Author: whatcathyreadnext

My Week in Books – 17th June ’18

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MyWeekinBooks

New arrivals  

The Clockmaker's DaughterThe Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton (eARC, NetGalley)

My real name, no one remembers. The truth about that summer, no one else knows.

In the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor on the banks of the Upper Thames. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing; and Edward Radcliffe’s life is in ruins.

Over one hundred and fifty years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items: a sepia photograph of an arresting-looking woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist’s sketchbook containing a drawing of a twin-gabled house on the bend of a river.  Why does Birchwood Manor feel so familiar to Elodie? And who is the beautiful woman in the photograph? Will she ever give up her secrets?

Told by multiple voices across time, The Clockmaker’s Daughter is a story of murder, mystery and thievery, of art, love and loss. And flowing through its pages like a river is the voice of a woman who stands outside time, whose name has been forgotten by history, but who has watched it all unfold: Birdie Bell, the clockmaker’s daughter.

The Psychology of Time TravelThe Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas (limited edition proof copy, courtesy of Head of Zeus)

1967: Four female scientists invent a time-travel machine. They are on the cusp of fame: the pioneers who opened the world to new possibilities. But then one of them suffers a breakdown and puts the whole project in peril…

2017: Ruby knows her beloved Granny Bee was a pioneer, but they never talk about the past. Though time travel is now big business, Bee has never been part of it. Then they receive a message from the future – a newspaper clipping reporting the mysterious death of an elderly lady…

The Psychology of Time Travel Signed2018: When Odette discovered the body she went into shock. Blood everywhere, bullet wounds, flesh. But when the inquest fails to answer any of her questions, Odette is frustrated. Who is this dead woman that haunts her dreams? And why is everyone determined to cover up her murder?

The Romanov EmpressThe Romanov Empress by C. W. Gortner (ebook, review copy courtesy of HF Virtual Book Tours)

Even from behind the throne, a woman can rule.

Narrated by the mother of Russia’s last tsar, this vivid, historically authentic novel brings to life the courageous story of Maria Feodorovna, one of Imperial Russia’s most compelling women who witnessed the splendour and tragic downfall of the Romanovs as she fought to save her dynasty in the final years of its long reign.

Barely nineteen, Minnie knows that her station in life as a Danish princess is to leave her family and enter into a royal marriage—as her older sister Alix has done, moving to  England to wed Queen Victoria’s eldest son. The winds of fortune bring Minnie to Russia, where she marries the Romanov heir and becomes empress once he ascends the throne. When resistance to his reign strikes at the heart of her family and the tsar sets out to crush all who oppose him, Minnie—now called Maria—must tread a perilous path of compromise in a country she has come to love.

Her husband’s death leaves their son Nicholas as the inexperienced ruler of a deeply divided and crumbling empire. Determined to guide him to reforms that will bring Russia into the modern age, Maria faces implacable opposition from Nicholas’s strong-willed wife, Alexandra, whose fervour has lead her into a disturbing relationship with a mystic named Rasputin. As the unstoppable wave of revolution rises anew to engulf Russia, Maria will face her most dangerous challenge and her greatest heartache.

Betty Church and the Suffolk VampireBetty Church and the Suffolk Vampire by M. R. C. Kasasian (hardcover, advance reader copy courtesy of Head of Zeus)

September 1939.  A new day dawns in Sackwater, not that this sleepy backwater is taking much notice…

Inspector Betty Church – one of the few female officers on the force – has arrived from London to fill a vacancy at Sackwater police station. But Betty isn’t new here. This is the place she grew up. The place she thought she’d left behind for good.  Time ticks slowly in Sackwater, and crime is of a decidedly lighter shade. Having solved the case of the missing buttons, Betty’s called to the train station to investigate a missing bench. But though there’s no bench, there is a body. A smartly dressed man, murdered in broad daylight, with two distinctive puncture wounds in his throat.

While the locals gossip about the Suffolk Vampire, Betty Church readies herself to hunt a dangerous killer.

The Hidden VillageThe Hidden Village by Imogen Matthews (ebook, review copy courtesy of the author)

Wartime Holland. Who can you trust?

Deep in the Veluwe woods lies a secret that frustrates the Germans. Convinced that Jews are hiding close by they can find no proof.  The secret is Berkenhout, a purpose-built village of huts sheltering dozens of persecuted people.

Young tearaway Jan roams the woods looking for adventure and fallen pilots. His dream comes true when he stumbles across an American airman, Donald C. McDonald. But keeping him hidden sets off a disastrous chain of events.

Sofie, a Jewish Dutch girl, struggles to adapt to living in Berkenhout, away from her family and friends. As weeks turn to months, she’s worried they’ll abandon her altogether. Henk Hauer, head woodman, is in charge of building the underground huts and ensuring the Berkenhout inhabitants stay safe. But many grow suspicious of his liaisons with the Germans. Is he passing on secret information that could endanger lives?

All it takes is one small fatal slip to change the course of all their lives forever.

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I joined the blog tour for Forsaking All Other by Catherine Meyrick, sharing my review of this historical romance set in Tudor England.

Tuesday – Another blog tour and another review, this time for Summer of Love by Caro Fraser, the follow-up to her historical novel The Summer House Party.  My Top Ten Tuesday list was on the topic of Books That Awaken the Travel Bug in Me.

Wednesday – WWW Wednesday is the opportunity to share what I’ve just finished reading, what I’m reading now and what I’ll be reading next.   I also featured an extract from With Or Without You, the latest book by Shari Low as part of the blog tour.

Thursday – I published an introduction to this month’s Buchan of the Month, The Half-Hearted.  I also shared my write-up of a fascinating evening spent in the company of best-selling historian and novelist, Alison Weir, at my local Waterstones in Reading.

Friday – I published my review of The Poison Bed by E. C. Fremantle, a terrific historical mystery set in the court of James I that had as many twists as a modern day psychological thriller.  It was also time for another of my Fact in Fiction Friday features where I pick out interesting things I’ve learned through reading novels.

Saturday – The final blog tour of the week was for The Reading Party by Fenella Gentleman and a great guest post by Fenella about how the germ of an idea during a creative writing exercise grew into her first novel.

Challenge updates

  • Goodreads 2018 Reading Challenge – 90 out of 156 books read, 4 more than last week
  • Classics Club Challenge – 15 out of 50 books read, same as last week
  • NetGalley/Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2018 (Gold) – 33 ARCs read and reviewed out of 50, 2 more than last week
  • From Page to Screen– 10 book/film comparisons out of 15 completed, same as last week
  • 2018 TBR Pile Challenge – 5 out of 12 books read, same as last week
  • Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2018 – 46 books out of 50 read, 3 more than last week
  • When Are You Reading? Challenge 2018 – 7 out of 12 books read, same as last week
  • What’s In A Name Reading Challenge – 1 out of 6 books read, same as last week
  • Buchan of the Month – 5 out of 12 books read, same as last week
  • NEW 20 Books of Summer Challenge – 4 out of 20 books read, 2 more than last week

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

 

Planned posts

  • Guest Post: Cold Flood by R J Corgan
  • Guest Post: Artist, Soldier, Lover, Muse by Arthur D. Hittner
  • Book Review: The Mountain Man’s Badge by Gary Corbin
  • Book Review: The King’s Daughter by Stephanie Churchill
  • Book Review: Old Baggage by Lissa Evans
  • Book Review: Darkest Hour by Anthony McCarten

Blog Tour/Guest Post: The Reading Party by Fenella Gentleman

whatcathyreadnext

The Reading Party Blog Tour poster

I’m delighted to be hosting today’s stop on the blog tour for The Reading Party, the debut novel by Fenella Gentleman.  I’m really looking forward to reading the book but in the meantime I have a wonderful guest post by Fenella about how the germ of an idea during a creative writing exercise was transformed into the subject of her first novel.

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The Reading PartyAbout the Book

It is the seventies and the colleges of Oxford are finally opening their doors to women. Sarah Addleshaw, young, spirited and keen to prove her worth, begins term as the first female academic at her college. She is in fact, her college’s only female Fellow. Impulsive love affairs with people, places and the ideas in her head beset Sarah throughout her first exhilarating year as a don, but it is the Reading Party, that has the most dramatic impact.

Asked to accompany the first mixed group of students on the annual college trip to Cornwall, Sarah finds herself illicitly drawn to one of them, the suave American Tyler. Torn between professional integrity and personal feelings she faces her biggest challenge to date.

Format: Paperback, ebook (304 pp.)    Publisher: Muswell Press
Published: 14th June 2018                      Genre: Literary Fiction

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

Find The Reading Party on Goodreads

Guest Post: ‘The Reading Party’ by Fenella Gentleman

Well, this is fun: I’ve never done this before!  One of the great things about being published is getting to know the book blogging world, which is more extensive than I realised, and talking direct to readers and potential readers, who suddenly become real people.  So, a big thank you for this opportunity to do both.

How did I come to write about an Oxford reading party – something so tantalisingly, even infuriatingly, obscure?

Well, I went on one many years ago.  In fact, I went on two reading parties – in my first and third years at university.  It was a batty tradition at my college to invite a group of students for a week of hard work and hard play, in a rambling house on a Cornish cliff top, so they could revise before their exams without getting into a state.  The selection process was opaque, and I was as surprised to be asked on the trip as I was to get into Oxford in the first place.  I thought the whole notion anachronistic, but in the end found it oddly wonderful.

For years afterwards I considered arranging something similar with colleagues or friends, but at the time I couldn’t see how to do it.  Still, it must have stuck in my mind.  When I started writing fiction, I found myself recreating the reading party on paper.

This is where another strand comes in.  I’d been at one of the first male colleges to go mixed, I’d worked briefly for a feminist publishing house, and then I’d spent years amongst the growing number of women trying to hold their own – and often more – in professions dominated by men.  I was fascinated to see how women negotiated their working lives in such unforgiving environments, and particularly how some of them became trailblazers – unintentionally or otherwise.  When I began writing, this theme kept peeping through.

Even so, the real starting point for what became The Reading Party was the central character.  She emerged as a result of a creative writing exercise, in which you had to draft a conversation between two people talking about somebody else.  I imagined a pair of male academics being spiteful about a young female colleague.  This amused people, so I worked her up in a short story in which this woman, at the time called Buttercup and with streaks of blue hair, had to run an Oxford reading party with a tetchy older man.  The feedback was again encouraging, and someone suggested I tackle this scenario in a novel.

I had one big reservation: the connotations of privilege.  So I tried setting my story in a younger university: it lost something.  I sent the students to a rural vicarage: that was too tame.  As for narration, each chapter had the voice of a different student, with a different perspective on this nutty week, but that didn’t work either.

Eventually I realised that the whole point was the archaic set up, and that its oddities could be the source of much tension and humour.  Then things fell into place.  This would be the story of a feisty young woman – a historian with radical ideas – arriving at Oxford in the mid-1970s just when the men’s colleges were beginning to go mixed.  It would be about what might happen if she was asked to host a reading party on the Cornish coast alongside a much older man, and if – against all the strictures about setting a good example – she found herself drawn to someone who was ‘out of bounds’.  She would narrate, betraying the muddled confidence and insecurity of so many women under pressure, but always poking fun at the ridiculous.

I did lots of research – this is not my story and Sarah Addleshaw is not me – but it was easy to imagine myself inside her head and I enjoyed doing so.

Of course a ‘reading party’ doesn’t have to be this rarefied Oxbridge thing.  Nowadays I hold my own version every year with a bunch of girlfriends: we have a ball.  All you need is a place to go, a mix of people, a good book, and some food and drink.  Anyone can be part of that.  I’d love there to be reading parties all over the place!

© Fenella Gentleman, 2018

Fenella GentlemanAbout the Author

Fenella Gentleman studied PPE at Wadham College, Oxford, when it went mixed. She participated in two reading parties in Cornwall. After graduating she worked in publishing, before moving into marketing and communications in the professions. She lives in London and North Norfolk.

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