In today’s blog post the Mushens Entertainment team reflect on what we watched, read and listened to over the Christmas break.

Juliet

Read: On the books front I read See What You Made me Do by Jess Hill, a non-fiction dive into domestic abuse and coercive control. I know, so festive! Impeccably researched it’s not an easy read by any means, but is an important one.

Watched: My Christmas tradition is to watch as many monster B-movies as I can – after one Christmas where I had norovirus and spent it alone with the Syfy channel’s Shark Marathon for company. This viewing experience culminated with Lake Placid: Legacy. I have zero regrets. 

On a more cerebral level I mainlined Happy Valley: I found it astonishingly moving and very gripping. One of my complaints often with TV (or any form of media really) is that characters do things purely to serve the plot, whereas this is a brilliant example of a story where the characters behave exactly as real people behave – sometimes infuriating, sometimes funny, but always consistent with who they are. 

Liza

Read: I finished reading Notes On An Execution by Danya Kukafka which I really enjoyed. The story revolves around multiple women who are in one way or another, connected to a serial killer. I thought it was a fresh take on this genre and I enjoyed the focus on how the women were affected by the crimes, rather than the man.

Watched: I streamed The Empress on Netflix, a German language historical drama originally titled Die Kaiserin. It follows Empress Elizabeth of Austria at the beginning of her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph. It was gripping, fun, and similar to things I would love to see in my submissions inbox when it comes to historical fiction!

Listened to: I was listening to a few F1 podcasts and am still dying to see someone write a romcom set in the F1 world!  

Rachel

Read: I love a serial killer story, though this was a very unusual take on that well-worn subject. Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka follows the killer during his last few hours on death row, but it doesn’t glamourise him or his crimes, focusing instead on three women – a mother, a sister and a detective – whose lives intersected with the killer. The characterisation was incredible. 

Watched: Meanwhile on TV I binged the second season of White Lotus, which I loved even more than season one. A locked-room style mystery, a stunningly glamorous setting and Megan Fahy’s hair – everything I want in a TV show! Aspiring authors, I’d love to see something along the lines of White Lotus in my submissions inbox!

Kiya

Read: Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth. This was given to me as a Christmas present by someone who clearly knows my taste VERY well. It’s a “sapphic-gothic-comedy” set at the once-infamous, definitely-haunted Brookhants School for Girls, where a Hollywood crew is arriving to shoot a film based on a tragic incident that took place a century earlier, and the line between the school’s curse and Hollywood magic quickly starts to blur. It’s so much fun and incredibly unique. 

Watched: Way too many TikToks, my pets being adorable, the Motherland Christmas special. 

Listened to: A lot of podcasts - I went on a lot of walks! My evergreen favourites are Goes Without Saying, You’re Wrong About, and My Dad Wrote A Porno, which never fails to make me literally cry with laughter (often, embarrassingly, in public).

Catriona

Read: Over Christmas I read Legends and Lattes (a tiktok favourite) which is a really cosy fantasy novel about a retired orc named Viv who moves to the city of Thune and decides to open a coffee shop – even though no one in Thune has ever heard of coffee. It was exactly what I needed to unwind after a busy year!

Watched: I refused to watch anything remotely taxing on my brain, so I spent much of the break catching up with my reality TV favourites, including The Traitors and Single’s Inferno.

Listened to: Lots and lots of the Nearly Weds podcast! I could listen to Sophie and Jamie bicker for hours.