My Week in Books – 18th July 2021

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of For Lord and Land by Matthew Harffy as part of the blog tour.

Tuesday This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Book Titles That Are Questions. I also shared my review as part of the blog tour for The Book of Echoes by Rosanna Amaka 

WednesdayWWW 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 review of Songbirds by Christy Lefteri

Friday – I published my review of World War 2 thriller Kyiv by Graham Hurley as part of the blog tour. 

Saturday – I shared my list for the latest Classics Club Spin. As I only have two books left on my Classics Club list  I’m aiming to read them both. 

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


New arrivals

A Single RoseA Single Rose by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson (ARC, courtesy of Gallic Books)

Rose has turned 40, but has barely begun to live. When the Japanese father she never knew dies and she finds herself an orphan, she leaves France for Kyoto to hear the reading of his will.

In the days before Haru’s last wishes are revealed, his former assistant, Paul, takes Rose on a tour of the temples, gardens and eating places of this unfamiliar city. Initially a reluctant tourist and awkward guest in her late father’s home, Rose gradually comes to discover Haru’s legacy through the itinerary he set for her, finding gifts greater than she had ever imagined.

This stunning novel from international bestseller Muriel Barbery is a mesmerizing story of second chances, of beauty born out of grief and roses grown from ashes.


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
  • Top Ten Tuesday
  • WWW Wednesday
  • Book Review: Vanish in an Instant by Margaret Millar

#WWWWednesday – 14th July 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

Hurley_KYIV_HBKyiv by Graham Hurley (eARC, courtesy of Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

On Sunday 22nd June 1941 at 03.05, three-and-a-half million Axis troops burst into the Soviet Union along a 1,800-mile front to launch Operation Barbarossa. The southern thrust of the attack was aimed at the Caucuses and the oil fields beyond. Kyiv was the biggest city to stand in their way.

Within six weeks, the city was under siege. Surrounded by Panzers, bombed and shelled day and night, Soviet Commissar Nikita Krushchev was amongst the senior Soviet officials co-ordinating the defence. Amid his cadre of trusted personnel is British defector Bella Menzies, once with MI5, now with the NKVD, the Soviet secret police.

With the fall of the city inevitable, the Soviets plan a bloody war of terror that will extort a higher toll on the city’s inhabitants than the invaders. As the noose tightens, Bella finds herself trapped, hunted by both the Russians and the Germans.

As the local saying has it: life is dangerous – no one survives it.


Recently finished

Links from the titles will take you to my review.

Songbirds by Christy Lefteri (review copy, courtesy of Manilla Press and Readers First)

For Lord & Land (The Bernicia Chronicles #8) by Matthew Harffy

The Book of Echoes by Rosanna Amaka


What Cathy (will) Read Next

The Reading ListThe Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams (eARC, courtesy of Harper Collins via NetGalley)  

Widower Mukesh lives a quiet life in the London Borough of Ealing after losing his beloved wife. He shops every Wednesday, goes to Temple, and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries.

Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she’s facing at home.

When Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to forge a connection with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha passes along the reading list…hoping that it will be a lifeline for him too. Slowly, the shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again.