As the holidays edge closer, my reading habits shift. I start reaching for books that let me slip out of my own head, stories that feel indulgent, escapist and utterly absorbing. The kind of page-turners that keep you awake long after you’re meant to switch off the light.
So I decided to write two pieces. This first one gathers the books that have kept me company as I wind down the year, racing through last deadlines and trying to tie everything up with a neat little bow. The second, coming soon, will be all about the books tucked into my beach bag, the ones I’ll read with sandy feet, watching the sun slide into the ocean.
Remember the glory days of the Tudors, all velvet gowns, dangerous flirtations and the occasional, oddly satisfying bit of head-rolling? Philippa Gregory taps straight back into that world withBoleyn Traitor, this time tracing the story ofJane Boleyn, wife of George Boleyn and sister-in-law toAnne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s infamous second wife. When it became clear that Anne would not give Henry the son he demanded, the accusations came fast: adultery, treason, even an alleged affair with her own brother.
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Jane’s testimony helped seal their fate, and both Anne and George were ultimately executed. Boleyn Traitor drops us into the dazzle and danger of the Tudor court, a place where power shifts quickly, loyalty is transactional and survival is its own political game. Though Jane has married into influence, her position is far from secure.
George is inattentive, alliances are fragile and one misstep can cost everything. Gregory uses Jane’s perspective to explore not just the brutal politics of a man’s world, but also the subtler, cutthroat manoeuvring among women of the elite: ambition, rivalry, treachery and the effort it takes to hold onto a place in the hierarchy. It’s a gripping, tense read for anyone who loves historical fiction that carries you into another time.
A story of being used, using others and doing what it takes to survive when the odds aren’t stacked in your favour. Retail price around: R415. I devoured this book.
It’s exquisite.Blood’s Inner Rhymechronicles the ageing of Krog’s mother, Dot Serfontein, a writer in her own right who published in Sarie and Volksblad,and produced several books. The story will resonate with anyone who has watched a parent grow older, losing ease of movement, shrinking in independence, adjusting to a world that suddenly becomes harder to navigate. Drawing on memory, letters, diary entries, care home records and photographs, Krog pieces together a luminous, unflinching exploration of dying, remembering and the complicated terrain between a mother and daughter who love each other deeply but do not see the world the same way.
Set in Kroonstad, the landscape of Krog’s childhood, she brings the South African small town to life, its beauty, its tensions, its modest rhythms and its challenges. As always, Krog refuses the easy version of any story. She writes openly about her mother, their ideological differences and the intergenerational weight of being white and Afrikaans in apartheid South Africa. One scene captures this tension with unguarded intimacy:
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