#WWWWednesday – 17th August 2022

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!

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Currently reading

The House at Helygen by Victoria Hawthorne (ARC, Quercus)

2019. When Henry Fox is found dead in his ancestral home in Cornwall, the police rule it a suicide, but his pregnant wife, Josie, believes it was murder. Desperate to make sense of Henry’s death she embarks on a quest to learn the truth, all under the watchful eyes of Henry’s overbearing mother. Josie soon finds herself wrestling against the dark history of Helygen House and ghosts from the past that refuse to stay buried.

1881. New bride Eliza arrives at Helygen House with high hopes for her marriage. Yet when she meets her new mother-in-law, an icy and forbidding woman, her dreams of a new life are dashed. And when Eliza starts to hear voices in the walls of the house, she begins to fear for her sanity and her life.

Can Josie piece together the past to make sense of her present, or will the secrets of Helygen House and its inhabitants forever remain a mystery?

Every Shade of Happy by Phyllida Shrimpton (eARC, Aria)

‘He suddenly wished more than anything that he’d lived for today, and for all the thousands of todays he’d had, regardless of what hurdles life had thrown at him.’

Suddenly uprooted from everything and everyone she knows, bubbly fifteen-year-old Anna Maybury and her mother are forced to move in with the grandfather she has never met – a bad-tempered old man who disapproves of her very existence.

At ninety-seven, Algernon breaks his days up into a routine governed by the relentless ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. It gives his life the structure and order he craves, but he’s also incredibly lonely.

And soon, so is Anna. Her colourful personality doesn’t seem to fit in at her new school and she begins to feel herself turning as dull and grey as the uniform.

Surprisingly, it’s cranky old Algernon who is determined to do something about it. With a road trip to Cornwall on the cards and important life lessons to learn, it’s going to be a summer neither of them will ever forget.

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Recently finished

After She’d Gone by Alex Dahl (Head of Zeus)

The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz (Century)

The Women of the Castle by Jessica Shattuck (Zaffre)

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What Cathy (will) Read Next

The Night Ship by Jess Kidd (Canongate via Readers First)

1629. Embarking on a journey in search of her father, a young girl called Mayken boards the Batavia, the most impressive sea vessel of the age. During the long voyage, this curious and resourceful child must find her place in the ship’s busy world, and she soon uncovers shadowy secrets above and below deck. As tensions spiral, the fate of the ship and all on board becomes increasingly uncertain.

1989. Gil, a boy mourning the death of his mother, is placed in the care of his irritable and reclusive grandfather. Their home is a shack on a tiny fishing island off the Australian coast, notable only for its reefs and wrecked boats. This is no place for a teenager struggling with a dark past and Gil’s actions soon get him noticed by the wrong people.

The Night Ship is an enthralling tale of human cruelty, fate and friendship, and of two children, hundreds of years apart, whose fates are inextricably bound together.