My Week in Books – 11th February 2024 – What Cathy Read Next…

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Tuesday – I published my review of The Serpent Sword by Matthew Harffy. And this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Quick Reads/Books to Read in a Day.

Wednesday – 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.

Thursday – I published my review of Other Worlds Were Possible by Joss Sheldon.

Friday – In advance of the announcement of the longlist for this year’s The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction in a few weeks’ time, I picked five novels shortlisted in previous years that didn’t go on to win.

New arrivals

Invader (Agricola #1) by Simon Turney (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

58 AD, Rome. Agricola, teenage son of an impoverished yet distinguished noble family, has staked all his resources and reputation on a military career. His reward? A posting as tribune in the far-off northern province of Britannia.

Serving under renowned general Suetonius Paulinus, Agricola soon learns the brutality of life on the very edges of the empire, for the Celtic tribes of Britannia are far from vanquished.

To take control of the province, the Romans must defeat the ancient might of the druids – and the fury of the Iceni, warriors in their thousands led by a redoubtable queen named Boudicca…

Death on the Thames (Louise Mangan #3) by Alan Johnson (eARC, Wildfire via NetGalley)

1999. A young Detective Constable Louise Mangan crosses the Thames one misty morning in pursuit of a killer. She finds a tranquil community on a leafy island close to Hampton Court Palace, but soon realises that all is not as it seems. There is something evil at play in this quiet suburb, and this junior detective’s questions seem only to scratch the surface.

Twenty years later, a horrific fire brings Detective Chief Superintendent Mangan back to that same island. Soon, she discovers that murder was just a drop in these dark waters.

The river runs deep, and the tide is rising at last. Will the truth rise with it?

The Other Princess by Denny S. Bryce (eARC, Allison & Busby via NetGalley)

By the time she was seven years old, Aina had been born into life as an Egbado princess, witnessed the brutal killing of her entire family, and had been enslaved to a rival chieftain. With a death sentence hanging over her head, she would also face being bartered as an exotic trophy, renamed and presented to the distant Queen Victoria as a ‘gift’.

From traumatic beginnings, Sarah Forbes Bonetta’s will to survive led her to negotiate Her Majesty’s court, cultivate friends in high places and to flourish in a world far removed from her rural African upbringing.