whatcathyreadnext

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of Dublin’s Girl by Eimear Lawlor as part of the blog tour.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books Written Before I Was Born.

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 other bloggers are reading. Also published my review of When The World Was Ours by Liz Kessler as part of the blog tour.

Thursday – I shared my Five Favourite January Reads.

Saturday – It being the first Saturday of a new month it was time for #6Degrees of Separation and my chain took me from Redhead By the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler to Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

As always, thanks to everyone who has liked, commented on or shared my blog posts on social media.

New arrivals

After the Storm (A Giuseppe Bianchi Book 2) by Isabella Muir (ebook, courtesy of the author and Rachel’s Random Resources)

When a violent storm blasts England’s south coast, it’s up to retired Italian detective Giuseppe Bianchi to sift through the devastation and piece together the tragic events left behind in the storm’s wake.

Giuseppe Bianchi’s brief visit to Bexhill-on-Sea has become an extended stay. He is loath to return to his home in Rome because of the haunting images that made him leave in the first place. During his morning walks along the seafront with Beagle, Max, he meets Edward Swain, who becomes Giuseppe’s walking companion. They form a friendship of sorts and find they have a similar outlook on life.

But the devastating events of a single night lead Giuseppe to question the truth about Edward Swain. Teaming up with young journalist, Christina Rossi – his cousin’s daughter – Giuseppe learns about the brutal reality lurking behind the day-to-day life of families in the local community. And as the story unravels Giuseppe is reminded how anger and revenge can lead to the most dreadful of crimes.

Stella by Takis Würger, translated by Liesl Schillinger (ARC, courtesy of Grove Press and Readers First)

In 1942, Friedrich, an even-keeled but unworldly young man, arrives in Berlin from bucolic Switzerland with dreams of becoming an artist. At a life drawing class, he is hypnotized by the beautiful model, Kristin, who soon becomes his energetic yet enigmatic guide to the bustling and cosmopolitan city. Kristin teaches the naïve Friedrich how to take care of himself in a city filled with danger, and brings him to an underground jazz club where they drink cognac, dance, and kiss. The war feels far away to Friedrich as he falls in love with Kristin, the pair cocooned inside their palatial rooms at the Grand Hotel, where even Champagne and fresh fruit can be obtained thanks to the black market.

But as the months pass, the mood in the city darkens yet further, with the Nazi Party tightening their hold on everyday life of all Berliners, terrorizing anyone who might be disloyal to the Reich. Kristin’s loyalties are unclear, and she is not everything she seems, as his realizes when one frightening day she comes back to Friedrich’s hotel suite in tears, battered and bruised. She tells him an astonishing secret: that her real name is Stella, and that she is Jewish, passing for Aryan. Fritz comforts her, but he soon realizes that Stella’s control of the situation is rapidly slipping out of her grasp, and that the Gestapo have an impossible power over her.

As Friedrich confronts Stella’s unimaginable choices, he finds himself woefully unprepared for the history he is living through. Based in part on a real historical character, Stella sets a tortured love story against the backdrop of wartime Berlin, and powerfully explores questions of naiveté, young love, betrayal, and the horrors of history.

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

Book Review: Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford
Blog Tour/Book Review: The Girl at the Back of the Bus by Suzette D. Harrison
Top Ten Tuesday
Book Review: Land of the Living by Georgina Harding
Waiting on Wednesday
Book Review: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Book Review: Saving the World – Women: The Twenty-First Century’s Factor For Change by Paola Diana

It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation!

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post. You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees

This month’s starting book is Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler.

‘Redhead’ immediately made me think of the story ‘The Redheaded League’ in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in which the distinctive hue of pawnbroker Jabez Wilson’s hair makes him the ideal candidate for a lucrative but seemingly meaningless occupation.

Another literary redhead is Anne Shirley, famous for her fiery temper and star of the much-loved children’s classic Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. (The ‘M’ stands for Maud).

Maud by Melanie J. Fishbane is a fictional account of the life of L. M. Montgomery and her struggle to become a writer.

Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts tells the story of another Maud – Maud Gage Baum, wife of the author L. Frank Baum who wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Maud met Judy Garland, the then unknown young actress playing the role of Dorothy, on the set of The Wizard of Oz in 1939.