On What Cathy Read Next last week
Monday – I shared my Five Favourite September 2022 Reads.
Tuesday – I published my review of historical mystery, Under a Veiled Moon by Karen Odden.
Wednesday – I shared my review of Robert Harris’s appearance at Henley Literary Festival. And WWW Wednesday is a weekly 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 made another trip Down the TBR Hole in an effort to reduce the number of books on my To-Read shelf on Goodreads.
Sunday – I published a round-up of the events I attended at this year’s Henley Literary Festival.
New arrivals
Henley Literary Festival has a lot to answer for!
Mother’s Boy by Patrick Gale (Tinder Press)
Laura, an impoverished Cornish girl, meets her husband when they are both in service in Teignmouth in 1916. They have a baby, Charles, but Laura’s husband returns home from the trenches a damaged man, already ill with the tuberculosis that will soon leave her a widow. In a small, class-obsessed town she raises her boy alone, working as a laundress, and gradually becomes aware that he is some kind of genius.
As an intensely privately young man, Charles signs up for the navy with the new rank of coder. His escape from the tight, gossipy confines of Launceston to the colour and violence of war sees him blossom as he experiences not only the possibility of death, but the constant danger of a love that is as clandestine as his work.
One of Our Ministers Is Missing by Alan Johnson (Wildfire Books)
On holiday in Crete, Lord Bellingham had been solo trekking in the White Mountains when he mysteriously disappeared. After a vast search and rescue operation, the local police have no leads, save for a mobile phone discarded on a cliff edge.
Assistant Commissioner Louise Mangan of the Met Police is sent to assist in the investigation but soon discovers that there are more layers to this case than the local police realise.
Lady Bellingham is less than forthcoming, the family nanny is hiding something, and a scandal is brewing back in London that could destroy the minister’s reputation for good.
Under pressure from the powers that be, can Louise find the missing minister, or will she discover something much more sinister at play?
Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday)
1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time.
The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven, whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within. For beneath the dazzle of Soho’s gaiety, there is a dark underbelly, a world in which it is all too easy to become lost.
Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry (eARC, Viking via NetGalley)
Retired policeman Tom Kettle is enjoying the quiet of his new home, a lean-to annexed to a white Victorian Castle in Dalkey overlooking the sea. For months he has barely seen a soul, but his peace is interrupted when two former colleagues turn up at his door to ask questions about a decades-old case. A traumatic case which Tom never quite came to terms with.
His peace is further disturbed by a young mother and family who move in next door, a woman on the run from her own troubles. And what of Tom’s family, his wife June, and their two children?
The Witches of Vardø by Anya Bergman (eARC, Zaffre via NetGalley)
Norway, 1662. A dangerous time to be a woman, when even dancing can lead to accusations of witchcraft. When Zigri, desperate and grieving after the loss of her husband and son, embarks on an affair with the local merchant, it’s not long before she is sent to the fortress at Vardø, to be tried and condemned as a witch.
Zigri’s daughter Ingeborg sets off into the wilderness to try to bring her mother back home. Accompanying her on this quest is Maren – herself the daughter of a witch - whose wild nature and unconquerable spirit gives Ingeborg the courage to venture into the unknown, and to risk all she has to save her family.
Also captive in the fortress is Anna Rhodius, once the King of Denmark’s mistress, who has been sent to Vardø in disgrace. What will she do – and who will she betray – to return to her privileged life at court?
These Witches of Vardø are stronger than even the King of Denmark. In an age weighted against them they refuse to be victims. They will have their justice. All they need do is show their power.
House of Tigers by William Burton McCormick (eARC, courtesy of the author)
Ilya Dudnyk, a corrupt but romantic Russian police inspector, is trapped inside his oligarch employer’s Siberian mansion with an unknown killer, a duplicitous Latvian journalist chained to his arm, and an apocalyptic insect plague raging for hundreds of kilometers beyond the smoke barriers and barricaded windows.
Can Ilya track down the killer before he is the next victim? Or will the endless swarms find a way inside and all are consumed by a hundred trillion ravenous, blood-sucking mosquitoes?
On What Cathy Read Next this week
Currently reading
Planned posts
- Blog Tour/Book Review: Sleep When You’re Dead by Jude O’Reilly
- Book Review: House of Birds by Morgan McCarthy
- Book Review: The Secret Diary of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph
- Blog Tour/Book Review: Squire’s Hazard by Carolyn Hughes
- Blog Tour/Book Review: SBS Special Boat Squadron by Iain Gale
What Cathy Read Next... 