Book of the Week: The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman
Enthusiastically reviewed by our own Franca, currently on exchange in Bristol 🇬🇧

“It’s here! Hooray! The fifth Thursday Murder Club book is finally here and let me tell you it does not disappoint. The Impossible Fortune picks up a year after we left Joyce, Elizabeth, Ibrahim and Ron. Elizabeth, still grieving, is finally starting to come out of her shell a little and agrees to attend Joyce’s daughter’s wedding.

Here, she is approached by a man named Nick Silver, who is certain someone is trying to kill him and believes Elizabeth is the only one who can help him. Elizabeth has never been one to say no to a bit of a challenge and it seems that maybe, just maybe, the gang might have her back.

This book is exactly what you’d hope it would be. It’s funny, heartwarming, sad, exciting and just an absolute joy to read. It’s a murder mystery, of course, with everything that entails: blood, guns, bombs and an enormous amount of money. But it is also, as always, a love story. It’s about friendship, about loneliness, about grief, and most importantly about healing.

Richard Osman makes me cry one page and laugh out loud the next. A truly remarkable writer. I cannot recommend this enough! May the Thursday Murder Club never die. Seriously. That would break me.

10/10”

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Book of the Week: Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Wonderfully reviewed by our own Rebecca.

“Growing up in America, my first encounter with Denmark was reading Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars as a little girl. Number the Stars is about the rescue of the Danish Jews that happened right after Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) in 1943. On the eve of this year’s Rosh Hashanah, I thought there would be no better time to share one of my all-time favorite children’s books (one that, coincidentally, was just re-released in a “children’s classics” edition!).

Number the Stars is centered on Annemarie, a 10-year-old living in wartime Copenhagen. Through Annemarie’s eyes, we see the insidiousness of Germany’s occupation of Denmark. Annemarie and her sister miss having real sugar and new shoes, and are bothered by the German soldiers interrupting their walk home from school. But Annemarie’s best friend, Ellen, is Jewish, and soon Annemarie realizes just how dangerous the situation is.

Unbeknownst to her, Annemarie’s parents are part of the underground Danish resistance movement, and they are risking everything to help Ellen’s family escape to Sweden. Now Annemarie is old enough to be involved as well, and she must lie to help her friend survive. I’ve re-read this book a few times as an adult, and my heart still pounds every time the family is confronted by Nazis and have to use their quick thinking to evade them and protect Ellen.

There has long been criticism of Holocaust novels that center non-Jewish characters, but I think that Number the Stars shows readers the importance of allyship and using one’s privilege to protect and support those in marginalized positions. It takes bravery to resist complicity with a fascist regime, something that is unfortunately relevant once again in the 21st century. Number the Stars shows how easy it is to be a bystander, and how remarkable it is that Annemarie’s family chose not to be, at the risk of their very own lives. The rescue of the Danish Jews is an incredible part of Denmark’s history, and it is one that we can all learn from and be inspired by.”

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Book of the Week: Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson
Reviewed by our friend (and Books & Co bookclub leader) Imogen 📚

“Holly Jackson’s new novel, Not Quite Dead Yet, has one of the most interesting concepts I have read about to date.

Jet Mason, an underachieving 27-year-old, is attacked on Halloween and receives the news that she will be dead in approximately a week, due to a head injury that will trigger a deadly aneurysm.

Jet then teams up with her childhood best friend named Billy, and sets out to discover her murderer before her time is up.

I found the first 150 pages a bit slow-going, but when the investigation ramped up, I devoured it and ended up finishing it in a couple of days, despite it being a nearly 400-page book.

This is Holly Jackson’s first attempt at an adult novel, and I have to say, even though I liked her young adult books a lot, this is not a bad start. You can empathise with the characters and there are some special touches that you don’t often see in books which I enjoyed enormously. The last couple of chapters were very tense, and the ending was quite unexpected, but I found myself cheering on Billy as he did what he (and I) thought was right.

As with all of Holly Jackson’s books, she weaves an intricate web of lies, scandals, and deceptions that don’t quite make sense trying to unravel in your brain but make perfect sense when put on paper, or on one of Pip’s murder boards.

I hope this review makes you want to read Not Quite Dead Yet, as I highly recommend giving it a go.

On another note, Holly Jackson, if you see this, I am willing to proofread any drafts you may have, young adult or adult! You can contact me through Books & Company.

Thank you for reading!”

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Book of the Week: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Reviewed by our friend Lotte 🌌

“The coveted cover of Time magazine. That’s how far Taylor Jenkins Reid has come, and it seems only the sky is the limit.

Atmosphere, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s new novel, takes place (partly) in the sky, among the stars.

Joan Goodwin is a regular girl with a regular background, now working as an astronomy professor. Single and curious about the stars, her sister, Barbara, nudges her to apply to NASA’s Space Shuttle program where she discovers a new family in her fellow astronauts.

Among them Vanessa, and the friendship, love, kindness and sense of belonging that develops between Joan and Vanessa is the foundation for the book and the basis for an amazing story that touches upon multiple themes described with extraordinary depth.

I was left amazed by the relationship not just between the characters but also between faith and science. At first I found it hard to believe that an astronaut - of all people - would believe so strongly in God. But it all comes together as Joan unfolds her belief.

To her, ‘Science is about figuring out the order of the universe’, and the order of the universe is God in action, which then links science and math as parts of God.

She notes, ‘We, human beings, are the universe.’ and describes beautifully how ‘the air that I breathe is the same air as my ancestors breathed’.

These passages of the book pull you in and keep you reading - and reflecting.

Other passages, like the ones involving family, broke my heart, and the love story was so much deeper than I had expected.

’I would give you anything if it wouldn’t cost us everything,’ says it all about how female astronauts were perceived back in the 1980s.

Somehow this book differs from Taylor Jenkins Reid’s other books. There is a bigger story being told here, which took me by surprise and I will happily admit that this seems to be my favorite book of 2025, and yes, I was sobbing through the last chapters.

Finally - yes, one of the characters from the other books appears. So powerful, and yet so delicately added.

An ode to being human and being loved. What a book!”

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