Fabulous February Books

Dear friends. Another month with some of the best books I've read for a while.

You'll encounter: a wise woman mistaken for a witch; a forbidden relationship between a priest and a woman campaigning for Catholic reform; twins whose lives are changed forever by a childhood act of kindness, and female spies in the war sent to comfort German soldiers.

I'm also on a roll with my non-fiction reading and have two very different books for you.

All books were provided free of charge as advance digital copies by NetGalley and the publishers.

The Wise Witch of Orkney by Anna Craig (4 out of 5 stars)

General Fiction (Adult) / Historical Fiction / Women's Fiction

Queen Anna, Danish wife of Scottish King James VI, summons Orkney wise woman Elspet Balfour to court to help deliver her longed-for baby. It's a mission fraught with difficulty. King James is persecuting witches, and Elspet must pretend to be a lady in waiting. The Queen has another demand which will put Elspet and the noblewomen helping her at grave risk.

I found this hugely enjoyable. At first I was out off by Elspet's local dialect, but I found it added something special to the narrative.

Set hundreds of years ago, this is historical fiction that still resonates in terms of how women are treated, and how we occasionally have to pretend to be naive in order to outwit tyrannical men. Thousands of women were put to death in dreadful ways for essentially curing medical conditions with plants and herbs. It was a way of eliminating women with strong views and intelligence.

Should Have Told You Sooner by Jane Ward (4 out of 5 stars)

General Fiction (Adult) / Literary Fiction/ Women's Fiction

Art historian Noel jumps at the chance for a 6 month secondment at a prestigious museum in London. She leaves Boston with her marriage in tatters and her relationship with stepdaughter Alice in a precarious state.

Noel has connections with London, having studied at university in the 90s. There is unfinished business and lots of loose ends.

I found Noel a infuriating character for quite a while. Not only does she bottle everything up, she was neglectful of her own well being, forgetting to eat when under stress. But I came to understand her state of mind and the drivers for it.

The author has a special gift for describing art and the creative process.

The ending was somewhat predictable fairly early on, but the journey was a worthwhile one.

A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia (4 out of 5 stars)

General Fiction (Adult) / Historical Fiction / Literary Fiction

It took me a while to get into this but it's worth persevering. It's the story of a forbidden love between a priest, David, and Margaret, a woman committed to challenging the archaic rules of the Church. Beautifully written with a poetic lyricism.

The Irish Goodbye by Heather Aimee O'Neill (4 out of 5 stars)

General Fiction (Adult) / LBGTQIA / Women's Fiction

Family gatherings can often be fraught with tension and unsaid grievances. Imagine though if your get together is clouded by two tragedies - and your sister has invited a guest who is linked to both.

A rambunctious and pulsating read which gets to the heart of dynamics in a complicated family.

The three sisters, Cait, Alice and Maggie were distinct personalities with relatable problems. We have to wait to learn Cait's role in the first tragedy. I did despair at her infatuation with a man who didn't seem either worth it or very bothered. Maggie was also caught up in an illicit relationship which seemed illogical when she was so committed to Isabel. But, as we learn, the women's need to escape their problems is grounded in their family's tragedy a few years ago.

A sensitive and promising debut from Heather Aimee O'Neill.

Life as Planned by Amanda Prowse (4 out of 5 stars)

General Fiction (Adult) | Women's Fiction

For identical twins Remy and Ashleigh, everything changes with one childhood decision. A simple act of love that unwittingly alters the paths they will both walk—an act of love that will echo through decades.

As the years unfold, their lives take dramatically different courses. Ashleigh soars through a glittering London career with the perfect house and family, but beneath her success lies a gnawing truth: her whole life is built on a lie. Meanwhile, Remy stays close to home, finding joy in simple pleasures, yet forever feeling the weight of being ‘the other twin’—the one who didn’t shine.

I've read most of Amanda Prowse's books and I really enjoyed this one. She has an uncanny knack in creating characters whose thoughts are the same as ours, who act as we might. The two women have their challenges in life: failed marriages, career disappointment, bringing up young children, coping with PSTD,

I loved that we followed the lives of the twins - two years younger than me - through to 2042 and the poignant ending.

The League of Lonely War Women by Andie Newton (3.5 out of 5 stars)

Historical Fiction

An intriguing title and it turns out to be true. Yes, there was an organisation during WW2 where female spies sought to befriend lonely German soldiers while extracting information from them. However, it's not the main subject of the book.

Two pairs of female agents are sent to Germany, somewhat naively believing all they have to do is talk kindly to soldiers. But they soon get embroiled in the hunt for a notorious SS leader.

I had to suspend disbelief at times - it was hard to imagine that the German spoken by an American woman who had holidayed with grandparents in Germany would pass muster to native speakers. Not to mention how noticeable four women would be, suddenly turning up for a holiday and spending money lavishly in a small town.

But it was a worthwhile treatise on female friendships, determination and courage.

Room 706 by Ellie Levenson (3.5 stars out of 5)

General Fiction (Adult) / True Crime / Women's Fiction

This wasn't what I was expecting. I'd taken a cursory read of the blurb, about a couple having an affair being trapped in a hotel under siege, and assumed it would be a thriller with the action focused on the terrorists and the couple involved. But in fact it's a love story, as Kate reflects on why she has cheated, how she met her husband and what she needs to do to put things right, assuming she makes it out alive.

Her lover, the clinical and cold James, isn't planning to tell his wife anything.

I missed the excitement of not knowing what the siege was about, and how it was being tackled by the police.

Levenson builds up the tension around the couple being trapped in a room that has hardly anything useful in it. They have to be careful not to draw attention to the fact the room is occupied. The couple find that beyond the obvious, they have nothing in common.

The unique nature of the story will probably make it a hot ticket, but I couldn't rise above disbelief that Kate had risked everything for someone so unlikeable.

The Island Retreat by Cathy Kelly (4 out of 5 stars) - published February 26

General Fiction (Adult) | Women's Fiction

If Cathy Kelly's stellar writing career ever falters she could always become a therapist.

Showing empathy and wisdom, Kelly introduced me (and many others I'm sure) to the concept of limerence, as former TV therapist Rose gets to work on the first clients at her island retreat.

We sit back and wait for the clients to arrive and for their stories to unfurl, while luxuriating in the Corfu sunshine and the high end decor of Rose's villa.

I love the way that Kelly doesn't allow Rose 100% success, keeping it real. And Rose herself has an intriguing back story.

Filled with charm and common sense, I loved it. Perfect antidote to a rainy British winter.

Blade by Wendy Walker (3.5 out of 5 stars)

Psychological thriller

Had high hopes for this. The world of competitive ice skating is a hotbed of intrigue, as we know from some real-life stories. But I had to abandon it at 37%.

It started off well, with a young skater denying that she killed a male coach with the blade of her skate. One of her legal team is a former skater who knew the young woman's mother, also a skater, and the murdered coach. She specialises in coaxing out the truth from traumatised teens.

As with all psychological thrillers, the book builds a complex web with several potential suspects. The problem was it moves at a glacial pace, and the reveals were too slow in coming. Advance digital copy from Amazon Good Reads.

Non- Fiction

Lipstick by Eileen G'Sell

I had no idea about the Object Lessons series of books and was thrilled to discover them via Lipstick. These books, on many different topics, have just 200 words.

Lipstick is a harder topic to distil into so few words but G'Sell succeeds in covering its history, cultural impact, occasional notoriety and impact.

The advance digital copy didn't have many pictures but I'm expecting the final version to have more. We want to see the filmstars in their lipsticks!

A perfect book for women who love makeup and its history, many of them feminists.

Eight by Paul Gascoigne

Non-Fiction / Biographies & Memoirs / Sports

Most people in the UK know who Paul Gascoigne as the brilliant but troubled footballer who dazzled in the early 1990s. He featured in many a newspaper story, often for the wrong reasons. His problem with alcohol made for a turbulent personal life, and as the book describes, he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act on a couple of occasions.

One of them saw Gazza, out of his mind on cocaine and alcohol, turning up to intervene at a police stand-off with on-the-run criminal Raoul Moat. Gascoigne, who took a cooked chicken and fishing rod with him, was convinced Moat was his twin brother.

Gascoigne comes across as likeable and somewhat naive in the book. His upbringing was tough and lived in poverty, but he still speaks well of his parents, even though his father beat him as a child.

Some of his behaviour was very infantile, the kind that men describe as pranking. Putting a snake through the letterbox of a fellow player was one such prank. In another, while at Rangers, he was out night clubbing and decided he needed food before he went home. He let himself into the home of a fellow player, having seen where he hid his spare key, and made himself a sandwich. The player in question thought he had a burglar.

There are some good anecdotes, particularly the one about how his dad and his sister influenced his decision to join Spurs when he'd already said he'd join Alex Ferguson's Manchester United. They told Spurs to provide them with incentives including a BMW and a sunbed. Spurs agreed, and terms were agreed. Ferguson never let him forget.

Gazza's last contracts, in his late 30s, were sad and he hated them. He seems to be in a better place now. He lives in Bournemouth, not far from his agent, and occasionally goes on "benders" but knows when it's about to happen. He then spends a few days recovering, with plenty of juices and water.

I'm sure you'll agree, a very mixed and interesting set of books this month! You're probably thinking I must have been reading every hour of the day. The truth is that NetGalley provides reviewers with books several months before they're published. I read a lot of these last year.

Which titles took your fancy? Do tell in the comments.

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Friday, 20 February 2026