Hello and welcome to damppebbles. It’s September. Can you believe it? It feels like only yesterday we were welcoming in the New Year! The weather has certainly got the message here in the south of England. We went away on holiday at the end of August – it was lovely, warm and sunny when we left. We returned at the weekend to rain, grey skies and more than one thunderstorm! There’s a definite ‘Autumn vibe’ going on already. But enough of that. How was your Summer? Full to bursting with the best books possible, I hope. Which leads us nicely into what we’re all doing here today…

#CaseClosed is my monthly wrap up post where I share the books I’ve read, the content I’ve posted on the blog, the state of my NetGalley shelf and how my Goodreads challenge is going (I completed the challenge last month so nothing new to report on that one). Plus I’m also including my final #20BooksofSummer2025 challenge check-in. The challenge ended on Sunday 31st August. Stay tuned to find out how I did…

Ugh. From a bookish point of view, August was a little bit rubbish. The books themselves were mostly fabulous. I just didn’t get a lot of reading done. Sometimes spending well over a week reading the same book. Plus I had to drop one of the books I chose for #20BooksofSummer2025 and swap in a new book. However, I can’t complain as we’ve had a jam packed month with time away from home, lots of family fun and many, many happy memories. Sometimes, the books need to take a back seat 🫣😂. In total I read FIVE books during August (plus the one I struggled through for a while and then DNF’d). They were mostly red, white and green in colour. I don’t know if that says something about me or the publishers!

The five books I read were:

➡️ Strange Pictures by Uketsu
➡️ How to Survive a Horror Sequel by Scarlett Dunmore
➡️ The September House by Carissa Orlando
➡️ The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman
➡️ The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi

Here’s hoping for a more productive September!

During August I posted the following reviews…

🖤 The Compound by Aisling Rawle
🖤 The Mercy Chair by M.W. Craven
🖤 The Outback by Sara Ochs
🖤 The Final Vow by M.W. Craven
🖤 The Night I Killed Him by Gill Perdue
🖤 How to Survive a Horror Movie by Scarlett Dunmore
🖤 The Lost Victim by Robert Bryndza
🖤 Heads Will Roll by Josh Winning

I posted four Top Ten Tuesday posts during August…

⚪ Tuesday 5th August – Ten Police Procedural Series I LOVE
⚪ Tuesday 12th August – Ten Highly Recommended Horror Novels
⚪ Tuesday 19th August – The Shortest Books I’ve Read
⚪ Tuesday 26th August – Books with a Number in the Title

I also posted four WWW Wednesday posts where I share my previous read, my current read and what I plan to read next.

🟧 Wednesday 6th August
🟧 Wednesday 13th August
🟧 Wednesday 20th August
🟧 Wednesday 27th August

And of course, there was #CaseClosed for July.

My most popular review on the blog in August was The Final Vow by M.W. Craven.

My most popular non-review post in August was my Top Ten Tuesday contribution from Tuesday 5th August – Ten Police Procedural Series I LOVE.

I have completed my Goodreads Challenge for this year! I decided to take the heat off in 2025 and instead of going for my usual ‘one book every four days’ (roughly 92 books a year) I’ve gone with the more sedate 60 books over 52 weeks which I see as one book a week. It’s not 52 for two reasons 1) I started two books in 2024 and finished them in 2025 so they shouldn’t count towards my total. And 2) I’ve added a number of short stories/novellas which I don’t count in my challenge total (only full length novels). Makes some kind of strange sense somewhere! So far this year I have read 68 books which means I have officially completed my Goodreads challenge for 2025 🥂🎉🙌

On to my NetGalley update for this month. For anyone not familiar with NG it’s a site where you can request early copies of digital books in exchange for a review. I’ve been on NG since I first started the blog in 2016 and we’ve….had our moments…? I find it very easy to get carried away and request ALL the books, only to realise a few days later that I do actually need to find the time to read ALL of the books! One of my bookish goals for this year is to get my NetGalley shelf down to five ‘to-be-read’ books at a time. I made a pledge at the end of January to reduce the number of books to be both read AND reviewed on my shelf. I was, at the time, feeling overly confident. Then I realised that would mean cutting back and unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be something I am capable of!

This is what I currently have to read on my NetGalley shelf.

💟 The Place Where They Buried Your Heart by Christina Henry (November)
💟 The Afterparty by Ruth Kelly (November)
💟 Mimik by Sebastian Fitzek (December)
💟 The Drop by S.R. Masters (December)
💟 Operation Bounce House by Matt Dinniman (February 2026 – this one is for my guest reviewer)
💟 The Exes by Leodora Darlington (February 2026)

The number of books I still have to review on my NetGalley shelf remains higher than I would like. I had promised that August would be the month I FINALLY caught up with writing reviews. But seeing as I had no time to read, it became very clear quite early on that catching up with reviews just wasn’t going to happen.

So in summary…..
January: 11 eARCs to be read | 14 to be reviewed
February: 14 eARCS to be read | 11 to be reviewed
March: 12 eARCS to be read | 12 to be reviewed
April: 9 eARCS to be read | 11 to be reviewed
May: 5 eARCs to be read 🥳 | 14 to be reviewed 🙈
June: 1 eARC to be read 🍾 | 11 to be reviewed 🙈🙈
July: 3 eARCs to be read 🥂 | 7 to be reviewed 😥
August: 6 eARCs to be read (but one of those isn’t mine) 😅 | 5 to be reviewed 😮‍💨

There are also eleven non-NetGalley books I need to write a review for. That number is sloooowly creeping up…

I’m including a 20 Books of Summer 2025 check-in as part of my #CaseClosed post this month. The challenge ended on Sunday 31st August so this is the big reveal. Did I manage to read all twenty of my chosen books…?

I’ve included my progress, whether there have been any changes and a link if I’ve reviewed them. Although, I can guarantee you won’t see some of these reviews until the autumn. Everything to do with me, nothing to do with the fabulous books.

1.   ☑️ We Solve Murders by Richard Osman – read and reviewed
2.   ☑️ The God of the Woods by Liz Moore – read and reviewed
3.   ☑️ Love Kills by David Jackson – read, review to follow
4.   ☑️ We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough – read and reviewed
5.   ☑️ We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter – read and reviewed
6.   ☑️ The Compound by Aisling Rawle – read and reviewed
7.   ☑️ The Night I Killed Him by Gill Perdue – read and reviewed
8.   ☑️ The Stranger in Room Six by Jane Corry – read and reviewed
9.   ☑️ The Outback by Sara Ochs – read and reviewed
10. ☑️ Chasing Shadows by Robert Bryndza – read and reviewed
11. ☑️ The Wasp Trap by Mark Edwards – read and reviewed
12. ☑️ Killer on the Road by Stephen Graham Jones – read and reviewed
13. ☑️ 59 Minutes by Holly Seddon – read, review to follow
14. ☑️ In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan – read, review to follow
15. ☑️ Broken Girls by Joy Kluver – read, review to follow
16. ☑️ The Final Vow by M.W. Craven – read, review to follow
17. ☑️ Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney – read, review to follow
18. ☑️ How to Survive a Horror Sequel by Scarlett Dunmore – read, review to follow (swapped in to replace a DNF)
19. ☑️ The September House by Carissa Orlando – read, review to follow
20. ☑️ Strange Pictures by Uketsu – read, review to follow

I DID IT!!! For only the second time in seven years, and despite a slow reading month, I have completed the 2025 20 Books of Summer challenge. What a relief! Normally I don’t tend to review my #20Books books until months after the challenge but LOOK at how many I’ve reviewed already!! 👀 I’m rather proud of myself. The other books will be reviewed on the blog ASAP (except for the DNF, of course).

Out of the five books I read in August, my book of the month is…

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The September House by Carissa Orlando

So that’s August, and the summer, done for another year. I hope you’ve had a wonderful bookish month. And I hope September brings you even more brilliant books. As always, thank you for your ongoing support. It means the world to me. You’re the best!

I’m a little unsure about whether I’m going to continue with #CaseClosed going forward. I really enjoy putting this post together but oh my gosh, it takes a lot of time and it can be quite fiddly. Perhaps I need a shorter, more succinct version going forwards. Less waffle 😂

I’m also considering whether to revive #R3COMM3ND3D this autumn/fall so if you’d like to join in the #R3COMMN3D3D fun, then please register your interest here (it’s a very short form). If you’ve not seen #R3COMM3ND3D before then please see this link which should hopefully tell you everything you need to know. It took a break in 2024 but if there’s interest, I will happily revive it for 2025.

P.S. If you’re looking for your next read then check out the hashtag #fivestarflashback on Bluesky. I’ve been re-sharing all of my old reviews from the dawn of time itself (or 2016 if you prefer). It’s been so much fun digging in the DP archives! There are around roughly five reviews posted a day so lots of lovely book suggestions if you’re in need of inspiration.

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