Summer reads to ease you into the holidays

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.

Boleyn Traitor by Philippa Gregory

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 with Boleyn Traitor, this time tracing the story of Jane Boleyn, wife of George Boleyn and sister-in-law to Anne 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. 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.

Boleyn Traitor by Philippa Gregory was published in September 2025. Retail price around: R415.

Blood’s Inner Rhyme by Antjie Krog

I devoured this book. It’s exquisite. Blood’s Inner Rhyme chronicles 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:

“My mother is busy plaiting my daughter’s hair when I enter. She doesn’t look around. When I near her, she says under her breath: This house cannot become a refuge when you turn against your own people.”

Moments like these remind us why the Afrikaans voices who challenged their own community were so necessary, and how much their courage made it possible. The book becomes a wider meditation on how our society must continue to question so that we are able to heal, grow and bury the demons that otherwise linger.

And yet, threaded through the grief and reckoning are laugh-out-loud moments. Krog’s wit is as sharp as ever. Blood’s Inner Rhyme is history, ageing, dying, memory-making and the wild humour that keeps us human, all held in the hands of a writer who knows how to make language tremble.

Blood’s Inner Rhyme by Antjie Krog was published in May 2025. Retail price around: R370.

The Compound by Aisling Rawle

This one is for the Survivor fans. Set in an unnamed time and place where war forms the backdrop, escapism comes in the shape of a reality TV show. Ten striking men and women sign up to live together in a desert compound, something between Big Brother and a social experiment gone feral. They’re drugged, wake up inside the compound, and the cameras are already rolling, watching everything.

The game runs on a rewards system. There are collective tasks that the entire group must complete to earn basics such as food and supplies. Then there are personal tasks that unlock individual luxuries: a comb, a necklace, a mug. A complication is that each of the five men must choose a woman to sleep beside, and every morning, a woman must wake up with a man in her bed, a rule the book itself flags as rigidly heteronormative. When the first man is eliminated, the real tension kicks in as the women begin to strategise to secure their survival.

The novel is gripping: fast-paced, tense and tightly plotted, with drama unfolding in ways that feel both compulsively readable and deeply uncomfortable. It’s also a sharp commentary on consumption, desire and the lengths people will go to acquire what they don’t actually need. The book explores the politics of group loyalty versus individual ambition and Lilly, the central character, embodies that moral tension. You’re never quite sure whether to admire her ruthlessness or recoil from it. A clever, unsettling read that fans of reality TV dynamics will devour.

The Compound by Aisling Rawle was published in June 2025. Retail price around: R425.

An Act of Murder by Tom Eaton

Arnold Prinsloo is an actor with more dreams than prospects. He’s behind on rent, his girlfriend Zelda has finally had enough, and his career is flatlining. Then chance throws him a lifeline: he meets the wife of an insurance billionaire who hires him to perform a scene from Henry V at her husband’s birthday party.

It feels like the break he’s been waiting for, it’s good money, wealthy connections, a chance to get noticed. But the evening goes spectacularly wrong. The billionaire is murdered at his own party and Arnold becomes the prime suspect. With the police closing in and no one willing to believe him, he realises he has only one option if he wants to stay out of jail: he’ll have to act the role of a detective and find the real killer himself.

What follows is a delightfully offbeat whodunnit: witty, twisty and full of charm. Eaton delivers a fresh take on the detective genre, giving us comedy, eccentric characters, sharp dialogue and just the right amount of chaos. It’s exactly the kind of clever, entertaining read you want at the end of the year.

An Act of Murder by Tom Eaton was published in April 2025. Retail price around: R330. DM