2025: The year the slog paid off
Like Spotify Wrapped but without any backlash.
This morning I sent an email containing the final teeny tiny edits attached to the proof pages of my debut literary thriller A Healthy Appetite. There were two measly typos in 80 thousand words, along with a bunch of changes I wanted to make for various reasons like flow, avoiding clunky repetition, because it sounds better etc.
All in all, the manuscript is as clean as it’s gonna get! Of course, someone, somewhere will find something I’ve missed (a rouge comma; an incorrectly punctuated subordinate clause) and proclaim the whole thing trash of the lowest order. Dear future readers, don’t do this. Novels, most of them anyway, have been through so many rounds of edits the author is sick to the back teeth of it by the end.
On what will probably be my personal final read of the novel, I found myself pleasantly surprised. Yes, all the drama has long gone for me - I’ve read it 5000 times. Of course there were moments I cringed and shuddered. But ultimately, the thing holds up! A debut will only ever be as good as the writer was when they wrote it. Hopefully my next one will be even better. That’s normal. What matters is I’ve done my absolute best with what I have now. I’ve got the fatigue to show for it.
As soon as I hit send, the life shot out of me - whatever had possessed me over the past two years floated off into the ether and I felt husk-like and ready for a nap on the sofa (guys, I never nap). So here we are, at the close of another year, but this time I have something tangible to show for it. A whole edited and polished novel that has a release date, a cover, and soon enough, a pre-order link. I have so many people to thank for this, but I’ll save that for the acknowledgements.
Until then, indulge me the following graphics. As a self-proclaimed Luddite they took me bloody ages. I think they’re quite sweet. But beyond that, the wins are all mine. I worked exceptionally hard for them. Happy Christmas you filthy animals. Catch you in 2026!
Screen Saver 🎬
What I’m Watching
Locked (Dr David Yaroevsky, 2025)
‘I read somewhere, thou shalt not steal. I think it was in the Bible "Thou shalt not steal". That's not complicated, is it? But, if you do have a problem with that, you can always take it up with God, or Karl Marx, or the Kardashians, or anyone.’
Locked (2025), makes jacked up custom-built SUVs seem suddenly less appealing to anyone tempted to take one for a joyride. I’ll admit it, cars don’t do it for me. The frankly anti-social vroom vrooming of engines; the way men caress cars on Sunday mornings, come rain or shine; the fetishisation of cars dangerous when they first came out, now lorded as a mark of very high taste. Give me my teeny tiny Volkswagen Up and I’ll leave the gadgets and superiority complexes to the filthy rich.
Eddie Barrish (played by Bill Skarsgård) doesn’t have a run-of-the-mill Volkswagen, nor does he have the dollars needed to pay back his mean mechanic and liberate his frankly abysmal truck to work his delivery job. Here’s your stereotypical inattentive father, wooed by weed and scratch cards for quick wins, rather than investing in what really counts: his sweetly forgiving daughter.
In one such episode of irresponsibility, Eddie misses school pickup to prowl the streets for distracted diners, swiping wallets and in one aspirational leap, a pair of designer sunglasses from the inside of unlocked hulk of a car. Except, this ride is owned by William (Hopkins), who nearing the end of his life, is frankly disillusioned with how many times his car has been broken into without consequence.
The police aren’t policing. So much so, Willy’s rigged up a more sophisticated Home Alone style set of devices to torture the next thief who tries his luck. When the law fail to do their duty, its vigilante justice that takes centre stage. Think: electrified seats, a torturous toying with the car’s heating and cooling mechanisms and blacked out soundproof windows that assure no one can see or hear you struggling.
I was surprised and slightly miffed to read afterwards that the movie is a remake of a 2019 film titled 4×4, an Argentinian standalone that doesn’t really need an American counterpart. If I’d known this one already existed, I would have watched that; it’s not like this one’s rated any higher. I suppose Eddie’s toned and tatted body is some consolation, but still, what is the Western world’s obsession with remaking films that stand on their own two feet?
I guess the climax is pretty neat, offering a gory battle of moral compasses and a rich vs poor standoff that has something to say, even if it’s not very nuanced. Come for Anthony Hopkins reprising his role as a psycho killer and stay for the high speed chase scene that will have you driving like a nice civilised person the next time you get behind the wheel. Fair warning, if it’s originally you’re after, kill the gas and hit reverse.
2.5 ☆☆
Current Reads 📚
Darkrooms by Rebecca Hannigan - due for publication January 2026.
Darkrooms is set in a small Irish town where the infamous Hanging Woods are haunted by the ghost of a deadbeat Garda’s nine-year-old sister. With no body and no closure for Deedee, the woods keeps hold of its secrets still, but what will it take for it to give them up after all these years?
If Deedee isn’t down the local pub, she’s working a twenty-year-old case she won’t let go cold, especially not now prime suspect Caitlin has returned to the scene of the crime.
Forced back to the ghost town she tried to outrun, Caitlin arrives in the wake of her mother’s death and the strange circumstances surrounding her final night.
Both of the novel’s female protagonists have secrets, and each believe the other to be their enemy. But what if the real evil lurks elsewhere?
Darkrooms is chilling and tragic in equal measure. As the mystery unravels, you’re treated to a dual-perspective that forbids the reader a clean cut hero or villain. Hannigan handles these two very different women with enviable skill. Each perspective has its own voice, it’s own motivation, and the conflict is always at the heart of the narrative.
Whilst I had my suspicions regarding a certain part of the story which transpired to be true, there were plenty more surprises along the way. The intricacy of the plot’s answer is a sure sign of a new talent in the crime writing scene and I’m so excited to see what Hannigan does next.