#WWWWednesday – 11th August 2021

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

A Line To KillA Line To Kill by Anthony Horowitz (ARC, Century)

When Ex-Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, author Anthony Horowitz, are invited to an exclusive literary festival on Alderney, an idyllic island off the south coast of England, they don’t expect to find themselves in the middle of murder investigation – or to be trapped with a cold-blooded killer in a remote place with a murky, haunted past.

Arriving on Alderney, Hawthorne and Horowitz soon meet the festival’s other guests – an eccentric gathering that includes a bestselling children’s author, a French poet, a TV chef turned cookbook author, a blind psychic, and a war historian – along with a group of ornery locals embroiled in an escalating feud over a disruptive power line.

When a local grandee is found dead under mysterious circumstances, Hawthorne and Horowitz become embroiled in the case. The island is locked down, no one is allowed on or off, and it soon becomes horribly clear that a murderer lurks in their midst. But who?

The Beloved GirlsThe Beloved Girls by Harriet Evans (eARC, Headline)

‘It’s a funny old house. They have this ceremony every summer . . . There’s an old chapel, in the grounds of the house. Half-derelict. The Hunters keep bees in there. Every year, on the same day, the family processes to the chapel. They open the  combs, taste the honey. Take it back to the house. Half for them -‘ my father winced, as though he had bitten down on a sore tooth ‘And half for us.’

Catherine, a successful barrister, vanishes from a train station on the eve of her anniversary. Is it because she saw a figure – someone she believed long dead? Or was it a shadow cast by her troubled, fractured mind? The answer lies buried in the past. It lies in the events of the hot, seismic summer of 1989, at Vanes – a mysterious West Country manor house – where a young girl, Jane Lestrange, arrives to stay with the gilded, grand Hunter family, and where a devastating tragedy will unfold. Over the summer, as an ancient family ritual looms closer, Janey falls for each member of the family in turn. She and Kitty, the eldest daughter of the house, will forge a bond that decades later, is still shaping the present . . .

‘We need the bees to survive, and they need us to survive. Once you understand that, you understand the history of Vanes, you understand our family.’


Recently finished

Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller 

Wolf at the Door (Bradecote and Catchpoll #9) by Sarah Hawkswood  

ll Hallow’s Eve, 1144. The savaged body of Durand Wuduweard, the solitary and unpopular keeper of the King’s Forest of Feckenham, is discovered beside his hearth, his corpse rendered barely identifiable by sharp teeth.

Whispers of a wolf on the prowl grow louder and Sheriff William de Beauchamp’s men, Hugh Bradecote and Serjeant Catchpoll, are tasked with cutting through the clamour. They must uncover who killed Durand and why while beset by superstitious villagers, raids upon manors and further grim deaths. Out of the shadows of the forest, where will the wolf’s fangs strike next? (Review to follow)

A Corruption of Blood by Ambrose Parry

The Girl Who Fell From The Sky by Simon Mawer 


What Cathy (will) Read Next

End of SummerEnd of Summer by Anders de la Motte (ARC, Zaffre)  

You can always go home. But you can never go back . . .

Summer 1983: Four-year-old Billy chases a rabbit in the fields behind his house. But when his mother goes to call him in, Billy has disappeared. Never to be seen again.

Today: Veronica is a bereavement counsellor. She’s never fully come to terms with her mother’s suicide after her brother Billy’s disappearance.

When a young man walks into her group, he looks familiar and talks about the trauma of his friend’s disappearance in 1983. Could Billy still be alive after all this time? Needing to know the truth, Veronica goes home – to the place where her life started to fall apart.

But is she really prepared for the answers that wait for her there?

#BookReview This Lovely City by Louise Hare @HarperCollinsUK

This Lovely CityAbout the Book

London, 1950. With the war over and London still rebuilding, jazz musician Lawrie Matthews has answered England’s call for labour. Arriving from Jamaica aboard the Empire Windrush, he’s rented a tiny room in south London and fallen in love with the girl next door.

Playing in Soho’s jazz clubs by night and pacing the streets as a postman by day, Lawrie has poured his heart into his new home – and it’s alive with possibility. Until one morning, while crossing a misty common, he makes a terrible discovery.

As the local community rallies, fingers of blame point at those who were recently welcomed with open arms. And before long, London’s newest arrivals become the prime suspects in a tragedy that threatens to tear the city apart.

Immersive, poignant, and utterly compelling, Louise Hare’s debut examines the complexities of love and belonging, and teaches us that even in the face of anger and fear, there is always hope.

Format: Audiobook (10h 46m)            Publisher: Harper Collins
Publication date: 12th February 2020 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find This Lovely City on Goodreads

Purchase links
Bookshop.org
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Hive | Amazon UK
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My Review

I listened to the audiobook version expertly narrated by Theo Solomon and Karise Yansen, both really capturing the Jamaican patois. The book alternates between 1948 and Lawrie’s arrival in England aboard the Empire Windrush from Jamaica, and 1950 which finds him working as a postman.

It becomes clear from the sections set in 1948 that he found a very different welcome from the one he expected. He and his fellow passengers are greeted not with open arms but placed in a cramped shelter and faced with overt racism as they seek employment. Only Rose, a volunteer at the shelter, offers any sign of friendship, but she has motives of her own. Then Lawrie meets Evie and their romance soon blossoms, although as the reader learns, Evie has secrets of her own. Anxious to raise sufficient money to marry Evie, he earns extra by transporting black market goods for his landlady’s son, Daniel Ryan plus occasional gigs playing clarinet in a jazz band.

I thought Lawrie was a wonderful character. He’s sincere, polite and his tenderness towards Evie is touching. The way he is treated by the police when he comes under suspicion for involvement in a crime is shocking.

The atmosphere of post-war bomb-damaged London is brilliantly evoked. With rationing still in place think spam fritters, fish paste sandwiches or, for a treat, egg and chips in a local cafe.

Part mystery, part love story, This Lovely City demonstrates London was anything but a lovely city for many black people.  The book is a revealing insight into the stigma of illegitimacy and the prejudice faced by people of colour, in particular by the Windrush generation; sadly they have faced other injustices in recent years. The audiobook version provides a bonus final chapter that will get you tapping your feet.

In three words: Immersive, compelling, emotional

Try something similar: The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon

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Louise HareAbout the Author

Louise Hare is a London-based writer and has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. Originally from Warrington, the capital is the inspiration for much of her work, including This Lovely City, which began life after a trip into the deep level shelter below Clapham Common. (Photo/bio credit: Goodreads author page)

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