My Week in Books

MyWeekinBooks

New arrivals

As I was away on holiday last week, I have a positive deluge of new acquisitions to report, including a lot of review copies.

Fires by Tom Ward (ebook, review copy courtesy of the author)

There’s a fire on the horizon. For Guy, a fireman, it means the death of his wife and daughter. For 19-year-old Nathan and Alexa it means a chance to fight back against austerity and abandonment. While the teenagers turn to arson, Guy searches for meaning behind his family’s deaths, battling corruption and a lost underclass, intent on fiery revolution. For all three, their actions will lead them to the precipice of disaster.

Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke (eARC, NetGalley)

When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules–a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about growing up black in the lone star state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home. When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders–a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman–have stirred up a hornet’s nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes–and save himself in the process–before Lark’s long-simmering racial fault lines erupt. A rural noir suffused with the unique music, colour, and nuance of East Texas, Bluebird, Bluebird is an exhilarating, timely novel about the collision of race and justice in America.

False Lights by K J Whittaker (ebook, review copy courtesy of Head of Zeus)

Wellington is in secret captivity in the Scilly Isles and the Cornish are threatening to join forces with France against the English. Against this tumultuous backdrop, Hester Harewood manages to escape from the French soldiers who have killed her black sea captain father. Her rescuer – Jack ‘Crow’ Crowlas – takes her to shelter with his aristocratic family in London. But soon they are embroiled in a web of treachery and espionage, as plans are laid to free Wellington and lead an uprising against the French occupation. Meanwhile, Crow’s younger brother throws in his lot with the Cornish rebels and threatens to bring Hester and Crow’s elaborate plans crashing down, as this spellbinding story builds towards its violent and gripping endgame.

Our Father (Johann’s War #1) by James Farner (ebook, Kindle deal)

“The German Revolution had indeed begun.” The Second German Reich has collapsed in the flames of World War I and the country is in chaos. Republicans, rogue soldiers, and communists are rampaging through the cities and villages of Germany. Faced with destruction, the nationalists fight back against their enemies, turning the country into a battlefield. In Munich, Erich and Johann Brandt are a pair of impressionable teenagers just trying to get by. When Erich falls under the sway of young speaker Adolf Hitler, he joins the party without a second thought. Erich drives further and further into Hitler’s inner circle, which all culminates in a deadly march through the heart of Munich. Horrified at his brother’s fall into National Socialism, Johann does what he can to fight back against the spell that Hitler has placed the country under. That is until he attracts the brutal attentions of SA captain Oswald Yorck. As elections turn against the democratic parties, Johann does his best to save his country before it’s too late. But it could cost him his life…

The Other Life of Charlotte Evans by Louisa George (ebook, review copy courtesy of Neverland Book Tours)

Would you sacrifice your future to understand your past? Life is rosy for dance studio owner Charlotte Evans, who is about to marry beloved fiancé, Ben. But when Ben finds a lump in Charlotte’s breast, it sends her on a journey of self-discovery which she knows she must do alone. Because Charlotte is adopted, and she suddenly, desperately, needs to know who she is and where she comes from. Finding and reconnecting with her birth family, the life Charlotte could have had unfolds before her. As her wedding day draws closer, and her past merges ever more into her present, Charlotte must decide on the future she really wants…A heartrendingly beautiful novel about love, family and finding your own path to happiness.

A Sea of Sorrow: A Novel of Odysseus by David Blixt et al. (ebook, review copy courtesy of HF Virtual Book Tours)

Odysseus, infamous trickster of Troy, vaunted hero of the Greeks, left behind a wake of chaos and despair during his decade long journey home to Ithaca. Lovers and enemies, witches and monsters—no one who tangled with Odysseus emerged unscathed. Some prayed for his return, others, for his destruction. These are their stories…

A beleaguered queen’s gambit for maintaining power unravels as a son plots vengeance.
A tormented siren battles a goddess’s curse and the forces of nature to survive.
An exiled sorceress defies a lustful captain and his greedy crew.
A blinded shepherd swears revenge on the pirate-king who mutilated him.
A beautiful empress binds a shipwrecked sailor to servitude, only to wonder who is serving whom.
A young suitor dreams of love while a returned king conceives a savage retribution.

Six authors bring to life the epic tale of The Odyssey seen through the eyes of its shattered victims—the monsters, witches, lovers, and warriors whose lives were upended by the antics of the “man of many faces.” You may never look upon this timeless epic—and its iconic ancient hero—in quite the same way again.

Illusion by Stephanie Elmas (ebook, review copy courtesy of Endeavour Press)

London, 1873. Returning home from his travels with a stowaway named Kayan, Walter Balanchine is noted for the charms, potions and locket hanging from his neck. Finding his friend Tom Winter’s mother unwell, he gives her a potion he learned to brew in the Far East. Lucid and free from pain, the old woman remembers something about Walter’s mother. Walter is intrigued, for he has never known his family or even his own name – he christened himself upon leaving the workhouse. Living in a cemetery with his pet panther Sinbad to keep the body snatchers away, word soon spreads of his healing and magical abilities and he becomes a sought after party performer. With secrets beginning to emerge, Walter finds his mother may be a lot closer to home than he realised…

Money, Power Love by Joss Sheldon (ebook, review copy courtesy of the author)

Born on three adjacent beds, a mere three seconds apart, our three heroes are united by nature but divided by nurture. As a result of their different upbringings, they spend their lives chasing three very different things: Money, power and love. This is a human story: A tale about people like ourselves, cajoled by the whimsy of circumstance, who find themselves performing the most beautiful acts as well as the most vulgar. This is a historical story: A tale set in the early 1800s, which shines a light on how bankers, with the power to create money out of nothing, were able to shape the world we live in today. And this is a love story: A tale about three men, who fall in love with the same woman, at the very same time…

Lying in Vengeance by Gary Corbin (ebook, review copy courtesy of the author)

Having discovered Peter’s horrible secret, a former fellow juror blackmails him to kill again! In this sequel to award-winning courtroom thriller Lying in Judgment, Peter Robertson must choose between two horrible options. Both involve death and revenge.

Peter Robertson, 33, once fought a man on a remote forested road and left him to die. Six months later, he served on the jury that freed a wrongfully accused man—and let his own secret slip to a beautiful but manipulative fellow juror, Christine Nielsen. Two months later, Christine wakes him in the middle of the night with a threat: kill Kyle, the man who stalks and abuses her, or have his own murderous past exposed. Peter pretends to go along as he seeks another, less violent solution, and his best friend Frankie threatens to expose the conspiracy to the police. But Kyle makes his move, breaking into her house in the middle of the night and then later kidnapping her at gunpoint. Peter’s daring rescue gives him the opportunity to fulfil her request—and he walks away, consequences be damned. The next morning, Kyle turns up dead, and the police arrest Frankie, of all people. Peter knows he’s innocent, but can he prove it without directing the finger of blame at himself—for both murders?

White Water, Black Death by Shaun Ebelthite (ebook, review copy courtesy of the author)

Magazine editor Geneva Jones has been sent on a trans-Atlantic cruise to help secure a major advertising agreement from the CEO of the cruise line Rachel Atkinson, but her efforts to win her over are curtailed by a mysterious crew death. Geneva suspects foul play. Rachel insists its suicide. A former investigative journalist, Geneva can’t resist digging deeper, but what she finds is far more devastating. There’s an Ebola outbreak on the ship, everyone is trapped aboard and Rachel is trying to keep it secret.

On What Cathy Read Next since last time

Reviews:

A Dangerous Woman From Nowhere by Kris Radish
And The Birds Kept On Singing by Simon Bourke
One Day in December by Shari Low
The Smallest Thing by Lisa Manterfield
The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd
Flight Before Dawn by Megan Easley-Walsh
When It’s Over by Barbara Ridley
Stranger by David Bergen
Dan Knew by F J Curlew

Others:

Blog Tour/Extract: A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe
Blog Tour/Extract: Keep Me Safe by Daniela Sacerdoti
Blog Tour/Extract: False Lights by K J Whittaker
Guest Post: A Queen’s Spy by Sam Burnell
Blog Tour/Extract: Find Me by J S Monroe
Blog Tour/Extract: Emperor by Andrew Frediani

Challenge updates

Goodreads 2017 Reading Challenge – 112 out of 156 books read, 9 more than last time
Classics Club Challenge– 5 out of 50 books reviewed, same as last time
NetGalley/Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2017 (Gold) – 47 ARCs reviewed out of 50, 2 more than last time
From Page to Screen 2017– 7 book/film comparisons out of 12 completed, same as last time