#WWWWednesday – 22nd April 2026

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!


Paper Sisters by Rachel Canwell (Northodox Press)

Lincolnshire, 1914. As the First World War approaches, three women are living, trapped between the unforgiving marsh, the wide, relentless river, and the isolation of the fen.

Their lives are held fast by profound grief, haunted by the spectres of the past. Trapped by the looming presence and eerie stillness of a hospital that has never admitted a single patient.

Eleanor longs to escape. To make a life with the man she loves, leaving her sister, and all her ghosts behind. Clara’s marriage is crumbling and violent and she yearns for peace and security for both herself and her innocent children. Meanwhile, Lily, a formidable force of will, stands resolute against the relentless tide of change. She will stop at nothing, no matter the devastating cost, to ensure that life, and her family, remain frozen in an unyielding embrace of the past.

Dark is the Morning by Rupert Thomson (Apollo via NetGalley)

Sometimes love isn’t where you belong

In a small town in the Abruzzo region of Italy, Gino, a troubled young man, realises that his childhood sweetheart Franca can give his life the happiness and stability he needs. They seem made for each other, and move to a remote house in the countryside. Franca soon gives birth to a son so handsome that people come from miles around to see him – but his sheer beauty causes Gino to doubt that he is truly the boy’s father.

Descending into pathological jealousy and resentment towards a married man who had been Franca’s lover, Gino is unable to stop himself imagining the worst, and embarks on a violent path that has catastrophic effects on those around him.

Thunderball by Ian Fleming (The Book Club)

A Far-flung Life by M. L. Stedman (Doubleday)

Outback Western Australia, 1958. For generations, the MacBrides have lived on a remote sheep station, Meredith Downs. A million arid acres, it’s an ocean of land, where the weather is a capricious god, and time still roams untamed.

One ordinary day, on a lonely road, under the unending blue sky, patriarch Phil MacBride swerves to avoid a kangaroo. In seconds the lives of the entire MacBride family are shattered.

Instead of leaving wounds to heal, Fate comes for them yet again, in a twist of consequences that will cause one of them to lose their life, and another to sacrifice theirs for the sake of an innocent child.

Matt, the youngest MacBride, is plunged into a moral and emotional journey for which there is no map, no guide, as he is forced to choose between love and duty, sacrifice and happiness. (Review to follow)

Flashlight by Susan Choi (Bathwick Hill)

A moment is all it takes to shatter a family. The echoes last a lifetime…

One evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father, Serk, take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town. Hours later, Louisa wakes on the beach, soaked to the skin. Her father is missing: presumably drowned.

This sudden event shatters their small family. As Louisa and her American mother return to the US, Serk’s disappearance reverberates across time and space, and the mystery of what really happened that night slowly unravels.

#TopTenTuesday ‘Hold the Front Page’ – Books Featuring Newspapers or Journalists #TuesdayBookBlog

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

  • Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want.
  • Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
  • Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists.
  • Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

This week’s Ten Tuesday topic is April Showers. I struggled to come up with ideas to fit the topic so I created my own – Books Featuring Newspapers or Journalists. Having said that, I guess reading the news might be something to occupy you when it’s raining. Links from each title will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

  1. Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers – When a young woman contacts a local paper claiming her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, feature writer Jean Swinney is sent to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud
  2. A Murder Is Announced by Agatha Christie – The residents of Chipping Cleghorn are intrigued by an advertisement in the local paper announcing the time and place a murder will occur
  3. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh – A case of mistaken identity transforms William Boot from country columnist into war correspondent
  4. Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce – Emmeline Lake obtains a position as typist to the fierce and renowned advice columnist of the London Evening Chronicle, Henrietta Bird
  5. The Northern Light by A. J. Cronin – Henry Page, owner of The Northern Light, the oldest and most respected newspaper in Tynecastle, is offered a vast sum to turn over control to a mass-circulation group based in London
  6. The Quiet American by Graham Greene – A British journalist in his fifties who has covered the French war in Vietnam for more than two years meets a young American idealist who is an undercover CIA agent
  7. My Name is Emilia del Valle by Isobel Allende – An ambitious young woman lands a position as a journalist for the Daily Examiner and is sent to cover a brewing civil war in Chile
  8. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn – Fresh from a brief stay at a psychiatric hospital, a reporter is sent to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two young girls
  9. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx – A journalist relocates to Newfoundland after a personal tragedy and lands a position on a small town paper
  10. The Gap in the Curtain by John Buchan – Guests at a country house party are enabled by an eccentric scientist to see a glimpse of an issue of The Times newspaper dated a year hence

What other books have you read that involve newspapers or journalism?