My Week in Books – 1st November 2020 – What Cathy Read Next…

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline as part of the blog tour.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic had a Halloween theme so I offered a bookish choice of Trick or Treat.

Wednesday – It wouldn’t be “hump day” without WWW Wednesday, the opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next…as well as have a good nose around to see what other bloggers are reading.

Friday – I published my review of my Buchan of the Month for October, The Free Fishers by John Buchan.

Saturday – I shared an extract from Until We Can Forgive by Rosemary Goodacre as part of the blog tour.

Sunday – I published my review of Immortal by Jessica Duchen as part of the blog tour.

As always, thanks to everyone who has liked, commented on or so shared my blog posts on social media.

New arrivals

Dangerous Women by Hope Adams (eARC, courtesy of Michael Joseph via NetGalley)

London, 1841. Two hundred Englishwomen file aboard the RAJAH, the ship that will take them on a three-month voyage to the other side of the world. They’re daughters, sisters, mothers – and convicts. Transported for petty crimes. Except one of their number is a secret killer, fleeing justice.

When a woman is mortally wounded, the hunt is on for the culprit. But who would attack one of their own, and why?

Forgotten Lives (DCI Doug Stirling #2) by Ray Britain (eARC, courtesy of the author)

A man is murdered with quiet efficiency on his doorstep. A strange emblem left behind suggests a gang killing but when more bodies are found with the same emblem, and one of them a cop, DCI Doug Stirling’s investigation takes a sinister turn. But what linked the victims in life, and now in death?

When more deaths are uncovered, miles away and years ago, all with the same emblem left behind, pressure mounts on Stirling. Is it the work of the same person? If so, why are they killing again, and why here? One thing is clear, the killer is highly skilled, ruthless, and always one step ahead of the investigation. Is someone feeding information to them?

Working in a crippling heatwave with too few investigators, too many questions and not enough answers, when wild media speculation of a vigilante at work sparks copycat attacks, demonstrations for justice and with politicians fearing riots, Stirling needs a result – fast!

Meanwhile, Stirling’s private life is falling apart, not helped when Lena Novak of the National Crime Agency is assigned to his team. But is she all that she seems?

When Stirling closes in on the killer he finds the killer’s trademark inside his home – he is being targeted.

The Smallest Man by Frances Quinn (proof copy, courtesy of Simon & Schuster)

My name is Nat Davy. Perhaps you’ve heard of me? There was a time when people up and down the land knew my name, though they only ever knew half the story.

The year of 1625, it was, when a single shilling changed my life. That shilling got me taken off to London, where they hid me in a pie, of all things, so I could be given as a gift to the new queen of England.

They called me the queen’s dwarf, but I was more than that. I was her friend, when she had no one else, and later on, when the people of England turned against their king, it was me who saved her life. When they turned the world upside down, I was there, right at the heart of it, and this is my story.