Explore every episode of the podcast Quick Book Reviews with Philippa Hall

Is it ever acceptable to give up on a book on page one? Should the classics be dropped from GCSE English? And which bookish trend deserves to go on the bonfire?

This Friday is an AUTUMN SPECIAL: the Autumn Book Tag, bookish opinions edition. Ten questions, no preparation, and answers coming straight out of my mouth, so we should all be very worried. Then it is part three of our book club read, The One You Least Suspect by Brian McGilloway, with no spoilers as always.

The Autumn Book Tag

1. Falling leaves: Is it ever acceptable to give up on a book, and how many pages does it get before you do?
2. Clocks go back: With an extra hour to read, would you reread an old favourite or start something new?
3. Back to school: Should we be made to read the classics at school, or does it put people off reading for life?
4. Dark evenings: Does a book have to match the season, or is the "autumn read" just marketing?
5. Halloween: What scares you more in a book, the supernatural or what ordinary people do to each other?
6. Bonfire night: Which bookish habit or trend would you happily throw on the bonfire?
7. Harvest: Is a huge to-be-read pile a comfort or a source of guilt? Is buying books a separate hobby from reading them?
8. Conkers: Reading challenges and yearly targets, motivating or joyless?
9. Cosy jumper: Is "cosy" a compliment or an insult when applied to a book?
10. Prize season: Do prize winners actually make better reading, or do judges and readers want different things?

In this episode

• Why I think you can DNF a book at any point, and why it is always a me problem and never the book
• The honest reason I almost never reread
• Why I would take the classics out of GCSE English and bring in graphic novels and scripts instead (I am expecting flack for this one)
• My confession that I read out of season: Christmas books in summer, summer books at Christmas
• What goes on my bonfire, and it will not surprise regular listeners
• Why buying books has to be a separate hobby, or we are at situation critical in this house
• Cosy fantasy versus cosy crime, and why I like my crime a bit meaner
• The year a prize shortlist left me so incensed I have not done it since, and why I think the longlist is often better than the winner

Book club, part three

The One You Least Suspect by Brian McGilloway, with no spoilers as always.

is still very dark and troubling, even more so in this section, and I worry about some of these characters so much. And yet I am fully locked in and cannot wait to read the final quarter. Thank you to Tony for the brilliant suggestion of splitting book club sections by chapter instead of page number, so it works whether you are reading the hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook. If we do this again, that is how we will do it.

Coming up

Episodes on bookish judging and on celebrity novels, because I have views. And I will be back on Monday with another author interview.

I would love to know your answers to the tag, and what you are thinking about the book club read.

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Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | quickbookreviews@outlook.com

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Five days, twenty strangers, eighty-four miles of whitewater and no way out. Today I am talking to bestselling thriller author Noelle W. Ihli about The Last to Drown, the book that has put me off whitewater rafting for life. Before that, three book reviews, and a swimming pool mystery I need your help with.

Three book reviews

• A Knock at the Door by Louise Candlish (out 5 November). A three-year-old goes missing on a weekend break. Eighteen years later, a young woman arrives at the door claiming to be her. I thought I knew where this was going and I was wrong. This could be Louise's best book yet, and she will be joining me to talk about it in a few weeks.
• The Angel of Death by Trevor Wood. The third DCI Jack Parker book. An anonymous killer in Newcastle is offering the terminally ill a dignified escape, while Jack tries to hide his own early onset dementia diagnosis. Superbly written crime with a fascinating lead, and now published by our friends at Orenda Books.
• Wreck by Catherine Newman. I listened to this on audio while swimming and laughed out loud in the changing room. Funny in places, much more moving than I expected, and a family you want to sit with at the dining table. The narration is spot on.

Author interview: Noelle W. Ihli on The Last to Drown

The Last to Drown follows Kaia, recently widowed, on the rafting trip her husband always wanted to take. Seven years earlier a guide murdered a group of rafters on the same stretch of river, and the true crime community has never stopped asking questions. We talk about:

• The family rafting trip in Idaho that gave her the idea, and why her guides were "slightly concerned" by her questions
• Writing 500 to 1,000 words a day, and making herself sit there like a naughty child in time out
• Why she cannot write on a plane or in an airport
• Grief at the heart of the book, and the conversation with her husband that inspired it
• Writing with real survivors in mind, and the line she will not cross
• Being a true pantser who does not know how her characters will get out
• Survival as a group effort and not something you do alone
• Where to start with her books: The Last to Drown or Gray After Dark
• The candy drawer that powers the words: peanut butter M&Ms and Twizzlers

Noelle is reading

• Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
• The Witch by Freida McFadden
• The forthcoming book by John Marrs

And finally

If you wear a swimming cap but leave all your hair out underneath it, please tell me why. I am intrigued.

Watch on Apple Podcasts

Get in touch - links:

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | quickbookreviews@outlook.com

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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It's past my bedtime, my microphone has given up the ghost, and I've got something to get off my chest: the National Year of Reading. I've been having a dig into where the money is going, and by my calculations the £150,000 set aside for libraries works out at around £41 per library. That's a fair few biscuits, but not many books.

So I'm putting forward some ideas of my own for getting adults reading again:

• Book monitors: volunteers in tabards helping nervous shoppers find the right book, the way a good cheese shop lets you try before you buy
• Making reading cool again, with more famous faces seen with a book in hand
• Audiobooks and graphic novels as an easy way in
• Five minutes a day, with reading streaks to keep you going
• Libraries on trains for long commutes and delays
• World Book Day for adults: a book voucher for everyone, no dressing up required (and maybe a free biscuit)

Are my ideas ridiculous? Have you seen the National Year of Reading making a difference in schools? I'd love to know what you think.

Then it's our October book club roundup of The One You Least Suspect by Brian McGilloway. I've read the second quarter, up to around page 188, and share how it's making me feel, with no spoilers. If you're not reading along, you can stop listening at that point.

I'll be back on Monday with an author interview.

Watch this episode on Apple Podcasts: Quick Book Reviews with Philippa Hall on Apple Podcasts

Get in touch - links:

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | quickbookreviews@outlook.com

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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This episode is a special one — a full interview with Ian Rankin on The Heights, his first standalone thriller in nearly two decades. But first, a confession: I've just been away for the weekend and had a small crisis about how some people can remember every name — actors, characters, everyone — while I can't hold onto a single one. Is it just me? Answers on a postcard (or better yet, in your own colour-coding system, which is apparently what I need).

Then it's on to the books. I'm reviewing three with no spoilers, before sitting down with Ian to talk about how a short story character, Detective Gillian Gish, refused to let him go; why Tottenham and a gleaming Hyde Park high-rise became the perfect collision of two Londons; and why he thinks readers have fallen out of love with police procedurals in an age of institutional corruption. Ian also tells me how the book was written almost entirely at sea, and what would happen if I sent him to write in a tiny, sweltering Tokyo apartment instead. Plus: his verdict on the correct way to eat a chocolate hobnob.

This week's reviews:

• Someone Just Followed You, Liane Child — a propulsive, unsettling look at the world of kidfluencers, told mostly from a teenager's perspective
• Hum, Helen Phillips — winner of the Climate Fiction Prize 2026; gripping, reflective, slightly dystopian, and hard to put down
• The Eyewitness, Naomi Williams — a quick, twisty read about a woman whose eyes shut tight for 48 hours at a time, and the fear that someone is watching when she can't see

Featured book:

The Heights, Ian Rankin

That's this episode — spoiler-free reviews of Someone Just Followed You, Hum, and The Eyewitness, plus Ian Rankin on The Heights.

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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My Book Haul Confession + Book Club Begins

I have a confession: despite trying to go all-in on ebooks, I found myself with an hour to kill, a closed independent bookshop, and a chain store that was open — and I came out with a stack of books I need to tell you all about. This episode I'm running through my haul, including Naomi Alderman's The Strangers, Elizabeth Macneal's The Burial Plot, Benjamin Stevenson's Everyone in This Bank Is a Thief, William Boyd's The Predicament, Ross Montgomery's Murder at World's End, and Jon Ronson's The Castle — plus a slightly spicy admission about book four of Sarah J. Maas's A Court of Thorns and Roses series and some very poorly timed public listening moments.

Then it's the first week of our October Book Club, discussing the opening quarter of The One You Least Suspect by Brian McGilloway. I share my honest, no-spoiler thoughts on the first 93 pages — what surprised me, how it compares to what I expected, and why I ended up reading it in the early hours after a very different night than planned. I'd love to hear your thoughts too — get in touch using the details below.

Book club pick:

The One You Least Suspect, Brian McGilloway

This episode is available as video on Apple Podcasts — watch it here.

Get in touch links

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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In Conversation with Ann Cleeves: The Dying Light

This is a special Wednesday episode — Ann Cleeves joins me to talk about The Dying Light, the fourth Matthew Venn novel, out this Thursday. We talk about the white Art Deco bungalow that started the whole book, why she never knows who did it when she begins writing, and how a hint of resentment over second homes in Devon became the beating heart of the story. Ann also opens up about Matthew's evangelical upbringing and why she thinks it drew him to policing, what forty books' worth of experience has taught her about pushing through a block, and why long train journeys are the best plotting tool she's found. Plus: Irish dancing at Harrogate, imposter syndrome at the big literary festivals, and a very disciplined approach to dunking a digestive.

Featured book:

The Dying Light, Ann Cleeves

That's this episode — Ann Cleeves on The Dying Light, out Thursday 8th October.

This episode is available as video on Apple Podcasts — watch it here.

Get in touch

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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In Conversation with Linwood Barclay: Not a Word

This episode is a special one — Linwood Barclay returns to talk about Not a Word, a family secrets thriller that opens with a horrific discovery and spirals into a story spanning three generations, inspired in part by the real-life opioid scandal in North America. We talk about why the book was originally titled The Pond, his rule that a twist has to land at the end of a chapter or it loses its punch, and his refreshingly no-nonsense take on writer's block ("there's no plumber's block"). Linwood also explains why his dream writing location is just... upstairs from his kitchen, and delivers a very firm verdict on cookie dunking.

Before that, a spoiler-free look at three very different things I've been reading and watching:

• The Distance, Ben Norris — a play performed almost entirely on a treadmill at the Edinburgh Fringe, and just as gripping to read as it clearly was to watch
• A Schooling in Murder, Andrew Taylor — a wartime boarding school murder mystery that needed a slow, immersive start (audiobook helped) before I couldn't put it down
• Fruit Fly, Josh Silver — raw, dark, and not for the cosy crime crowd; one that's stayed with me since

Featured book:

Not a Word, Linwood Barclay

This episode is available as video on Apple Podcasts — watch it here.

Get in touch - Links:

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | quickbookreviews@outlook.com

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Alison Barrow, PR Director at Transworld, joins me again to lift the lid on what's really happening in publishing right now — from late-night manuscript reads and "beauty contest" pitches for new books, to why the Christmas run-up is the busiest time of the year for gifting, self-purchase, and special editions. We talk about how author expectations around social media have changed, why debut authors are usually held back for spring rather than launched into the autumn scrum, and Alison gives us a look inside her own experience of seeing a book cover for the first time — as the author.

Plus, it's the first Friday of October, which means the launch of our October Book Club! We're reading The One You Least Suspect by Brian McGilloway over the course of the month, 93 pages a week. I run through my seven pre-reading questions about the book — my expectations for pace, twists, and what I think I'll come away feeling — and I'd love to hear your answers too. Join in and come back each Friday in October as we discuss a quarter of the book at a time.

Book club pick:

The One You Least Suspect, Brian McGilloway

This episode is available as video on Apple Podcasts — watch it here.

Get in touch

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Episode 500! In Conversation with Val McDermid and Jo Sharp: This Door of the Seas

A huge milestone — this is episode 500 of Quick Book Reviews! Thank you to everyone who's been listening since the very start (sadly the first few episodes were lost in a platform move years ago, but the memories remain).

To celebrate, I'm joined by Val McDermid and Jo Sharp to talk about This Door of the Seas, their first book written together, and the latest in Polygon's Darkland Tales series. It tells the true and largely forgotten story of the Darien Scheme — Scotland's disastrous 17th-century attempt to found a trading colony in Panama, an event so significant it helped push the country into union with England, yet one neither of them were taught in school. We talk about how the idea was born on a very long drive down the A9, why they chose to tell the story entirely through letters (including real historical figure Dr James Wallace), and the moment Val discovered — almost as an aside — that there was a murder in the story she hadn't been told about. Jo also describes the genuinely moving experience of holding one of the original 1698 letters in the National Library of Scotland, and we talk about what it's actually like to co-write a book with your spouse.

Plus: the Darien colonists' extraordinary questions from the era's leading scientists (yes, including one about an animal that breathes through its navel), what Val and Jo are both reading right now, and their verdict on the classic Quick Book Reviews question — the biscuit that powered the words.

Featured book:

This Door of the Seas, Val McDermid and Jo Sharp

This episode is available as video on Apple Podcasts — watch it here.

Get in touch - links:

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | quickbookreviews@outlook.com

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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This episode is a special one — Kate Atkinson joins me to talk about Our Noble Selves, her wonderful new novel set at the 1951 Festival of Britain. We talk about her traumatised journalist hero Harry Flynn (nearly named Quinn, and nearly given a much darker backstory), the real dog behind fictional character Mrs Betty, and the working title she changed at the very last minute. Kate also reveals her dream writing location is not a beach or a cabin, but Specsavers, and delivers the most devastating answer in this podcast's history to the crucial biscuit question.

Before that, a spoiler-free look at three books I've been reading:

• Endless Night, Agatha Christie — no Poirot, no Miss Marple, a slow start that turned into one I couldn't put down
• Call Me By Your Name (graphic novel edition), André Aciman — a beautiful, reflective illustrated edition of the love story, not one for the kids
• Whistler, Ann Patchett — a book everyone else is raving about; I liked it, didn't love it, and that's entirely on me

Featured book:

Our Noble Selves, Kate Atkinson

That's this episode — spoiler-free reviews of Endless Night, Call Me By Your Name, and Whistler, plus Kate Atkinson on Our Noble Selves.

This episode is available as video on Apple Podcasts on your browser — watch it here.

Get in touch

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | quickbookreviews@outlook.com

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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A shorter episode this week, but a packed one. Philippa has an announcement, a question to answer honestly, and a book-related confession she has been sitting on for a while. Brace yourselves.

October Book Club: The One You Least Suspect by Brian McGilloway

Philippa is launching a relaxed, no-pressure book club in October. Each week she'll read 96 pages and share her thoughts at the end of that week's episode. You can join in, get in touch with your thoughts, or simply skip that section if it's not for you — it'll always be at the end of the episode so nothing is missed.

The book: The One You Least Suspect by Brian McGilloway. Katie is a barmaid in Derry who is approached by two detectives wanting her to become their informant. Trapped between the police and the dangerous brothers she works for, her only hope is to remain the one nobody suspects.

Available in paperback, audiobook, and at most libraries. No quiz. No dress code. No deadline. Just books.

Am I Being Paid to Review Books?

Someone recently asked whether Philippa charges for book reviews — prompted by another reviewer apparently charging $200 to listen to an audiobook and $800 for a video review. The answer is no. Philippa receives books for free and earns a small amount from podcast advertising, but has never been paid to review a book and would never recommend something she didn't genuinely love. She also declines paid video offers — partly on principle, partly because she suspects publishers would be politely horrified by the result.

The Confession:

She said it. She means it. She is ready for the hate mail.

Prologues grind her gears — the running-through-a-forest opener followed by a gentle chapter one that has nothing to do with it, the bones discovered in a field that are never referenced again until page 300, the dramatic peril that is forgotten by the time the story gets going. Philippa's view: just start the story. She acknowledges you may disagree. She welcomes the debate.

Get in touch — whatever your views are on prologues

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | quickbookreviews@outlook.com

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Victorian Women Weren't Allowed to Play Football. They Did It Anyway.

In 1897, a woman calling herself Nettie Honeyball founded Britain's first ladies' football club — and doctors wrote to the newspapers warning it would make women infertile. Author Frances Quinn joins me to talk about The Scandalous Ladies' Football Club, her brilliant historical fiction novel inspired by that true story, and the real Victorian scandal of women simply choosing to play the game.

We talk about inventing a fictional rival team to give the real history its missing plot, writing three women each trapped by Victorian society in different ways, and the friend who told her a 70,000-word draft was "a little bit rubbish" — and was right. Frances also tells me about her dream writing retreat with three fellow authors in a Norfolk cottage, why a sea view would ruin her concentration completely, and what powered the words this time round (a chocolate digestive, eaten strictly undunked).

Before that, a spoiler-free look at three books I've been reading:

• Not Quite Myself, by Mike and Claire Gayle — a body-swap story about a couple who separate the morning after dropping their youngest at university, told in alternating chapters by a husband-and-wife writing team
• The Butler, by Clare Mackintosh — a shorter, glamorous whodunnit set at a French villa during Cannes, a real change of pace for the author
• In Deep Water, by Elle Blair — a cruise-ship murder mystery that didn't land for me, though the reviews suggest it may well land for you

Featured book:

The Scandalous Ladies' Football Club, Frances Quinn

That's this episode — spoiler-free reviews of Not Quite Myself, The Butler, and In Deep Water, plus Frances Quinn on the real history behind The Scandalous Ladies' Football Club.

Get in touch

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa went to Harrogate Crime Festival and came back with an alarming number of books. Here is everything she picked up, was given, or had rescued from the ladies' toilets on her behalf.

Out Now

The Angel of Death - Trevor Wood

DCI Jack Parker has a secret early onset dementia diagnosis. When a mercy killer begins targeting the terminally ill in Newcastle, and the killings are traced to a carers group his wife has been attending in secret, Jack faces a question he cannot ignore.

The Fifteenth Man - William Cook

A Cold War thriller hunting the last Nazi war criminal alive to have signed off on the final solution. Rescued from the women's toilets at Harrogate. Out October.

The Man Comes Around - Caimh McDonnell

Smiling Johnny — charming, monstrous, long thought dead — is back in Dublin with scores to settle. Bunny McGarry must find him before he reaches Pamela Cassidy. Also: someone has nicked a bonfire.

Her Last Move - John Marrs

Reissued with a bonus chapter. DS Becca Vincent hunts a killer with the help of a super-recogniser — while the killer watches her every move.

The Museum of Second Chances - Jo Leevers

Evelyn Silver has spent sixty years gathering objects the tide leaves behind. At the heart of her small museum is a fragment of lace found in her blanket when she was abandoned as a newborn. Already out.

The Housewife - Natalie Borelli

Jodie has the perfect life. She is also convinced her husband killed his first wife. Out since June.

Seeing Red - Damien Boyd

Book 16 in the DI Nick Dixon series. A body staged too neatly in a Somerset churchyard. Dixon is certain someone is being silenced. Already out.

Coming Soon

The Domino Man - Helen Jones (January 2027)

Cardiff, 1972. Six bodies, each a decapitated corpse with a different head sewn on. Case never solved. Cardiff, 2022. A cold case unit reopens it. Philippa met the author in the food truck queue.

Bitter Fruit - Tempest Black (March 2027)

A debut. A ritualistically posed body in a Dublin churchyard. A detective. A woman haunted by visions. The publisher handed out branded fruit boxes.

Face First Case - Jeffrey Boakye (February 2027)

Faith Apponsa runs the Met canteen with an iron fist — until a shocking discovery pulls her into the middle of a murder investigation. Sharp and darkly funny. One of Pan Macmillan's big books for 2027.

Extraordinary Correspondence - Robert Hutton (June 2027)

Sycamore Bell answers letters addressed to Sherlock Holmes — until one arrives begging Holmes to save a man on death row. The proof arrives in the shape of an actual envelope you can open.

It Didn't End There - Charlotte Dolman

New Year's Eve 1999. A threat. A decision. Twenty-three years later, six estranged friends are summoned to a manor house and everything buried comes back up. Discovered in the beer tent.

Almost the Whole Truth - Robin Stevens (June 2027)

Robin Stevens's debut adult novel. Alice Dearlove's ex is convicted of murdering the woman he left her for. Then a podcast starts pointing the finger at Alice instead.

Confessions of a Crime Writer - Louise Mangos

Crime writer Nigel Inchcock attends a literary festival and things go badly, funnily wrong. Louise signed Philippa's copy with hope you have a laugh.

A Christmas Mystery - Katie Lumsden (November)

December 1884. A country estate. A family. Guests. And a body. 478 pages. Philippa is completely here for it.

Get in touch

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa is back with her first author interview in two months — and opens with a confession: she recorded the entire thing without plugging her microphone in. Apologies have been issued. The show goes on.

The guest is the wonderful Sarah Pinborough — author of over 30 books including Behind Her Eyes — talking about her latest novel They Say a Girl Died Here. Plus three book reviews ranging from emotionally devastating to cosy Miss Marple, with a live retraction of a book review opinion somewhere in the middle.

Three Book Reviews:

Saving Noah – Lucinda Berry

Discovered via a Wild & Wordy subscription box swap. A top student, a champion swimmer, a hometown hero — and a confession that changes everything. Philippa was utterly consumed by this book, was stunned by the direction it took, and is now following Lucinda Berry's every move. Very emotional, not for everyone, but extraordinary writing.

The Body in the Library – Agatha Christie

After Saving Noah, Philippa needed something cosy. Miss Marple delivered. A beautiful edition spotted in a bookshop, a body in the library, and the enduring joy of watching Miss Marple quietly observe everyone into a corner. Philippa always thinks she knows who did it. She never does.

Cross My Heart I Hope You Die – Mallory Arnold

Three women discover they've all been dating the same man and hatch a revenge plan at a remote mountain cabin. Philippa wasn't sure how she felt about it while recording — and then issued a live retraction mid-review. On reflection: she liked it. Didn't love it. Would like you to read it and tell her what you think.

Sarah Pinborough on They Say a Girl Died Here

Anna Mayborn arrives in Harper's Creek — a drought-stricken Nebraska town — with her mum, her little sister, and her grandmother, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer's. Two girls have been murdered three years apart. The anniversary is approaching. Anna starts digging. Her grandmother starts having strange nightly episodes. And everyone in town seems to know more than they're saying.

Sarah and Philippa discuss:

• How the book began as a horror novella ten years ago — different ending, younger Anna — and how it was transformed into a crime thriller by her UK editor
• Why Anna is a different kind of unreliable narrator: not hiding something from the reader, but genuinely unable to trust her own judgment after trauma
• The drought as a character in itself — the smell of the book would be dry summer with a slight rot, because nothing washes away when there's no water
• How small towns work: reputations linger, everyone knows everyone, and a town's willingness to look away is as interesting as the murders themselves
• The book is optioned for screen — Sarah is currently writing the first episode
• Why she'll never be a one-lane author and has made peace with that
• Her preference for sofa over desk, dog over coffee machine, and staying home over book festivals
• Living in a small town herself and knowing exactly how reputations work
• Her next book: The Winter Bones, set in West Virginia — a whole town unravelling after a little boy dies. Secrets and snow this time, rather than secrets and sun.

What she's reading: A biography of George Boleyn, and Fitcher's Bird by Angela Slatter — a dark modern fairy tale novella by an author she considers an auto-buy.

Biscuit answer: Doesn't buy biscuits because she'd eat all of them. The book was probably powered by Itsu and Deliveroo. Her true love is pick and mix — particularly after a life-changing visit to a vast pick and mix shop in Boston where a stranger told her to just try one and covered her.

Get in touch

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa is back from holiday — and the books made it to Rhodes eventually, after a handwritten letter to Athens customs explaining why a normal person would post books to themselves. Today she's sharing her top eight reads from the trip, spanning crime, horror, graphic novels, historical fiction, and AI thrillers. All different. All five stars.

The Top 8 Holiday Reads (in reverse order)

8. Under the Hammer – Samantha Dooey Miles

A woman whose landlord has a fatal accident discovers her life's mission: punishing as many landlords as possible, starting with the ones she's spotted on a home improvement TV show. Sharp, witty, and wickedly entertaining.

7. Splasher – Billie Host

Bought at Imagine Things bookshop in Harrogate. A swim coach returns to Richardson University a decade after tragedy struck — and on the first day of training, two students are found dead in the pool. Funny horror, perfectly read beside a swimming pool.

6. The Confessions – Paul Bradley Carr

AI bot Liam powers society — until he goes offline. Then identical white envelopes start arriving at people's houses, confessing their darkest secrets. Dystopian, clever, and full of unexpected turns. Philippa was audibly groaning with delight.

Joint 4th. The Scandalous Ladies Football Club – Frances Quinn

London, 1897. A schoolteacher places a newspaper ad asking for volunteers for the first ever women's football team. Philippa was so engrossed she propped the book up at the edge of the private pool and swam on the spot while reading it. Auto-buy author. Frances Quinn joins the podcast soon.

Joint 4th. Roman Mornings – Matson Taylor

Rome, 1952. A young English woman arrives full of idealism. By 1976, she's wilting — until a chance encounter with a young carpenter changes everything. A celebration of friendship, identity, and the eternal city. Mattson Taylor joins the podcast over Christmas.

3rd. The Corfe Castle Murders – Rachel McLean

DCI Leslie Clark is transferred to rural Dorset after being injured in a bomb attack — and before she's even started, she's investigating a murder at Corfe Castle. Book one of a long series. Philippa loved it and wants the next one immediately.

2nd. The Bad Doctor – Ian Williams

A graphic novel following a rural GP whose patients cause equal measures of empathy and dismay. Funny, serious, and with mental health storylines that Philippa found astonishing. Highly recommended as a first graphic novel for anyone curious about the format. Found at Hay-on-Wye Comics.

1st. Better Off Dead – Sean Watkin

The second DCI De Silva and DS Barkley novel — and Philippa's undisputed book of the holiday. She was so immersed she didn't realise she was mouthing the words as she read. A cold case, a dismembered body in the Formby woods, and a duo who can't trust anyone around them. The third book in the series is already pre-ordered. The first is Black Water Rising. Auto-buy author who Philippa insists needs to be on every crime reader's radar immediately.

Get in touch

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa reviews four books — including two she couldn't wait to tell you about — before a wonderful, wide-ranging conversation with C.J. Tudor about her latest novel Serenity Falls, out 10th September, the book she needed to write after the hardest year of her life.

📚 Four Book Reviews

One of Us is Guilty – Steve Cavanagh

The 10th Eddie Flynn case finds con-man-turned-lawyer Eddie investigating a brutal murder with only two suspects — and one of them is guilty. Philippa loves everything Steve Cavanagh writes, and this is no exception.

The Silent Appeal – Janice Hallett

The Fairway Players are back, rehearsing Agatha Christie's The Hollow, and someone isn't going to make it to opening night. Lawyers Charlotte and Femi must sift through the evidence once again in what Philippa considers one of her favourite Hallett books yet.

A Stranger in Corfu – Alex Preston

Former MI6 operatives, exiled to a Greek island to be forgotten, find their uneasy peace shattered when one of their own washes up dead. Beautifully written, thoughtful, and atmospheric — blurbed as "Le Carré meets the Durrells," which Philippa thinks is entirely fair.

Signals: The Inside Story of Our Hormones – Dr. Saira Hameed

A fascinating nonfiction exploration of how hormones shape everything from our health to our eating habits — told through real patient cases. Philippa went to hear the author speak, bought the book immediately, got it signed, and then went straight out for a double chocolate cookie. Blame the ancestors.

C.J. Tudor on Serenity Falls

Dan and his teenage daughter Sadie arrive at their mysterious inheritance in Serenity Falls — a picture-perfect Disney-style town in Florida — only to find a body in the swimming pool, dressed as a cartoon character, on day one. Things don't get more normal from there.

Inspired by Celebration, the real Disney-built town near Orlando, Caz and Philippa discuss:

• Why the idea of a perfect, theme-park-adjacent town is inherently sinister — and what happens when you actually go and visit one
• How the creepy ice cream van started as a small detail and grew into a major character and the cover image
• Writing Serenity Falls — and why she needed a new idea to fall in love with before she could write again
• Why this is perhaps her least horror-y book, but also her most uncanny — and what the word "uncanny" really means in a C.J. Tudor context
• The dark humor running through the book, and why Sadie is one of her favourite characters she's ever written
• TV developments, the patience required to wait for news, and why she's learned not to get too excited too early
• Her next book The Last Caretaker — currently being written, out autumn 2027
• What she's looking forward to reading: The Caretaker by Marcus Kliewer, which arrived as a lovely exchange for a quote on Serenity Falls
• Ten years since her publishing deal — and why it's worth stopping to appreciate how far you've come

If Serenity Falls had a smell: Buttered popcorn. Lovely at first. Overwhelming very quickly. Which is, she immediately agreed, the whole vibe.

Biscuit answer: Pick and mix for writing fuel, but biscuit-wise: plain rich tea or digestive for daytime dunking (no timing, pure instinct), and Border biscuits for evenings — too posh to dunk, chocolate gets melty.

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

No author interview, no book reviews — just Philippa's most personal episode of the year: her best reads of the first six months of 2026. Twelve books, one honourable mention, and the admission that it was genuinely hard to narrow it down.

These are books Philippa read between January and June — not necessarily published this year — in alphabetical order by author surname, because she doesn't want to rank them.

🎖️ Honourable Mention

The Wedding Suit – Rachel Joyce (BBC Radio Drama)

A five-part radio serial about an eccentric elderly couple whose isolated lives are transformed by the unexpected arrival of a child. Written by Rachel Joyce, narrated by her husband Paul Venables (Yakob in The Archers). Still available on BBC Sounds — Philippa considers it essential listening.

📚 The Top 12

YesterYear – Caro Claire Burke

The trad wife book everyone's been talking about — and rightly so. A brilliant concept, word-of-mouth sensation, and genuinely hard to put down.

Body of Lies – Jo Callaghan

The fourth and final Kat and Lock book. An AI detective, a murdered MP, a cyberattack, and a taunting binary code message. Plus: Philippa gets a mention in the acknowledgements. Chef's kiss.

Solitary Agents – David Goodman

The second Jamie Tulloch spy novel. Clever concept, brilliant writing, and completely readable without the first book.

Broken Country – Claire Leslie Hall

A quiet sucker punch of a book — part courtroom, part countryside, all heart. Beautifully written and emotionally devastating.

The Drowning Place – Sarah Hilary

A Peak District crime series debut unlike anything else in the genre right now. Joseph's story is different in a way Philippa isn't willing to spoil — but can't stop recommending.

A Family Matter – Claire Lynch

Short, devastating, and extraordinary. A letter arrives. Two timeframes — 1982 and 2022. About love, acceptance, and everything in between.

Slings and Arrows – Nick McLachlan

A book about darts in the 1980s that turns out to be about friendship, marriage, health, and everything men don't say to each other. Published 2024. Beautiful.

Night Swimmers – Roisin McGuire

A coastal Northern Ireland village, a quirky swimmer called Grace, a visitor with a complicated story, and a cast of locals who made Philippa laugh out loud. The audiobook is gorgeous.

Land – Maggie O'Farrell

Starting in 1865 Ireland, this is Philippa's favourite Maggie O'Farrell yet. Exquisite writing, emotional gut-punches from nowhere, and a book that feels like the land itself is reading alongside you.

Mars One – Charlotte Robinson

A sci-fi thriller that works even if you don't read sci-fi. A one-way mission to Mars, a conspiracy, a vanished coder in Hong Kong, and his cat. Needs to be a film immediately.

The Things We Never Say – Elizabeth Strout

Philippa's first Strout & now she wants them all. A teacher named Arty handles life with quiet grace & devastating tenderness. Already pressed into multiple people's hands.

The Ballad of Smallhope and Pennyroyal – Jodi Taylor

Time travel, hijinks, chaos, and joy. A brilliant entry point into Jodi Taylor's world, and the audiobook is perfection.

💬 What were your best reads of the first half of 2026?

Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | quickbookreviews@outlook.com

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A short but exciting episode! Philippa announces a brand new format for the podcast: a Quick Book Reviews Book Club, running throughout October.

The chosen book is The One You Least Suspect by Brian McGilloway — already out in paperback, 384 pages, and available from libraries. Each week in October, listeners will read roughly 96 pages, with Philippa sharing her thoughts at the end of each episode so no one has to miss the main content if they're behind on reading.

About the book:

Katie is a barmaid in a quiet Derry neighbourhood, happy with her small life and her daughter, Hope. Everything changes when two detectives approach her, wanting her to become their informant. Caught between the police and the dangerous brothers she works for, Katie must survive by staying the one person nobody suspects.

Philippa also shares a quick update on changes to the podcast schedule:

• Mondays — author interviews
• Fridays — Philippa's own takes on the book world, publishing chat, and things on her mind

This is a one-off trial for now — no pressure to join, and listeners can catch up in their own time. Updates and discussion will also be shared on the Quick Book Reviews Facebook group throughout October.

The Book Club Pick: The One You Least Suspect by Brian McGilloway (out now in paperback)

Join the discussion

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Bestselling author and broadcaster Fern Britton joins Philippa for a very special summer edition of Quick Book Reviews to talk about her wonderful new novel, A Cornish Legacy.

Fern shares stories of solo travelling in Florence, cycling adventures across India, Madagascar, Cuba and Egypt, dream holidays to Penang, mosquito nightmares, Cornwall, family history, and the joy of finding a place to truly belong.

They also discuss the emotional inspiration behind A Cornish Legacy, the real Cornish house that inspired the story, food in fiction, family secrets, wartime history, reviews, writing challenges, and why Fern thought this might be “the worst book” she’d ever written — before readers fell completely in love with it.

A Cornish Legacy is a warm, emotional and uplifting novel set around a beautiful old Cornish house called Wildahoo. After heartbreak and loss, Cordelia unexpectedly inherits the crumbling house and must decide whether to destroy it or rebuild both the property and her own life. Rich with friendship, family, belonging, love and second chances, it’s perfect for readers who adore atmospheric Cornish fiction. (penguin.co.uk)

Perfect for fans of Fern Britton, Cornish fiction, women’s fiction, uplifting novels, family stories, summer reading, author interviews, and feel-good books with heart.

Books and authors mentioned:

A Cornish Legacy by Fern Britton

Daughters of Cornwall by Fern Britton

Still Life by Sarah Winman

Gone with the Wind by Gone with the Wind

Dorothy L. Sayers

Agatha Christie

This episode is full of travel stories, writing wisdom, Cornwall, family memories, laughter, emotion, and excellent advice about protecting your ice cream from seagulls.

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Recorded live at Capital Crime Book Festival, Philippa talks to Gavin Bell — also known as Mason Cross, also known as Alex Knight — about his gripping new thriller 138 Main Street. But first, three festive reads for anyone who, like Philippa, enjoys a Christmas book in the height of summer.

3 Christmas Books for Summer

The Winter Guest – Sarah Moss

Two strangers share Christmas Eve dinner in a remote Irish hotel as a snowstorm gathers outside — and each has a confession to make. Atmospheric and unexpected.

A Carol and a Killing – Reverend Richard Coles

A festive cathedral choir concert ends in tragedy when a soloist falls — or was he pushed? A cosy, witty Christmas murder mystery.

The Case of the Christmas Card – Elly Griffiths

Charles Dickens turns up on time-travelling detective Allie Dawson's doorstep just before Christmas, and the two team up to solve two cases at once — all while Dickens tries to find his way home.

Gavin Bell on 138 Main Street

A killer is targeting victims who all live at the same address — 138 Main Street — but there are 7,664 Main Streets in America. How do you predict where they'll strike next?

Gavin and Philippa discuss:

• Writing under three different names, and the moment he had to invent a Gavin Bell signature on the spot at his book launch
• His dream holiday on the Orient Express, with separate compartments for family, friends, and quiet decompression time
• Reading The Godfather for the first time and why watching the film first makes you appreciate the book more
• His nightmare holiday: Benidorm 1996, hangovers in the heat, and reading the backs of cereal boxes for entertainment
• Where the idea came from — an offhand line in another book, plus a real-life unlocked-doors estate that spooked him into writing it
• Why short, sting-in-the-tail chapters are deliberate, and why "I read it in three hours" is the highest compliment a thriller writer can get
• Why he keeps his day job, and the colleagues (and CD collection) who keep accidentally ending up as character names

Ice cream order: "Marathon Man" Snickers ice cream in a waffle cone — no sauce, no flake, just pure peanut-chocolate perfection.

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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It's the Quick Book Reviews summer special, and Philippa is joined by the wonderful Elly Griffiths — bestselling author of the Ruth Galloway series — to talk holidays, her latest novel The Killing Time, and what's coming next in the world of time-travelling detective Ali Dawson.

☀️ Holiday Chat

Elly is a self-confessed good traveller — half Italian, born in August, and happiest in the heat. She and Philippa cover:

• Dream holiday: a pale pink villa on the Amalfi Coast, a little boat, one evening a week with a local chef, and a carefully curated stack of books
• Nightmare holiday: Las Vegas — fake light, fake skies, rows of slot machines, and a pool you're not actually allowed to swim in
• The art of the airport — checkers vs loungers, and why Elly is slowly becoming her husband
• Buying your own book in an airport duty-free shop and having to pretend you didn't know it was there
• The Jodi Picoult book she left behind in a holiday rental with one chapter to go (it still haunts her)
• The worst possible holiday book: saccharine sweet, no darkness underneath, and the last chapter ripped out

🎙️ The Killing Time — Elly Griffiths

The second book in the Ali Dawson series finds time travel strictly forbidden — until Ali's cat goes missing and she decides the rules don't quite apply to that. What follows takes her to 1851, the Great Exhibition, a sinister mesmerist called Barry Power, and a chance encounter with Italian physicist Serafina Pellegrini — all with her cat Terry somehow along for the ride.

Elly and Philippa discuss:

• Why time travel in these books is really just "where Allie goes" — no sci-fi knowledge required
• How Ali arrived fully-formed, red-haired and nose-ringed, walking down an East End street
• Her nod to Chaucer's Wife of Bath in Allie's character
• The Ruth Galloway update — a short story set on a Nile cruise, and a tantalising hint about Ruth's daughter Kate turning 18 this November...
• The Case of the Christmas Card (out October): a novella in which Charles Dickens travels to 2024, falls in love with M&S sandwiches, and helps Ali solve a case
• The Night Watchman (out February): Ali goes back to the London Blitz — and Elly goes deep on 1940s rabbit keeping
• What expression she hopes readers will have at the end: satisfaction, with a little curl of curiosity

Ice cream order: Coffee, classic, in a little cup — the odd coffee bean acceptable, squirty cream absolutely not.

The Killing Time is out now in hardback. Paperback out 10th September.

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Recorded live at Capital Crime Book Festival, Philippa talks to C.J. Merritt about his whiplash international spy thriller Octagon — but first, a public service announcement: three brilliant books you should absolutely not read on an actual flight.

3 Books You Should NOT Take on Holiday (If You're Flying)

Hostage – Clare Mackintosh

A flight attendant receives a note threatening her daughter's life mid-flight from London to Sydney. Gripping, claustrophobic, and definitely not in-flight reading.

Drowning – T.J. Newman

A plane crashes into the Pacific, trapping passengers underwater on a sinking fuselage. Written by a former flight attendant who knows exactly how to make this terrifyingly real.

Airframe – Michael Crichton

A catastrophic mid-air disaster sparks a tense investigation into what really went wrong. Brilliant, realistic, and best read firmly on the ground.

Philippa talks to C.J. Merritt about Octagon

A former MI6 officer and an ex-SAS soldier, both out in the cold, are pulled back in when a coded warning leads to a trail of danger across Europe. Described as a page-turning action thriller in the vein of I Am Pilgrim.

Chris and Philippa discuss:

• His dream holiday: New Zealand, or a few days alone on a writing retreat (a luxury when you have a small child)
• Travelling solo through Central Asia, Africa, and the Middle East in his twenties — and the cardigan with zip pockets built for smuggling books through customs
• His nightmare holiday: a 25-mile jungle trek through 35°C heat in Central Africa, hired porters who got drunk on the money he paid them, and arriving to find the gorillas they'd come to see had all died of Ebola a year earlier
• Why he wanted to write a spy thriller with a huge geographic canvas after several more localised books
• Writing 500–1,000 words a day in a café, fuelled by multiple coffees, and losing track of time during action sequences
• The two-book deal already underway, plus a slower, more psychological spy thriller drawing on his past life as a psychologist
• Why the title Octagon came early and never changed

Ice cream order: Salted caramel, pistachio, and chocolate cookie dough — in a dish, with a cone on the side just in case.

Get in touch

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa is joined by the legendary Lee Child — creator of Jack Reacher, published in over 120 countries with more than 40 million books sold — for this summer special. They cover holidays, the Reacher handover to brother Andrew Child, artificial intelligence, and why literacy in prisons matters more than you might think.

☀️ Holiday Chat

Lee hasn't had a proper holiday in 10 years — when you've been on 70 planes in a single year, home starts to look like a very good option. He and Philippa discuss:

• Why 40% writing and 60% promotion means travel has lost its appeal
• Dream holiday: two weeks in Antigua with a book a day plus a 25% margin for ones he doesn't get on with
• The accidental best holiday of his life — a British Airways voucher, a paper ticket, a pilot who said "you're here, let's go," and a tiny Cessna to an almost uninhabited Bahamian island
• The villa in Tobago that promised a cook and delivered disappointment
• The Soviet Union trip he always wanted but never took — and why a Russian jail would be his true holiday nightmare
• Reading on the beach with the "commentary track" switched on — and the moment in Seven that made him think "they wouldn't dare" and then they did

🎙️ Jack Reacher: Exit Strategy & Chain Reaction

Lee explains the creative handover to his brother Andrew Child, why it was never really a handover at all, and how the two of them have always been on the same wavelength — sometimes literally finishing each other's sentences about Russian oligarchs falling from windows.

They discuss:

• How Andrew is now doing "all the hard work" while Lee does "the fun work" — which is just talking
• Why Lee stopped writing when he felt he was running out of gas, and why he'd rather stop than phone it in
• The brilliant passive opening of Exit Strategy — a note slipped into Reacher's pocket in a coffee shop
• Why Reacher works as a proxy for every reader who's ever wanted to help but couldn't
• Chain Reaction (out 20th October): a tech town, solar farms, data centres, and Reacher's feelings about the world's first trillionaires
• Andrew's two contributions to the reset: more Reacher dialogue, and dragging him slightly further into the modern world

📚 Literacy, Prisons & Why Reading Saves Lives

Lee talks about his prison literacy work and his involvement with The Queen's Reading Room — and the research showing that just five minutes of reading reduces stress hormones by 20%. Plus why Quick Reads matter, why TV adaptations are a brilliant way in for reluctant readers, and why some women end up in prison simply because they couldn't read an official letter.

🍦 Ice Cream Order

Vanilla, in a bowl, with hot fudge sauce — slightly melty — and yes, a 99 Flake if one's going.

💬 Get in touch

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Recorded live at Capital Crime Book Festival, Philippa talks to Ellie Levenson about her brilliantly genre-defying novel Room 706 — described by her own agent as "thrilling but not a thriller."

But first, the results are in! After asking listeners for their top three holiday book recommendations, here are the three that came out on top:

Your Top 3 Holiday Reads

The End of Summer – Charlotte Philby

A woman's carefully constructed past unravels when journalists turn up on her daughter's doorstep. A story of reinvention, secrets, and a mother who might never have been who she claimed.

Dead Heat – Sabine Durrant

A struggling journalist joins old friends at their house in Greece for the summer — until a wealthy newcomer's lavish parties stir up envy, resentment, and an accident that may not have been an accident at all.

Still Life – Sarah Winman

A wartime encounter in a ruined Tuscan wine cellar changes the course of two strangers' lives forever. (Philippa admits this is the one book club pick almost everyone loves except her — and she suspects a reread is overdue.)

Ellie Levenson on Room 706

Inspired by a very relatable fantasy — booking a hotel room alone, with no one needing anything from her — Ellie's novel asks: what if a tired mother checked into a hotel just to be alone, and then couldn't leave?

Ellie and Philippa discuss:

• The "women who are clever but tired" genre Ellie has unofficially invented
• Why her agent suggested splitting the book into three timelines — Kate meeting her husband, meeting her lover, and the real-time hotel room scenes
• Why complicated, morally grey characters make for the best book club arguments
• The brilliant audiobook adaptation that surprised even Ellie with how "acted" it felt
• The original title, Hotel Sonder, and why it had to change after she kept seeing the word everywhere
• Her next book — another "middle-aged woman stepping outside her lane," and her fascination with hotels, parks, and other places where strangers' lives briefly intersect

Ice cream order: Chocolate, coffee, and nut — multiples of three, naturally, with a cone for garnish.

Get in touch

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.



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Bestselling crime writer Karin Slaughter joins Philippa for a very special summer edition of Quick Book Reviews to talk about her new thriller, The Secrets We Hide.

Karin talks about why she is not a natural holiday person, her dream trip to New Zealand, long-haul flights, travel delays, e-books, audiobooks, fish allergies, sorbet, swimming with sharks, climbing Sydney Harbour Bridge, and why she prefers working to sitting on a beach.

Philippa and Karin also discuss The Secrets We Hide, the North Falls series, We Are All Guilty Here, Emmy Clifton, Jude Archer, writing violence against women, libraries, book bans, women’s voices, writing for different kinds of readers, and the huge success of the Will Trent TV series.

The Secrets We Hide is the second book in Karin Slaughter’s North Falls series. Set in a small Georgia town full of secrets, it follows Sheriff Emmy Clifton and her sister, ex-federal agent Jude Archer, as they investigate the murder of Allison Vickery and the brutal attack on her teenage daughter. Everyone thinks they know what happened — but the truth is far more shocking. 

Perfect for fans of Karin Slaughter, crime fiction, psychological thrillers, murder mysteries, small-town crime, Will Trent, North Falls, summer reading, author interviews, and gripping thrillers with big twists.

Books and authors mentioned:

The Secrets We Hide by Karin Slaughter

We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter

The Will Trent series by Karin Slaughter

Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter

The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter

Mary Higgins Clark

Mo Hayder

James Patterson

Bernard Cornwell

Jane Austen

This episode is packed with sharp insight, dark humour, book chat, travel disasters, thriller-writing secrets, and the very important question of whether cherry sorbet counts as healthy.

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Recorded live at Capital Crime Book Festival, this episode kicks off Philippa's August Friday series — shorter interviews with brilliant authors you should know more about. First up: Brian McGilloway, talking holidays, control, and his standalone thriller The One You Least Suspect.

But first, three books perfect for anyone who hasn't read in years and wants to fall back in love with reading on holiday:

Three Books for the Reluctant Reader

Love, Mom – Iliana Xander

A bestselling thriller author dies in a so-called accident — and the letters that follow reveal a family secret worth killing for. Gripping from the first page.

Deception – Jack Jordan

A couple desperate to fund their son's life-saving surgery accepts an offer from a mysterious syndicate — but every task is a crime, and the stakes only rise. Widely considered Jack Jordan's best yet.

Strange Houses – Uketsu, translated by Jim Rion

A creepy, atmospheric Japanese horror told partly through unsettling floor plans. Short, immersive, and impossible to put down — Philippa's favourite holiday read of last year.

Brian McGilloway on The One You Least Suspect

A barmaid in Derry wakes up after an ill-advised one-night stand to find herself pressured into becoming a police informant by two detectives who've been watching her for months. Caught between the law and the men she works for, Katie has to find her own way through — and her own voice.

Brian and Philippa discuss:

• Why he avoids flying wherever possible — buses, trains, and ferries are all preferable
• His dream holiday: a cruise that wakes you up somewhere new every morning, or family time at Lake Garda
• Why he still prefers physical books to e-readers (the percentage counter just doesn't cut it)
• The real story behind Northern Ireland's history of police informants, and why he wanted an "unlikely" central character everyone underestimates
• The original, much darker title that didn't survive — and why The Informant almost stuck
• Which of his 13 books he'd recommend to a first-time reader
• His celiac-friendly answer to the usual biscuit question: ice cream, raspberry sauce, and a sprinkle of chocolate

Get in touch

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Bestselling psychological thriller author John Marrs joins Philippa for a Quick Book Reviews Summer Special to talk about his latest thriller, Dead in the Water.

John and Philippa chat about holiday reading, Kindle versus physical books, family trips, travel sickness, nightmare cruises, dream road trips across Canada or New Zealand, ice cream memories, and why raspberry ripple may require mint Tic Tacs.

They also discuss the writing of Dead in the Water, John’s plotting process, red herrings, psychological thrillers, speculative fiction, social media, TikTok, author promotion, publishing transparency, and why he wants readers to close his books feeling entertained.

Dead in the Water follows Damon after a near-drowning, when his life flashes before his eyes and reveals one disturbing memory he cannot place: a dead boy, a face he does not know, and a moment he cannot remember living. The official synopsis describes it as a chilling thriller about buried memories and obsession. 

Perfect for fans of John Marrs, psychological thrillers, crime fiction, twisty thrillers, summer reads, author interviews, and no-spoiler book podcasts.

Books and authors mentioned:

Dead in the Water by John Marrs

The One by John Marrs

The Good Samaritan by John Marrs

The Passengers by John Marrs

The Marriage Act by John Marrs

The Family Experiment by John Marrs

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Philippa sits down with Ellery Lloyd — the husband and wife writing duo of Colette and Paul — to talk about their brilliant new novel Time to Burn, their Radio 2 Book Club selection, and what it's really like to write a book with the person you live with. Plus listener questions from the Quick Book Reviews Facebook group, and a biscuit answer that connects beautifully with a very recent episode.

🎙️ Ellery Lloyd on Time to Burn

In the very near future, time travel is possible — but only for the obscenely wealthy. Tech entrepreneur Inigo Frank has built Tempus Tours, and documentary maker Phoebe Hunt is there to film his story. Until the first day of filming, when a returning group of time travellers come back bloodied and dazed — and one of them is missing. Someone Phoebe knows.

Colette, Paul, and Philippa discuss:

• The real-world inspiration: billionaire obsessions with space travel, and what happens when technology outpaces consequence
• Why the book is driven by character and mystery rather than quantum physics — it's a thriller that happens to involve time travel, not the other way around
• Their dream writing locations: a railing-free balcony on Dartmoor (Colette) and a house with extraordinary sea views in Devon (Paul) — neither of which involves being in the same room
• The nightmare writing location: sitting next to Paul, who types loudly, laughs at his own sentences, and performs the act of writing like a 1930s movie reporter
• The Radio 2 Book Club announcement — recorded with Sara Cox the morning of this episode
• Reader questions from the Facebook group: cover design, who first suggested writing together, how they develop ideas (WhatsApps, balconies, and a legendary late-night text from China), whether they argue about plot points (they don't — but one of them keeps a backup Word document, just in case)
• The Ellery Lloyd formula: a world you haven't been inside before, characters with real motivations, and everything tied up satisfyingly at the end
• Where they'd travel if they could: Paul chooses dinosaurs and Romans; Colette wants a dress she saw when she was 18 and has never stopped thinking about
• What they're reading: London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Colette) and The Death of Us by Abigail Dean (Paul)

Biscuit answer: Colette powers her writing with Tim Tams — bite off both ends, suck tea through the middle, eat immediately before it collapses. Paul eats his daughter's digestives resentfully and wishes he'd bought Hobnobs.

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa opens with a brief history lesson — the word "blurb" was invented in 1907 by a writer mocking self-congratulatory publishers, and his fictional creation Miss Belinda Blurb gave us the word we still use today. Then it's three book reviews and a wide-ranging, genuinely fascinating conversation with David Baldacci — over 200 million books sold — about his latest novel Hope Rises.

📚 Three Book Reviews

The Compound – Aisling Ruhl

Ten women wake up in a desert compound, cameras rolling, waiting for men to arrive. A dark, thought-provoking take on reality TV culture — more layered than it first appears.

They Called Us the Enemy – George Takei

A graphic novel memoir by the Star Trek actor recounting his family's imprisonment in Japanese American internment camps during World War II. Essential, heartbreaking, and — given it has now been banned in some US libraries — more important than ever.

Mad Mabel – Sally Hepworth

81-year-old Elsie Fitzpatrick has a curious history of people around her coming to a foul end. A beautifully narrated audiobook that defies easy genre labels — somewhere between a slow-burn thriller and the Thursday Murder Club, but entirely its own thing.

🎙️ David Baldacci on Hope Rises

Walter Nash did everything right — worked hard, earned well, built the American dream. Then an FBI agent turned up the night of his father's funeral and told him he had a choice: help bring down the criminal organisation he'd unknowingly worked for, or lose everything anyway.

David and Philippa discuss:

• Why Walter Nash is a metaphor for everyone wondering where they fit in a world being reshaped by AI
• The three-year class action lawsuit David and other authors brought against major AI companies — and the nine-hour deposition in which he was asked whether he'd copied Charles Dickens
• Why he writes in a Greek deli near his Virginia office, where he has an unofficial plaque above his usual table
• Being both an introvert and an extrovert — and why total isolation is actually his nightmare writing location
• The reading crisis: why he stopped letting "I just don't have time to read" go unchallenged at book signings
• The Wish You Well Foundation and why forcing children to read specific books is the fastest way to kill a love of reading
• Growing up in segregated Richmond, Virginia, and why books were his "body armour against bigotry"
• What he's reading: essays by Jesmyn Ward, a Toni Morrison biography, James by Percival Everett, Kurt Vonnegut's Jailbird, and ARCs from Ann Cleeves and Michael Koryta
• The expression he hopes to see on readers' faces at the end of Hope Rises: a contented sigh, and a little more empathy

Biscuit answer: Cheez-Its — reduced fat, but consumed in quantities that would alarm a nutritionist. His son ate two boxes and then went out to buy a replacement, then ate that one too.

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa sits down with Robert Peston — ITV political editor, bestselling author, and reluctant biscuit convert — to talk about The Kill Switch, the third and final book in his Gil Peck thriller trilogy, and why he felt compelled to put artificial intelligence and the fragility of democracy at its heart.

🎙️ Robert Peston on The Kill Switch

When the prime minister dies in mysterious circumstances, journalist Gil Peck finds himself at the centre of a conspiracy that may or may not involve artificial intelligence. In a world of misinformation, fractured democracy, and technology that is rewriting the rules of everything, who — or what — is really pulling the strings?

Robert and Philippa discuss:

• Why AI had to be at the heart of this book — and why he believes we are living through the most dangerous moment for democracy since the 1930s
• The acknowledgment that stopped Philippa in her tracks: "Don't take democracy for granted. Our way of life is more at risk than at any time since the 1930s. This is the fight of our lives."
• How the trilogy was always planned as three eras: New Labour 1997, the financial crisis of 2007-08, and the AI revolution now
• Why writing fiction is joyful and writing nonfiction feels like work — and why he may never go back
• How COVID gave him the time and space to finally finish a novel he'd been putting off for decades
• The nightmare writing scenario: not a place but a moment — Trump inaugurations, government collapses, and the relentless news cycle taking over every inch of available brain space
• His dream writing location: a central Lisbon Airbnb over Christmas and New Year — sunny, beautiful food, friendly strangers, and a scene in the novel as a thank-you to the city
• Why he doesn't have a current auto-buy author but is devoted to Dorothy L. Sayers, John Buchan, and Isaac Bashevis Singer
• The endless agony of book titles — including the battle to keep WTF on the cover of a Waterstones-stocked book
• What he hopes readers feel at the end: hope, and curiosity about what comes next
• What he's reading: London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe and Mariana Mazzucato's The Common Good Economy

Biscuit answer: A chocolate man first and foremost — his go-to is the Choco Leibniz. Introduced mid-conversation to the M&S chocolate-drenched custard cream, which he had already discovered and confirms is "totally addictive." Castle Chocolates in Carlisle and their chocolate-covered lemon sponge are now firmly on his radar for the next book.

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa is joined by T.M. Payne — and her co-conspirator Susie — for what may be the most gloriously chaotic episode in Quick Book Reviews history. There are kitchen implement debates, merch updates, a real duck called Crispy, and a live Penguin biscuit demonstration that will genuinely change how you eat biscuits forever. Oh, and there's a brilliant book to talk about too.

But first, three book reviews.

📚 Three Book Reviews

The Reader on the 6.27 – Jean-Paul Didierlaurent

Please don't read the blurb — just pick this up. Under 200 pages, beautiful and surprising. All Philippa will say is: what Gillian does for a living will floor you.

Queenie is Working on It – Candice Carty-Williams

Queenie is back — still fallible, still gorgeous, still making questionable decisions — and that's exactly why she's so loveable. If you loved book one, you'll love this.

Heartstopper Volume Six – Alice Oseman

The final chapter of Nick and Charlie's story. Not what Philippa was expecting — but on reflection, exactly right. She needs to talk to someone about it. Get in touch when you've read it.

🎙️ T.M. Payne on One Bad Deed

DI Sheridan Holler is back — and this time she does something she never thought she'd have to do. That's all Tina will say.

Tina, Susie, and Philippa discuss:

• The tongs vs spatula debate — and the merch empire that has got completely out of hand
• Why Sheridan Holler is deliberately not a flawed, angst-ridden detective, and why her warmth comes from Tina's real 14 years as a police case investigator
• Whether you need to start at book one (Tina says ideally yes, Susie and Philippa respectfully disagree)
• The extraordinary true story behind the book's deaf character: a chance encounter with a hotel receptionist in Portsmouth who had been deaf since birth, who lip-read Tina from 12 feet away, and whose voice was then perfectly captured by audiobook narrator Heather Bleasdale — who will never be able to hear it
• The dream book festival: a pop-up travelling event on a Routemaster bus, driven by Tina in a cap, pulling up outside people's houses when they can't get to a festival
• The nightmare book festival: anywhere near a beetroot factory
• Crispy the Duck — real, found on the Norfolk Broads, returned to the following year
• The smell of One Bad Deed: duck poo and water
• Philippa gets a mention in the acknowledgements of book six — alongside broccoli

Biscuit answer: Penguins — but not eaten normally. Bite off both ends, submerge in warm tea, suck the tea through the biscuit, shove it in your mouth at once. Three have been posted to Philippa. Videos are expected.

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa sits down with the brilliant Jo Spain — 13 bestselling thrillers already published, translated into 17 languages, TV writer and producer — to talk about her extraordinary new novel Never to Be Found, which sparked a bidding war from some of the biggest names in television before it was even published.

🎙️ Jo Spain on Never to Be Found

In Japan, up to 100,000 people every year voluntarily evaporate from their lives — a phenomenon known as jōhatsu. Entire industries exist to help them do it, providing new identities, documents, and a clean start. Veronica Paige has brought this concept to Britain, running a business disappearing people — until she discovers she's helped a murderer vanish.

Jo and Philippa discuss:

• How a lunchtime article led to the entire concept of the book — and why Jo raced to write it before anyone else could
• The once-in-a-career bidding war: Sam Mendes' production company, Amazon MGM, and The Walking Deadshowrunner Angela Kang all in pursuit of the same book
• Why Jo always writes books for the love of them and scripts for the money — and why those two things are entirely separate
• The three categories people fall into when they hear about jōhatsu: those who want to vanish, those horrified by abandonment, and those who think they'd be brilliant at making people disappear
• How Veronica justifies what she does — and the moral question at the heart of the book
• Why layers matter more than first drafts, and what it looks like from the outside when Jo is deep in the editing stage
• Her dream writing location: the coast path between Moville and Greencastle in Donegal — where the Wi-Fi barely works and the day takes its time
• Her nightmare: a writer's room, surrounded by other writers, expected to create on demand
• The pressure of reader expectations for twists — and why she's made peace with the fact that she can't please everyone
• BookTok: how she joined to keep an eye on her children and ended up addicted, embarrassing them daily, and discovering her last three books there
• What she's reading: The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett, the latest Jane Harper, and London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe

Biscuit answer: A committed biscuit addict who has written an entire novel powered by ginger nuts. Current favourite: shortcake with sultanas, dunked, and firmly classified as healthy eating.

💬 Get in touch

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa opens with an update on the Great Book Parcel Saga — a box of holiday reading, a Greek customs office, a handwritten letter explaining why a normal person would post books to themselves, and the very real possibility of being detained at passport control. Then it's three book reviews and a long-overdue conversation with Tim Sullivan, creator of the beloved DS George Cross series, about his eighth book The Tailor.

📚 Three Book Reviews

The Pinnacle – Abir Mukherjee ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A washed-up Hollywood actor wakes from a drunken stupor to find his Bollywood superstar wife murdered in their Mumbai penthouse. Told from multiple perspectives across one luxury skyscraper — brilliantly written and Philippa's favourite Mukherjee yet.

Table for One – Emma Gannon

A woman's carefully constructed life falls apart, and she has to rediscover herself from scratch. Philippa read this on a train surrounded by serious businessmen while experiencing silent heaving sobs. Deeply moving and not what you might expect.

The Divorce – Freida McFadden

A woman whose husband has left her for a younger woman refuses to accept defeat and spirals into dangerous obsession. Gripping, compulsive, and — toward the end — absolutely unhinged in ways Philippa did not see coming.

🎙️ Tim Sullivan on The Tailor

A bespoke tailor is found murdered in the lavatory of the Bristol to London train. George Cross can tell immediately it wasn't opportunistic — and follows the evidence wherever it leads, even into territory that makes him deeply uncomfortable.

Tim and Philippa discuss:

• Why George Cross belongs in the tradition of Dupin, Holmes, and Poirot — and why his autism is his gift, not an accessory
• The rule Tim never breaks: we never laugh at George, only with him or at others' reactions to him
• Why this is absolutely not cosy crime — and why the original covers did the books a disservice
• Writing longhand with fountain pens (a collection of Pelikans, Montblancs, and Lamys), and why the family complain less if there's no laptop open
• Writing book nine without knowing who the second killer is — and why not plotting keeps the writing organic
• Being turned down by agents for neurodivergent appropriation, self-publishing the first two books, and being embraced by the autistic community instead
• Why he's reluctant to sell TV rights — and why protecting George's authenticity matters more than a screen deal
• The exclusive interview with George Cross hidden inside the hardback first edition (George found the whole thing fairly pointless)
• What he's reading: Northanger Abbey, Bleak House, and an advance copy of Ian Rankin's new book
• His one remaining ambition: to look up on the Tube and see a stranger reading one of his books

Biscuit answer: Flapjacks or white chocolate cookies — and absolutely no dunking. George would never allow it.

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa sits down with the brilliant Adele Parks — bestselling author of 25 novels, over six million copies sold, OBE for services to literature — to talk about her latest book Eyes on You, the pressure of reader expectations, and a biscuit revelation that may change your tea break forever.

🎙️ Adele Parks on Eyes on You

When Amy was 15, she watched her father brutally murder his secret lover. Her testimony sent him to prison. Now in her early 30s, she's living a small, quiet life — until a privileged, wealthy man walks into the noodle bar where she works, and everything changes. What feels like connection may hide something far darker.

Adele & Philippa discuss:

• Why Adele thinks this might be her best book yet — and why that's not just author hype
• The working title that was ditched: The Murderer's Daughter — too on the nose, too reductive
• Daddy issues, trauma, and why Amy's story is really about what happens when the person who was supposed to protect you destroys everything instead
• The pressure of being an "auto-buy author" — and why that status has to be earned every single time
• Whether podcasters and book reviewers have made readers more demanding of twists and reveals (Adele thinks probably yes, and is fine with it)
• Why she writes at home, needs air conditioning installed, and requires a scary social media bouncer to confiscate her phone
• Her nightmare writing location: a writer's retreat, surrounded by other writers all typing away confidently while she types "the" again and again
• The importance of pre-orders — how they affect stock decisions, first print runs, and author sanity on launch day

Her signed pre-order service through Bert's Books in Swindon

• 📚 Order a signed copy of Eyes on You from Bert's Books
• 🔗 Pre-order Eyes on You and find Adele's tour dates at adeleparks.com
• What she hopes readers feel at the end: shock, awe, possibly tears, and the satisfying sense that everyone got what they deserved

What Adele's reading:

• Mad Mabel – Sally Hepworth (an 80-year-old with a very murky past and a suspicious neighbour)
• The Last Tudor – Philippa Gregory (big, fat, brilliant, and finished in two days)

Biscuit answer: Cherry GoAhead biscuits, dunked in tea, timed to perfection. Three per pack — the ideal number. Not to be eaten dry under any circumstances.

Eyes on You is out 27th August. Pre-orders open now.

YOU CAN:

🔗 Pre-order Eyes on You and find Adele's tour dates at adeleparks.com

📚 Order a signed copy of Eyes on You from Bert's Books

💬 Get in touch with the podcast

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa is joined by three brilliant crime writers — Abir Mukherjee, Jane Casey, and Sarah Hilary — to talk all about St Hilda's Crime Fiction Weekend, the unique Oxford crime fiction event running 4th–6th September. Each guest is allotted a school role (head girl, school council rep, and chair stacker) which determines the questions they're asked — and the chaos that follows is exactly as fun as it sounds.

🎓 St Hilda's Crime Fiction Weekend 🔗 Book tickets for St Hilda's Crime Fiction Weekend

• What makes St Hilda's different from every other crime festival — long-form talks on themes rather than authors plugging their own books
• This year's theme: Bad Apples: Crime Fiction's Enemies and Antiheroes
• The legendary annual Whodunit, costumes, accents, and Abir's reputation for staying in character (and wig) all weekend
• The Friday Night Special ticket — drinks on the lawn, a talk on Bond villains, a three-course chef-prepared dinner, and an after-dinner speaker
• Guest of honour Andrew Taylor, and returning speaker Natasha Cooper
• The online option for people joining from Australia, Japan, and beyond
• Punting mishaps, Jimi Hendrix-via-laptop disasters, and other backstage panic stories
• The on-site Blackwell's bookshop and the chance to win a rare first edition at the Whodunit

📚 The Books

The Pinnacle – Abir Mukherjee

A failing Hollywood actor moves to Mumbai with his Bollywood star wife, wakes up after a bender to find her murdered, and becomes suspect number one to 1.4 billion people. Described by Abir as "exotic satire crime fiction."

Everything She Didn't Say – Jane Casey

Set on the windswept west coast of Ireland — a woman wakes covered in blood with no memory of what happened to her missing best friend. A twisty, modern gothic thriller.

The Drowning Place – Sarah Hilary

Seventeen years after a school bus tragedy drowned everyone aboard except one survivor, DS Joseph Ash investigates a murdered family in a small Peak District town — accompanied by a best friend who may or may not be a ghost.

🍎 The Final Question (Bad Apples Edition)

No biscuits this time — favourite apples instead (Golden Delicious, Braeburn, and Pink Lady all get a mention) — though the conversation inevitably swings back to biscuits anyway, sparking a full-blown debate about thin arrowroots, fig rolls, dunking etiquette, and the legal status of the Jaffa Cake.

🔗 Book tickets for St Hilda's Crime Fiction Weekend

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa opens with a much-requested update on the Barcelona Kindle story — specifically, the one detail everyone wanted to know: did the Kindle survive? (It did. The case did not.) Then it's three book reviews and a wonderful conversation with debut novelist Amman Brar about Mr. Sidhu's Post Office — one of BBC News's 12 books to read in 2026.

📚 Three Book Reviews

The Burning Tide – William Shaw (out 16th July)

The second Eden Driscoll mystery sees the ex-Met detective pulled into a case involving a stranger who claims someone is trying to kill him — only to vanish before Eden can ask more questions. Beautifully written, with Shaw's signature warmth in portraying adult-child relationships.

The Tailor – Tim Sullivan

A bespoke tailor is found murdered on the Bristol to London train. DS George Cross deduces immediately it's an execution, not a robbery — and finds himself in personal danger for the first time. Tim Sullivan joins Philippa next Monday to discuss it in full.

Eyes on You – Adele Parks (out next month)

A woman whose father murdered his secret lover when she was 15 meets a man with his own dark past — and what feels like love may be something far more dangerous. Philippa opened it intending to file it away and couldn't put it down. Adele Parks joins the podcast soon.

🎙️ Amman Brar on Mr. Sidhu's Post Office

Mr. Sidhu is a widower in his 60s, quietly devoted to his post office, his two willful grown-up children, and his coworker Rose — with whom he's unexpectedly falling in love. When money starts going missing from the till, his carefully built life begins to unravel.

Written as a tribute to Aman's father, who ran a post office in Richmond for decades, the book also quietly acknowledges the devastating Post Office Horizon scandal and its human cost.

Amman and Philippa discuss:

• Growing up around his father's post office in the '80s and '90s, and wanting to capture a world that's slowly disappearing
• Writing the book as a way of spending time with his father after he passed away eight years ago — and why finishing it felt like letting him go all over again
• His background in theatre (Royal Court, Soho Theatre, Tamasha) and how writing a novel is completely different — more solitary, less terrifying than opening night
• The original working title: Dave and Rose (which made him laugh, which is why he chose it)
• Why his dream writing location is the South of France — and why his black Labrador is his best untangling tool
• His nightmare: the quiet carriage, one man on his phone, and the moment Aman became that guy
• What he's reading: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee and This Is Where the Serpent Lives by Daniel Murtagh
• The second book: another family drama, this time about his own generation

Biscuit answer: French Normandy butter and almond biscuits, dunked in coffee — with rosé on the side if Philippa's paying.

💬 Get in touch

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Kate Eberle's debut novel If Books Could Kill sparked a 10-way bidding war, sold film and TV rights, and is being published in over 14 countries — and it's easy to see why. This rom-com-meets-thriller follows Roxy Mitchell, a romance novel superfan who wishes herself into her favorite author's next book... only to discover the author has swapped genres to crime thriller, and her dream date is now trying to kill her.

In this episode, Kate joins Philippa to talk about:

• The meme that sparked the entire idea (yes, an Emily Henry meme)
• What it's actually like to live through a 10-way book auction in real time
• Writing a genre mashup nobody knew how to categorize — and why publishers loved it anyway
• Creating Grant Hoffman, the know-it-all love interest readers can't stop talking about
• Her dream (a library with snacks) and nightmare (a concert with FOMO) writing locations
• Why she's been hearing from readers whose partners think they've lost it from laughing so hard

Plus: the book that's keeping Kate up at night right now, and the cookie that powered every word of If Books Could Kill.

Mentioned in this episode: If Books Could Kill by Kate Eberle, Beach Read by Emily Henry, In Every Possible Way by Alicia Thompson

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Philippa welcomes back Alison Barrow, PR director at Transworld, fresh from Capital Crime, for a fascinating look behind the curtain of book publishing and promotion.

The Business of Book PR

Alison shares insights from a recent masterclass on author publicity, including the eye-opening shift in how many times someone now needs to see a book before buying — and why there's no single magic trick to a successful launch.

They discuss:

• Why book promotion is "an amalgamation of things" rather than one big lever to pull
• How publishers start thinking about a book's positioning years before publication
• The enduring power of bookseller advocacy and word-of-mouth recommendation
• Why traditional media still matters even in a podcast and social-media-saturated world

What Transworld Is Publishing Now

• Not That Sort of Girl – Andrea Mara
• Getting Away With Murder – Shari Lapena
• The Creative Compass – Emma Gannon
• Data Empire – Roopika Risam(a history of data — and an unsettling glimpse at where AI is headed next)

What Alison's Been Reading

• An Unlikely Visitor – Joanna Cannon (no, it's not about a dog — Philippa needed reassurance)
• It Could Have Been Her – Lisa Jewell (a dark, Barbara Vine-esque departure)
• The Whistler (Tom Lake) – Ann Patchett (on connection, memory, and a chance reunion four decades in the making)
• Meet Me at the Museum – Anne Youngson, plus a celebration of novels-in-letters, including The Correspondent by Virginia Evans and the classic 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

Listener Question: The Unlimited Budget

A listener asks what Alison would do with an unlimited budget to launch a book. Her answer goes well beyond money — covering proofs with sprayed edges, nationwide bookseller tours, and why most of the real value comes from time and human connection rather than spend. (A branded helicopter is briefly considered and wisely abandoned.)

Billboard advertising and marketing myth-busting are saved for a future episode — watch this space.

Get in touch

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa opens with a genuinely unbelievable true story — how a friend trapped in a locked Barcelona hotel toilet used her Kindle to prise the door open and escape. Reading saves lives, people.

Then it's three book reviews and a brilliant listener Q&A with crime fiction favourite M.W. Craven, talking about book eight in the Washington Poe series, The Killer's Mark, out 13th August.

📚 Book Reviews

The Midnight Train – Matt Haig

A beautiful, emotionally rich audiobook about love, regret, and the moments that matter. Uplifting rather than sad, and perfect for fans of Matt Haig's reflective style.

Octagon – C.J. Merritt

A fast-paced spy thriller following former MI6 agent Stella McCrae and ex-SAS operator Tommy Kane as they race to stop a devastating plot against the West. Cinematic and action-packed.

Rivals – Jilly Cooper

Philippa picked this up after the TV series left her on an emotional cliffhanger with five months until part two. 720 pages later, she has both more and fewer answers than she started with. Enjoyable — especially at the beginning — but perhaps a lesson in patience.

🎙️ Author Interview: M.W. Craven on The Killer's Mark

Poe and Tilly are back — this time as private investigators, drawn into a case that begins with a young American woman who has seen her supposedly dead mother in a porn film. Darker than some recent entries in the series, but with the trademark humour firmly intact.

Mike and Philippa discuss:

• Why this book starts smaller and more personal than previous Poe adventures
• The deliberate shift in the Poe/Tilly dynamic across the series — and who relies on whom now
• A new teenage character and the questions only a 15-year-old will ask directly
• The Martin Clunes passage that made Philippa nearly choke on her coffee (no spoilers, but it's brilliant)
• His favourite in the series (The Mercy Chair) and the underrated Black Summer
• Lessons learned writing a James Bond children's book — including deaf sensitivity readers, footnotes in place of deleted chapters, and why you can't spend three chapters setting up a single joke
• Poe's Croft: completely fictional, despite what several convinced readers insist
• Listener questions from the Quick Book Reviews Facebook group — including whether Tilly's mum is okay, who Poe's Croft is based on, and Mike's fantasy convention costume (spoiler: Gimli)
• What he's reading: The Man with the Golden Compass by Vaseem Khan and the Vinyl Detective series by Andrew Cartmel
• The biscuit answer: chocolate-covered Battenberg, fig rolls and Jammie Dodgers from Castle Chocolates in Carlisle — links in the show notes

The Killer's Mark is out 13th August — pre-orders matter!

🍫 Castle Chocolates, Carlisle

📚 📚 Pre-order The Killer's Mark by M.W. Craven at Waterstones

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa sits down with Lindsey Kelk — writing as Elle Kelk — to talk about her brand new novel Hit or Miss, the first in the Junior Year Abroad series. With over three million books sold, Lindsey is one of the UK's best-loved romance authors, and this conversation is funny, warm, and unexpectedly moving.

In this interview, Elle and Philippa discuss:

• Why Lindsey chose a new pen name for this book — and why it's not exactly a secret
• What "new adult" fiction actually means (and why genres are, in her words, "all fake")
• The joy of writing a college romance series set at a fictional UK university — think Oxford meets American campus life
• Mia and Ethan: two characters running in opposite directions until they collide
• Anxiety as a central theme — Lindsey opens up about her own late diagnosis at 32, how bad things got, and why she finally asked for help
• Toxic masculinity and the pressure on men to silently hold everything together
• Why the bookish community seems disproportionately affected by anxiety ("it turns out, it's all of us")
• Dealing with bad reviews — especially when you suspect someone hasn't actually read the book
• Writing in Vegas hotels at 2am, the importance of a bath, and why airports are the worst
• Her wrestling podcast Tights and Fights — now 10 years old — and whether a wrestling romance might be next
• What she's reading right now: Dungeon Crawler Carl on audio and The Vampire Armand by Anne Rice
• The life-changing biscuit discovery: McVitie's Jaffa Cake Digestives (with a strong recommendation to dunk)

Hit or Miss is out now.

💬 Get in touch Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | quickbookreviews@outlook.com

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Philippa has just received the most exciting email of the year: her holiday hotel has offered to receive a box of books in advance and put them in her room on arrival. The result? An unstoppable 12-book, 4-graphic-novel holiday TBR — and an episode dedicated entirely to sharing it.

In this episode, Philippa runs through every book she's packing (plus the first line of each!), covering a wonderfully eclectic mix of:

• The Confessions – Paul Bradley Carr (AI thriller)
• Roman Mornings – Matson Taylor (historical fiction, Rome)
• The Scandalous Ladies Football Club – Frances Quinn (Victorian women's football)
• It Could Have Been Her – Lisa Jewell (domestic thriller)
• Getting Away – Kate Sawyer (family saga across decades of holidays)
• The Ark – Haruo Yuki (translated Japanese locked-room thriller)
• How to Get Away With Murder – Rebecca Philipson (cat-and-mouse crime)
• The Favourite – Fran Littlewood (family secrets, holiday implosion)
• The Corfe Castle Murders – Rachel McLean (Dorset detective series, book one)
• Against the Tide – G.D. Wright (crime series, book three)
• This Can Never Not Be Real – Sera Milano (YA terrorism survivor testimonies)
• Under the Hammer – Samantha Dooey-Miles (very angry woman, very bad landlords)

Plus four graphic novels — including the only authorised manga adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, The Bad Doctor by Ian Williams, I Shall Never Fall in Love by Hari Conner, and Clara and the Devil Vol. 1 by Olivie Blake & Little Chmura — many discovered at Hay on Wye Comics, a brand new graphic novel bookshop in Hay-on-Wye.

💬 Tell Philippa what you think! Should any of these stay at home? Is there a book she's missed? Get in touch: Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | quickbookreviews@outlook.com

Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Are hardback books too expensive, too heavy, and past their sell-by date? A recent Guardian article made the provocative case that hardbacks should die — and Philippa has thoughts.

In this episode, Philippa dives into the great book format debate, covering:

• Why she strongly disagrees with calls to "ban" hardbacks
• The real problem with hardback pricing — and those eye-watering £40 price tags
• How long is too long to wait for a paperback edition?
• The e-book pricing scandal: why is a digital file costing £15?
• The case for libraries, audiobooks, and Spotify's free listening hours as budget-friendly alternatives
• Sprayed edges (spreadges) — and why they might just be the best argument for buying hardbacks

Philippa's verdict? All formats are equal. Audiobook, hardback, paperback, e-book — just read the book.

This episode was inspired by a question from author Frances Quinn, whose new novel The Scandalous Ladies Football Club is out 2nd July.

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Philippa reviews four very different books — from Tintin to Elizabeth Strout — before sitting down with TV wine expert and debut crime novelist Olly Smith to talk about his joyful new book Death by Noir, and the sub-genre he's invented: wine crime.

📚 Book Reviews

The Adventures of Tintin and the Picaros – Hergé A revolutionary adventure featuring Bianca Castafiore and a mysterious plot around carnival time. Fun, but Philippa wasn't left desperate for more Tintin.

The Things We Never Say – Elizabeth Strout ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Philippa's first Strout — and now she wants them all. A quietly devastating 200-page novel about a man keeping a secret from the world, and from himself. Exquisite, beautiful writing that made Philippa sob unexpectedly. Unmissable.

The Ballad of Small Hope and Penny Royal – Jodi Taylor ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Time-travelling bounty hunters, sharp humour, and perfect audiobook narration. Brilliant as a standalone even if you've never read Jodi Taylor before — and book two is coming this summer.

The Inheritance – Mark Dawson Book five in the Atticus Priest series. Enjoyable enough, but Philippa felt the magic of the earlier books wasn't quite there this time.

🎙️ Author Interview: Olly Smith on Death by Noir

Set in the rolling hills of East Sussex around the town of Lewes, Death by Noir follows Barclay Flint, eccentric proprietor of the Bottle Bank wine shop, who must use his wine-detecting skills to solve a crime and clear his own name — all before the explosive Lewes Bonfire Night finale.

Olly and Philippa discuss:

• How four characters arrived fully-formed in Olly's mind while flying over the Himalayas
• Why he wrote every word himself (no ghostwriter)
• Inventing "wine crime" as a new sub-genre
• The late Peter Hall of Breaky Bottom vineyard, who read his chapters just before he died
• Writing through a gallbladder operation, missing deadlines (never), and the advice of a biodynamic economist
• Why teetotallers love the book just as much as wine lovers
• A rainbow moment that changed how he thinks about writing
• What he's reading right now: London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe, The Traitor's Circle by Jonathan Freedland, and more
• The writing fuel that isn't a biscuit: crunchy peanut butter with a drop of soy sauce

Death by Noir is out 18th June.

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Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.

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Celebrate the weekend (nearly) with crime fiction royalty!

In this episode of Quick Book Reviews, Philippa Hall sits down with the brilliant, Sunday Times bestselling author Jane Casey to talk about her highly anticipated, mind-bending standalone thriller, Everything She Didn't Say.

Marking an exciting, fresh departure from her iconic series fiction, Jane's new Irish-set novel weaves an intricate web of secrets, unreliable narration, and deep betrayal. In this exclusive, spoiler-free conversation, Jane reveals how she maps out complex plot twists mid-walk, why she relies on her phone's Notes app for real life, and her ultimate dream writing cottage (where Wi-Fi is strictly banned!).

Plus, Jane shares a hilarious breakdown of her absolute nightmare writing environment—a turbulent, short-haul flight in a middle seat—and shares her surprisingly practical, real-life advice as a self-proclaimed "professor of falling over."

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• Why Everything She Didn't Say is a unique standalone departure for Jane Casey.
• How Jane crafts her plots while walking through the woods without taking notes.
• The psychology of adrenaline in crime fiction versus real-life clumsy mishaps.
• Jane’s ideal, isolated writing cottage (and why the internet is a total disaster!).
• The hilarious horrors of trying to type a high-stakes thriller on a cramped airplane.

Books mentioned in this episode:

Everything She Didn't Say by Jane Casey [

Connect with us:

• Follow us on Instagram: Drop by and say hello at @quick_book_reviews for daily book recommendations, behind-the-scenes podcast clips, and literary chats!
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Welcome back to Quick Book Reviews! In this jam-packed, slightly different episode, Philippa takes you from a sweltering recording room straight into the heart of the UK book scene.

First up, hear the hilarious story of how a registration mistake at London's The Podcast Show left Philippa walking around with a giant lanyard that read "Not Applicable"—and why it actually became the ultimate conversation starter! Then, we take a trip to the Hay Festival, where a beautiful new graphic novel shop and irresistible early releases caused absolute disaster for Philippa's bank account.

Books & Authors Featured:

• Land by Maggie O'Farrell: A slow, meandering, but utterly exquisite historical tale set in 1865 Ireland. Philippa shares why this beautiful book requires your full attention, how it became a therapeutic escape from screen time, and why she is currently desperate for a literary counselling session with anyone else who has read it!
• M.W. Craven Re-read: Philippa is on a mission to re-read all seven Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw crime thrillers before book eight, The Killer's Mark, hits shelves. Hear why re-reading The Puppet Show, Black Summer, The Curator, and Dead Ground completely changed her perspective on how dark these books really are

The Great Audiobook Debate:

Responding to listener feedback from Sue, heavy-user Philippa gives her completely honest, unfiltered thoughts on finding a viable alternative to Amazon's Audible. We look at the pros and cons of:

• Audible: Great selection, but the subscription costs can add up (plus, a sneaky tip on how to get a cheaper rate!
• Spotify & Library Apps: How Philippa blends her 15-hour monthly Spotify allowance with library apps to get the most "bang for her buck"
• Book Beat & Kobo Plus: Why the unlimited packages don't quite hit the mark for chart-topping new releases just yet

Listener Challenges & Coming Up next:

1. The Challenge: If you had to launch a brand-new podcast called "Not Applicable", what would your show be about?
2. The Hunt: Do you know of a brilliant audiobook platform that rival's Audible's chart-topping selection without costing the earth? Let Philippa know before her membership runs out in September
3. Next Episode: Tune in this Friday for an exclusive, spoiler-free author interview with Jane Casey discussing her highly anticipated new page-turner!

Connect with the Show:

• Email: quickbookreviews@outlook.com
• Instagram: @quick_book_reviews

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a brief moment to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it keeps our little community of bookworms growing!

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In this special episode of Quick Book Reviews, Philippa chats to Sharon Canavar, Chief Executive of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and Harrogate International Festivals.

If you’ve ever wondered what really happens behind the scenes at one of the world’s most beloved crime fiction festivals, this is the episode for you.

Sharon shares:

• how the festival began back in 2003
• why Harrogate feels different from other book festivals
• the famous beer tent atmosphere
• festival gossip and disasters over the years
• lone traveller meet-ups and making the event inclusive
• authors going missing
• the hotel nearly catching fire
• the fiercely competitive quiz night
• why readers are truly at the heart of Harrogate

Philippa and Sharon also discuss:

• the rise of crime fiction festivals
• balancing blockbuster authors with exciting debuts
• the new Swift Half Stage
• why readers return year after year
• proof copies, goodie bags and “golden goodie bags”
• festival nerves, security and keeping events safe

Plus: an unexpectedly passionate biscuit debate involving Kit Kats, digestives and secret chocolate habits.

Featured authors and events mentioned include:

• Lisa Jewell
• Lee Child
• David Baldacci
• Anthony Horowitz
• Ann Cleeves
• Chris Whitaker
• Alice Feeney
• Steve Cavanagh
• Holly Jackson
• Brenda Blethyn
• Harlan Coben
• Val McDermid
• Mark Billingham

If you love:

• crime fiction
• book festivals
• behind-the-scenes publishing stories
• author gossip
• reader communities
• literary events
• festival planning chaos
• funny podcast conversations

…this episode is for you.

• The “freshers’ welcome” for lone travellers
• Golden goodie bag brainstorming
• Authors accidentally trying to enter the wrong hotel room
• The legendary Harrogate beer tent
• The near-disaster involving a cigarette and the hotel
• The wildly competitive late-night quiz
• Sharon’s emergency Kit Kat stash

Sharon chooses:

• Jammie Dodgers
• Two-finger Kit Kats (strictly rationed)
• Chocolate digestives… eaten unconventionally.

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In this episode of Quick Book Reviews, Philippa chats to David Goodman about his latest spy thriller Solitary Agents, the follow-up to his brilliant debut A Reluctant Spy.

David talks about writing spy fiction for readers who may not usually read spy novels, creating the hugely compelling character of Jamie Tulloch, and the long road to publication after earlier books did not sell. He also discusses awards, resilience, TV adaptation developments, and his upcoming science fiction novel Shards of Starlight, written as David W. Goodman.

Philippa also reviews:

• The Good Listener by Holly Watt
• Such a Nice Girl by Andrea Mara
• The Thick of It BBC audiobook

• David Goodman on Solitary Agents
• Why spy fiction is having a major moment
• Writing accessible spy thrillers
• Jamie Tulloch and the world of MI5 and MI6
• The challenge of writing a second book
• Rejection, persistence and finding your writing community
• TV adaptation news for A Reluctant Spy
• Writing science fiction as David W. Goodman
• Dream and nightmare writing locations
• Philippa’s spoiler-free book reviews

Solitary Agents follows Jamie Tulloch after the events of A Reluctant Spy. Having tried to return to civilian life, Jamie finds himself pulled back towards the secret world — this time hoping to become an agent runner.

But during a training exercise involving MI5 and MI6, Jamie and new character Sam Lee witness something that may be part of the drill… or may be frighteningly real.

Perfect for readers who enjoy:

• spy fiction
• thrillers
• MI5 and MI6 stories
• character-led suspense
• smart, pacey writing
• novels by Mick Herron, John le Carré and David McCloskey

The Good Listener – Holly Watt

A gripping thriller about an anonymous caller, a shocking confession, and a mother still searching for justice.

Such a Nice Girl – Andrea Mara

A tense, twisty thriller about two missing young women, a luxury wedding, and a friendship pushed to breaking point.

The Thick of It – BBC audiobook

A brilliantly sweary political satire featuring Malcolm Tucker and the chaos of government.

• Solitary Agents – David Goodman
• A Reluctant Spy – David Goodman
• Shards of Starlight – David W. Goodman
• Children of Strife – Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Slow Gods – Claire North
• The Last Contract of Isako – Fonda Lee
• The Good Listener – Holly Watt
• Such a Nice Girl – Andrea Mara
• The Thick of It – BBC Audio

David chooses Nairn’s salted caramel oatcakes, after formerly being a chocolate Hobnob fan. A strong Scottish biscuit-adjacent choice.

Follow Quick Book Reviews for book recommendations, author interviews, and weekly podcast episodes.

📧 Email: quickbookreviews@outlook.com

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@quick_book_reviews

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In this episode of Quick Book Reviews, Philippa chats to bestselling thriller author Jack Jordan about his brand new novel, Deception — a tense, addictive thriller that asks one terrifying question:

How far would you go to save your child?

Jack discusses:

• the inspiration behind Deception
• writing high-stakes moral dilemmas
• balancing relentless tension with emotional depth
• why readers become emotionally involved in his books
• the pressure of deadlines and perfectionism
• TV adaptations of his novels
• working with Elisabeth Moss on the adaptation of Conviction
• how his books became known for their impossible ethical questions

Philippa and Jack also talk about:

• dream and nightmare writing locations
• writing while emotionally “living” the scenes
• airport chaos as the ultimate writing nightmare
• thriller pacing and giving readers room to breathe
• the importance of book cover design
• reader bookshelves and collectible editions
• why Jack rewrites drafts obsessively before anyone sees them

Emma and Miles are desperate to save their son, who urgently needs life-changing surgery they cannot afford.

Their last hope is a mysterious organisation called The Levels — a dangerous competition where contestants commit escalating crimes for escalating rewards.

But they are not the only players.

As the stakes rise, Deception forces both its characters — and its readers — to confront impossible moral questions:

What would you do to save the person you love most?

• Psychological thrillers
• Moral dilemma fiction
• Writing process and perfectionism
• TV and streaming adaptations
• Publishing deadlines
• Crime fiction
• Book cover branding
• Working-class journeys into publishing
• Reader communities
• Thriller pacing

• Jack describing writing deadlines as “life or death”
• The Italian lakeside villa dream writing retreat
• The airport nightmare writing scenario
• “A panic attack in two covers”
• Jack revealing nobody sees his real first drafts
• The emotional intensity of writing thriller scenes
• The revelation that Deception has been optioned for television

Official writing fuel:

• Bourbons
• Four-finger Kit Kats
• Bonus points for accidental all-chocolate Kit Kats
• Strong support for peanut butter Kit Kats

Follow Quick Book Reviews for book recommendations, author interviews, and weekly podcast episodes.

📧 Email: quickbookreviews@outlook.com

📸 Instagram & Threads:

@quick_book_reviews

🎵 TikTok: @quickbookreviews

🐦 X: @quickbookrevie3

🦋 Bluesky: quickbookreviews

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In this episode of Quick Book Reviews, it is feedback week! Please send Philippa your thoughts on the podcast, you can email here: quickbookreviews@outlook.com. You can find her on instagram at this account: @quick_book_reviews

Philippa chats to bestselling author Rosie Walsh about her gripping new novel The One Day You Were My Husband.

Rosie discusses the inspiration behind the book, the challenges of writing after major success, researching the life of a surgeon, and why this was the book she came closest to abandoning.

Philippa also reviews three very different books:

• The Eye of the Bedlam Bride by Matt Dinniman
• A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz
• Deception by Jack Jordan

• Rosie Walsh on The One Day You Were My Husband
• Writing emotional thrillers with huge twists
• The pressure of following bestselling novels
• Why this book was so difficult to write
• Balancing publicity, motherhood and creativity
• Writing under the name Lucy Robinson
• Researching medicine and surgery for fiction
• The importance of titles in publishing
• Philippa’s spoiler-free book reviews
• Feedback week for the podcast

Carrie and Johan are newly married on a beach in Thailand when armed men arrive and take Johan away.

Twelve years later, Carrie has rebuilt her life. She is remarried, has children, and is preparing to return to work as a surgeon. Then she sees a familiar face online — Johan, alive in Stockholm, with a new life of his own.

Why did he never contact her?

What really happened in Thailand?

And should Carrie risk everything to find out?

The Eye of the Bedlam Bride – Matt Dinniman

A wildly inventive, hilarious and action-packed instalment in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.

A Deadly Episode – Anthony Horowitz

A clever, funny Hawthorne mystery set around the filming of The Word Is Murder.

Deception – Jack Jordan

A high-stakes thriller about desperate parents, impossible choices and a deadly game.

• The One Day You Were My Husband – Rosie Walsh
• The Love of My Life – Rosie Walsh
• Ghosted / The Man Who Didn’t Call – Rosie Walsh
• The Things You’ll Never Know – Ashley Audrain
• The Eye of the Bedlam Bride – Matt Dinniman
• A Deadly Episode – Anthony Horowitz
• Deception – Jack Jordan

No biscuits for Rosie Walsh — but there is a memorable discussion of cold sliced hard-boiled eggs, fruit, yogurt and a life without sugar.

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This week on Quick Book Reviews, Philippa is joined by publishing powerhouse Alison Barrow for a fascinating behind-the-scenes conversation about the world of books, publishing, publicity, BookTok, book reviewing, and what really happens inside a major publishing house.

Alison shares the emotional impact of the recent Bookseller Awards, including the extraordinary success of Nobody’s Girl and the moving tributes to legendary romantic fiction authors including Jilly Cooper, Sophie Kinsella and Joanna Trollope.

They also discuss:

• the launch of Transworld’s new horror imprint 3AM
• the rise of horror and romantasy publishing trends
• Alison’s own experience writing and editing her debut novel
• how exhausting structural edits really are
• the realities of social media for book reviewers
• whether TikTok or Instagram matters more for publishing
• why authenticity matters more than follower counts

Plus Alison recommends some brilliant reads, including:

• London Falling
• Fame Sick
• The Agatha Cure

If you’ve ever wondered how publishing really works, how books become bestsellers, or how to start reviewing books online, this episode is packed with insight, warmth and honesty.

Follow Quick Book Reviews for book recommendations, author interviews, and weekly podcast episodes.

📧 Email: quickbookreviews@outlook.com

📸 Instagram & Threads:

@quick_book_reviews

🎵 TikTok: @quickbookreviews

🐦 X: @quickbookrevie3

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