Hayley

I love them all!

Yeah, I bought them "for the baby" 😂. I didn't know there was a diary! I'd love to see the blanket when it's done!

I saw that there was going to be a brambly hedge trail! I'd love to do that, but it would take me over 2 hours to get to Epping Forest, so I'd have to plan all the car travel very carefully with Olle 😅. I'd love to see the pictures!

Good timing This was my final book of 2025 too and it also made me laugh. It's definitely a fun book to read! You've made me want to read this one!

The Crow Garden was my choice for this challenge and I have to admit, it was less about nature than the title implies! The crow garden is the name of what is essentially a graveyard in the grounds of a Victorian asylum. There are supernatural elements surrounding it, especially the fact that it seems to always attract a lot of crows. And that is... basically it for nature... 😅. I did enjoy the book. It follows a guy who's trying to find work in asylums, to help people deemed insane and thus prove himself to his deceased father. The asylum he ends up in is awful, but when a very pretty and wealthy woman is bought there by her husband, our main character is convinced he can fix her. She has some shocking revelations about her husband though and it starts to become unclear whether she really is delusional and whether she can actually speak to the dead. I found all of that really gripping. It was a little bit like The Madwoman's Ball, which was a great book. But then the twists and turns begin. Normally, I love a good plot twist, and I like lots of different elements of a story that twist together - but there ended up being so many elements to this story that it started to feel oddly chaotic. It left me with the impression that the author had changed her mind about where the story was going part way through. By the time I actually got to the end, there were still a few things that seemed like plot holes, or at least weren't explained enough to make sense. It's a shame because, otherwise, it was getting really good!

Wow, well done! Did you have a favourite?

Happy New Year everyone! I managed to finish a book (The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett) at 11pm last night, which, when I added it to my Goodreads list, took my total books read in 2025 to... 7. But it also presented me with a dilemma. I noticed that one of the books on my list was Winter Story by Jill Barklem. It's one of the books in the children's Brambly Hedge series and actually, only one of the books from that series I did read last year. When it came to the others, I didn't include them on my list because they're very short and I think I saw them as Olle's books, since I was reading them to him. But, when I thought about it, I'd definitely tell somebody else to include shorter books or children's books - they have to be on the list in order to review them anyway. So, that takes my total up to 11 books and I think is the start of my reading list looking a little bit different as I read and review more children's books. That takes us to a quick summary of my 2025 reads, before we get started reading in a whole new year: The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale Although I didn't love the ending of this one and wishes it was a little different, it was still a great book with beautiful descriptions. The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke Very short and not quite as satisfying as everything else I've read by this author, but she manages to make everything immersive and magical. Dallergut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee The book that will always remind me of the first weeks after having a baby. It is just a very gentle book with lovely imaginative descriptions about the world we visit when we sleep. Sometimes it's nice to have something purely relaxing to read and I am planning to get the next book in the series! The Book of Stolen Dreams by David Farr A children's book, but an older children's book, and definitely one of the ones that's written in a way that's still enjoyable for adults. I started reading this because I was using the opening page for tuition purposes and got hooked - which I think is a good sign! The Crow Garden by Alison Littlewood A book with a really compelling plot, surrounding the issues with nineteenth-century asylums, the definition of insanity and female autonomy in the Victorian era.... but it was also about quite a few other things and they made it feel oddly cluttered. Full review of this one will be in the group read thread, as this was my choice for the Natural World theme. The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett Another epistolary mystery from this author, but a short and more fun one. It was a quick read, partly because I didn't want to put it down. The Brambly Hedge books I'll review together and so far I've read: Spring Story Summer Story Autumn Story Winter Story Sea Story All of these have really beautiful illustrations of the tiny houses (and boats) the mice of brambly hedge live in. The level of detail would have been greatly appreciated by me as a child and I love it still as an adult. The plots themselves are simple but sweet, with some sort of simple problem for the mice to resolve - but honestly the main draw is the illustration! And those were my adventures in literature for 2025! The life adventures were far more packed and chaotic 😅. 8 months (nearly 9!) after having a baby, I still feel a little bit all over the place (and I know I should really have expected that). My attention is being pulled in a lot of different directions all the time and some days I'm better at balancing things than others. I can only assume it gets easier as we go... maybe... so 2026 will be full of discoveries, if nothing else! My hopes for myself for the new year include more reading, more time in nature (as with reading, I've been doing some walks, but I miss big walks!) and more writing time for the forum!

this sounds interesting, I'm not sure if I have the patience to deal with Toby right now though 😂. I wonder whether the story was inspired by the true story of the body found in a wych elm after ww2. Also thinking maybe 'witch elm' could be the American spelling? It does seem to give it a weirdly different meaning, if it's not!

Wow, it is!!!

Great Frankenstein review! I have so many thoughts on what you've written. I think a few of the things you highlighted as weird are there because they're part of the gothic tradition. Like Victor travelling to the Orkney islands to work on the new creature - it's another way of achieving the feeling of isolation (others being Victor locking himself away from society during the creation of the first creature and obviously the arctic setting that frames the narrative). The semi-incestuous relationship between Victor and his adopted sister is very much a gothic thing too (there's some interesting theories about their wedding night). I think the cottagers are given so much time because that whole section is about the creature learning how society works - the education that his creator failed to give him. Importantly, he learns about different kinds of love and understands that is something he lacks entirely. His rejection from that society then sets him on his vengeful path. I always remembered a quote that I think is from that part, when the creature says something like 'I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel'. It's an interesting one for the nature vs. nurture argument. As far as the creature is concerned, Victor's failure as creator caused him to feel anger rather than love, so everything that happens is Victor's fault, not his own. I think that's why he expects sympathy. And, to be fair, Victor isn't very likeable, so it's quite effective 😂.

My sister loved that book! I'm tempted by it. The book I'm reading for our current group read, The Crow Garden, is an asylum novel too - it seems good so far!

Great question! I was actually talking about this with my friend a couple of days ago. I didn't expect to like Jane Austen's Emma. I thought that a) it was romance, which I don't usually like and b) the character of Emma would just be really unlikeable. But then I discovered that Austen is actually very witty and, although it obviously has a romance plotline, it's more a social commentary. How about you, @Oliwia44?

I completely agree. Also the fact that he created intentionally funny names... like Dick Swiveller... It's been a few years since I read it, but I thought she did laundry? It wouldn't be that unusual for a single woman to do that from home at the time.

I've decided to go for The Crow Garden by Alison Littlewood! I have a suggestion to make it a little easier to choose for this category though. When we first started this challenge, we did say that the theme could simply connect to the book's cover (e.g. if we had the theme of snow, snow might not be a large part of the plot but might feature on the cover). So I think opening this up to include books which feature the natural world on their covers might be a good idea here! And I'd like to add for the suggestions: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett The House Without Windows by Barbara Newhall Follett The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke (if you like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and want a really short one) Evil Roots or Weird Woods from the British Library's Tales of the Weird series The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge And, for a short story, Autumntime by Anthony Lentini (you can find it for free in lots of places online). I agree with this - unless you're in the mood to read a lot of details about nineteenth century whaling 😅

I can't wait to see what you think of the ending! Nell definitely would have had a lot more options if she had been willing to leave her grandfather.