#WWWWednesday – 8th July 2026

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Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

What I’m Currently Reading

The Millionaire Waltz by Anthony Quinn (ARC, Abacus)

London in the 1920s: a young woman treads the path between danger and desire.

Against a backdrop of thuggish blackmail, constricting high society and a London still fragile from the war, Edie Greenlaw is trying to decide what she wants from the world. The closer the prospect of marriage with her handsome war hero fiance becomes, the less fulfilling it seems.

Defying caution she goes to the aid of a friend and entangles herself in a dangerous demi-monde of sexual extortion and violence.

Invitation from a Dictator by Rory Clements (Viking via NetGalley)

ON THE EVE OF WAR, A ROYAL GUEST IS LURED INTO HITLER’S DEADLY WEB . . .

Munich, 1937. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor have arrived in Germany for a historic meeting at Hitler’s mountain retreat.

But recent attacks by ruthless Communist band, Red Freedom, has brought fear and bloodshed to the area. As brutal as the Nazis, their next targets are Edward, Wallis and the Fuhrer himself.

Detective Sebastian Wolff is charged with their protection, but the conflict between his job and his politics becomes even more complicated when Wolff realises who is behind Red Freedom: Ulrike, his first love and the mother of his son.

The Draw of the Sea by Wyl Menmuir (Aurum)

The ocean fires our imagination, provides joy, solace and play but also wields immense destructive power. The Draw of the Sea explores communities whose lives revolve around the coast of Cornwall and the Isle of Sciily. In the specifics of these livelihoods and their rich histories and traditions, Wyl Menmuir captures the universal human connection to the sea.

Into this seductive tapestry, Wyl weaves the story of how the sea has beckoned, consoled and restored him. Funny and uplifting, personal and profound, The Draw of the Sea will delight anyone familiar with the intimate and inescapable pull of the sea.

What I’ve Just Read

Land by Maggie O’Farrell (Tinder Press)

On a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, Tomás and his reluctant son, Liam, are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged and emptied by the Great Hunger, the task is not an easy one. Tomás, however, is determined that his maps will be a record of the disaster.

The British soldiers in charge are due to arrive any day, expecting the work to be completed, but Tomás is sent off course by an unsettling encounter in a copse. His life, and those of his family, will never be the same again. Liam is terrified by the sudden change in his taciturn father. What was it that caused such cracks to open in Tomás and how is Liam, aged only ten, going to finish the mapping, and get them both home? (Review to follow)

Where Are the Kings by Donal Ryan (Doubleday via NetGalley)

Something terrible has happened to Jack but no one seems to want to talk about it.

His uncles can tell him about everything from quantum physics to how to hunt for deer, but they can’t seem to tell him anything about their own sister or why Jack doesn’t feel sad for her in the way he should, or why Grandad tries to shoot Jack’s dad when he gets out of the hospital.

Still, there’s work to be done in the oily wonderland of his uncles’ garage; there’s his beautiful aunt Rose to hypnotise him and his loving grandparents to console him; then there’s JJ, who wants to fight him one day and save him the next.

But with so many questions, in a family with so many secrets, it is difficult for Jack to understand the person he is becoming. How can a simple boy learn to become a king? (Review to follow)

What I’ll Be Reading Next

The Eagle & the Wolf (Age of Attila #1) by Gordon Doherty (HarperCollins via NetGalley)

As Hun hordes and Germanic tribes maraud through Imperial lands, two legendary men – Attila the Hun and the “Last of the Romans” General Flavius Aetius find their fortunes entangled with the chaos.

Flavius Aetius, a noble Roman son, is an outsider in a savage land. He has been banished, given as hostage to the barbaric Huns and sent to the edge of the world.

What the Huns do not know, however, is that his father and mother have been murdered in a coup. He is an orphan, with no value at all. His life hangs on a lie.

In this new harsh world, he manages to find one grudging ally, a young boy named Attila.

A brotherhood is formed. One that, the shamans foretell, will shatter the world.

Book Review – A Fatal Love by Louisa Treger @BloomsburyBooks

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About the Book

It is Easter Sunday in 1955 and a young man lies face-down on the ground covered in blood. A woman, blonde and petite, stands over him with a gun in her hand. This is the story of Ruth Ellis as never told before…

As Ruth awaits her trial in Holloway Prison, she recollects growing up in England during the Second World War and the events that led to the death of her lover, David Blakely.

Meanwhile, Kitty Carrington – the assistant to Ruth’s trial lawyer – tries to forge her own path through the male-dominated legal world of the 1950s and ensure that Ruth receives a fair trial.

Navigating secrets, betrayal and a broken justice system, Ruth and Kitty try to take control of their own lives and narratives. But do we ever really know the full story?

Format: Hardcover (240 pages) Publisher: Bloomsbury
Publication date: 27th August 2026 Genre: Historical Fiction, True Crime

Find A Fatal Love on Goodreads

Preorder/Purchase A Fatal Love from Bookshop.org [Disclosure: If you buy books linked to our site, we may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops]

My Review

A Fatal Love is the story of an addiction. Not to drugs or drink, although those do play a part, but to a person. That person was David Blakely, a man with whom Ruth Ellis was passionately in love despite his frequent infidelity and violence towards her.

The author takes the reader inside the mind of a woman who has had to fend for herself from an early age, to struggle to make a life for herself. A woman who has had to overcome the stigma of having a child out of wedlock, a failed marriage that ended in divorce, and working as a hostess in night clubs. But Ruth proves herself to be brilliant at the latter. Always gorgeously turned out, she knows just how to charm the male clientele to ensure the drinks, and the money, keep flowing. Ruth’s no angel. In return for a roof over her head she’s expected by the club’s owner to have sex with many of the men who frequent the club, even while her young son Andy sleeps in the next room.

Then one night, Ruth meets racing driver David Blakely. The physical attraction is instant and overwhelming. It’s the first step on a path that will destroy them both.

Blakely comes across as a needy, duplicitous waster – and that’s putting it kindly. It’s heartbreaking to see Ruth so in thrall to him, unable to resist letting him back in her life after each lie, each broken promise, each act of betrayal. ‘He was light and oxygen to her. There were times when it seemed she could not breathe outside his presence.’ At the same time as recognising the hold he has over her, she sees the impossibility of her ever having the strength to break free from him.

What she does on that Easter Sunday 1955 is an act of desperation and a kind of madness, enabled by another who was never held responsible.

The author introduces a fictional character, Kitty, assistant to John Bickford, the solicitor appointed to represent Ruth. I didn’t think Kitty’s back story contributed much but she did provide an important perspective on the conduct of Ruth’s trial. We see that Ruth was failed by everyone. The psychiatrist who interviewed her but failed to find evidence of mental illness. Her barrister who rejected provocation as a potentially successful line of defence. The presiding judge whose partial summing-up contributed to the jury’s guilty verdict. The Home Secretary who refused a request for clemency.

But perhaps a woman like Ruth could never have overcome the misogyny of 1950s society. As Kitty observes to Bickford during the trial, ‘Ruth is a threat to the social order. They’re out to break her… The police, the newspapers, even your colleagues. She was too ambitious. No respect for the boundaries of sex and class – broke every rule. To them that’s the real offence.’

The final section of the book describes in unflinching detail the period Ruth Ellis spent in Holloway Prison after her trial and before her execution. In the condemned cell she is never left alone and is only footsteps away from where she will be executed. The details of her final hours, the meticulous preparations for her execution, are distressing to read.

As the author sets out in the Afterword, Ruth’s actions had a lasting impact on her family, especially her son Andy, as well as for others involved in the case. But her case also fuelled the campaign to end the death penalty.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of Bloomsbury via NetGalley. A Fatal Love is book 7 of my 20 Books of Summer 2026.

In three words: Moving, gripping, powerful
Try something similar: The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou by Eleni Kyriacou

About the Author

Louisa Treger is the critically acclaimed author of four novels – The Lodger (2014), The Dragon Lady (2019), Madwoman (2022) and The Paris Muse (2024) – translated into several languages. Her work has twice been selected as The Times Historical Book of the Month, most recently for Madwoman, which was also a Book of the Month in the Independent.

She has written for numerous publications, including Financial Times, The Times, the Telegraph, Tatler, BBC History Magazine, and English Heritage. Radio appearances include BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme and BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. She appears regularly at literary festivals and cultural institutions, and is deputy chair of the board of the Oxford Literary Festival. (Photo: Amazon author page)

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