Honestly, choosing to do a set of TBR reviews at the back of each month has been great for me. Besides finally getting around to books I've wanted to read, I've also got an impetus to pick up books recommended (and sometimes written!) by friends. This month is no exception: one I've had on the shelf for a while, one by a friend, one that comes highly recommended, and two I backed as part of crowdfunding campaigns.

Bookish Candle: Frostbeard's January 2025 candle of the month, "Tall Tales," is only available for just over a week more! I've been loving having this candle in my library, with its notes of maple and cedar. Use my link to get 20% off your purchase of this and other book lovers' candles!

Tea Pairing: Between the witches, green men, murderers, and other such eerie things lurking through this month's books, Chapters' Poet's Pumpkin Spice feels like a perfect match. It may be a fall flavor, but it's still great in winter! Use code KARAD15 at checkout to get 15% off your tea purchase!

Note: I may receive a kickback for purchases made using these links/codes. Thanks for your support!

After seeing The Mousetrap in London, I found a forgotten copy of this in the piles of books still unshelved in my library. I have a few Christies to work through, but this one in particular is remembered as one of the greats.

Ten seemingly unconnected people are summoned to the secluded Soldier Island (which went under two different, unfortunate names in previous printings)—for gatherings, work of both benign and ignoble sorts, and the like. But when the visitors are gathered, eight guests and two servants, a surprise is sprung on them: their unseen host, Mr. U.N. Owen, has brought them all there to be killed. Each is complicit in a death that falls outside the law, and they themselves will die here for their crimes. No sooner has this been revealed than a guest drops dead, setting off a cascade of mysterious deaths.

As the days on Soldier Island continue, the guests die one by one: each death corresponding to a line in a nursery rhyme. And, one by one, ceramic figurines disappear from an arrangement of a group of ten. As the numbers dwindle, the remaining guests second-guess both their allegiances and their own presumed innocence. After all, there are ten potential victims, and only ten people on the island—meaning Mr. Owen must be one of them.

And Then There Were None is full of what I appreciated in The Mousetrap: Christie's ability to create a web of potential motives, as well as to paint numerous people as suspicious enough to warrant a second look. There are, indeed many similarities between this and The Mousetrap—a household of people cut off from the world and picked off one by one, to the tune of a children's rhyme, for their roles in long-forgotten crimes. It seems a little superfluous to say one of Agatha Christie's masterworks was very good, but there it is.

I backed this edition of the book via a Kickstarter, followed by a printing of A Study in Scarlet also illustrated by Mallié. Considering how long I've been a fan of Lupin the Third, I figured it was about time I go back to the source properly.

First put to the page in July 1905, gentleman thief Arsène Lupin has become a legend of stage, screen, film, and even anime. Starting with his inaugural outing "The Arrest of Arsène Lupin" and concluding with Lupin's first meeting with Sherlock Holmes (or rather "Herlock Sholmes"), this volume contains the first nine adventures of Maurice Leblanc's best-known character.

Lupin has expensive tastes, a flair for the theatrical, and (at least once in a while) a heart of gold. He may swindle people out of gold and jewels and deeds, but he's also been known to solve the occasional murder or set things right for someone less fortunate. While Lupin takes pride in reinventing himself to the point that his "true" self is hard to pin down, we do see a bit of the man beneath the disguises when he crosses paths with Miss Nelly Underdown in both the first and last stories of the anthology. Even with nothing more than these few short stories in hand, it's easy to see why Leblanc's antihero is so beloved: he's charming, caring, arrogant, and occasionally gets hilariously angry if someone manages to double-cross him.

Making this volume even better are Vincent Mallié's illustrations. Somewhere between Georges Remi and Hayao Miyazaki, his art is both vintage and lighthearted, cartoonish but down-to-earth. His character designs for Lupin, his nemesis Ganimard, and the people they meet are full of life and personality. Even if you've read these stories repeatedly, you'll want this particular volume for your shelf.

I backed this project on Unbound quite some time ago, but unfortunately my copy arrived in the mail right as I was reckoning with a lot of real-world issues and not doing much reading. After doing an article about Mark Gatiss's adaptations of James's ghost stories, I remembered it still needed reading.

MR James is, regardless of how many people actually know him by name, one of the most influential authors ever to come out of Britain. His slow-burn Gothic ghost stories, themselves influenced by the works of Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle, have gone on to influence much of our literature. However, as editor Jane Mainley-Piddock notes, no one had yet compiled a collection of this man's letters. Such books exist for other authors; and now they exist for James.

The collection begins in James's youth with letters home about his life at boarding school, complete with misspellings and corrections, and continue into his later years. Through these short letters and their footnotes, we get a clear picture of James through the many phases of his life: as a young student navigating everything from classes to spending money to smallpox, as a university student and doctor indulging his love of classic literature, and into later years as he tackles Dickens's unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood and changes in career. From quick announcement telegrams to work letters, from requests for new hats to updates on his cat's behavior, these letters create an enchanting snapshot of an amazing author.

Mainley-Piddock's footnotes, ranging anywhere from a sentence or two to chapter-long musings, avoid the dryness that often comes with volumes like these. Her enthusiasm for James's life and work, and her desire for other scholars to join her in her research, are both evident. She also muses on the similarities between moments in James's life and her time compiling this project during and just after the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a welcoming, relatable volume: history to be enjoyed and experienced, rather than consulted only for classwork.

Another recent tie-in penned by lovely Paul, this is yet another in the series of books crossing Doctor Who over with classic literature. I enjoyed Josephine and the Argonauts and looked forward to seeing how this one played out.

It's been 20 years since the events of Robot of Sherwood—for Robin Hood, anyway. Disenchanted by his lack of progress and the continued absence of King Richard, the Prince of Thieves has altered his plans. Now he robs from the rich and gives to the bail fund to free Richard and bring him home. Lady Marian (still unwed) has noticed Robin's change of heart, but she and Friar Tuck have been captured by Guy of Gisborne. Fortunately, the legendary hero known as the Doctor has come to Sherwood Forest once again. But he looks and acts very different to Robin's friend of decades past, and even claims they've never met before!

Despite the awareness that he's once again been playing in his own timeline, the Fourth Doctor (accompanied by Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan) pitches in to help Robin and his Merrie Men free their friends and set things right. But there's another, much older force working against them: Mother Maudlin, an evil crone who wants to meddle in history. And the newly-arrived Doctor and his companions may give her an opportunity to do so. But how can they stop a witch who can slip inside the minds of anyone—even your closest friends?

Familiarity with Robot of Sherwood isn't necessary to appreciate The Return of Robin Hood, but it's lovely to see how Magrs has neatly stitched the two stories together. Primarily, the connection (besides acknowledging fans of the existing episode) offers a reason why Robin Hood so readily trusts the Doctor. It's also rather lovely to see new adventures with classic Doctors run all up and down the series's timeline (as seen in both Scratchman and Magrs's Josephine and the Argonauts). As always, Magrs is a master of matching not just the voice of the characters he's writing, but the tone of their era. The visuals described throughout the book bring to mind the same directorial choices one might expect to see in this era of the show. Mother Maudlin's hazy appearance in the TARDIS viewscreen late in the book, for example, is just the sort of sinister special effect we'd expect to see in a Baker story. It's another lovely addition to this line of Penguin Doctor Who books and very worth reading—but that's not at all surprising.

This one came recommended by the very lovely Johnny Chiodini. After their recommendation of Starve Acre in previous months, I will always take them at their word on book recommendations—especially as regards folk horror.

Izzy is 13 years old, but she doesn't go to school. With her father now the chauffeur and odd jobs man at historic Eshwood Hall, smack in the center of Britain, she now lives in the hall's servants' quarters and continues to look after her poorly mother Gerry. But her family is negligent at best, downright abusive at worst, and even the promise of a new and interesting home can't fix what ails her. But maybe the Green Man can.

She meets him by chance, finding his chapel as she wanders the forest around the river Esh. At first, the chapel is little more than an escape from the horrors of her everyday life: a chance for her to flee her mother's judgment and constant punishment. But soon it becomes evident that the Green Man and Izzy can do something for each other. He can fix her problems for her. But every favor has a price. Izzy has three favors she wants granted—and each will require a bigger sacrifice from her, with her final job altering her family forever.

The Green Man of Eshwood Hall is many things all at once, but it navigates being all these things with incredible ease. A coming-of-age story that moves through multiple points of view and voices, the book changes tone whether Izzy is in charge, or Gerry, or Izzy's little sister Annie. It treads the line of realism and folk horror, especially in its final chapter, tying the Green Man's influence to that wonderful and terrible moment when childhood innocence breaks and adulthood takes over. The final pages will leave you agape. Despite starting gently and benignly, it ends beautifully cruel and dark.