#WWWWednesday – 17th April 2024

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 Paris Peacemakers by Flora Johnston (ARC, Allison & Busby) 

Paris, 1919. Will the brittle pieces of Europe ever fit together again?

As the fragile negotiations of the international Peace Conference get underway, typist Stella Rutherford throws herself into her work and the mixture of glamour and devastation the City of Light reveals. Anything to escape the grief coming in waves for her beloved brother Jack.

Her sister Corran is about to put her academic career to use among the troops in France, a chance to see what the experience was like for countless men, including her fiancé Rob.

Rob Campbell, profoundly changed by his time as a surgeon on the front line, has had little chance to lift his head from the incessant grind of the injured, dying and dead. If he did the ghosts of his teammates, the Scottish rugby players who followed the same path into hell, would surely be waiting for him.

The Paris Peacemakers follows three Scots as they attempt to pick up the pieces of their lives while the fabric of Europe is stitched together for good or ill.

The Household by Stacey Halls (ARC, Manilla Press via Readers First)

London, 1847. In a quiet house in the countryside outside London, the finishing touches are being made to welcome a group of young women. The house and its location are top secret, its residents unknown to one another, but the girls have one thing in they are fallen. Offering refuge for prostitutes, petty thieves and the destitute, Urania Cottage is a second chance at life – but how badly do they want it?

Meanwhile, a few miles away in a Piccadilly mansion, millionairess Angela Burdett-Coutts, one of the benefactors of Urania Cottage, makes a discovery that leaves her her stalker of 10 years has been released from prison . . .

As the women’s worlds collide in ways they could never have expected, they will discover that freedom always comes at a price . . .

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Recently finished

Sweetness in the Skin by Ishi Robinson (Michael Joseph) 

James by Percival Everett (Mantle)

The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town. Thus begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the Mississippi River, towards the elusive promise of the free states and beyond. As James and Huck begin to navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise.

With rumours of a brewing war, James must face the burden he the family he is desperate to protect and the constant lie he must live. And together, the unlikely pair must face the most dangerous odyssey of them all . . . (Review to follow)

Mania by Lionel Shriver (The Borough Press)

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What Cathy Will Read Next

How To Make A Bomb: A Novel by Rupert Thomson (eARC, Apollo via NetGalley)

If he suddenly found what surrounded him unbearable, it was because it was artificial. Everything had been designed and manufactured, and he was trapped in it.

Philip Notman, an acclaimed historian, attends a conference in Bergen, Norway. On his return to London, and to his wife and son, something unexpected and inexplicable happens to him, and he is unable to settle back into his normal life.

Seeking answers, he flies to Cadiz to see Inés, a Spanish academic with whom he shared a connection at the conference, but his journey doesn’t end there. A chance encounter with a wealthy, elderly couple sends him to a house on the south coast of Crete. Is he thinking of leaving his wife, whom he claims he still loves, or is he trying to change a reality that has become impossible to bear? Is he on a quest for a simpler and more authentic existence, or is he utterly self-deluded?

As he tries to make sense of both his personal circumstances and the world surrounding him, he finds himself embarking on a course of action that will push him to the very brink of disaster.