On What Cathy Read Next last week
Monday – I shared my Five Favourite December 2021 Reads.
Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Most Anticipated Books Releasing In The First Half of 2022.
Wednesday – WWW Wednesday is the 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 – I shared my publication day review of historical romance, The Cornish Captive by Nicola Pryce.
Friday – I published my review of Wahala by Nikki May as part of the blog tour.
Saturday – I published my review of spy thriller, Betrayal by David Gilman, as part of the blog tour and, to mark its publication in paperback, I shared my review of The Ends of the Earth by Abbie Greaves.
As always, thanks to everyone who has liked, commented on or shared my blog posts on social media.
New arrivals
Sell Us The Rope by Stephen May (eARC, Sandstone Press via NetGalley)
May 1907. Young Stalin – poet, bank-robber, spy – is in London for the 5th Congress of the Russian Communist Party. As he builds his powerbase in the party, Stalin manipulates alliances with Lenin, Trotsky, and Rosa Luxemburg under the eyes of the Czar’s secret police.
Meanwhile he is drawn to the fiery Finnish activist Elli Vuokko and risks everything in a relationship as complicated as it is dangerous.
The Mirror Game by Guy Gardner (eARC, The Book Guild)
London 1925. When Adrian Harcourt, a politician and captain in the army believed dead with his company on the battlefield of Flanders, is sighted looking like he’s been living rough, Harry Lark, a war veteran and journalist, is enlisted by his friend and benefactor Lady Carlise to investigate.
As he becomes drawn further into the case and the deaths mount up, he can see that things don’t add up. Where has Adrian been for so many years? Why can’t he remember parts of his past?
Looking further into Adrian’s previous life, even as his own dark past and addiction to laudanum threatens to overwhelm him, Harry begins to fall for Lady Carlise’s beautiful daughter Freddy, who was also Adrian’s fiancé.
Chasing the leads as they continue to unravel, can Harry solve the mystery behind what really happened to Adrian before it’s too late?
The Streets by Anthony Quinn (Vintage)
In 1882, David Wildeblood, a 21-year-old from rural Norfolk, arrives in London to start work at the offices of a famous man. As an ‘inspector’ for Henry Marchmont’s hugely successful weekly The Labouring Classes of London, his job is to investigate the notorious slum of Somers Town, near the new St Pancras Station, recording house by house the number of inhabitants, their occupations and standard of living. By mapping the streets in this way, Marchmont intends to show the world the stark realities of poverty in its greatest city.
Befriended by Jo, a young coster, and his sister Roma, David comes to learn the slang of the hawkers and traders, sharpers and scavengers, magsmen and mobsmen, who throng the teeming byways of Somers Town. It is a place of Darwinian struggle for survival. And the deeper he penetrates the everyday squalor and destitution the more appalled he is by mounting evidence that someone is making a profit from people’s suffering.
A dinner at the Kensington home of his godfather Sir Martin Elder introduces him to Kitty, Elder’s only daughter, and to a cabal of prominent citizens who have been plotting a radical solution to the problem of London’s poor. David belatedly realises that a conspiracy is afoot. Passionate but reckless in his urge to uncover it he finds his life in danger, sustained only by the faithfulness of a friend and, ultimately, the love of a woman.
Yinka, where is your huzband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn (ARC, Viking)
Yinka wants to find love. The problem is she also has a mum who thinks she’s better qualified to find it for her.
She also has too many aunties who frequently pray for her delivery from singledom, a preference for chicken and chips over traditional Nigerian food, and a bum she’s sure is far too small as a result. Oh, and the fact that she’s a thirty-one-year-old South-Londoner who doesn’t believe in sex before marriage is a bit of an obstacle too…
When her cousin gets engaged, Yinka commences Operation Find A Date for Rachel’s Wedding. Will Yinka find herself a huzband? And what if the thing she really needs is to find herself?
On What Cathy Read Next this week
Currently reading
Planned posts
- What’s In A Name 2022 Sign-Up
- Book Review: Jane’s Country Year by Malcolm Saville
- Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2022 Sign-Up
- Blog Tour/Book Review: Finding Edith Pinsent by Hazel Ward
What Cathy Read Next... 