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Let’s read in February 2025!
February is the month of love, and you know what they say about the smooching season – “Fill February with a smattering of supernatural fiction and cosy crime reads, and you’ll woo your true love!”.
Such a famous saying. Anyway …
“The Dead Take the A Train” by Cassandra Khaw & Richard Kadrey!
You don’t need to ‘sign up’ or have ‘special elite access’ to join the Fishbird Central Book Club. Just read along with our chosen book for the month, and let us know how you like it!
We’ll talk a little more in depth about the Book Club and our thoughts on the monthly book pick in our Fishbird Central Newsletter. We’d love to chat with you in the newsletter comments!
Join us as we read some great new titles and tick off some reading prompts! Book reviews to be published in 3’s in future Fishbird posts 🙂
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We encourage you to always source books from your local independent bookshop. However, we understand this is sometimes not practical based on location or budget.
Therefore, this post contains Amazon affiliate links. This means, if you click on the link and purchase the book from that link, I get a few dollars at no extra cost to you! This way we can both restock our TBR stack! 😀
Happy Reading, Friends!
Series or Standalone?:
This is Book One in the ‘Carrion City’ series.
'The Dead Take the A Train' Back Blurb:
Julie is a coked-up, burnt-out thirty-year-old whose only retirement plan is dying early. She’s been trying to establish herself in the NYC magic scene, and she’ll work the most gruesome gigs, exorcise the nastiest demons, and make deals with the cruelest gods to claw her way to the top. But nothing can prepare her for the toughest job yet: when her best friend, Sarah, shows up at her door in need of help. Keeping Sarah safe becomes top priority. Julie is desperate for a quick fix to break the dead-end grind and save her friend. But her power grab sets off a deadly chain of events that puts Sarah – and the entire world – directly in the path of annihilation.
Grab yourself a copy:
‘The Dead Take the A Train’ by Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey
Series or Standalone?:
This is a standalone novel.
'Back to the Garden' Back Blurb:
A magnificent house, vast formal gardens, a golden family that shaped California, and a colourful past filled with now-famous artists: the Gardener Estate was a twentieth-century Eden. And now, just as the Estate is preparing to move into a new future, restoration work on some of its art digs up a grim relic of the home’s past: a human skull, hidden away for decades. Inspector Raquel Laing has her work cut out for her. Fifty years ago, the Estate’s young heir, Rob Gardener, turned his palatial home into a counterculture commune of peace, love, and equality. But that was also a time when serial killers preyed on innocents—monsters like The Highwayman, whose case has just surged back into the public eye. Could the skull belong to one of his victims?
Grab yourself a copy:
Series or Standalone?:
This is a standalone novel.
'Fortune Favours the Dead' Back Blurb:
New York, 1945. Lillian Pentecost is the most successful private detective in the city, but her health is failing. She hires an assistant to help with the investigative legwork. Willowjean Parker is a circus runaway. Quick-witted and street-smart, she’s a jack-of-all-trades with a unique skill-set. She can pick locks blindfolded, wrestle men twice her size, and throw knives with deadly precision – all of which come in handy working for Ms P. When wealthy young widow Abigail Collins is murdered and the police are making no progress, Pentecost and Parker are hired by the family to track down the culprit. On Halloween night, there was a costume party at the Collins’ mansion, where a fortune teller performed a seance which greatly disturbed Abigail. Several hours later her body was discovered bludgeoned to death in her late husband’s office. Problem is, the door to the office was locked from the inside. There was no-one else in the room, and the murder weapon was beside the victim; the fortune teller’s crystal ball. It looks like an impossible crime, but Pentecost and Parker know there is no such thing.
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Series or Standalone?:
This is Book One in the ‘Ray Carney’ series.
'Harlem Shuffle' Back Blurb:
To his customers and neighbours on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably-priced furniture, making a life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver’s Row don’t approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it’s still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his fa ade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger and bigger all the time. See, cash is tight, especially with all those instalment plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace at the furniture store, Ray doesn’t see the need to ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweller downtown who also doesn’t ask questions. Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa – the ‘Waldorf of Harlem’ – and volunteers Ray’s services as the fence. The heist doesn’t go as planned; they rarely do, after all. Now Ray has to cater to a new clientele, one made up of shady cops on the take, vicious minions of the local crime lord, and numerous other Harlem lowlifes.
Grab yourself a copy:
Series or Standalone?:
This is a standalone novel.
'I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom' Back Blurb:
Outside Los Angeles, a driver pulls up to find a young woman sitting on a large black box. She offers him $200,000 cash to transport her and that box across the country, to Washington, DC. But there are rules: He cannot look inside the box. He cannot ask questions. He cannot tell anyone. They must leave immediately. He must leave all trackable devices behind. As these eccentric misfits hit the road, rumours spread on social media that the box is part of a carefully orchestrated terror attack intended to plunge the USA into civil war. The truth promises to be even stranger, and may change how you see the world.
Grab yourself a copy:
‘I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom’ by Jason Pargin
Series or Standalone?:
This is a standalone novel.
'Nestlings' Back Blurb:
Ana and Reid needed a lucky break. The horrifically complicated birth of their first child has left Ana paralysed, bitter, and struggling: with mobility, with her relationship with Reid, with resentment for her baby. That’s about to change with the words any New Yorker would love to hear–affordable housing lottery. They’ve won an apartment in the Deptford, one of Manhattan’s most revered buildings with beautiful vistas of Central Park and stunning architecture. Reid dismisses disturbing events and Ana’s deep unease and paranoia as the price of living in New York–people are odd–but he can’t explain the needle-like bite marks on the baby.
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Series or Standalone?:
This is Book One in the ‘Kitchen Witch’ series.
'One Poison Pie' Back Blurb:
What’s a kitchen witch to do when her almost-fiancé leaves her suddenly single and unemployed? For Mia Malone, the answer’s simple: move to her grandmother’s quirky Idaho hometown, where magic is an open secret and witches and warlocks are (mostly) welcome. With a new gourmet dinner delivery business—and a touch of magic in her recipes—Mia’s hopes are high. Even when her ex’s little sister, Christina, arrives looking for a place to stay, Mia takes it in stride. But her first catering job takes a distasteful turn when her client’s body is found, stabbed and stuffed under the head table. Mia’s shocked to learn that she’s a suspect—and even more so when she realises she’s next on a killer’s list. With Christina, along with Mia’s meddling grandma, in the mix, she’ll have to find out which of the town’s eccentric residents has an appetite for murder…before this fresh start comes to a sticky end.
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Series or Standalone?:
This is Book One in the ‘Chatty Corgie Mysteries’ series.
'To Fetch a Felon' Back Blurb:
Emma leaves London and her life in high finance behind her and moves to an idyllic village in Cornwall, with its cobblestone streets and twisting byways. She plans to open a village tea shop and bake the recipes handed down to her from her beloved grandmother, and of course there’ll be plenty of space for her talking corgi, Oliver, to explore. Yes…talking. Emma has always been able to understand Oliver, even though no one else can. As soon as Emma arrives in the village she discovers that the curmudgeonly owner of the building she wants to rent for her shop hates dogs and gets off on the wrong foot with Oliver. Although some might turn tail and run, Emma is determined to win her over. But when she delivers some of her homemade scones as a peace offering, she finds the woman dead. Together, Emma and Oliver will need to unleash their detective skills to catch a killer.
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Series or Standalone?:
This is Book One in the ‘Sixth World’ series.
'Trail of Lightning' Back Blurb:
While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters. Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last best hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much more terrifying than anything she could imagine. Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel the rez, unravelling clues from ancient legends, trading favours with tricksters, and battling dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology. As Maggie discovers the truth behind the killings, she will have to confront her past if she wants to survive.
Grab yourself a copy:
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