On What Cathy Read Next last week
Monday – I published my review of light-hearted crime novel A Three Dog Problem by S. J .Bennett.
Tuesday – I shared my review of historical novel The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal as part of the #NetGalleyNovember reading challenge.
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 to have a good nose around what others are reading.
Thursday – I shared my Five Favourite November Reads.
Friday – I published my review of historical thriller Two Storm Wood by Philip Gray, another book for the #NetGalleyNovember reading challenge.
Saturday – I took part in the #6DegreesOfSeparation meme and also, as part of the blog tour, shared a promo post for The Lost Girl in Paris by Jina Bacarr.
As always, thanks to everyone who has liked, commented on or shared my blog posts on social media.
New arrivals
These Days by Lucy Caldwell (ARC, Faber & Faber via Readers First)
Two sisters, four nights, one city.
April, 1941. Belfast has escaped the worst of the war – so far. Over the next two months, it’s going to be destroyed from above, so that people will say, in horror, My God, Belfast is finished.
Many won’t make it through, and no one who does will remain unchanged.
Following the lives of sisters Emma and Audrey – one engaged to be married, the other in a secret relationship with another woman – as they try to survive the horrors of the four nights of bombing which were the Belfast Blitz, These Days is a timeless and heart-breaking novel about living under duress, about family, and about how we try to stay true to ourselves.
The Manningtree Witches by A. K. Blakemore (Granta)
England, 1643. Parliament is battling the King; the war between the Roundheads and the Cavaliers rages. Puritanical fervour has gripped the nation, and the hot terror of damnation burns black in every shadow.
In Manningtree, depleted of men since the wars began, the women are left to their own devices. At the margins of this diminished community are those who are barely tolerated by the affluent villagers – the old, the poor, the unmarried, the sharp-tongued. Rebecca West, daughter of the formidable Beldam West, fatherless and husbandless, chafes against the drudgery of her days, livened only by her infatuation with the clerk John Edes.
But then newcomer Matthew Hopkins, a mysterious, pious figure dressed from head to toe in black, takes over The Thorn Inn and begins to ask questions about the women of the margins. When a child falls ill with a fever and starts to rave about covens and pacts, the questions take on a bladed edge.
The Manningtree Witches plunges its readers into the fever and menace of the English witch trials, where suspicion, mistrust and betrayal ran amok as the power of men went unchecked and the integrity of women went undefended.
They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (Simon & Schuster)
On September 5th, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: they’re going to die today.
Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but for different reasons, they’re both looking for a new friend on their End Day.
The good news: there’s an app for that. It’s called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure – to live a lifetime in a single day.
On What Cathy Read Next this week
Currently reading
Planned posts
- Book Review: The Room of the Dead by M. R. C. Kasasian
- Blog Blitz/Book Review: Sherlock Holmes & the Singular Affair by M. K. Wiseman
- Blog Tour/Book Review: The Visitors by Caroline Scott
- Book Review: Where God Does Not Walk by Luke McCallin
- Blog Tour/Book Review: The Golden Girls’ Getaway by Judy Leigh
- Book Review: The Lost Girl in Paris by Jina Bacarr
