Author: whatcathyreadnext

My Week in Books – 22nd December ‘19

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MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my list for the latest Classics Club Spin.

Tuesday – The Top Ten Tuesday topic was My Winter 2019 TBR so I shared some of the books I’m looking forward to reading in the next few months.

Wednesday – WWW Wednesday is the opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next…and have a good nose around to see what other bloggers are reading.

Friday – I published my review of Joan Smokes by Angela Meyer.

As always, thanks to everyone who has liked, commented on or shared my blog posts on social media this week.

New arrivals

A Messy AffairA Messy Affair (Lena Szarka Mystery #3) by Elizabeth Mundy (eARC, courtesy of Constable and NetGalley)

The only way is murder…

Lena Szarka, a Hungarian cleaner working in London, is forced to brush up on her detective skills for a third time when her cousin Sarika is plunged into danger.

Sarika and her reality TV star boyfriend Terry both receive threatening notes. When Terry stops calling, Lena assumes he’s lost interest. Until he turns up. Dead. Lena knows she must act fast to keep her cousin from the same fate.

Scrubbing her way through the grubby world of reality television, online dating and betrayed lovers, Lena finds it harder than she thought to discern what’s real – and what’s just for the cameras.

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Buchan of the Month/Book Review: The Island of Sheep by John Buchan
  • Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Hope To Find Under The Xmas Tree
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Book Review: Augustus by John Buchan

#BookReview Joan Smokes by Angela Meyer @SarabandBooks

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Joan SmokesAbout the Book

Winner of the inaugural Mslexia Novella Award (2019).

She used to be someone else, but now she’s arrived in Vegas, where she can start again. It won’t do to let the past leak in. It’s the Sixties now. She’s going to become … Joan. She makes a list: Buy a new dress (fitted, floral). Dye her hair (dark). Curl it. Buy red lipstick. Buy cigarettes and a lighter, too: Joan, she decides, is a smoker. There’s no need to dwell on why she’s here, what went before. She is just moving forward, one foot in front of the other, becoming that new person. Joan. This city of flashing neon, casinos and shows is full of distractions. Finding a job will be quick and easy. Things to do. New people to meet. A clean sheet. She’s certainly not thinking about Jack, or … No. Not anymore. Her new life starts right here, right now.

Format: Paperback (76 pages)                 Publisher: Saraband
Publication date: 5th December 2019   Genre: Literary Fiction

Purchase links*
Amazon.co.uk | Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Joan Smokes on Goodreads

My Review

Who is Joan? Or rather, who is the woman who currently calls herself Joan, seemingly just the latest in a series of assumed names and characters? Like an actress playing a role, our narrator considers what someone called Joan would do. How would she dress, what colour would her hair be, what car would she drive? She knows for sure she would smoke. Yes, Joan smokes. As she muses at one point, her life is ‘a fabrication, a performance’.

It seems though that however far she travels there are things she can’t leave behind. Joan muses, ‘How does the mind learn to let things go?‘ prompting the reader to wonder what is it she’s trying to let go of: traumatic memories, past actions, emotional ties? As details of Joan’s relationship with the troubled Jack are gradually revealed, we understand more why she asks ‘Was there passion without pain?’

The book is characterized by spare, sharp prose and acutely observed descriptions of people, objects and places. For example, I loved Joan’s first impression of the Las Vegas strip: ‘The lights make sound in her eyes. On one sign: the soprano crescendo of pink. On another, a swooshing fan of green-blue.’

Despite being less than eighty pages, Joan Smokes packs a powerful emotional punch with its haunting story of rejection, loss and trying to start over.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Saraband and Ruth Killick Publicity.

In three words: Taut, intense, acutely-observed

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Screen-Shot-2019-05-13-at-13.34.13-wpcf_345x237About the Author

Angela Meyer is an exciting new talent: a debut novelist whose short stories has been published in Best Australian Stories, Island, The Big Issue, The Australian, The Lifted Brow and Killings. By day she works as a publisher for Echo, an imprint of Bonnier Publishing Australia, where she has identified and published international bestsellers including The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

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