Janet Gordon is married, retired, obsessed with her Westlake Terrier, Rollo – and books are her passion. She reads multiple books a week across all genres and reviews them for Rest Less.
This month’s round-up features The Lost Baker of Vienna, Nine Lives, The House on Otley Road, The Birds and the Bees, The Hotel by the Sea, Escape to the Turquoise Seas, and The Supersonic Fart!.
Note: Prices can often change, so you may notice some variations on the providers’ websites. Prices and availability are accurate as of the 21st of July, 2026.
I live near Junction 8 of the M11, which is only a 15-minute drive to Great Dunmow. This is a lovely little town, but the main thing it’s missing is a bookshop.
So it makes perfect sense that Dunmow should launch its first book festival, The Great Dunmow Bookfest. This year, so many shops were packed with books stacked up to the ceiling, and I came away with many exciting new reads.
The Lost Baker of Vienna by Sharon Kurtzman (Amazon £13.65, Kindle £2.99)
The Lost Baker of Vienna is one of the most enchanting, tear-jerking reads I’ve come across all year. Having lost a couple of aunts to the concentration camps, I try to avoid these novels. That said, once I had this book in my hands, I couldn’t put it down.
In 2018, we follow Zoe Rosenzweig, a food writer for a trade magazine, who discovers a collection of old family photos following the death of her grandfather. Plagued by the secrets she never knew, she’s led down a path to Vienna to unearth the history of her grandparents.
As the story unfolds, we’re transported back to 1946, immediately after WWII, where we meet baker Chana Rosenzweig who, having survived a concentration camp, finds herself in the Vienna ghetto, starving and hiding from Soviet officers roaming the streets. Strikingly beautiful, with blonde hair and amber eyes, Chana encounters a black-market leader who offers her a route to safety. At the same time, she meets a fellow baker who could help her kickstart her dream job. Soon enough, Chana is torn between pursuing her passion for baking and the chance to escape the country.
This is such a wonderful story. I was reading it with emotion that came right from my soul. I adored it.
Nine Lives by Catherine Steadman (Amazon £18.22, Kindle £7.99)
Following her divorce, Frankie moves home to what should be a safe, up-and-coming area. She doesn’t move alone – bringing Blue, her beloved Persian cat, along with her. Soon after, Blue slips out the door and doesn’t come back all night. To Frankie’s relief, he returns unharmed, but harbouring two words scrawled inside his collar: help me.
Unsettled and intrigued, Frankie digs out an old cat cam, hanging it around Blue’s neck. And so begins Frankie’s voyeuristic adventures as Blue roams the neighbourhood and slips inside people’s homes, giving Frankie a cat’s-eye view of everything going on. Before long, to her unbelieving eyes, the cat cam uncovers dangerous secrets, dragging Frankie into a terrifying search for the truth.
This is an addictive, suspenseful read. Another one I loved.
The House on Otley Road by Rosa Silverman (HarperCollins £16.99, Amazon £16.14, Kindle £7.99)
Otley Road in Leeds is full of houses split into flats for university students. One of the shabbiest of them has a second-floor flat share just right for four or five girls. Olivia, who found the flat, has invited other girls to share with her, and they’re all so excited. What the girls don’t know is that, 20 years earlier, a student who was also part of a flat share was murdered in Olivia’s bedroom, the killer never being caught.
Olivia grows obsessed with the grisly history of her room, though her investigation is cut short when she becomes the next victim.
This leads us onto Kate Marsden, a journalist who covered the original case, and is determined to unearth the link between the two murders. But, with the killer still out there, this is more than just a story; it’s a dangerous investigation with someone who would do anything to stop it going further…
Remind me not to stay home alone when reading another book like this one!
The Birds and the Bees by Milly Johnson (Amazon £8.15, Kindle £4.99)
Here’s one of my favourite authors, the wonderful Milly Johnson, with a truly mixed-up enemies-to-lovers romance. Stevie is jilted two weeks before her wedding when she discovers her fiancé, Matthew, has run off with her friend Jo MacLean. However, Stevie is determined not to sit back and wallow. Instead, she hatches a plan to pretend to let him go while entering a fitness and self-improvement phase to make him as jealous as possible.
Meanwhile, Jo’s husband Adam has a plan of his own. As a psychological tactic to win back his partner, Jo, he wants to begin an affair with Stevie. There’s only one fly in the ointment – Stevie can’t stand Adam and Adam isn’t too keen on Stevie.
This mixing-lovers romance makes for wonderful by-the-beach reading that’s perfect for a summer afternoon.
The Hotel by the Sea by Julie Caplin (HarperCollins £9.99, Amazon £5.48, Kindle £2.99)
If you’re looking for some easy reading while you lounge by the pool, you can’t do better than this.
Rebecca, who, having made a fool of herself by watching her secret crush run off with somebody else, decides on a fresh start and accepts a job at the Quinta do Mar hotel on the Algarve.
Ready for work, she arrives super early and takes a dip in the pool before introducing herself. What she hadn’t accounted for is a hunky man joining in with her dip and turning it into a competitive swim. Flirty Felipe doesn’t stop at challenging Rebecca at every turn. Every time, Rebecca asks herself a question of growing importance: could she be falling for him?
This was punchy, emotional, and a lot of fun. I highly recommend.
Escape to the Turquoise Seas by Carrie Walker (Amazon £9.97, Kindle £3.99)
Escape to the Turquoise Seas has Northstar PR manager Kat Brennan flabbergasted to find that major cruise holiday company Excalibur Cruises is offering a huge business deal. Kat jumps at the chance to prove her worth, nail the pitch, and win the deal.
But Kat is up against Northstar’s lead competitor, Amplify PR, as they go pitch to pitch aboard Excalibur’s cruise on the flagship cruiseliner, the Esmerelda. As luck would have it, she ends up stuck on board with Amplify’s CEO, Leo Kendrick, her PR rival from 15 years ago.
Kat is determined to win the deal at all costs. What she didn’t account for was how distractingly charming Leo has become…
Another fun, lighthearted read, perfect for those lazy days catching some rays.
The Supersonic Fart! by Helen Ross & Garry Parsons (Amazon £7.95, Kindle £3.99)
What do you call farts in your house? My mother always called them puffers!
This brightly coloured book has caused immense excitement in the house of my friend and their three-year-old. Her mother showed it off on their family WhatsApp chat, and before you could even say fart, the whole family were fighting over who was going to read it first.
There’s even a fart chart at the back of the book where you can describe your fart and give it a name!
Little ones love anything fart-related, and this is a wonderfully illustrated story to read to them. So: Jake is having a birthday party and his mum has laid out all the food. There’s jelly, ice cream, cakes, chocolates, and (of course) balloons. Until somebody – and I’m not saying who – produces such a giant fart that it takes over the room, leading to a disastrous chain reaction.
This is a wonderful story that will keep on giving.
For more reading inspiration, head over to our books, literature, and writing section.
Have you read any of these books? Or have you added any of them to your reading list? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.