#WWWWednesday – 7th December 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 Darlings of the Asylum by Noel O’Reilly (eARC, HQ via NetGalley)

‘She wakes in a strange, stark room. Through the bare walls she hears muffled cries and yells. The label on her unfamiliar, starched gown reads PROPERTY OF HILLWOOD GRANGE LUNATIC ASYLUM. Her heart thumps as a key rattles in the lock…’

In 1886, a respectable young woman must acquire a husband. Violet Pring’s scheming mother has secured a desirable marriage proposal from an eligible Brighton gentleman. But Violet does not want to marry. She longs to be a professional artist and live on her own terms.

Violet’s family believes she is deranged and deluded, so she is locked away in Hillwood Grange against her will. In her new cage, Violet faces an even greater challenge: she must escape the clutches of a sinister and formidable doctor and set herself free.

A book I found impossible to resist on NetGalley although I’m feeling a little guilty I still haven’t got around to reading my copy of the author’s earlier book, Wrecker, which has been in my TBR pile for ages.  

Devils and Saints by Jean-Baptiste, trans. by Sam Taylor  (ARC, Gallic Books)

An elderly man gives virtuoso piano performances in airports and train stations. To the incredulity of the passers-by, he refuses their offers to play in concert halls, or at prestigious gatherings. He is waiting for someone, he tells them.

Joseph was just sixteen when he was sent to a religious boarding school in the Pyrenees: les Confins, a dumping ground for waifs, strays, and other abandoned souls. His days were filled with routine and drudgery, and he thought longingly of the solace he found through music in his former life.

Joe dreams constantly of escape, but it seems impossible. That is, until a chance encounter with the orphanage’s benefactor leads him to Rose, and a plan begins to form…

An ARC courtesy of the lovely people at Gallic Books. I very much enjoyed the author’s previous book, A Hundred Million Years and a Day.

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Recently finished

Animal Life by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir (Pushkin Press)

My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor (Vintage)

When the Nazis take Rome, thousands go into hiding. One priest will risk everything to save them.

September 1943: German forces occupy Rome. SS officer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror. The war’s outcome is far from certain.

An Irish priest, Hugh O’Flaherty, dedicates himself to helping those escaping from the Nazis. His home is Vatican City, the world’s smallest state, a neutral, independent country within Rome where the occupiers hold no sway. Here Hugh brings together an unlikely band of friends to hide the vulnerable under the noses of the enemy.

But Hauptmann’s net begins closing in on the Escape Line and the need for a terrifyingly audacious mission grows critical. By Christmastime, it’s too late to turn back. (Review to follow)

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What Cathy (will) Read Next

The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually by Helen Cullen (eARC, Michael Joseph via NetGalley)

On an island off the west coast of Ireland, the Moone family gathers.

Maeve is an actor, struggling with her most challenging role yet – as a mother to four children. Murtagh, her devoted husband, is a potter whose craft brought them from the city to this rural life.

In the wake of one fateful night, the Moone siblings must learn the story of who their parents truly are, and what has happened since their first meeting, years before, outside Trinity College in Dublin.

We watch as one love story gives rise to another, until we arrive at a future that none of the Moones could have predicted.

Except perhaps Maeve herself.