On the blog last week
Monday – I shared my review of Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books For Armchair Travellers.
Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading.
Thursday – In Women of WW2 I shared twelve historical novels about wartime roles performed by women.
Saturday – I took part in the #SixonSaturday meme sharing six things happening in my garden this week.
New on my shelves
No sign of a sausage this week, instead a plethora of new books made up of book club picks and books on the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2026.
When The Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén, trans. by Alice Menzies (Penguin)
Bo is determined to live his own life in his own way. But his son has other ideas…
Bo lives a quiet existence in his small rural village in the north of Sweden. He is elderly and his days are punctuated by visits from his care team and his son. Fortunately, he still has his rich memories, phone calls with his best friend, and his beloved dog Sixten for company.
Only now his son is insisting the dog must be taken away. The very same son that Bo is wanting to mend his relationship with before his time is up. The threat of losing Sixten stirs up a whirlwind of emotions and makes Bo determined to resist and find his voice…
The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr (Picador)
In 1973 on the west coast of Ireland, a baby is found abandoned on the beach. Who is he? Where is he from?
Ambrose, a local fisherman, is far more interested in who he will become and – with a curious community looking on – takes the baby home and adopts him. But for Declan, Ambrose’s young son, this arrival is surely bad news. Rivalries can be decades in the making, and families are easy to break. . .
Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko (Oneworld Publications) Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2026
1854: When Mulanyin meets the beautiful Nita in Brisbane – or Edenglassie, as it was once briefly known – his community still outnumbers the British settlers. Tensions are simmering just beneath the surface of a fragile peace, but hopes for independence are running high. Yet when colonial unrest tears through the region, Mulanyin’s passion for his new bride clashes with his loyalty to a homeland in danger.
Two centuries later, fiery activist Winona meets Dr Johnny when her grandmother Eddie has a serious fall. Winona just wants the obstinate centenarian back on her feet, but a shrewd journalist has other ideas. Eddie becomes a local celebrity, dominating the headlines as ‘Queensland’s Oldest Aboriginal’.
Her time in the spotlight brings past and present crashing together, the legacy of Nita and Mulanyin’s tragic past reaching into Winona and Eddie’s lives with consequences they couldn’t have predicted.
Boundary Waters by Tristan Hughes (Parthian Books) Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2026
Lower Canada, 1804. Arthur Stanton, lacking direction in his life and desperately seeking the approval of his father, wanders the streets of Montreal filled with daydreams of exotic lands and adventures inspired by novels and traveller’s tales.
Set amongst the starkly beautiful landscapes of the upper great lakes during an era of blurred and shifting boundaries between nations and cultures, where nothing is certain and misapprehensions can be fatal, Arthur’s journey becomes a tragicomic tale of love, loss and redemption.
Once the Deed Is Done by Rachel Seiffert (Virago) Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2026
To be truly alive means having to make choices. To be truly alive is also, quite simply, to love.
Northern Germany, 1945. Dead of night and dead of winter, a boy hears soldiers and sees strangers – forced labourers – fleeing across the heathland by his small town: shawls and skirts in the snowfall. The end days are close, war brings risk and chance, and Benno is witness to something he barely understands.
Peace brings more soldiers – but English this time – and Red Cross staff officers. Ruth, on her first posting from London, is given charge of a refugee camp on the heathland, crowded with former forced labourers. As ever more keep arriving, she hears whispers, rumours of dark secrets about that snowy night.
The townspeople close ranks, shutting their mouths and minds to the winter’s events, but the town children are curious about the refugees on their doorstep, and Benno can’t carry his secret alone.
What I’m currently reading
I’m completing my reread of Time of the Child, one of the books on the shortlist for the Winston Graham Historical Prize 2026, finishing off A Private Man from my NetGalley shelf and trying to squeeze in my book club’s pick, When The Cranes Fly South.
Look out for…
- Book Review: The Shock of the Light by Lori Inglis Hall
- Book Review: A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia
- Book Review: When The Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén
What Cathy Read Next... 