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Reading: My Favourite Mistake
Reading: My Favourite Mistake

“And so, to return to Freud’s ‘riddle of femininity’, it turns out that the answer was staring us in the face all along. All ‘people’ needed to do was to ask women.”

–Caroline Criado-Pérez

 

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My Favourite Mistake by Marian Keyes is the latest in her saga of the five Walsh sisters. Contemporary romance is not usually my thing but this one is fun.

Anna Walsh is living in Manhattan with her boyfriend, Angelo, a nice, respectful guy who just doesn’t ring her bell.  She’s burning out at her glamorous public relations job and perimenopause is making her overly emotional, so she chucks it all and heads back to Ireland. After some time nursing her wounds and wondering if she’s made a big mistake, she’s offered a chance to use her PR skills to help the backers of a luxury hotel overcome local opposition.

It all sounds great, until she finds out that the money behind the project is coming from a hot guy who rejected her many years ago. Joey Armstrong says he’s a changed man, but Anna doesn’t believe him, at least not at first. But soon, the two are working together to solve the mystery of why the locals are so against the project, and Joey turns out to have done more work on himself than she thought.

It’s a bit sad that even in 2026, it’s unusual to find a bestselling novel about a woman in her forties who isn’t pathetic, but Keyes has done an excellent job filling that gap, managing to highlight issues without being preachy. This one is worth your time.

Captives
A psychological mystery that explores the aftermath of a brutal abduction and the secrets that haunt the survivors.

Three years ago, Samantha Gilchrist and her friends Amanda, Kaylee and Maria forged an unbreakable bond when they survived a brutal kidnapping in Kandahar. Sam wrote a best-selling memoir about their ordeal and moved on to a great new career as a journalist and a happy relationship with Dave, a handsome intelligence officer she met in Afghanistan. Still, she can’t help wondering about the reasons behind their capture.

On their way to Maria’s remote Gatineau cottage to commemorate the anniversary of their escape and rescue, Sam and Kaylee hear news reports about a missing Afghan diplomat. Then, they think they see Ali, their former interpreter and the mastermind behind the hostage-taking, who was supposed to have died during their rescue. When Amanda’s lifeless body is found the next morning, the friends’ suspicions lead them down a dangerous path that uncovers dark secrets and hidden motives.

The narrative alternates between the present day and the version of events presented in Sam’s memoir, as she and her friends struggle with their grief over the loss of Amanda and lingering trauma and jealousy over their differing fortunes in the aftermath of the kidnapping. As tensions rise and secrets are revealed, Sam starts to question everything she thought she knew about her friends, her lover, and herself, not just in the past, but in the here and now. 

Full of suspense, complex characters, and unexpected twists, Captives will cause fans of mystery and psychological thrillers to make irresponsible decisions about their sleep. 

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