Speculative historical fiction

Best Reads of 2025

Book Review, Books, Climate Fiction, Creative Non Fiction, Crime Fiction, Eco-criticism, Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Historical Fiction, Horror, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature, Science-Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Speculative historical fiction, Thrutopia, Weird Fiction

This was a hard year for me – I was ill for a lot of it which impacted on my reading speed. During the second half of December, however, I decided to consciously stop checking social media and make my life much more analogue. Surprising no one, this was the month I read the most – and also when I mentally felt the healthiest I’ve been in a long while. So this is something I’m hoping to embrace in 2026 – less time in the digital sphere and more time with a book in my hands…

Books that blew my mind:

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K Le Guin

Very late to the party with this one, I know, but it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. Cosmic horror, philosophy and religion. Fantasy at its best. We follow a teenager who has been hailed as the high-priestess of an ancient religion. Who has been educated to believe she’s one of the most important humans on Earth – but actually, does she have any power at all to decide her own fate? The descriptions of the maze of caves under the tombs of Atuan had be dizzy with fear and wonder.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

A premise that is so ridiculous that shouldn’t work: in their quest to restart the human race to terraform another planet (since humans have destroyed planet Earth) a scientist develops a virus that will drastically accelerate the evolutionary process of a group of monkeys. However, the virus ends up landing in a planet without its monkeys. The planet does have some form of life, though: spiders… Hear me out. This book is absolutely brilliant. I’m not a fan of spiders – actually, I’m really scared of the bigger ones – but this book had me in tears at the end rooting for the spider civilisation.

Most heartbreaking and beautiful non-fiction:

Hijab Butch Blues by Lama H

One of the best books I’ve read about the non-binary experience. It touches many interesting topics as well such as migration and religion. Plus I felt so inspired by the author’s experiences to embrace complicated truths in all its hardships and glories. Truly remarkable: it needs to be translated into many languages.

This Part is Silent by S J Kim

A gorgeous and heartbreaking book about being an immigrant, living in the in between of cultures and languages. And also, a compassionate and brave collection of essays about being a writer and an academic in the United Kingdom today. I’m in awe of the author who has so generously shared very complex and painful experiences.

Most ground-breaking graphic novels:

Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls

This is the second graphic novel to earn a Pulitzer Prize (after Maus) and the recognition it is getting thanks to it is truly well-deserving. A complex and chilling overview of China’s recent history (specially its cultural revolution and the society that followed). A book also about generational trauma and complex family relationships. Also, a book about migration and multilingualism. As of this day, its author maintains she won’t ever create another graphic novel – this makes me sad, but also I think I understand as this is such a masterpiece!

It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood

Experimental, ambitious, one of the best books about depression and the artist experience I’ve ever read. It’s so playful and dark and nuanced. I know I will re-read it many times.

A book I enjoyed as a child and I still love today:

The Lottie Project by Jacqueline Wilson

One of the books that made me want to become a writer – I enjoyed going back to it as an adult as I could then read it in English, its original language. It was as good as I remembered.

Horror insights into the darkest parts of the human experience:

Old Soul by Susan Barker

A cosmic horror novel camouflaged as a literary thriller. Lyrical and experimental – and no less terrifying because of that. It asks a really interesting set of questions: why are we all so obsessed with being seen? And who are those bearing witness or observing, and what are their true intentions? A very original novel that combined settings all over the world with very distinctive narrators.

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

One of the best horror books I’ve ever read which combines historical fiction with the speculative to create a gothic tale that won’t leave you indifferent. Books like this reaffirm to me how important it is to preserve our historical memory through fiction to remind us all of the atrocities of the past, but also, of the strength of people that survived them. Masterful and touching. I was shaking reading the last twenty pages or so – I haven’t been so moved by a book and its characters in a long time.

Books about gender I couldn’t stop thinking about:

Butter by Asako Yuzuki

This was a very hyped book – and I wasn’t sure was my thing at all until several good friends (and excellent readers) recommended it to me. Even though the blurb makes you think this is going to be a thriller, it goes way beyond the premise. An interesting meditation about the ways gender, fatphobia, food and care connect to each other. The main character is a journalist in her early thirties, more interested in her career than having a community, more interested in being thin (the society she lives in tells her a woman must be thin to be a good woman) than in enjoying delicious food and other visceral life pleasures. The ending still stays with me.

The Vegetarian by Kang

Very late to the party with this one too. A book that horrified me and yet I’m in awe of it. It was hard to read because it reminded me that sometimes being socialised as a woman comes with the understanding (from you, or imposed by others) that you a) are nothing but a piece of flesh others can enjoy or utilise as they see fit b) you don’t have any control over your own body, who may belong to a man, to the state or your family.

Looking back at these two books together (Butter and The Vegetarian) makes me see that they use genre (horror, crime) in very interesting ways to force us to question gender rules in society. Both books have women in them who take ownership over their bodies (and lives) by deciding what they want to consume even if this angers others. The difference in tone comes with the access their main characters have (or not) to a supportive community – in Butter, the main character has a very close friend who is also her supporter; she’s also financially independent (which gains her some basic freedom) and she’s able to form healthy bonds with others as she enters a period of intense change. In The Vegetarian the main character is irrevocably tied to her husband (she depends financially on him) and her family. This second book ends on a dark note that is quite difficult to digest.

Books that celebrate community and challenge our ideas about it:

Any Human Power by Manda Scott

This is an interesting one, because I don’t think it’s a perfect book by any means. In fact, at times I thought the characters seemed a bit too much like concepts the author wanted get across her audience. And yet, this was a fascinating read because it discussed the current sociopolitical situation of the place where I live (England) and used the speculative to imagine different ways into a more positive future. Despite of it not being a happy book at all, it was inspiring in a year when I felt like I had to work really hard to be hopeful. It also discovered me other interesting resources on how humans can co-exist with with the environment and with each other.

The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong

The characters felt so lost in their own complicated circumstances – and I said complicated because almost every character here has a background that means they are facing at least one form of discrimination – being an immigrant, being gay, being Black and so on. Like Hai, the main character of this novel, I’ve also worked in retail and found a very strong community through a job whose sole purpose seemed to dehumanise me. So this is why the story of Hai, who works in HomeMarket, a fast food outlet part of a national chain with a manager who actually cares about every single employer in this job that many would dismiss rang true to me. I was also very interested in the intergenerational friendship between nineteen-year-old Hai and eighty-two-year-old Grazina.

On injustice: March 2024 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Creative Non Fiction, Horror, Nature Writing, Queer Literature, Speculative Fiction, Speculative historical fiction

Toto Among the Murderers by Sally J Morgan

I picked this book because it was intrigued by its premise: it’s partly based on the encounter its author had with the infamous murderers Fred and Rose West in the 1970s. Sally J Morgan was a young girl hitchhiking who decided not to get in their car – but was impacted by the encounter – as she later learned what she had really escaped from.

This novel is about women, the relationships they share, and the sexism and cruelty they faced in 1970s England (which actually, still feels pretty relatable these days).

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Best Reads of 2023

Book Review, Books, Fantasy, Horror, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature, Science-Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Speculative historical fiction

This year I read more books than usual – making this my best reading year post-PhD. I’ve also realised more than ever that reading – especially in this age when we have so many things competing for our focus, such as email and social media – is like a sport. A muscle that you need to exercise regularly. After those times in the year when life became too much and I couldn’t read regularly – for example, July, when I was travelling a lot, doing job interviews and trying to plan another house move across England – reading became more difficult and during August I had to ease myself back into it. The good news is that after three or four days of reading regularly focus always comes back, and I find that the more I read the longer I can stay with a book in my hands without falling asleep. It’s actually kind of amazing to think that when I was a child I had much more natural endurance when it came to reading and I could spend hours and hours stuck to a book…

Also, libraries are wonderful, I still get a high every time I get to visit them and pick all the books I want to read and it’s for free! Nobody wants my money! It’s simple, accessible pure pleasure! Kindness! Let’s all please love libraries and care for them and never take them from granted.

So here we go with my best reads this last year.

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Experiencing the thin places: November 2023 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Fantasy, Horror, Literary Fiction, Nature Writing, Speculative Fiction, Speculative historical fiction

Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller

This was a reread – I came by this story back in 2014, when I was researching unreliable narrators – before that I watched the film adaptation when it came out in cinemas in 2007.

On this second read, I enjoyed the story even more. First of all, Barbara Covett, the narrator, is so interesting. She’s a twisted and opinionated sixty-something year old History teacher in a secondary school who becomes obsessed with her younger new colleague, Sheba Hart.

At first glance it may seem that the focus of this novel is the illicit relationship between Sheba, the new teacher, and one of her pupils, fifteen-year old Steven Connolly. But this is really the story of two women who will end up tied to each other, against all odds.

Hints at Barbara’s lesbianism were even more noticeable to me on this second read. She doesn’t make direct reference to it once but she reveals to be someone who’s maintained a series of obsessive friendship with women exclusively, many of them younger than she is, as it’s the case with Sheba. I believe, though, that Barbara’s intense friendships go beyond sexuality. She likes Sheba and she hates her too because she has all the things that Barbara wants: youth, beauty, social status (which, coincidentally, are many of the things women are socialised to crave from a very young age, specially the first two).

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Finding comfort in darkness: May 2023 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Horror, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature, Speculative Fiction, Speculative historical fiction

Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt

I came across this book by chance thanks to a horror reading book club I joined last year (thanks Jess!) and it was such a wonderful discovery. This is a twisted, experimental, beautifully written novel I couldn’t put down and finished in a couple of days. An interesting take of the idea of the hunted house that links a decadent (formerly majestic) mansion near Brighton with a rotten version of dangerous nationalism – the kind of nationalism that feeds on dark made-up fantasies that justify things like xenophobia, racism, violence and colonialism.

The story is told (mainly) through the points of view of its two main characters – Alice, a trans woman, and Ila, a second generation immigrant queer woman who used to be in a relationship with Alice which ended in an extremely traumatic way.

This book makes very interesting links between transphobia and xenophobic nationalism. If gender/nationality are social constructs and justified by powerful (yet, in many cases, fictional) narratives, what happens when these narratives use the hatred of the other to create a sense of self and of community?

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Enlightment: April 2023 Reading Log

Book Review, Fantasy, Horror, Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Speculative historical fiction

Small things like these by Claire Keegan

This is a novella, so a quick read, yet it left a big impression on me and I’m still thinking about it. Set in Ireland in 1985 it follows Bill Furlong, a coal merchant in a small town where everyone knows each other. The day before Christmas he goes to the nearby convent to make a delivery and finds something in the coal bunker that shouldn’t be there. Hence, he’s faced with a dangerous moral decision – to speak up against the nuns, who are very powerful members of the community or keep living his life as quietly as he’s used to.

This dilemma is a powerful one – to tell the truth and stand up for others often requires a sacrifice that not many of us are willing to make. Being good and decent can also mean paying a high price. It’s easy to empathise with Bill from the very beginning because he’s a hard-working man with the best intentions. He has an interesting upbringing many would have frowned upon back in that time – his mother had him when she was sixteen years old and while working as a maid for Mrs Wilson the richest woman in town; he doesn’t know who his father is. Against all odds, Mrs Wilson lets mother and baby stay in her household and acts as a sort of kind relative towards them both. As an adult, Bill has a job, a wife, and five daughters. All of these are important details that will foreshadow the protagonist’s final decision.

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