Author: whatcathyreadnext

#WWWWednesday – 17th February 2021

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WWWWednesdays

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 Art of the AssassinThe Art of the Assassin by Kevin Sullivan (ARC, courtesy of Allison & Busby)

1899, Glasgow. A man is stabbed to death in a tenement courtyard, and Juan Camaron, photographer-cum-sleuth, is enlisted to assist the police investigation. Perhaps his innovative photographic method can bring to light what the eye may have overlooked.

Yet Juan has problems of his own. His late father’s legacy, a monumental photographic record of the architecture of colonial Cuba, is threatened by a charge of plagiarism from a mysterious senora. Meanwhile, Juan’s hoped-for happiness with his fiancee, Jane, might be over before it’s even begun, and even more so when a visiting professor is murdered and Jane is witnessed fleeing the scene. Juan is torn between finding the killer and finding Jane, but are they one and the same? The truth may be hidden in the photographs. 

The Northern ReachThe Northern Reach by W.S. Winslow (eARC, courtesy of Flatiron Books)

Frozen in grief after the loss of her son at sea, Edith Baines stares across the water at a schooner, under full sail yet motionless in the winter wind and surging tide of the Northern Reach. Edith seems to be hallucinating. Or is she? Edith’s boat-watch opens The Northern Reach, set in the coastal town of Wellbridge, Maine, where townspeople squeeze a living from the perilous bay or scrape by on the largesse of the summer folk and whatever they can cobble together, salvage, or grab.

At the center of town life is the Baines family, land-rich, cash-poor descendants of town founders, along with the ne’er-do-well Moody clan, the Martins of Skunk Pond, and the dirt farming, bootlegging Edgecombs. Over the course of the twentieth century, the families intersect, interact, and intermarry, grappling with secrets and prejudices that span generations, opening new wounds and reckoning with old ghosts.

Recently finished

Links from the titles will take you to my reviews

The Diplomat’s Wife by Michael Ridpath

Madam by Phoebe Wynne

Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson 

Lucia’s fingers found her own. She gazed at Caro as if from a distance. Her lips parted, her words a whisper: ‘He knows.’

London, 1782. Desperate for her politician husband to return home from France, Caroline ‘Caro’ Corsham is already in a state of anxiety when she finds a well-dressed woman mortally wounded in the bowers of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. The Bow Street constables are swift to act, until they discover that the deceased woman was a highly-paid prostitute, at which point they cease to care entirely. But Caro has motives of her own for wanting to see justice done, and so sets out to solve the crime herself. Enlisting the help of thief-taker, Peregrine Child, their inquiry delves into the hidden corners of Georgian society, a world of artifice, deception and secret lives.

But with many gentlemen refusing to speak about their dealings with the dead woman, and Caro’s own reputation under threat, finding the killer will be harder, and more treacherous than she can know… (Review to follow)

She Came To Stay by Eleni Kyriacou (eARC, courtesy of Hodder & Stoughton)

In a city of strangers, who can you trust?

London, 1952. Dina Demetriou has travelled from Cyprus for a better life. She’s certain that excitement, adventure and opportunity are out there, waiting – if only she knew where to look. Her passion for clothes and flair for sewing land her a job repairing the glittering costumes at the notorious Pelican Revue. It’s here that she befriends the mysterious and beautiful Bebba.

With her bleached-blonde hair and an appetite for mischief, Bebba is like no Greek Dina has ever met before. She guides Dina around the fashionable shops, bars and clubs of Soho, and Dina finally feels life has begun. But Bebba has a secret. And as thick smog brings the city to a standstill, the truth emerges with devastating results. Dina’s new life now hangs by a thread. What will be left when the fog finally clears? And will Dina be willing to risk everything to protect her future? (Review to follow for blog tour)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

NickNick by Michael Farris Smith (ARC, courtesy of No Exit)

Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg, and into Gatsby’s periphery, he was at the center of a very different story- one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I.

Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed firsthand, Nick delays his return home, hoping to escape the questions he cannot answer about the horrors of war. Instead, he embarks on a transcontinental redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance- doomed from the very beginning- to the dizzying frenzy of New Orleans – rife with its own flavor of debauchery and violence.

An epic portrait of a truly singular era, and a sweeping, romantic story of self-discovery, this rich and imaginative novel breathes new life into a character that many know, but few have pondered deeply. 

#BookReview Madam by Phoebe Wynne @QuercusBooks

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MadamAbout the Book

For 150 years, high above rocky Scottish cliffs, Caldonbrae Hall has sat untouched, a beacon of excellence in an old ancestral castle. A boarding school for girls, it promises that the young women lucky enough to be admitted will emerge “resilient and ready to serve society.”

Into its illustrious midst steps Rose Christie: a 26-year-old Classics teacher, Caldonbrae’s new head of the department, and the first hire for the school in over a decade. At first, Rose is overwhelmed to be invited into this institution, whose prestige is unrivaled. But she quickly discovers that behind the school’s elitist veneer lies an impenetrable, starkly traditional culture that she struggles to reconcile with her modernist beliefs – not to mention her commitment to educating “girls for the future.”

It also doesn’t take long for Rose to suspect that there’s more to the secret circumstances surrounding the abrupt departure of her predecessor – a woman whose ghost lingers everywhere – than anyone is willing to let on. In her search for this mysterious former teacher, Rose instead uncovers the darkness that beats at the heart of Caldonbrae, forcing her to confront the true extent of the school’s nefarious purpose, and her own role in perpetuating it.

A darkly feminist tale pitched against a haunting backdrop, and populated by an electrifying cast of heroines, Madam will keep readers engrossed until the breathtaking conclusion.

Format: ebook (340 pages)                  Publisher: Quercus
Publication date: 18th February 2021 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Find Madam on Goodreads

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My Review

The book opens with a prologue that, to my mind, does just what a prologue should do: raise all sorts of questions that linger in your mind as you read the rest of the book and be something you feel compelled to return to and read again once you’ve finished the book.

In Caldonbrae Hall, the author has certainly created a creepy setting for a story. If I was Rose I’d have turned right around at the first of glimpse of its exterior, and certainly once I’d seen its labyrinthine interior. Since Rose is at Caldonbrae to take up the post of Head of Classics, the reference to a labyrinth, such as the one in which the Minotaur roamed, seems appropriate.

Given the school’s exclusivity and prestige as well as the fact she’s the first new member of teaching staff in over a decade, Rose might have expected some initial trouble fitting in. However, she’s unprepared for the strange nature of the school’s practices, such as the fact teachers are addressed as either ‘Madam’ or ‘Sir’ and not by their actual names, or the old-fashioned uniforms worn by the girls. In fact, the whole school feels like it’s caught in a time-warp. Rose is also taken aback by the chilly attitude, even outright hostility, of the pupils in some of her classes.

More like a prison than a boarding school, Caldonbrae has a disturbingly sentient quality. At one point, as Rose makes her way to a class, she compares its long passageways to the bronchioles of lungs, likening the school to a great monster. And in one of her rare excursions outside, Rose perceives the lighted windows of the school building as “like a thousand eyes staring out at her accusingly”. And if you thought Mrs Danvers, the housekeeper in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, was creepy, just wait until you meet the Secretaries who manage every detail of daily life at Caldonbrae – and beyond.

Rose’s discovery of what’s really going on at the school and the nature of the ‘strange, ugly destiny’ the girls are being prepared for didn’t come as a great surprise to this reader. Safe to say, it encompasses the worst excesses of patriarchy, nepotism and privilege. For Rose herself it comes with the addition of emotional blackmail and veiled threats about what might ensue should she disclose to the outside world what she has learned.

Punctuating the narrative are excerpts from classical texts describing the lives of Greek and Roman women, both real and mythological. All are examples of women who asserted their independence but died, by their own hand or by the hand of others, as a consequence. I admired Rose’s valiant attempts to pass on her own enthusiasm for her subject to her pupils and to convince them they too have other options in life. Can Rose fan the flames of rebellion in the girls or will they smoulder into nothing?

Combining elements of suspense with a distinctly dystopian feel, Madam makes for an unsettling but utterly compelling read, and an impressive debut.

I received a uncorrected proof copy courtesy of Quercus. Madam will be published as an ebook and audiobook on 18th February and in hardcover on 13th May 2021.

In three words: Creepy, intense, immersive

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phoebe wynneAbout the Author

Phoebe Wynne worked in education for eight years, teaching Classics in the UK and English Language and Literature in Paris. She left the classroom to focus on her writing, and went on to hone her craft in Los Angeles and in London. Madam is her first novel. She is both British and French, and currently spends her time between France and England. (Photo credit: Publisher author page)

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