Kat’s 2025 Booklist

Fiction

1. The Note, by Alafair Burke: An inauspicious beginning to my 2025 reading, The Note took me longer than I would have liked it consume it, and was just OK. The author excels at character development, but I had a very hard time getting into this book. I liked it better toward the end, but it just didn’t engage me earlier. The note referred to in the title doesn’t seem especially pivotal to the story to me, but I’ve noticed all the author’s books are titled in this format: “The [Noun].” There’s a good possibility my ambivalence about this book stems from the annoying, sing-song delivery by the audio narrator. (To anyone new to my reading list, I consume virtually 100 percent of my reading in audio form).
2. Brave Girl, Quiet Girl, by Catherine Ryan Hyde. I went all of 2024 without reading a Catherine Ryan Hyde book, which I think is part of the reason I considered it a sub-par reading year. She’s a reliable author I turn to feel grounded, and while I’ve liked some of her books more than others, I always know I will enjoy the read. And I did. In this one, a young mom is carjacked with her toddler in the car. A runaway teen finds the child, and the rest of the story is how the lives of these two women intersect. While somewhat predictable, the story was engaging as Hyde’s stories always are.
3. We All Live Here, by JoJo Moyes. This is my 10th Moyes novel and a well-told and witty tale of family and intergenerational conflict, though not especially memorable.
4. Her Prodigal Husband, by Becky Masterman. I’ve read all of Masterman’s books. This one marks a return to her her character Brigid Quinn, a flinty ex-FBI agent and current senior-citizen detective. Masterman seems to want to branch out from writing about Quinn, the protagonist in 4 of 6 of her books. Her last attempt, Maternal Instinct, was entirely Quinn-less and one of my least favorite books of last year. Her Prodigal Husband is not a full-fledged return to Quinn because another character is the protagonist and narrator, and Quinn does not play a significant role until more than halfway through the book. The novel reminded me a bit of the literary gimmicks Anthony Horowitz often uses in his books. Her Prodigal Husband is also the name of the book that protagonist Alice Einstein comes up with as she fantasizes about her brother-in-law being murdered, and Masterman includes passages from the fictional book. On audio, it’s a little tricky to discern which is the book I’m reading and which is the one Alice is writing – except Masterman switches from first-person to third-person for Alice’s Her Prodigal Husband. Masterman chose the perfect narrator for the audiobook because Alice is just about as flinty as Quinn, and the narrator’s voice fits both. Alice’s Her Prodigal Husband has a more interesting storyline than Masterman’s does, and unfortunately, not much of Alice’s is revealed. It’s interesting to speculate how autobiographical the novel may be, given that Alice is a writer like Masterman. While I wasn’t in love with the plot, I still enjoyed Masterman’s witty writing and the return of Brigid Quinn.
5. Conclave, by Robert Harris. I chose this one because I enjoyed the film made from the novel and my close cousin Liz loves and recommended Robert Harris. Watching the film was an homage to my mom, who never missed a film or TV show about priests, nuns, cardinals, bishops, popes – well, any clergy. The film was mostly true to the movie; the name and nationality of the protagonist – the dean of the College of Cardinals – were changed, among a few other minor tweaks. I enjoyed the book as much as I did the film, and the book added fascinating tidbits about papal history. I can see myself reading more Robert Harris. I could not have imagined a new conclave would assemble just a month or so after I read the book.
6. The Talent, by Daniel D’Addario. This novel tells the tale (though “tale” is a stretch) of five actresses during awards season vying for Best Actress honors. The names of the major awards – Golden Globes and Academy Awards/Oscars – are never stated, perhaps for the same trademark reason as the NFL’s prohibition on anyone using “Super Bowl.” We’re supposed to refer to it as the Big Game. Anyway, the book cycles through each of the actresses in about six sets of chapters. Each actress is narrated by a different audio narrator, even though the chapters aren’t written in first-person. The author excels at character development, and the Hollywood-insider feel is interesting, but I found the book narratively deficient. I also felt it should have been written in a way that would make the reader root for one of the actresses to win, and perhaps hate one or more of the actresses and want them to lose. The book goes from the red carpet of what is obviously the Oscars to the after-parties, with nothing from the actual ceremony included. The winner is at last revealed in the final moments of the book and feels anticlimactic. Readable, but meh.
7. Nobody’s Fool, by Harlan Coben. Coben has become a staple in my annual reading, and I was eager to read his newest. I was disappointed that the audio version is not narrated by Steven Weber, who does a great job with Coben’s books. I speculate that a reason may have been that the protagonist has Pakistani roots. The narrator’s name, Vikas Adam, seems like it could be Pakistani, but nothing in his voice suggests any lineage other than American. He does a nice job, though, with female voices and accents. The book is a rather convoluted tale of a young man whose life is derailed when he believes he may have killed a woman he was dating. Twenty years later, he thinks he sees her – alive and well. I found the story absorbing, but it was not one of my favorite Cobens.
8. The Night We Lost Him, by Laura Dave. While this book was on my Audible wish list, my purchase and consumption of it at this particular time was accidental; I mistakenly clicked on this title. I’m guessing one of the reasons it was on my wish list was that it’s narrated by my favorite audiobook narrator, Julia Whelan (who excels, as always). I use the descriptor “seviceable whodunnit” fairly liberally in these reviews, and this tome falls into that category. A woman’s quest to navigate her complex and difficult family to determine whether her father’s death was accidental or murder was perfectly OK, but not a standout.

Nonfiction

1. The Book of Murder, by Matt Murphy. I’ve seen Matt Murphy in his role as legal analyst on the 20/20 TV program. This murder memoir of his 17 years as a prosecutor in the homicide division of the District Attorney’s office in Orange County, CA, affirms my impression that he’s a smart, knowledgeable, and engaging guy. Not surprisingly, Murphy, who also narrates the book on audio, is very well-spoken and sprinkles in humor despite this serious subject. His chapter on how dumb gangsters are is quite funny. Each chapter illustrates a different aspect of homicide prosecution. I learned a lot, including the fact that diligent prosecutors have virtually no personal lives. I liked the book enough to send a copy to a friend.
2. Written in the Waters, by Tara Roberts. Roberts’s tome is a quirky memoir that combines part of her personal story with scuba diving, history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the author’s quest to understand her African roots the meaning/extent of the connection between black Americans and Africans. Scuba diving and African slave ships converge in that Roberts underwent several diving expeditions to recover sunken slave ships. The author enthusiastically narrates her own story on audio (notwithstanding her persistent pronunciation of “especially” as “ek-specially.”) It’s a well-written book with many fascinating and disturbing tidbits about the slave trade. A bit over-long, in my opinion. Much of the book is in present tense, which I especially dislike in memoirs.
3. The Speechwriter, by Bartram Swaim. I’ve had this short book on my TBR list for a while but have always been reluctant to read it because I feel longer books are a better value. However, this was the perfect length to consume while waiting for the month’s Audible credits so I could obtain a new-release book I was looking forward to. Swaim makes a big deal about how thickly veiled the true facts are in his tale of serving as a speechwriter to a governor in the late 20-aughts. But with the governor confessing his infidelity to his wife in practically the opening scene, it becomes obvious the governor was former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford. I was interested in the book because I once was a speechwriter for an elected official. Alas, Swaim’s book isn’t much about the art and process of speechwriting; instead, it’s mostly about what an idiot his boss was.
4. Careless People, by Sarah Wynn-Williams. Like many, I flocked to this book because Meta/Facebook/Zuckerberg wanted to suppress it.