#WWWWednesday – 20th November 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

How To Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin (audiobook, Quercus)

It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered, like she always said she would be.

In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer?

As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.

Blue Postcards by Douglas Bruton (Fairlight)

Once there was a street in Paris and it was called the Street of Tailors. This was years back, in the blue mists of memory.

Now it’s the 1950s and Henri is the last tailor on the street. With meticulous precision he takes the measurements of men and notes them down in his leather-bound ledger. He draws on the cloth with a blue chalk, cuts the pieces and sews them together. When the suit is done, Henri adds a finishing touch: a blue Tekhelet thread hidden in the trousers somewhere, for luck. One day, the renowned French artist Yves Klein walks into the shop, and orders a suit. 

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Recently finished

Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway (Viking)

Eye of the Raven by Tim Hodkinson (Head of Zeus)

For the first time, Einar and the Wolf Coats find themselves divided, on opposing sides in a time of warfare: the Wolf Coats in Ireland, and Einar in the Saxon domains of England.

Einar leads a warband for King Aethelstan, but struggles to find acceptance as a Norseman in Saxon lands. Can he truly make common cause with the wily king of the English, if that means Vikings like himself are now his enemies? The rewards of alliance with Aethelstan could be all he desires… or a brutal death.

But other threats loom from the north and west. With war brewing and a great battle on the horizon, can Einar and his comrades reunite in time – or will a clash for the ages make their split a permanent one? (Review to follow)

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What Cathy Will Read Next

Time of the Child by Niall Williams (Bloomsbury via NetGalley) 

Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in the little town of Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from his community. A visit from the doctor is always a sign of bad things to come.

His youngest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed her chance at real love – and passed up an offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.

But in the advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter’s lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.