On What Cathy Read Next last week
Blog posts
Monday – I published my review of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton.
Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Colourful Book Covers and I conjured up a rainbow. I also shared my review of Lost Property by Helen Paris as part of the blog tour.
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…as well as have a good nose around to see what books others have plucked from their shelves.
Thursday – I shared my publication day review of The Night Train to Berlin by Melanie Hudson.
Friday – I published my review of dual time historical novel Beyond This Broken Sky by Siobhan Curham as part of the blog tour.
Saturday – As part of the blog tour, I shared my review of Together, a book of wonderful illustrations by Luke Adam Hawker with words by Marianne Laidlaw.
Sunday – It was my turn on the blog tour to review historical crime mystery Skelton’s Guide to Suitcase Murders by David Stafford.
As always, thanks to everyone who has liked, commented on or shared my blog posts on social media.
New arrivals
More fabulous sounding titles have found their way on to my bookshelves (real or virtual) this week
The Late Train to Gipsy Hill by Alan Johnson (eARC, courtesy of Headline via NetGalley)
Gary Nelson has a routine for the commute to his rather dull job in the city. Each day, he watches as a woman on the train applies her make up in a ritual he now knows by heart. He’s never dared to strike up a conversation… but maybe one day. Then one evening, on the late train to Gipsy Hill, the woman invites him to take the empty seat beside her. Fiddling with her mascara, she holds up her mirror and Gary reads the words ‘HELP ME’ scrawled in sticky black letters on the glass.
From that moment, Gary’s life is turned on its head. He finds himself on the run from the Russian mafia, the FSB and even the Metropolitan Police – all because of what this mysterious young woman may have witnessed. In the race to find out the truth, Gary discovers that there is a lot more to her than meets the eye…
This Shining Life by Harriet Kline (eARC, courtesy of Doubleday)
For Rich, life is golden. He fizzes with happiness and love. But Rich has an incurable brain tumour.
After Rich dies, his wife Ruth can’t see how to how to keep living, and their young son Ollie is intent on working out the meaning of life. Because everything happens for a reason. Doesn’t it?
Rich leaves behind a family without a father, a husband, a son and a best friend. And he also leaves behind a present for each of them. But while Ollie tries to understand the message within each present, Ruth finds herself adrift. The grief that is threatening to drown her has also unearthed long buried pain. Pain she has to face if she is to have any chance of moving on..
Love and Miss Harris by Peter Maughan (eARC, courtesy of Farrago Books and Random Things Tours)
Titus Llewellyn-Gwlynne, actor/manager of the Red Lion Theatre, has lost a backer who was going to fund a theatrical tour – when unexpected salvation appears. Their home theatre in the East End of London having been bombed during the war, The Red Lion Touring Company embarks on a tour of Britain to take a play written by their new benefactress into the provinces.
As they make their vagabond, singing way, they remain unaware that they leave behind in London a man consumed with thoughts of revenge. Revenge which follows them obsessively from town to town, ending in its final act before the last curtain.
The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex
It’s New Year’s Eve, 1972, when a boat pulls up to the Maiden Rock lighthouse with relief for the keepers. But no one greets them. When the entrance door, locked from the inside, is battered down, rescuers find an empty tower. A table is laid for a meal not eaten. The Principal Keeper’s weather log describes a storm raging round the tower, but the skies have been clear all week. And the clocks have all stopped at 8:45.
Two decades later, the wives who were left behind are visited by a writer who is determined to find the truth about the men’s disappearance. Moving between the women’s stories and the men’s last weeks together in the lighthouse, long-held secrets surface and truths twist into lies as we piece together what happened, why, and who to believe.
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
Miss Pettigrew, an approaching-middle-age governess, was accustomed to a household of unruly English children. When her employment agency sends her to the wrong address, her life takes an unexpected turn. The alluring nightclub singer, Delysia LaFosse, becomes her new employer, and Miss Pettigrew encounters a kind of glamour that she had only met before at the movies.
Over the course of a single day, both women are changed forever.
The Hiding Place by Jenny Quintana
Some houses have their secrets. But so do some people…
Abandoned as a baby in the hallway of a shared house in London, Marina has never known her parents, and the circumstances of her birth still remain a mystery. Now an adult, Marina has returned to the house where it all started, determined to find out who she really is. But the walls of this house hold more than memories, and Marina’s reappearance hasn’t gone unnoticed by the other tenants.
Someone is watching Marina. Someone who knows the truth…
Those I Have Lost by Sharon Maas (eARC, courtesy of Bookouture via NetGalley)
A secret love affair on a faraway island. Seas crawling with Japanese spies. A terrible war creeping ever closer…
India, 1940. and Rosie is devastated by the sudden death of her beloved mother. The parties, smiles and games disappear, and although Rosie is desperate to stay in her home, her father cannot look after her. All alone in the world, she is sent to Sri Lanka, to live with her mother’s friend Silvia and her three sons. Time passes and Rosie flourishes in her new home amongst the mango trees and canna lilies. And one day, under the heat of the Sri Lankan sun, she falls in love for the first time. But her happiness is short lived, for the brutal war that has devastated families and torn Europe apart is creeping closer to their island. One by one the men depart Sri Lanka leaving Rosie with just memories and a broken heart she must hide.
As Rosie waits for letters that never come, tortured by stories of torpedoed ships and massacres of innocent families, she realises that she cannot just sit and wait for news. She volunteers to help the army, working in military intelligence to protect her island paradise. But then her work brings shocking news that makes her blood run cold. The man she loved is missing, feared dead. Yet Rosie cannot lose hope – even as more women are left widows, more children left without fathers. But when the much longed-for news comes that the war is ended, and a limping wasted figure returns home, will one final devastating revelation tear Rosie’s world apart?
Scandalous Alchemy by Katy Moran (ARC, courtesy of Head of Zeus)
In the palace of Fontainebleau, intrigue and scandal stalk the salons. Princess Sophia of England is on her way there to meet a prospective husband. In Russia, she was known as Nadezhda and rode fearlessly across the steppes with Captain Kitto Helford at her side. Now, he’s escorting her to Fontainebleau, but no one must suspect the love they once shared.
Cornish Clemency Arwenak is in France as the poor relation of an uncle she has come to fear. It’s a relief to be seconded to the princess’s entourage. But soon, long-ago childhood friends, Clemency and Kit Helford, must face a frightening truth. Someone is trying to kill the princess, and Nadezhda, herself, is playing a game that will endanger them all.
On What Cathy Read Next this week
Currently reading
Planned posts
- Book Review: Charity by Madeline Dewhurst
- Book Review: The Ice House by Laura Lee Smith
- Top Ten Tuesday
- Waiting on Wednesday
- Blog Tour/Book Review: The Fair Land by Lucienne Boyce
- #6Degrees of Separation
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