What Cathy Read Next...

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 Two Roberts by Damian Barr (Canongate) Shortlisted for the Winston Graham Historical Prize 2026

He will stay like this forever, Robert’s arm draped round him. They will be forever twenty.

Scotland, 1933. Bobby MacBryde is on his way. After years grafting at Lees Boot Factory, he’s off to the Glasgow School of Art, to his future. On his first day he will meet another Robert, a quiet man with loose dark curls – and never leave his side.

Together they will spend every penny and every minute devouring Glasgow – its botanical gardens, the Barras market, a whole hidden city – all the while loving each other behind closed doors. With the world on the brink of war, their unrivalled talent will take them to Paris, Rome, London. They will become stars as the bombs fall, hosting wild parties with the likes of Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Elizabeth Smart. But the brightest stars burn fastest.

A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia (Picador via NetGalley)

Rome, 1953. David is young, handsome, charismatic and sworn to celibacy. He is freshly ordained, and about to return to England to begin life as a priest. Devotion to God is all he’s ever known.

In London, Margaret is entangled in an impossible love affair. Committed to living on her own terms without sacrificing her faith, she becomes drawn to a women’s movement challenging the archaic rules of the Church.

When their lives are thrown together at a Catholic college in a quiet village, an undeniable connection forms between them. And so begins a story of forbidden love, sacrifice and secrets, with consequences that will reverberate across the generations.

What I’ve Just Read

Time of the Child by Niall Williams (Bloomsbury) Shortlisted for the Winston Graham Historical Prize 2026

Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in the little town of Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from his community. A visit from the doctor is always a sign of bad things to come.

His youngest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed her chance at real love – and passed up an offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.

But in the advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter’s lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.

When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén, translated by Alice Menzies (Penguin)

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 memories, phone calls with his best friend Ture, 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 it’s too late.

With everyone telling him they know what’s best, can Bo speak up and make himself heard? (Review to follow)

What I’ll Be Reading Next

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (Viking) Shortlisted for the Winston Graham Historical Prize 2026

Thomas lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the grey, gloomy beach and scrape for shrimp, spending the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and scum, pining for Joan Wyeth down the street, and rehearsing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but it remains a private dream.

When a striking visitor turns up, bringing the promise of Hollywood glamour, Thomas is shaken from the drudgery of his days and begins to see a different future. But how much of what the American claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?

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 Top Ten Tuesday is Quotes From/About Books. I’ve selected opening lines from ten of the twelve books on the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2026. Links from each title will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

“Dusk, a deserted room, a scrap of black silk on a marble table, darkening waters beyond. This was the scene, unpeopled, dim and silent, that I had been dreaming of for months, often on two or three consecutive nights, always the same dream, the same tableau, more or less, more than less. What did it mean, what did it signify?” (Venetian Vespers by John Banville)

“The pair of them lie panting together, curled like commas, naked in the next they’ve rolled in the high golden grass.” (The Two Roberts by Damian Barr)

“Helm doesn’t know when Helm was born. Or brewed. Conjured or conceived. First formed above the highest mountain. First blown into the valley. Long before humankind – that brief, busy interlude.” (Helm by Sarah Hall)

“… Was this the first thing he wrote of his own?‘I am John Collan today in the yere 1483 I will defeat the goat. In the name of honnour and glory to god highest & for reson that it knocked me in the mud again today & has TRODDEN churlishly over my back has despoiled ! an insult that cannot be borne.” (The Pretender by Jo Harkin)

“History is not History when it is Happening. Do You understand? I hope You are listening? No, You cannot ask Questions. You can be sure that I will construct this Historical Record most accurately. I know because I have lived through those Wartime Days. I saw it all and I recorded every detail in a Most Meticulous Manner.” (The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly)

“Eddie Blanket was falling, falling, falling towards the good Yagara earth. A calamity. At her great age, a fall meant the end, simple as that. Broken hip, pneumonia, kaput.” (Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko)

“It was already late in the afternoon when I saw them come around a bend in the river, in sight of the Lake of the Two Mountains. Two of them, though from a distance it was difficult to be certain.” (Boundary Waters by Tristan Hughes)

“It is dark now and my window onto the world is a small one. I do not know how much longer I will be here.’ (Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet)

“It was late, but he was wakeful. There was snow on the way again: a last fall. Benno could smell the cold of it as he pushed his face between the curtains. His breath fogged the glass, the dark was spread wide across the rooftops, across the heathland beyond too, and the night out there had him restless.” (Once the Deed Is Done by Rachel Seiffert)

“Thomas Flett relies upon the ebb tide for a living, but he knows the end is near. One day soon, they’ll hardly be a morsel left for him to scrounge up from the beach that can’t be got by quicker means at half the price.” (Seascraper by Benjamin Wood)