On What Cathy Read Next last week
Monday – I published my review of Dark Frontier by Matthew Harffy.
Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Ten Things I Loved About [Book Title]. I chose a book I read earlier this year – The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks. I also took part in the cover reveal for The Bookseller by Tim Sullivan, the next instalment in the DS George Cross crime series which will be published in January 2025.
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, Friday, Saturday – Nothing. I’ve been distracted by tending my garden…
New arrivals
Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers (eARC, Orion via NetGalley)
In all failed relationships there is a point that passes unnoticed at the time, which can later be identified as the beginning of the decline. For Helen it was the weekend that the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park.
Croydon, 1964. Helen Hansford is in her thirties and an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital where she has been having a long love affair with Gil: a charismatic, married doctor.
One spring afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance from a derelict house not far from Helen’s home. A thirty-seven-year-old man called William Tapping, with a beard down to his waist, has been discovered along with his elderly aunt. It is clear he has been shut up in the house for decades, but when it emerges that William is a talented artist, Helen is determined to discover his story.
Shy Creatures is a life-affirming novel about all the different ways we can be confined, how ordinary lives are built of delicate layers of experience, the joy of freedom and the transformative power of kindness.
On What Cathy Read Next this week
Currently reading
Planned posts
- Book Review: The King’s Mother by Annie Garthwaite
- Book Review: Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

