Francesca Steele

A book critic recommends eleven modern page-turners for holiday reading, spanning memoir, literary and domestic thrillers, family sagas, crime fiction and contemporary relationship novels. The selections are praised for their immersive plots, humour, emotional depth and strong characterisation, with particular emphasis on books that offer both compulsive reading and thoughtful examinations of marriage, class, friendship, trauma, motherhood and middle age.

A holiday reading guide recommends twelve historical novels spanning post-war Italy, 1950s Ireland and America, medieval religious conflict, the First World War, Victorian London, racial segregation, Tudor England, the Irish potato famine, slavery and post-Civil War trauma, colonial Congo, the American antebellum South, and southern India under the Raj. The selections are praised for combining absorbing plots with explorations of friendship, migration, war, racism, identity, religion, colonialism and historical memory.

Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, who served as private secretary and mentor to Princes William and Harry from 2005, recalls the brothers as talented but markedly different: William was a natural leader, while Harry was energetic and unconventional. He describes their former bond as exceptionally strong and expresses sadness over their estrangement, while remaining optimistic that it could eventually be repaired. Lowther-Pinkerton also discusses his military career, his affection for the Queen Mother and Catherine, Princess of Wales, and his debut historical romance, Beyond the Edge of Light, about a British woman and a German man separated by duty and the Second World War.

Toy Story 5 uses the threat of a tablet named Lilypad and children’s immersion in screens to explore contemporary anxieties about lost childhoods, while keeping technology secondary to the franchise’s enduring themes of growing up, rejection and obsolescence. Jessie takes centre stage as she fears being replaced in Bonnie’s affections, prompting Woody and Buzz to reunite with the gang. The film is praised as both a timely digital horror story and a warm, funny, nostalgic family adventure.

Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day is praised as a large-scale, emotionally hopeful science-fiction blockbuster centered less on aliens than on humans learning to connect. Emily Blunt is singled out for a career-best performance as Margaret Fairchild, balancing comedy, vulnerability and action, while Josh O’Connor, Colman Domingo and Eve Hewson also receive strong praise. The review criticizes the convoluted alien mythology, corporate-espionage subplot and apparent plot holes, but concludes that the film’s pace, cast, sense of fun and emotional tenderness outweigh its narrative shortcomings.

Deborah Lutz’s biography This Dark Night challenges the conventional image of Emily Brontë as merely isolated and eccentric. It interprets her fascination with bodies, death and the Gothic through childhood bereavements and an enduring interest in the boundaries between life, death and the soul. The biography also emphasizes the Brontë siblings’ close creative fellowship, particularly the influence of their shared household, invented world of Gondal and collaborative writing in 1845. Although the destruction of Emily’s letters leaves Lutz reliant at times on speculation, the book presents Emily as both reserved and unconventional and as a more socially connected, intellectually ambitious and complex writer than the traditional portrait suggests.

Philippa Dunne discusses returning as the kind-hearted but occasionally volatile Anne in the second season of Amandaland, explaining the character’s appeal and her enduring friendship dynamic with Amanda, played by Lucy Punch. Dunne reflects on how the series portrays the awkwardness of parenting teenagers and says it has made her anxious about her own daughter’s teenage years. She describes her relaxed parenting approach, her upbringing in County Mayo, her route into acting and the pride she takes in working full-time. Dunne also discusses memorable Anne storylines, her hopes that the character’s unseen husband will eventually appear, and her Bafta nomination alongside several Motherland and Amandaland co-stars.

Matt Haig discusses his past breakdown, heavy drinking, suicide attempt and lasting regret that he could not better support his wife, Andrea Semple, during his illness. He explains how autism and ADHD diagnoses have changed his understanding of himself, while arguing that masculine ideals of self-sufficiency and the manosphere suppress vulnerability and worsen mental-health difficulties. Haig also explores the links between class, access to therapy and emotional expression, themes reflected in his new novel, The Midnight Train. He describes his shift toward accessible, sentimental writing, the success of The Midnight Library, sobriety and the pressures of being treated as a mental-health authority.

The article selects nine outstanding previous winners of the Women’s Prize for Fiction from the award’s 30-year history. The choices range from Andrea Levy’s exploration of Caribbean immigration in postwar Britain in Small Island to Barbara Kingsolver’s modern Appalachian reworking of David Copperfield in Demon Copperhead. The selections are praised for addressing subjects including empire, racism, parental responsibility, gender, war, sexuality, grief, poverty and institutional inequality, although A. M. Homes’s May We Be Forgiven receives a more mixed assessment. The piece also introduces the 2026 shortlist, which includes established writers and debut novelists, with the £30,000 winner due to be announced in June.

The sequel centers on Miranda Priestley's struggling Runway magazine, Andy Sachs's journalism career and Emily's power in fashion retail. Although Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt remain highly entertaining, Anne Hathaway's Andy is sidelined by a dull, overly earnest storyline about journalism, digital media and the fashion industry's changing economics. The review praises some comic performances and lavish Milan-set sequences but concludes that the film lacks the original's sharpness and momentum.

Francesca Steele condemns the Michael Jackson biopic for omitting all discussion of the sexual-abuse allegations against Jackson and presenting him as an uncomplicated philanthropist and defender of children. She argues that the film, produced with involvement from Jackson’s estate, attempts to rehabilitate his reputation despite his controversial relationships with young boys and multiple accusations, while acknowledging its strong direction, performances, pacing and musical appeal. The review concludes that artistic admiration for Jackson’s work is separate from whether such a sanitizing film should have been made, and rejects the prospect of sequels.

Francesca Steele argues that Enid Blyton’s children’s stories must be updated to remove racist, xenophobic and other offensive elements if they are to reach modern audiences. Drawing on controversies around recent adaptations of The Famous Five and The Magic Faraway Tree, she contends that changing names, characters and outdated attitudes preserves the stories’ core qualities—adventure, freedom, wonder and human connection—while making them more inclusive. She praises the new film’s expanded parental roles, contemporary sensibility and nostalgic charm, concluding that Blyton’s central appeal matters more than preserving every detail of the original text.

Rachel Weisz’s recent roles have made her an LGBTQ+ icon and a favorite among women by centering female desire, agency and queer experience rather than presenting women as objects of the male gaze. Her performances in Disobedience, The Favourite and Dead Ringers are highlighted, while her new Netflix series Vladimir reverses the usual dynamic by objectifying a younger male character. The piece argues that Weisz’s characters are compelling because sex is consistently connected to power, surrender and the complexities of female experience.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! reimagines Frankenstein’s Bride as Ida, a mobster’s escort resurrected by an eccentric scientist and paired with Frankenstein’s monster in a 1930s America-set romantic crime adventure. Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale deliver lively, emotionally engaging performances, but the film’s shifting genres, convoluted Mary Shelley framing device and forced storyline about silenced women undermine its feminist ambitions. The review argues that Gyllenhaal’s nuanced approach in The Lost Daughter has been replaced by hollow, heavy-handed girlboss messaging, leaving a potentially strong film buried beneath an unfocused script.

Rose Ayling-Ellis discusses her pride in being deaf, the importance of deaf identity and British Sign Language, and the need for society to adapt rather than expecting deaf people to do all the accommodating. She reflects on experiences of exclusion, limited access to subtitled cinema, professional typecasting and the difficulty of dating in noisy environments. Her acting, documentary and writing work—including The Big Bang!, a children’s story about inclusion—aims to broaden representation, while she hopes to take on more comedy and varied roles beyond conventional portrayals of disability.

Mary Bronstein’s film follows Linda, a mother pushed toward psychological collapse by her daughter’s serious eating disorder, housing problems, an absent husband, and indifferent institutions. The review argues that Linda’s cruelty and desperation are intentionally difficult to watch, exposing how stress, gendered expectations, and inadequate support can make motherhood feel isolating and dehumanizing. Unlike films such as Tully, Nightbitch, and Die My Love, it offers neither comic relief nor a redemptive resolution, making its bleakness central to its power.

Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights is portrayed as a flamboyant, sexually charged reimagining focused on the toxic romance between Cathy and Heathcliff. The review praises Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi’s chemistry, the film’s comic timing, provocative imagery, lavish fashion and rococo production design, while noting its energetic performances and soundtrack. However, the visual style and glamour are judged to overpower the emotional core, leaving the film short of a deeper exploration of trauma, devotion and Mr Earnshaw’s legacy.

Philip Reeve discusses his 25-year career, the origins and continuing appeal of the Mortal Engines universe, and his new sequel Bridge of Storms. The book returns to the series’ mobile-city setting while focusing on Museion, an academic community trying to preserve its archive and reach London safely. Reeve describes his preference for entertaining stories over overt allegory, while acknowledging the new novel’s melancholy themes of cultural loss and weakening agreements. He also reflects on his son Sam’s lack of interest in reading, saying he has accepted that Sam has found his own path, despite broader concerns about declining recreational reading among young people.

Freida McFadden has become one of the world’s most successful thriller writers while maintaining a deliberately private identity as a part-time doctor in Boston. The feature traces her rise from self-publishing medical fiction to selling millions of books through Bookouture and Sourcebooks, highlighting the fast, twist-driven domestic thrillers that have built a devoted readership. It also examines online accusations that plots and passages in books such as The Housemaid and The Teacher closely resemble works by Liv Constantine and Kate Elizabeth Russell. McFadden’s representatives declined to comment, while the article notes that proving copyright infringement is difficult and that recurring thriller conventions can produce similar stories. Her forthcoming output and continued popularity will test whether slowing her writing pace affects the demand for her books.

Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? adapts comedian John Bishop’s experience of divorce into a gentle comedy-drama starring Will Arnett as Alex Novak, a middle-aged man who discovers an unexpected talent for stand-up comedy. The film follows Alex and his estranged wife Tess, played by Laura Dern, as they navigate co-parenting, changing friendships and uncertainty about life after marriage. The review praises Arnett’s understated lead performance, Dern’s complexity and the film’s warmth, while noting the implausibility of Alex’s early opportunities at New York’s Comedy Cellar. Ultimately, the film is presented less as a story about divorce than as a thoughtful exploration of identity, reinvention and the possibility of new beginnings in midlife.

Video podcasts are becoming a major part of podcast consumption, with YouTube viewing growing rapidly and Netflix entering the market with new shows. The article recommends seven particularly watchable examples: Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud, It Was a S**t Show, The Rest Is Entertainment, Crime Junkie, The Louis Theroux Podcast, Good Hang with Amy Poehler, and Staying Relevant. Their appeal comes from visual clips, expressive hosts and guests, relaxed interviews, behind-the-scenes material and, in some cases, the ability to deepen interest in true-crime cases.

Claire Foy gives a committed performance as Helen Macdonald, a grieving academic who turns to falconry after her father's death, and the film captures the intense bond between Helen and her goshawk. However, the adaptation struggles to convey the memoir's interiority, relies on clumsy exposition, limits the natural-world dimension and removes the book's important T. H. White strand. Despite elegant cinematography and moments of beauty, it ultimately renders the story of grief and healing as emotionally anaemic.

Rachel Eliza Griffiths's memoir The Flower Bearers is primarily a tribute to her late friend and poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, while also offering an intimate account of Griffiths's marriage to Salman Rushdie and the aftermath of his 2022 stabbing. The review praises the book's lyrical and emotionally raw treatment of grief, friendship, race, vulnerability and mental health, including Griffiths's dissociative identity disorder and struggles with depression. Its account of Rushdie's surgery and recovery provides a perspective distinct from his own memoir, but the reviewer finds the book frustratingly opaque about abuse, mental-health crises and Moon's death. Published by Random House, The Flower Bearers is characterized as a powerful but uneven search for hope amid despair.

The review finds The Bone Temple exceptionally violent but more tonally consistent and thematically compelling than its predecessor. Nia DaCosta’s direction balances horror, comedy and kitsch while Alex Garland’s story explores whether humanity can survive the Rage virus through the relationship between traumatized gang leader Sir Jimmy Crystal and Dr Ian Kelson’s experimental bond with an Alpha zombie. Jack O’Connell and Ralph Fiennes are praised, while Alfie Williams’s reduced role is regretted. A cameo by Cillian Murphy’s Jim sets up a more prominent part in the trilogy’s Boyle-directed finale.

Chloé Zhao’s film Hamnet, co-written with Maggie O’Farrell, imagines the relationship between William Shakespeare’s family tragedy and the creation of Hamlet. The review praises Jessie Buckley’s portrayal of Agnes, Paul Mescal’s performance as Shakespeare, Jacobi Jupe as Hamnet, and the film’s naturalistic cinematography and pastoral atmosphere. Although centered on the devastating death of Hamnet, the film is described as a broader story about family, grief, love and the transformative possibilities of art, ultimately balancing gut-wrenching despair with hope.

Song Sung Blue dramatizes the relationship between Milwaukee Neil Diamond tribute singer Mike Sardina and Claire, who perform together as Lightning & Thunder. The review finds the film most effective when it depicts their ordinary, loving relationship rather than following a conventional tragic-biopic structure. Kate Hudson is singled out for an unusually mature and emotionally layered performance, while Hugh Jackman is praised for his charisma and singing. Although the film sometimes becomes predictable and overly sentimental, its lively musical sequences and emotional authenticity make it an exuberant, joyful experience.

Marty Supreme stars Timothée Chalamet as Marty Mauser, an arrogant, fast-talking aspiring table-tennis champion navigating 1950s America. Directed and co-written by Josh Safdie, the film follows Marty from New York to international competitions and a series of increasingly reckless schemes. The review praises its energetic style, dark humor, ensemble cast and Chalamet’s performance, while noting that its protagonist is deliberately unlikeable and that the ending is slightly saccharine. Its deeper subject is less sport than ambition, youth and the struggle to grasp the post-war American dream.

Rian Johnson’s Knives Out films are presented as the strongest modern heirs to Agatha Christie, surpassing the contemporary cosy-crime success of Richard Osman. The series combines intricate whodunnits, eccentric detectives and theatrical humour with commentary on wealth inequality, technology culture, conspiracy theories, faith and political polarization. Wake Up Dead Man is especially praised for its gothic setting, emotional investment in Josh O’Connor’s vulnerable priest character and balance of rational investigation with spiritual themes. Christie’s enduring appeal is similarly attributed not just to clever puzzles but to her close observation of changing social conditions, a quality the films successfully revive.

Goodbye June is criticised as a clichéd and predictable family drama whose thin screenplay appears to rely heavily on the star power of writer Joe Anders, his mother Kate Winslet, and its ensemble cast. The story follows a dying mother in hospice care and her estranged children as they confront longstanding family tensions. Despite the script’s lack of depth, Winslet’s brisk, unsentimental direction and strong performances—especially from Helen Mirren—create moments of genuine tenderness and emotional authenticity. The review concludes that Anders shows promise but would have benefited from more time developing the screenplay.

The 1964 film emerged from a troubled production marked by P. L. Travers’s resistance to Disney’s sentimental adaptation, her opposition to Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke’s casting and the use of animation, Van Dyke’s alcoholism, Andrews’s struggle to balance a first film role with a newborn child, and a near-fatal accident during the umbrella-flight scene. The child actors also disliked each other, yet Disney’s experimental sodium-vapour effects, the cast’s energy and the film’s innovative blend of live action and animation produced an instant critical and commercial success. Despite its disputes and production hazards, Mary Poppins remains widely regarded as a practically perfect and enduring Disney classic.

Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly stars George Clooney as a successful but ageing actor confronting regret, fractured family relationships and the emotional costs of a Hollywood career. Clooney’s deliberately self-referential performance is matched by Adam Sandler’s tender, career-best turn as Kelly’s manager, while Billy Crudup, Laura Dern and the supporting cast add comic and dramatic force. The film explores the need for genuine connection rather than external validation, ultimately suggesting that success and regret can coexist and that an alternative life would not necessarily have brought greater happiness.

The review argues that Christy squanders Christy Martin’s compelling story of pioneering women’s boxing, domestic abuse and coming out through a flat, linear script and an overly conventional biopic style. Sydney Sweeney’s physical transformation is acknowledged, but her performance is judged bland and detached, while Ben Foster and Merritt Wever receive praise. The film’s treatment of homophobia, sexism and conservative family values offers its most interesting material, yet the reviewer concludes that it never achieves the ferocity or emotional depth the subject demands and would not merit an Oscar nomination for Sweeney.