oxon before but looked it up to discover it’s short for Oxfordshire. It turns out I’ve been near to Shiplake before as it’s only five miles (by road, less as the crow flies) from Loddon Hall where the Enid Blyton Society Days used to be held. It’s also only about fifteen miles from where Blyton lived at Old Thatch, though she had left there fifteen years before this letter was written, and about 20 miles from Green Hedges where she would have been living in 1956.

The other two letters come from nearer to me than Blyton. Kirkcaldy is in Fife and Aviemore is in the Cairngorms and I’ve been to both many times.

But enough geography lessons as I’ve just wasted a good twenty minutes looking at random places on Google maps!

I really wanted a Mary Poppins let’s go fly a kite quote in there, but this is ten years too early for the film with Julie Andrews. I’ve read the first PL Travers book and don’t recall there being kite flying in it, but apparently in the second book has Michael pulling Mary Poppins down from the clouds with a kite.

Mary’s is the first fund-raising in a wee while – since August 1956 in fact.

Although different to the tame bird letter in our previous letters page I thought this a good place to share info on what to do if you find a young or injured wild bird in your garden or out and about. A commenter on the previous post was right in saying that it’s often not the best idea to swoop in and ‘rescue’ it. Advice is different depending on the age of the bird (nestling vs fledgling) and also depends on where the bird is and if it is in danger.

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/if-you-find-an-injured-bird

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Monday #780

Posted on February 23, 2026 by Fiona

I’ve had to take my sunglasses out with me for a few times recently. The crocuses and snowdrops are out. Spring may be just around the corner! (Or we may plunge back into deep winter. I’m not ruling anything out at this point.)

Letters to Enid part 81

and

The New Famous Five: The Smuggler’s Code part 2

All things Spring as the title suggests!

 

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The New Famous Five: Five and the Smuggler’s Code

Posted on February 22, 2026 by Fiona

Just like last time I borrowed this from the library and procrastinated through two renewals before I actually got around to reading it.

Like last time, I have mixed feelings now I have read it.

First thoughts

I’m used to the cover art style now – though they still remind me of Stare Dad. This one has no shiny gold bits though.

There is a map again. I will quote exactly what I typed when I saw that map.

OMG IS THIS THE ACTUAL SMUGGLER’S TOP WITH THE MARSH DRAINED???

As Smuggler’s Top and Castaway Hill are both marked I think you’d have to assume so. I think my all caps comment show how excited I was about that. I may have mentioned before that Five Go To Smuggler’s Top is my favourite Enid Blyton book, and I’ve always wished that the Five would have gone back there for another adventure. I’ve always wondered if Quentin and Lenoir would manage to drain the marshes and what the area would be like.

I was, however, after that initial high, wary of whether the book would capture what I loved about the original.

I had to wait to find out as the book starts back at Kirrin where Maddie, Fran and Tom find Kirrin Cottage empty and George missing. Has she been whisked off to the catacombs of Castaway Hill or has she just gone out and forgotten to lock up, like the forgetful scientist she apparently is now?

George, Anne and Dick (sorry Ju)

The previous book introduced us to adult – very much older adult – George who is now a scientist like her father. At the end of that book we also saw Anne who is now a famous detective.

We meet Anne again here as she turns up at Kirrin. George, we discover via flashback, has been taken by Clay – her mysterious enemy from the first book.

Anne is then the main adult as she takes the children to Castaway Hill where Clay now owns Smuggler’s Top.

At this point I was seeing a pattern emerging but I didn’t follow it through far enough. I was thinking that we’d had a main book with George, and now we seemed to be getting one with Anne. I assumed the next two would each feature Julian and Dick. And then maybe a full reunion? I forgot about Anne being introduced near the end of the first book (in the very final chapters after the adventure is over.)

I was therefore a little surprised when Dick showed up amidst the drama of the final part of the adventure.

I wasn’t entirely sold on this adult George before, and I remain unsold now. She is at least fairly consistent between the two books. She is also still gung-ho about leaping into adventures without looking which is accurate.

Anne I’m also not sure of. While I know that people change as they grow up and don’t have to stick to what they liked as children I find it hard to take Anne – famous detective and martial arts expert – that seriously as the same person who loved nothing more than playing house. She was brave but she was never leading the way when it came to adventuring or snooping.

Likewise, Dick turning up with his own boat and wearing a captain’s hat just seems off. He has a walking stick, a big beard and a bag leg, which make him seem a lot older than the year he has on Anne. He did love George’s rowing boat but him as a stereotypical sea captain? Nope.

The story

Like the first book there is a section which is about the original Famous Five, though this seemed a lot shorter and less fleshed out.

After the events of Five Go to Smuggler’s Top the Five stayed at the house while Quentin and Lenoir discussed their marsh-draining scheme. They decide to have another explore of the catacombs and – with incredible ease, aided only by a ball of string, walk directly to a large cave where they find a smuggler’s lair, and a secret journal. The journal says that:

The key, the map, the Smuggler’s code
Lies behind the tempest

The Five assume this means the painting of a ship at Smuggler’s Top but are unable to figure it out.

Ugh – the Five were never foiled once! I actually found this pretty annoying.

Anyway, with George believed to be being held at Smuggler’s Top, Anne and the kids arrive in Castaway and stay with Marybelle who now owns an inn. They’d like to find the map as well as George. They break into the house and are caught, but the children escape with the painting.

Anne gets put in with George, to which I wrote:

Lock Anne up with George? That’s a terrible idea. They may only be 2/5ths of the Five but…

I was right and they escape.

The story then turns more towards Indiana Jones or James Bond with a mad journey down an underground railway, a collapsing pyramid of barrels, a fight on a forklift which is careering (as much as a forklift can career, I suppose) towards the edge of the dock, and a yacht/speedboat chase.

Phew! Obviously, it all ends well and the New Famous Five (as they just KEEP referring to themself as) solve both the mystery of the tempest and prevent Clay escaping.

I have been checking my review of the first book to refresh my memory and I’m glad to see I split that into two parts. That means I can do the same here!

 

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Letters to Enid part 80: From volume 4, issue 17

Posted on February 18, 2026 by Fiona

Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from Volume 4, issue 17.
September 12th – 25th, 1956.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

A letter from Alison Aston, Beaconsfield, Bucks.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I am writing to tell you about my pet owl, called Oswald. About a month ago I was in the wood at the bottom of my garden and I heard a kind of clicking noise, and suddenly out came a tiny owlet, very fluffy, not more than two weeks old. I picked him up and took him home because he was starving and might be caught by a cat. Daddy was most surprised to see Oswald, and I thought I ought to take him back for his mother to find – but I didn’t think she could carry him back to the nest. But neither Daddy nor Mummy had the heart to send him back, for already he had snuggled up in my arms and was asleep. Mummy and I got a box ready for him. We put leaves at the bottom, then some newspaper to keep any draught out, then more leaves and a blanket on top. We put Oswald into it, and he was soon snuggled up asleep, though he wouldn’t eat a thing. For three days he went without food – and then suddenly one night Mummy called us out of bed – and there was Oswald in the kitchen, sitting on the table looking very proud of himself – and eating rabbit by the pound! After two months Oswald began to grow feathers, and at first I was upset to see him shake off his lovely down. A month later he was flying so we set him free. He flew into the wood – but when he felt hungry he came back again, especially as we always whistled when food was ready! Sometimes he flies indoors and on to my bed at nights. Often he flies down on our heads when we go into the garden – he watches for us from a tree. I send you a photo of Oswald. Lots of love from your Club member.
Alison Aston (age 10).

(This is the first time I have given up the whole of our Letter-Page to one letter – but it is such a remarkable one, and so very interesting and well-written, that I knew all my readers would enjoy it. The photograph of Oswald is lovely – the dearest little owl you ever saw! Thank you, Alison – you have given me much pleasure – and I am sure the readers will agree with me that you deserve our prize!)

I was going to point out that this is the first time I have seen a letters page dedicated to just one letter, but Blyton beat me to it!

It is a very interesting letter, and I agree that it was worthy of the letter prize. I’m glad this one wasn’t abridged to squeeze in other letters.

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Monday #789

Posted on February 16, 2026 by Fiona

We’ve had some actual sunshine in the past few days. I even had my sunglasses on today. It’s still cold but there’s actual daylight and I even hung my washing outside for a while at the weekend. It’s the little things, you know?

Letters to Enid part 80

and

Five and the Smuggler’s Code

There has been a new poster released for The Magic Faraway Tree film and a release date – March 27th!

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Reading The Secret Mountain to Brodie

Posted on February 15, 2026 by Fiona

We read this between December 24 and January 25, so a bit more than a year ago now!

Fast edits

I think I had to do the most updating on the fly of all the books we’ve read so far. Thankfully we read this before I started getting Brodie to read paragraphs himself.

Some of the things I changed were

  • Eaten by savages / savage tribes
  • The natives
  • The black man / the black boy (at least not over and over again)
  • Ignorant
  • Mafumu’s hero worship of Jack
  • The girls treatment compared with the boys

While I’m sure many people used some of these words at the time, I don’t think there’s anything to gain by reading them in a story like this, not where they are treated as normal and acceptable.

I’ve written about my problems with using natives before, here, and again used phrases like the locals or local people.

While it’s accurate that Mafumu and his uncle are black, using the word almost every single time they are mentioned feels uncomfortable and unnecessary so it was easy to just say the boy or the man. I sometimes used Mafumu in place of the black boy if my brain was quick enough to make the substitution.

Jack’s behaviour in trying to protect Mafumu was admirable and I think anyone would be grateful in that situation but the level of hero worship also felt uncomfortable what with talk of slaves and wonderful white boy – a king of boys. Here I just tried to tone down the hero worship a little.

I think there were only two times that the girls were treated much differently to the boys which makes a nice change

One was the girls being carried across the stepping stones in the river while the boys were allowed to cross by themselves. I said the girls were helped across instead. Still not quite equal, but an improvement!

The second was near the end I said somebody should be on guard instead of just the Captain, Jack or Mike. That then included the girls as well as Mafumu and Mrs Arnold, as surely anyone could take a turn at staying awake and watching for the mountain folk approaching the temple?

 Voice work

Reading in my head I can pronounce things however I want. Saying them out loud with an audience (even just an audience of one) I suddenly start to wonder if I’ve got it right.

How do you pronounce Pilescu? Does it begin with Pil as in Pill? Or Pile? Do you pronounce the eh sound in the middle? Is the end have a q/cue sound or is it coo?

Personally I say Pill-ess-cue and as it’s a made up name I suppose I can’t be wrong?

Pilescu and Ranni (at least that’s easy to say!) as Baronians still have their vaguely German-sounding accents. I didn’t really attempt any sort of accent for Mafumu or his Uncle, their broken English gave them a distinct enough voice already.

Brodie’s questions and comments

  • An aeroplane? Now they can go and look for their parents! Is that what this book is going to be about? Them going to rescue their parents?
  • Yes! They’re going to go!
  • Whaat? How could he go look for himself? (In response to I don’t want to wake up in the morning and find that we have disappeared too. I should just hate to go and look for myself!)
  • Crocodiles! (I think he was slightly disappointed that they don’t meet one even though there’s an illustration of one.)

  • So they’re going to have to go to the Secret Mountain and find the secret way in – that’s going to be the adventure! Or maybe they can land their plane on the top like they did in that other book! (I think I actually disagreed with him on that and said only helicopters can land on mountain tops… I had obviously forgotten the ending!)

  • Lots of laughing at Mafumu’s funny way of using the words he had learned
  • Open sesame! (He said this quite a few times after that when opening things but has since forgotten about it. I had to try to explain who Ali Baba and the 40 thieves were and how they were relevant, but were not going to be in the book themselves.)
  • I know. The mountain people live in a cave! (He described the cave which was the fern cave from The Valley of Adventure.)
  • He was worried the big rock would fall on Ranni if he pushed it the wrong way.

  • Jack and Mafumu are going to have to rescue them!!
  • How does the lift work??
  • It’s the aeroplane they’re coming to the rescue
  • He was sad to leave Mafumu behind – but not as sad as he was about the puffins in The Sea of Adventure.

 

 

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January 2026 round up

Posted on February 12, 2026 by Fiona

January has finally ended! It always feels like such a long month. However February is really just January part 2, and more of the same.

What I read

I set my reading goal to 150 books again and I made a good start in January with 15 books read.

Quick stats:
1 BABAL*
4 Val McDermids
4 new authors
4 library books

I’m changing things up here, so bear with me.

January’s 5 star reads:

Out of Bounds (Karen Pirie #4) – Val McDermid
Another gripping cold case for Karen Pirie and Jason “The Mint” Murray to investigate, all while riling her boss by solving cases that they aren’t supposed to have anything to do with. Couldn’t put this down and read it in 24 hours.

A Brush With the Past 1900-1950 – Shirley Hughes
A really beautiful book packed with gorgeous period illustrations. Probably aimed at children but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping – Sagu Mandana
This was funny, touching and witty. I’d already read The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches and this has the same hallmarks of found family, magical shenanigans and some romance.

January’s 4 star reads:

Trick of the Dark – Val McDermid
This is a stand-alone following a suspended psychologist as they are asked to investigate whether or not a mutual acquaintance is actually a serial killer. Very clever and kept me guessing. I actually wish that there were more books about Charlie Flint.

Final Edition (Lindsey Gordon #3) – Val McDermid
Another story about journalist Lindsey Gordon as she returns to Scotland and has to investigate a murder where she knows – if not likes – most of the suspects, and has to reveal a really rather unexpected culprit. Another one I read in about 24 hours.

Winter: The Story of a Season – Val McDermid
A wander through winter and what it means for Val McDermid. Perfect for reading while cosied up at home at this time of year.

The Cornish Castle Murder (Nosey Parker #8) – Fiona Leitch
Another fun book about Jodie Parker sticking her nose into a murder. Well, it happens at the hotel she’s about to get married at, so it’s hardly surprising. Audiobook was read by the brilliant Zara Ramm who I just love listening to.

80s Ghosts – V.S. Lawrence
I found this by an advert on Facebook and it reminded me of Stranger Things, though in actual fact is not very like Stranger Things at all. Instead it is about three people who are trying to make a living with a ghost hunting YouTube channel. So far none of the haunted houses have been haunted, and then they are invited to a school where dozens of students died in a fire during a dance. Spooky, surprising and very touching at times.

A Touch of Dead (Sookie Stackhouse Short Stories) – Charlaine Harris
I’ve been listening to the series at night when I fall asleep and felt like reading this collection again as it explains some events which are referenced in the main books.

All the Little Liars (Aurora Teagarden #9) – Charlaine Harris
This is my third time reading this (and I only had the vaguest recollection of the who and why dunnits). Lawrenceton – a small southern town – has had another murder. Aurora investigates but is more focussed on the fact that her teenage brother Phillip and his friends have gone missing. She’s sure they’re not responsible for the murder, but if not, where the heck are they?

Sleep Like a Baby (Aurora Teagarden #10) – Charlaine Harris
My third reading of this one too, and surprise surprise Aurora stumbles upon another corpse. This time it’s in her own backyard, though actually this isn’t the first time that’s happened either! She’s got the flu and a new baby to look after, her husband is away on a book tour so it’s a real challenge for her.

Creepy Crafts – Ashley Voortman
I love Ashley’s videos where she creates haunted houses/haunted teapots/haunted violins etc etc. This is a guide to making a variety of creepy objects and is full of her trademark snark and humour. (And her obsession with circle windows.)

January’s three star reads:

Accidental Magic (Myrtlewood Mysteries #1) – Iris Beaglehole
I wanted to like this more as it’s right up my street. Woman inherits house, discovers she’s a witch, there’s a whole big mystery surrounding her grandmother’s death. Unfortunately there’s some sort of spell (I think) making our main character forgetful so it was very frustrating as she bumbles about idiotically. The narrator was also dreadful and every character sounded like they smoked a hundred a day, even the teenage daughter. May try book two by ebook to see if that helps.

The Home Front Nurses – Rachel Brimble
Another one I thought I’d like more as it’s one of my favourite genres. I think this one had too much ‘tell’ and inner thoughts and not enough ‘show’. There was a huge focus on how these three girls were such amazing friends but it happened in an instant and was mostly talk. The setting was also quite far removed from the war, making it all talk and little action again. I may try book two to see if the series improves.

January’s two star reads

The Bookshop on the Beach – J C Williams
Again, something I should have loved – a bookshop by the beach. Except it was run by an idiot who couldn’t see that the very obviously bad person was sabotaging her. The writing was also annoying – every sentence went on forever and constantly repeated itself. Paraphrasing here but things like – “Why is he acting that way,” she thought, wondering why he was acting that way. What’s worse is that every character spoke this way as well as the narrator!

January’s one star reads:

None, thankfully!

Not yet rated as I didn’t finish them in January:

  • The Bookshop at the Cornish Cove – Kim Nash
  • Hurrah for the Circus
  • Emma – Jane Austen
  • The Official Reading Companion & History Briefings for the Chronicles of St Marys – Hazel Cushion

 

What I watched

  • We finished Only Connect, and have continued with The Simpsons a few nights a week as Brodie loves it (even though he doesn’t get 90% of the jokes!) We’ve also watched a little more of Only Murders in the Building but haven’t finished it yet.
  • I’ve watched a bit more of Byker Grove, and have reached 2002. I don’t think I was watching it as frequently by this point but I still vaguely recognise new characters as they appear so I must have seen bits of it. I’ve also watched some of H20 Just Add Water. I’ve never seen this before but was intrigued after seeing some parodies of it online. In a nutshell three Aussie girls turn into mermaids and grow tails any time they get wet. It’s weirdly compelling! My other solo watch has been Call the Midwife which seems to be wrapping up the 197os Poplar story, given that the real-life order moved out of Poplar and midwifery at that time mostly due to the massive increase in hospital births.
  • My sister and I watched the first two episodes of Girl Bands Forever which pretty much told the same story as Boy Bands Forever – record companies signing up teenagers and then working them until they had breakdowns.
  • We watched The Hobbit with Brodie, which he loved, but also said You should have shown me this before Lord of the Rings!

What I did

It feels as if it has rained constantly since the New Year so we haven’t been out much at all.

  • Celebrated new year and introduced Telestrations to other family members. Much hilarity ensued. The photos below were part of one round which started as an ambulance which was guessed as a tank… which became the person trapped in an ice skate which was guessed as a boat.
  • Another of the jigsaws I got for Christmas – Lego Ice Cream this time.
  • Had lunch out for my mother in law’s birthday and lunch in for my mum’s.
  • Some colouring in with the new pens I treated myself to.

How was your January?

*Books About Bookshops and Libraries

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Monday #788

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Fiona

A couple of weeks ago I was silently congratulating myself for not catching Brodie’s cough. He had been coughing for a week or more and I was certain we were past the danger phase.

I was wrong. I caught the cough and somehow also a bit of a temperature and a lot of feeling quite ill, which he hadn’t even had. It was bound to happen sooner or later, it felt especially likely seeing as he had somehow avoided any bugs in December.

I have finally stopped coughing now, so normal(ish) service can resume.

January round up

and

Reading The Secret Mountain to Brodie

Lego set of the week

This isn’t one of my usual Monday headings as you can tell by the lack of banner. But I forgot to share something I got at Christmas! It was a Jack Trent camera. Ok, it was this set which can be built into a retro camera, a camcorder or a little retro TV. I went for the camera, of course.

It comes with six stickers for the (colour) negatives. Unusually for me I did not follow the instructions exactly and put the three animal ones on one roll of film so that it can sit beside the camera and look like photos Jack might have taken. If he went to the zoo or on safari.

And of course where you find Jack and his camera you will also find Kiki.

 

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2025 Birthday and Christmas Present round up

Posted on January 22, 2026 by Fiona

Every year without fail I am the lucky recipient of some Blyton-themed stuff when it comes to my birthday and Christmas.

Here’s what it looked like this year.

Famous Five Jigsaw

This is a 1975 Whitman 224 piece puzzle of Five Fall Into Adventure. There were three others made – Five On a Treasure Island, Five Go to Smuggler’s Top and Five Go to Demon’s Rocks.

Sadly mine came with only 214 pieces, one of which was for a different jigsaw – but that’s always the risk you take with older kids’ puzzles, toys and games!

Famous Five Graphic Novels

I’ve already got the first four graphic novels by Beja and Natiel, so these are the recently released next two in the series.

Famous Five Adventures

Apparently there are 20 of these! The first ones are actually Blyton-written and are the short stories collected in Five Have a Puzzling Time and Other Stories, but then the rest are new short stories by other authors.

I’ve never read any of these before but I couldn’t resist asking for one set in a library.

Child Whispers

Not the rare (aka expensive) 1922 version, but still one that has all the poems in and which I was intrigued enough by to ask for.

Amongst other things I was also lucky enough to get a couple of books about Shirley Hughes:

And a Lego 3-in-1 set which can be a typewriter, a keytar or a flower pot. Naturally I’m going to build it as the typewriter and although I know that Blyton’s typewriter wasn’t pink, it’ll remind me of her anyway.

Let me know in the comments if you got any Blytonian presents last year!

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Monday #785

Posted on January 19, 2026 by Fiona

It’s January, it’s still cold, I’ve probably moaned far too much about the weather for a lifetime already, so on to something more cheerful perhaps?

Brodie has been persuaded to return to Circus Days Again so we have been reading that most evenings – and I even realised I can make notes in Bookmory so when I log which page I got to I can add any of his comments and questions. That way I a) won’t forget what he said when it finally gets around to me writing a post about it and b) will be able to find my notes as opposed to hunting for them in my notes app/blog drafts/messages to Stef.

2025 Birthday and Christmas present round up

and

Reading The Secret Mountain to BrodieAs it turns out I’ve never reviewed any of the Galliano’s Circus books either. Just what have I been writing for the past thirteen years??

Instead I can offer a post about the Galliano covers.

The Mr Galliano’s Circus covers through the years

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Reading The Secret of Spiggy Holes to Brodie

Posted on January 18, 2026 by Fiona

I’m way behind on these, and this is the best I could manage based on a handful of notes and memories. We actually read this in November 2024.

Questions and answers

It’s not a reading session with Brodie without at least one question. The first came before we even started reading.

SPIGGY holes? What’s a spiggy hole? That’s a really weird name for a book. Like so many questions the answer here was along the lines of Let me get on with reading it and you’ll find out.

George – like George from the Famous Five? She has a boat too! Sadly not a crossover, but I reckon George Kirrin could have done everything this George did, and more. For a while the Famous Five seemed to be stuck in his head though recently I asked him about them and he couldn’t remember any of their names!

Could they row to their island? No, because the island is on a lake not in the sea!

They want his boat? So they can go fishing too? They being the Diazes and Luiz, so no. I asked him to think about that for a moment and see if he could come up with another reason for wanting the boat and he suggested they needed it for their smuggling. (Really they wanted it so that nobody could be rowing around and seeing what they were up to.)

He really wanted to know what they were going to smuggle and asked if it was going to be Gems, treasure, gold? I think he was confusing smuggled goods with pirate treasure.

Baronia? Is that a real place? Sadly no.

Miscellaneous interruptions

 When the boys mention that they are not too far from their island he really wanted them to go see it again.

Not for the first time he confused Blyton’s habit of speaking directly to the reader for me speaking to him. (She didn’t guess what a strange time the children would have—poor Miss Dimity!)

He was very concerned about them getting trapped in the caves as he knows about tides and how dangerous they can be.

mike, peggy, jack and nora walking through a secret passage

When Mike asked Jack how the men got onto the beach Brodie immediately said A secret passage. Hardly surprising given the number of secret passages we’ve read about already. He didn’t work out that it was coming from Old House, though, as he was maybe thinking more of the Wrecker’s Way from Five Go Down to the Sea.

He was thrilled to hear about Another secret passage! and also thrilled when they decided to go back to their island.

He can’t hear me read Little bit of bread and no cheese! without doing his own tuneful imitation.

There was a fair bit of laughter at He put on both his stockings inside out, and buttoned his coat up wrong—but who minded. He also very much enjoyed Mr Diaz and Luiz getting their comeuppance when the boys stole their boat.

Spiggy surprises

Things that prompted gasps:

Smugglers! – I bet there still are smugglers and they’re going to catch them.

The various trips sneaking around old house as he was certain they were going to get caught every time. Particularly when Jack was a klutz and walked into a tin bath.

Honestly, that’s one problem with Blyton’s adventure books. It feels like every other chapter ends with a cliffhanger and it makes saying no to just one more chapter even harder.

The rockfalls had him very tense, I think he half-expected them to be crushed to death any moment. Not very Blytonian!

My experience

This was pretty easy to read. I went for a very slight accent which was probably closest to Mexican for the Diazes and Luiz.

There was very little I felt needed changing besides queer. The only thing I could see looking back was the references to them being black with soot. I called them dirty/sooty and chose not to say negroes.

I realised only this week that I have never reviewed The Secret of Spiggy Holes, or the rest of the series, after doing The Secret Island. Mind you, it took me 7 parts (and 12.5k words) to review The Secret Island so I did deserve a break after that!

 

 

 

 

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My 2025 in books and Blyton

Posted on January 14, 2026 by Fiona

Here’s where I look back on everything I read in the past year and see how well I did, based on entirely arbitrary and often vague goals I have set myself.

Goal one: Read 100 books

Result: 172 books read. ✓

Normally I set my goal at 100, and if I hit it early enough I’ll increase it. But last January I forgot entirely and aimed for 150 straight away.

Goal two: Read more new books than re-reads

Result: 132 new books and 40 re-reads  ✓

I love re-reading books (and this it’s a totally valid thing to do) but re-reading is the safe and easy option, and I can easily do loads of re-reading and not get around to picking up anything new. Hence the goal.

My rereads were mostly from Blyton, Jodi Taylor, Sue Grafton and Charlaine Harris as I revisited some of my favourite series.

Goal three: Read new authors

Result: 43 new authors  ✓

OK so this was less than the 50 new authors from last year but what can I say? I love a good series and when I discover an author I really like I will read everything I can get by hands on by them.

Some famous authors I tried for the first time were Daphne Du Maurier, Val McDermid, Kristin Hannah and John Buchan. (As usual I am late to the party.)

Goal four: read some books I’ve always meant to

Result: Four.  ✓

I like to try for an adult classic each year. This year I read Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier which I really enjoyed and The 39 Steps by John Buchan which I found a bit silly and unbelievable.

I also read Holes by Louis Sachar and The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster – these are both modern YA/children’s classics and both have been on my mental list of things I should get around to reading for ages.

Last year I specifically made a goal of reading more of my favourite kind of book – ones about bookshops and libraries (aka BABALs) but this year I actually tried to limit these as I was starting to feel like I needed more variety.

I read 28 BABALs, 2 about writing/publishing and one about the hunt for an old book. So actually not bad for me – though I “only” read 32 last year when I was trying to read more of them!

Goal five: Find a good balance between books for children and books for grown ups

Result: 141 adult books, 27 for children and 4 for teens.  ✓

I love children’s books and think there’s no shame in reading them as an adult. Saying that, I can find it too easy to read a bunch of children’s books instead of challenging myself with something more grown up.

I feel I could have been more lenient on myself this year and picked up a few more children’s books.

Goal six: Read more non-fiction

Result: 15 non fiction books.  ✓

I seem to read non-fiction in fits and starts. More in fits, to be honest. 15 is more than I expected it to be and in fact is one more than last year. However as I read even more fiction the chasm is still massive.

I managed to read a few which you could classify as feminist – Unlikeable Female Characters by Anna Bogutskaya, Women in White Coats, A History of Britain in 21 Women by Jenni Murray and probably even Girl Sleuth by Melanie Rehak.

I also really enjoyed This Is Going to Hurt by Adam Kaye, Forensics by Val McDermid and Wildings by Duff Hart-Davis.

New goal for 2025: Read things I already have instead of borrowing them from the library

Result: 7 read from my to-read pile, 56 borrowed from the library ❌

This was pretty much an abject failure. Four of the ones I did read were on my Kindle so only 3 were from my shelves. I just can’t resist new books. Thank god I borrow them and not buy them, though!

My to-read-already-owned list on Goodreads now stands at 67 books but to be fair some of were random free books which have been on my Kindle for years and I should probably just delete them instead of having them sitting there never being read.

Other reading stats

Bookmory gives other stats so here are some of them.

Top author: Val McDermid (which I’m sure will come as no surprise to anyone who’s read any of my monthly round ups).

Right at the end of 2024 I decided to give Val McDermid a go, and I finished a book of her short stories in January 2025. I then proceeded to read 24 more of her books – often reading an entire book in a single day – through the rest of the year. (I’ve already read two more in 2026, so am on track to run out of her books by the end of this year. It’s annoying how much longer it takes to write a book than it does to read it.)

Following on from Val, were Charlaine Harris (12), Sue Grafton (8) and Steffanie Holmes (6). And Blyton, of course!

Total authors read: 86
Total pages read: 49, 209*
Average page count: 286
Longest book: The Secret of Secrets – Dan Brown (677)
Shortest book: Pages to Fill – Travis Baldree (33)

Bookmory also records whether each was a physical book, ebook and audiobook (though I kept my own record anyway!). This is just out of interest as they’re all equal in my mind. I think this year the audiobook number is going to be quite high.

In fact I listened to more audiobooks (69) than I read physical books (59) this year! But if you add physical and ebooks together as “eye reading” then that comes comfortably ahead of “ear reading” (103 vs 69).

Two years ago I started recording how many books came from the library and last year I added sources for all my books.

Audible: 34 (2 less than last year, but still very good value I think)
Bought: 6 (also 3 less than last year. Well, I probably bought more than 6 but I read 6 that I bought last year)
Found in a holiday house: 3
Free online: 1
Gifts: 10 (5 more than last year, though I undoubtedly was gifted more books that I haven’t yet read)
Kindle Unlimited: 26 (4 less than last year – am starting to wonder if this is good value for money).
Library: 56 (21 MORE than last year – where I was supposed to not be borrowing so many books…)
Owned already: 36 (1 more than last year, but at least 7 were ones I hadn’t read before)

The library is the clear winner here!

I also kept a note of how much I spent on books…

Books bought: £42.96 (or at least that’s the cost of any books I read for the first time this year that I had bought myself).

Audible: £69.99

That’s £5.83 per audiobook based on the 12 credits I get. I read 33 new books from Audible, though. Some of them were in two books for one credit sales, others were from the Plus Catalogue that’s only accessible with a membership. So essentially I paid £2.05 per audiobook, and I often go back and re-listen to them so that brings the cost per listen down even further.

Kindle Unlimited: £9.49 a month/ £113.88 a year.

My 26 books worked out at £4.38 each. That’s not bad value, but I’ll have to have a think about whether to keep subscribing or not. Having added up the current ebook costs of the KU books I read it’s a bit less than what 12 months of subscription cost. Amazon doesn’t show you the purchase price when you’re looking through KU books though so you can’t tell if they’re on offer for 99p or they’re £2.99 or £5.99. Saying all that – if I’d had to click “buy” on all those books I simply wouldn’t have – even though I’d have ended up spending less. Strange how the (or at least my) mind works.

Total: £226.83 on 65 books last year. That works out at £3.49 per book – seems pretty reasonable, considering that the average paperback now costs over £10.

Something else I continued to log was days read, thanks to using Bookmory. Like last year I managed to read every single day, and usually more than one book each day. I was also able to set a goal to read 50 pages each day which also I managed to do!

The Blytons

Blyton was my most read author last year but not this year. I still did a lot better than many previous years, though.

In past years I’ve read:

2019 – 5
2020 – 5
2021 – 6
2022 – 6
2023 – 13
2024 – 26
2025 – 13

We started off the year strong but in the past few months Brodie has had a lot of other books he has wanted to read at bedtime.

Five Have a Puzzling Time and Other Stories, Red Fox, 1997
The Adventurous Four, 1st Edition Cover by E.H Davie

Blyton adjacent titles were:

Wildings by Duff Hart-Davis (all about Eileen Soper’s home and garden as well as her illustration work.)
Five Go Adventuring Again, Five Run Away Together and Five Go to Smuggler’s Top Graphic Novels by Beja and Natale
Five and the Forgotten Treasure by Chris Smith
Cherry Ames Student Nurse and Cherry Ames Senior Nurse by Helen Wells (recommended by me if you like Blyton.)

Goals for 2026

I think I will stick to my usual goals for the most part.

I’ve already aimed for 150 books on Goodreads and Bookmory.

I’ll aim to try lots of new books and new authors, and be mindful of not reading too many children’s books (though I can definitely be more lenient than I was last year).

I’m already starting to think about what books are on my ‘always wanted to read’ list alongside which classic(s) I’ll try this year. I have Emma as an audiobook so maybe that, we’ll see.

Not strictly a goal but I’d like to see if I can read the rest of Val McDermid’s work this year, as I reckon I’ve only got 24 to go. Depends if I can get hold of them all as the library is letting me down a bit of some of them!

Did you set a reading goal for last year, if so, how did you get on? Have you set one for 2026?

*Bookmory counts the pages as it were a physical copy when you read an audiobook and I always made sure that the page count was a fair average based on physical copies available. Goodreads logs audiobook pages as number of hours (ie a ten hour audiobook has ten pages) so I thought my Goodreads page count would be a lot lower – my maths say it should have been about 29k, yet my end of year round up said 47,700 so they must have done some estimating of their own.

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Monday #784

Posted on January 12, 2026 by Fiona

It looks like we are easing out of the grip of our cold snap now. We have been lucky not to have a load of snow or anything but it has been very icy and cold. Monday is supposed to have temperatures above freezing which will be nice. I always find January a bit grim – cold, dark, and particularly so when you contrast against all the lights and shiny Christmas things that have just been taken down. It’s also always a lot further to spring than you somehow think. I bought some daffodils at Aldi at the weekend for a bit of cheer and we have some fairy lights up all year too which helps.

My 2025 in Books and Blyton

and

Reading The Secret of Spiggy Holes to Brodie

As I plan to write about what Brodie said while we were reading The Secret of Spiggy holes this week, my initial thought was to link to my review of it. Well, it turns out I’ve never gotten around to reviewing it…

So instead, how about my review of the TV adaptation of the book?

The Secret Series on TV – The Secret of Spiggy Holes

secret series dvd

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A closer look at the Magic Faraway Tree trailer

Posted on January 9, 2026 by Fiona

This film feels as if it’s been in the works for years but we know now that it will be released in March this year.

The trailer came out at the end of last month and although it’s only about 3 minutes long I thought I’d pick it apart to see what clues it is giving us for the full movie. (I am jumping back up here to note that before writing this sentence I had written 376 words about the first 7 seconds of the trailer…)

Iconic scenes

‘Scenes’ is perhaps taking it too far as we barely get a glimpse of each of these in the first second of the trailer – but there a re couple of things that are instantly recognisable from the books.

We see what I assume is the slippery-slip and Fran hurtling down it.

We also see the ladder that leads from the top of the tree to whichever land has arrived at the top.

It’s a much longer ladder than I ever imagined – I think you’d be exhausted by the time you had reached the top (if you didn’t fall off first!)

The cast & characters

The adult cast list has been known for a while, but we get a good look at them in the trailer – though it doesn’t do much in the way of explaining who any of the characters are. Even I’ve heard of most of them – and I’m notoriously bad at naming actors.

In order it highlights:

Andrew Garfield who is playing the children’s dad. (I recognise him as having played Spider-Man)

Claire Foy as the children’s mum. (I know her from The Crown)

Nonso Anozie as Moonface – though he has more of a moon hair look rather than a moon face. (I didn’t recognise though looking at his acting credits I have seen him in a few things)

Nicola Coughlan as Silky – sans wings though I have a feeling I’ve seen her with wings in some other clips or photos. (I’ve never seen Derry Girls but I know she was in that.)

Jennifer Saunders who according to the cast list is the children’s grandma. I’m not sure how big a role she has. It’s possibly just a short scene but they like putting the biggest names in the trailers regardless. (Who doesn’t know who Jennifer Saunders is.)

Rebecca Ferguson as Dame Snap – not Slap. (I also didn’t recognise though looking at her acting credits I have seen her in a few things. The trailer made me think of the title character from Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children but that’s Eva Green)

Not introduced by actor’s name but also shown are:

Beth, Joe and Fran the three children. (Originally Bessie, Jo and Fanny.) Delilah Bennett-Cardy is Beth, Billie Gadsdon is Fran, and Phoenix Laroche is Joe.

Brian the farmer. (When watching I knew I recognised him but could I think of his name or what I’d seen him in? Turns out it’s Simon Farnaby and the most recent thing was Ghosts.)

Bella, Brian the farmer’s Wifi… sorry, wife. Turns out Claire Keelan is Simon Farnaby’s wife in real life and this is the first time they’ve had a role together which is quite nice.

The Saucepan Man (Dustin Demri-Burns) who is nicely covered in saucepans and mishears Fran as Stan.

Mr Whatshisname (Oliver Chris).

Mr Oom-Boom-Boom (Mark Heap).

Dame Washalot (Jessica Gunning). If you look closely you can see her cape is made out of gloves.

There are other cast listed online who don’t appear in the trailer. One is the Angry Pixie, and another is Hannah. Lenny Henry and Michael Palin are also listed as appearing, but as who we don’t know. Obviously a trailer can’t show us everyone and everything!

The setting

By 24 seconds in we know it’s in the present day as Joe asks if there will be wifi. From the looks the parents give each other the answer is ‘no’ and so the movie is unlikely to have much tech in it, if any. I have already seen people groaning about how this is all modern and therefore won’t be any good – but I think it makes it more relatable for today’s kids who, after all, are the target audience. As there’s no wifi the children won’t be on their devices and are obviously going to be off adventuring for most of the film, so the fact it’s 2026 and not 1946 is barely relevant.

They arrive to find their new accomodation is a barn, and not even a nicely converted one at that, though in later shots they seem to have made some improvements.

We see a little of the Faraway Tree – Silk’s house and Dame Washalot’s area.

We see several Lands, including the Land of Birthdays and the Land of Dame Snap.

I think it’s fair to say that everything looks really good. Very whimsical and full of magic.

The premise

Beth says that ‘trees are boring’ and then in a voice-over says that they’ve become poor and had to move to the countryside. So, sticking to the plot of the book there – though it perhaps seemed more realistic in the 1940s.

The older two children in particular do not seem thrilled about this and I suspect the no wifi/screens will be a bit of a running joke at least to begin with.

Fran finds a letter on her pillow addressed “Dear Human Child” and which thanks her for returning a purse. I assume this is from Silky. It invites Fran to the Magic Faraway Tree – though she’s been warned (by Bella) never to stray into the woods as they’re full of strange creatures and floaty lights.

Once there she is whisked into the tree to meet the inhabitants, before they go off to the Land of Goodies.

The other children must get involved later as we see them visiting lands and being excited about what’s coming next. There must be more to the story, though. Perhaps Fran begging the others to come along and them not believing her at first, or them wondering where she’s sneaking off to and following her – I’ll have to watch the film to find out.

I suspect the main action and peril will come from them visiting the Land of Dame Snap as she’s clearly being set up as the main villain of the piece. I expect the flying school bus is them escaping from her as I’m pretty sure they escape by plane in the book.

Overall I thought it made the film look pretty good (that’s it’s one job after all). It seems to be sticking fairly close to the source material despite being set in the present day. It definitely looks like massive amounts of money have been invested in it. That’s not always a sign of excellence of course – but isn’t it time that Blyton had a blockbuster after all?

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December 2025 round up

Posted on January 7, 2026 by Fiona

It’s that time of year again, when I can’t decide if this is the last roundup of the year or the first!

What I read

I had already hit my goal of 150 books in November, so everything in December was just a bonus. I managed to hold onto my last Audible credit as I had a few books I’d bought on 2 for 1 deals and I also listened to some things from the plus catalogue. Audible keeps reminding me I can renew early and get 12 credits now… but I’m trying to hold out! If I wait for another 2 for 1 sale I can get two books for my last credit and then I can see what else is in the plus catalogue and available at the library.

Only two books in December were BABALs* though there was also one about a woman searching for a book. Eight were Christmas-themed. A few came from the library. I’ll find out just how badly I did at not borrowing more books until I’d read what I already had when I do my 2025 year in books later this month.

I read:

  • Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret (Ernest Cunningham #3) – Benjamin Stevenson
  • The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club #5) – Richard Osman
  • The Secret Christmas Library – Jenny Colgan
  • How Heathcliff Stole Christmas (Nevermore Bookshop #3.5 ) – Steffanie Holmes
  • A Reluctant Christmas Novel – JC Williams
  • Hot For Slayer – Ali Hazelwood
  • Dead Over Heels (Aurora Teagarden #5) – Charlaine Harris
  • A Loom of One’s Own – Virginia Wool
  • A Fool and His Honey (Aurora Teagarden #6) – Charlaine Harris
  • A Cornish Seaside Murder (Nosy Parker Mysteries #6) – Fiona Leitch
  • Last Scene Alive (Aurora Teagarden #7) – Charlaine Harris
  • The Mystery of the Missing Book – Judith Cutler
  • Cruel Winter With You – Ali Hazelwood
  • A Cornish Campsite Murder – (Nosy Parker Mysteries #7) – Fiona Leitch
  • Christmas at a Highland Castle – Rachel Barnett
  • Poppy Done to Death (Aurora Teagarden #8) – Charlaine Harris
  • Murder at Martingale Manor (Chronicles of St Mary’s #14.8) – Jodi Taylor
  • A Nurse’s Secret (Nightingale Nurses #14) – Donna Douglas
  • Out of Time (Time Police #6) – Jodi Taylor

I ended the month still working through:

  • Charlie and the Christmas Factory – various authors
  • Trick of the Dark – Val McDermid
  • A Brush With the Past 1900-1950 – Shirley Hughes

What I watched

  • Only Connect and The Simpsons plus a few episodes of The Repair Shop as Brodie likes it when they fix up toys. Ewan and I also watched the final season of Stranger Things and we finished Lego Masters Australia (Australia Vs the World).
  • Christmas/New Year specials of Only Connect, Taskmaster and Gladiators.
  • I’ve watched a bit more of Byker Grove, I think I’m in 2001 now (which was only 15 years ago… right?)
  • My sister and I finished the Princes Switch trilogy with the third film – Romancing the Star. 
  • Our Christmas movies were Home Alone 1 & 2 and Elf.
  • On Christmas Eve we went to the cinema to see Zootopia 2.
  • I watched the second series of Karen Pirie which is based on the second book in the series – A Darker Domain.
  • We introduced Brodie to Labyrinth as well, which he liked.

What I did

Like November, December was also pretty dominated by Christmas-themed stuff.

  • Elf returned and got up to a lot of nonsense in our house.
  • We made our yearly visit to a nearby country park to make Christmas decorations (Brodie made a Christmas helicopter, naturally) and hunt for reindeer and elves in the woods before having hot chocolates in the cafe.
  • We also kept up our yearly tradition of visiting the big garden centre to look at all the Christmas stuff and have hot chocolates, and visiting a Christmas Tree farm cafe for even more hot chocolates and Christmas stuff. This year I bought a skirt for my Christmas tree as I’ve wanted one for ages!
  • I did very little on my birthday as I was the only one off, but I did take Brodie to a library Christmas party.
  • I did a couple of jigsaws that I got for my birthday. Sadly the Famous Five one was missing a few pieces!
  • We had a few hilarious games of Telestrations (my drawing was supposed to be chicken nuggets… At the end of one game we all drew dalmatians as the one my mum drew earlier had been mistaken for a cheetah.)
  • We went for exactly one walk which was along the beach (rather cold but I found some pottery and Brodie found two golf balls).

How was your December?

*Books About Bookshops and Libraries

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Monday #783

Posted on January 5, 2026 by Fiona

Happy New Year! For the first time in years none of us were ill over the Christmas break so I’m taking that as a serious win.

Being January it’s now time for me to look back at the previous year in my various round ups. There’ll be one for December, one what I read in 2025, and a look at what I got for my birthday and Christmas.

December round up

and

A close look at the Magic Faraway Tree Trailer

“I want to go and see that!” – Brodie

And what was he talking about? The upcoming Magic Faraway Tree film, of course. (Let’s ignore the fact he said the same about almost every trailer we saw that day…) We were at the cinema on Christmas Eve to see Zootopia 2 and the Magic Faraway Tree Trailer was shown before it. My niece (11) also expressed an interest in seeing it, and she has read the books. The rest of the audience seemed to like it as well – there was much laughter at the wife/wifi joke.

 

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Enid Blyton references in other works fiction part 5

Posted on December 11, 2025 by Fiona

It has been more than a year since I posted one of these. (I did one on non fiction books in June this year.) I still think that’s pretty good going. How many authors do you think you’ve seen mentioned 8 times or more in all the books you’ve read in the past year?

You might have a slight sense of deja vu when you see one of these book titles – yes I’ve already covered it a previous post but recently found another photo on my badly organised laptop.

A Winter’s Tale – Trisha Ashley

This wasn’t my find but someone (I have forgotten who now, sorry!) directed me to it.

It actually sounds like something I would enjoy, though! It’s about a young woman who inherits a crumbling mansion along with its staff and possibly even a ghostly relative…

Creeping about searching the place like something out of a Secret Seven novel.

…

And I saw all the Enid Blyton adventure books in the nursery, so I think she has a lot to do with this mania of yours too.

…

Oh I do so want to come back, and search, Mum. It’s all so Famous Five!

 

 

A Place of Execution – Val McDermid

This is just the first of a few references from Val McDermid’s books which I have been steadily working my way through this year. Val (I feel as if I can call her Val as I have been in the same room as her now, at a talk) has never hidden the fact that she read everything by Blyton that she could get her hands on (except the Secret Seven who irritated her).

In this book a teenage girl has gone missing and Detective Inspector George Bennett is looking through her room for clues.

With a sigh, he began the distasteful search of Alison’s personal possessions. Half an hour later, he had found nothing unexpected. He’d even flicked through every book on the small bookcase that stood by the bed. Nancy Drew, the Famous Five, the Chalet School, Georgette Heyer, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre held neither secret nor surprise. A well-thumbed edition of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury contained only poetry.

 

The Wire in the Blood – Val Mcdermid

This is the second book in the series about Detective Inspector Carol Jordan and criminal profiler Tony Hill, and the book which gives the TV series based on the series its name.

Unfortunately I didn’t record who said this or why.

It’s not, “Five Go Hunting a Psychopath.”

The Torment of Others – Val McDermid

This one, from number four about Carol Jordan and Tony Hill, is rather a stretch. I’ve also seen references to Noddy suits, though, at crime scenes. I’d love it if someone could explain why the lights/suits are called that.

Carol, Kevin and Stacey pounded pell-mell down the corridor. ‘We’ll take my car,’ Kevin shouted. ‘I’ve got a noddy light.’

The Telephone Box Library – Rachel Lucas

I actually read this a while ago but only found the photo of the reference recently.

Mel pulled a face behind her back. “God, sorry. It’s just, she’s so “head girl at St Clare’s” that I can’t help it. She makes me want to misbehave.

The Bookshop of the Broken-Hearted – Richard Hillman

For more Blyton-related quotes from this book see my previous post.

[Maggie] steered him to the titles he might enjoy reading, urging on him her favourites. He took a chair to the back of the shop and read himself into a Famous Five stupor.

the bookshop of the broken hearted robert hillman

A Cornish Christmas Murder – Fiona Leitch

I half-picked these as they are narrated by Zara Ramm (narrator of the Chronicles of St Mary’s series by Jodi Taylor. It felt serendipitous that the St Mary’s author is Jodi and the Cornish books are about a woman called Jodi(e).

Anyway- Jodie with an E is a retired Met officer who returns to Cornwall and sets up a catering business. And then she keeps tripping over dead bodies and can’t stop sticking her nose in to solve them.

In this book she, her mother, her daughter, her best friend and a host of other folk including a group of Japanese tourists are trapped by a snowstorm in a rural former abbey which is being turned into a hotel. Then the guy who played Father Christmas at the party is found murdered and they realise the murderer could only be someone who was in already inside…

They are all supposed to be sticking together downstairs but Jodie (known as Nosey Parker for a reason) and her band of catering assistants/investigators sneak upstairs to see what they can work out.

“Bloomin’ eck, this is like a poor man’s Famous Five, innit?”

….

“Be quiet, Timmy.” (aka Germaine, Jodie’s dog)

….

“Bingo! Now that is proper Famous Five stuff.” (When the secret passage in the stone wall opens.)

A Reluctant Christmas Novel – JC Williams

Adam is a writer of sci-fi/space opera books which aren’t selling so well anymore. His publisher tells him that romantic Christmas book are always good sellers, so he has a go at that. In need of more immediate income he also takes a job driving a minibus for a charity which combats loneliness in the elderly by getting them out and about to different activities.

Once these older people find out that Adam’s an author they start calling him by author’s names. First it’s stuff like Hey Stephen King – watch out for that parked car! Then it’s Agatha Christie.

Then it’s

Ey, Enid Blyton!

Then a slightly more oblique reference that you might be able to argue is a coincidence, but seeing as he mentioned Blyton’s name shortly before I’d like to think it was deliberate.

For many both children and adults alike books were portals to lose yourself for a while. Enabling you to escape  to far off lands and dip your toes into a sea of adventure that wouldn’t be possible in the real world.

The Village Demon Hunting Society – CM Waggoner

This is another stretch as the author is American but the main character in this book is a librarian called Sherry Pinkwhistle.

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