On What Cathy Read Next last week
Monday – I shared My Five Favourite November 2023 Reads.
Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday was a freebie and I went with Books That Play With Time.
Wednesday – I published my review of The Binding by Bridget Collins. And as always 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.
Friday – I shared my review of The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant by Kayte Nunn.
New arrivals
Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernierès (Vintage)
Set against the backdrop of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, the Gallipoli campaign and the subsequent bitter struggle between Greeks and Turks, Birds Without Wings traces the fortunes of one small community in south-west Anatolia – a town in which Christian and Muslim lives and traditions have co-existed peacefully for centuries.
When war is declared and the outside world intrudes, the twin scourges of religion and nationalism lead to forced marches and massacres, and the peaceful fabric of life is destroyed. Birds Without Wings is a novel about the personal and political costs of war, and about love: between men and women; between friends; between those who are driven to be enemies; and between Philothei, a Christian girl of legendary beauty, and Ibrahim the Goatherd, who has courted her since infancy.
Munich Wolf by Rory Clements (eARC, Zaffre via NetGalley)
Munich in the 1930s is a magnet for young, rich, aristocratic Brits. They come to learn German, but also to go wild, free at last from the suffocating constraints of strait-laced England. They ski in the Alps, swim in the lakes, drink in the beer cellars and fall for the charms of dashing SS officers.
What they don’t see – or choose to ignore – is the cold, brutal, underbelly of the Nazi movement which considers Munich its spiritual home.
But not every German is a Nazi. Murder squad detective Sebastian Wolff is one of those walking a tight line between doing his job and falling foul of the political party he abhors.
When a high-born English girl is murdered, Wolff is ordered to solve the crime. He has a fine record and, importantly, he is fluent in English. But he realises the mission is a poison chalice, for Hitler is taking a personal interest in the case – as is his young English acolyte Miss Unity Mitford.
Wolff is hemmed in on all sides. At work, he is watched closely by the secret police, at home he could be denounced at any moment by his own son, a fervent member of the Hitler Youth.
And when he begins to suspect that the killer might be linked to the highest reaches of the Nazi hierarchy, he fears his task is simply impossible – and that he will become the killer’s next victim.
On What Cathy Read Next this week
Currently reading
Planned posts
- Book Review: The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok
- Book Review: The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
- Extract: Darcy: A Pride and Prejudice Variation by Alice McVeigh
What Cathy Read Next... 