On the blog last week
Monday – I published my review of Dark is the Morning by Rupert Thomson.
Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday was a freebie and I chose the topic Fictional Housekeepers.
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.
Friday – I published my review of A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia.
Saturday – The first Saturday of the month means it’s time for the #6Degrees of Separation meme. My book chain took me from Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy to Flashlight by Susan Choi. Plus I joined other gardeners for #SixonSaturday, sharing six things happening in my garden this week.
New on my shelves
The Housekeeper by Rose Tremain (Vintage via NetGalley)
‘Daphne du Maurier stole my life.’
Mrs Danowski – known as Danni – is the housekeeper of a grand house on the wild coast of Cornwall. When a glamorous young writer, Daphne du Maurier, visits Manderville Hall to research her new novel, she and Danni are drawn into a clandestine and intoxicating affair.
For Danni, it is an all-consuming love; for Daphne a submission to long-suppressed desires. But their fragile secret is vulnerable to prying eyes and destined for heartbreak. When Daphne’s novel launches to triumphant success, Danni is distraught to find herself transformed into a malign and jealous character on the page. She seeks respite from the hurt by telling her own story: The Housekeeper.
Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo (audiobook, Vintage)
In 1843, in a small village on the stormy Kent coast, Ishmaelle is born. She grows up swimming with dolphins and eventually – desperate for a life at sea – she disguises herself as a cabin boy and travels to New York.
As the American Civil War breaks out, Ishmaelle boards a whaling ship led by the obsessive Captain Seneca, a Black free man of heroic stature who is haunted by a tragic past. Here, she finds protectors amidst the bloody male violence of whaling and discovers a mysterious bond between herself and the mythical white whale Moby Dick…
Where are the Kings by Donal Ryan (Doubleday via NetGalley)
Jack is just twelve years old when he rushes down the hill after his mother’s car on his bike, desperate to reach her before she reaches the lake.
What happens next cannot be undone. Jack’s life changes just at the moment he is entering those dizzying years when he will transition from boy to man; when nothing makes sense at the best of times.
Yet Jack is not alone. Enveloped as he is by his extended family – his ferociously loving Nana; Grandad, given to sudden bursts of rage; his earthy uncles Haulie and Theo who want to show him what it means to be a man, and the irascible JJ who resents him deeply. Then there is beautiful aunt Rose, whose mere presence ignites every atom in his changing body.
But how can a boy with so many questions, in a family with so many secrets, understand the person he is becoming? Without his mother to ground him on the earth, will he spin off into the stars?
What I’m currently reading
I’m reading Relative Failures: The Lives of Willie Wilde, Mabel Beardsley and Howard Sturgis which I won in a giveaway, and Goodbye Chinatown (published on 2nd June by World Editions) from my NetGalley Shelf
Look out for…
- Book Review: Paper Sisters by Rachel Canwell
- Book Review: Flashlight by Susan Choi
What Cathy Read Next... 