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
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.
Thunderball by Ian Fleming (The Book Club) #1961Club
James Bond is in disgrace. His monthly medical report is critical of the high living that is ruining his health and M packs him off for a fortnight to a nature-cure clinic to be tuned-up to his former pitch of exceptional fitness. Furiously Bond undergoes the shame of the carrot juice and nut-cutlet regime – and thereby minutely upsets the plans of SPECTRE, a new adversary, more deadly, more ruthless even than Smerch.
Who is SPECTRE? What are its plans? Alas, the organisation is all too realistically described, it’s plans all too contemporary for comfort. Of all James Bond’s adversaries the Chief of SPECTRE casts the darkest shadow.
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.
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.
What I’ve Just Read
I’m part way through four books and have been catching up with reviews so, for once, nothing finished this week.
What I’ll Be Reading Next
All Cats Are Grey by Susan Barrett (Bathwick Hill)
January, 1942. London is dark – and not just because of the blackout.
The worst of the Blitz may be over, but still the city’s a treacherous place. Buses run without headlights. Bomb rubble lies underfoot. Looters and petty criminals roam the shattered streets. And somewhere in the ruins stalks a serial killer the papers have dubbed The Beast of the Blackout.
As a fear of death, delivered not from the sky but lurking in the bomb sites, grips South London, four unlikely allies are assembled by Civil Defence warden Albert, self-appointed shepherd patrolling his nightly patch. Edwin, Bette and Cat share nothing in common, except one extraordinary secret: each has killed an abuser and got away with it. Now, forged by trauma and driven to deliver retribution to those who hurt and harm, they come together to stop a monster the police have failed to catch.
What follows is a daring hunt through bombed streets and moral grey zones, as the mismatched murderers plot to save the Beast’s next victim, Violet and deliver their own brutal justice. But this is no simple vigilante tale. All brought here by their own harrowing journey, each comes uniquely equipped for the kill: Edwin with his knowledge of poisons, Bette her muscle, Cat her courage, while Albert will weave the net to catch the killer in.
What Cathy Read Next... 