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!
Currently reading
The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo (eARC, courtesy of Quercus and NetGalley)
They say a tiger that devours too many humans can take the form of a man and walk among us…
In 1930s colonial Malaya, a dissolute British doctor receives a surprise gift of an eleven-year-old Chinese houseboy. Sent as a bequest from an old friend, young Ren has a mission: to find his dead master’s severed finger and reunite it with his body. Ren has forty-nine days, or else his master’s soul will roam the earth forever.
Ji Lin, an apprentice dressmaker, moonlights as a dancehall girl to pay her mother’s debts. One night, Ji Lin’s dance partner leaves her with a gruesome souvenir that leads her on a crooked, dark trail.
As time runs out for Ren’s mission, a series of unexplained deaths occur amid rumours of tigers who turn into men. In their journey to keep a promise and discover the truth, Ren and Ji Lin’s paths will cross in ways they will never forget.
The Olive Garden Choir by Leah Fleming (eARC, courtesy of Quercus and NetGalley)
On the beautiful island of Santaniki, close to Crete, it’s not all white sands and sunshine. When retired bookseller Ariadne Blunt suggests the English residents form a choir, there are groans of resistance. After a little persuasion, the group gather in Ariadne’s olive garden to rehearse for a seasonal concert, but each member of this choir has their own anxieties and secrets.
Ariadne’s partner, Hebe, is in failing health. Clive struggles to accept the loss of his wife while Natalie hides her shameful secret in baking for comfort. Della, the Pilates teacher drinks too much and Chloe, Queen Bee of the village society, faces a family dilemma. Then there is Mel, the real songbird amongst them, English wife of a taverna owner who hides her talent until the choir inspires her to raise her voice once more.
In this tiny community, the choir brings the residents together like never before in a bittersweet tale of love and loss – and how life can begin again when you let go of the past.
Salute to Adventurers by John Buchan (hardcover)
Andrew Garvald is a young Scottish merchant who has bravely come to make his fortune in a newly colonised America.
Outlawed from Virginian society for opposing the London traders’ monopoly, his friends are Red Ringan, a pirate and gentleman adventurer and Shalah, an exiled Indian prince.
When Garvald is faced with a deadly foe, the stakes are high – the love of a beautiful lady and the very existence of Virginia.
Poetic Justice by R. C. Bridgestock (ARC, courtesy of The Dome Press)
From the husband and wife team, who are the storyline consultants to TV’s Happy Valley and Scott & Bailey, comes the brand new book in the D.I. Jack Dylan series, which takes the reader back to where it all began…
When Detective Jack Dylan heads home after a residential course, he has no idea that an extraordinary succession of events is about to turn his life upside down. A vicious, unprovoked attack is just the start. Soon his wife is dead and his step-daughter – dangerously depressed – is being expelled from university for drug use. And at work, two teenagers have gone missing.
An ordinary man might break under the strain, but Dylan is no ordinary man. He knows that his survival depends on him carrying on regardless, burying himself in his work.
He is determined to pursue the criminal elements behind the events – both personal and professional – whether his superiors like it or not. And, as his family disintegrates around him, a newcomer to the admin department, Jennifer Jones, seems to offer some sort of salvation.
Life may have changed, but nothing will stand in the way of Dylan’s quest for justice.
Pre-order Poetic Justice from Amazon UK (link provided for convenience, not as part of an affiliate programme)
Recently finished (click on title for review)
The Horseman’s Song (Captain Martin Bora #4) by Ben Pastor (ebook, courtesy of Bitter Lemon Press and Random Things Tours)
Spain, Summer 1937. The civil war between Spanish nationalists and republicans rages. On the bloody sierras of Aragon, among Generalissimo Franco’s volunteers is Martin Bora, the twenty-something German officer and detective whose future adventures will be told in Lumen, Liar Moon, The Road to Ithaca and others in the Bora series.
Presently a lieutenant in the Spanish Foreign Legion, Bora lives the tragedy around him as an intoxicating epic, between idealism and youthful recklessness.
The first doubts, however, rise in Bora’ s mind when he happens on the body of Federico Garcia Lorca, a brilliant poet, progressive and homosexual. Who murdered him? Why? The official version does not convince Bora, who begins a perilous investigation. His inquiry paradoxically proceeds alongside that which is being carried out by an “enemy”: Philip Walton, an American member of the International Brigades. Soon enough the German and the New Englander will join forces, and their cooperation will not only culminate in a thrilling chase after a murderer, but also in a very human, existential face-to-face between two adversaries forever changed by their crime-solving encounter…
The Blameless Dead by Gary Haynes (eARC, courtesy of Endeavour Quill)
In the dying days of World War Two, Pavel Romasko and his Red Army colleagues pick their way through the carnage and detritus of a dying Berlin. Stumbling upon the smoking remains of a Nazi bunker, they find something inside that eclipses the horror of even the worst excesses in the city above them…
As the war ends, retribution begins. But some revenge cannot be taken at once. Some revenge takes years.
And so it is, as post-war Europe tries desperately to drag itself back onto its feet, and soldiers attempt a return to normality, that retribution continues to ferment in the Gulags of the Soviet Union and beneath the surface of apparently ordinary lives.
Which is how, seventy years later, FBI agent Carla Romero and New York lawyer Gabriel Hall are enlisted to investigate a series of blood-chilling crimes that seem to have their roots in the distant past — even though the suffering they cause is all too present. And for one of them, the disappearance of young women is a particularly personal matter.
Pre-order The Blameless Dead from Amazon UK (link provided for convenience, not as part of an affiliate programme)
What Cathy (will) Read Next
Josephine’s Daughter (The Golden City #5) by A. B. Michaels (eARC, courtesy of the author)
What’s worse than a mother like Josephine? Turning out to be just like her.
In the late nineteenth century, wealthy and headstrong Kit Firestone chafes under the strictures of the Golden City’s high society, especially the interference of her charming but overbearing mother, Josephine. Kit’s secret rebellion leads to potentially catastrophic results and keeps her from finding true happiness.
When her brother nearly dies from a dangerous infection, Kit defies convention and becomes a working nurse. Through her troubled romance with a young doctor and a series of dramatic events, including a natural disaster and her mother’s own critical illness, Kit begins to understand who her mother truly is and what their relationship is all about. She may not get the chance to appreciate their bond, however, because, through no fault of her own, a madman has Kit in his crosshairs.
Pre-order Josephine’s Daughter from Amazon UK (link provided for convenience, not as part of an affiliate programme)
The Cornish Lady by Nicola Pryce (eARC, courtesy of Corvus and Rachel’s Random Resources)
Cornwall 1796. Educated, beautiful and the daughter of a prosperous merchant, Angelica Lilly has been invited to spend the summer in high society. Her father’s wealth is opening doors, and attracting marriage proposals, but Angelica still feels like an imposter among the aristocrats of Cornwall.
When her brother returns home, ill and under the influence of a dangerous man, Angelica’s loyalties are tested to the limit. Her one hope lies with coachman Henry Trevelyan, a softly spoken, educated man with kind eyes. But when Henry seemingly betrays Angelica, she has no one to turn to. Who is Henry, and what does he want? And can Angelica save her brother from a terrible plot that threatens to ruin her entire family?
Pre-order The Cornish Lady from Amazon UK (link provided for convenience, not as part of an affiliate programme)
For readers in the US, there’s a Goodreads giveaway with a chance to win a copy of the book.
About the Author
