Category: Currently Reading

My Week in Books – 8th September ’19

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MyWeekinBooks

New Arrivals

Theres Something About DarcyThere’s Something About Darcy by Gabrielle Malcolm (eARC, courtesy of Endeavour Media)

For some, Colin Firth emerging from a lake in that clinging wet shirt is one of the most iconic moments in television. But what is it about the two-hundred-year-old hero that we so ardently admire and love?

Dr Gabrielle Malcolm examines Jane Austen’s influences in creating Darcy’s potent mix of brooding Gothic hero, aristocratic elitist and romantic Regency man of action. She investigates how he paved the way for later characters like Heathcliff, Rochester and even Dracula, and what his impact has been on popular culture over the past two centuries. For twenty-first century readers the world over have their idea of the ‘perfect’ Darcy in mind when they read the novel, and will defend their choice passionately.

In this insightful and entertaining study, every variety of Darcy jostles for attention: vampire Darcy, digital Darcy, Mormon Darcy and gay Darcy. Who does it best and how did a clergyman’s daughter from Hampshire create such an enduring character? A must-read for every Darcy and Jane Austen fan.

cover173287-mediumRivals by Sam Michaels (eARC, courtesy of Aria and NetGalley)

The streets of Battersea are about to get a new leader, one who will rule with an iron fist.

It’s the 1930s and Georgina Garrett has risen up from her tough beginnings to become the new boss of the Battersea gang. But not everyone is pleased with a female taking charge…

With rival gangs trying to steal her turf, untrustworthy men in her midst and her dad lost deep in the bottle, Georgina has a lot to tackle. With her friends and family in constant danger and those closest to her questioning her leadership Georgina must use her wits to show that she’s made for this job.

The Garrett name is one to be feared and Georgina will begin to change the face of Battersea forever…

The House That Alice BuiltThe House That Alice Built by Chris Penhall (eARC, courtesy of Choc Lit and Rachel’s Random Resources)

Home is where the heart is …

Alice Dorothy Matthews is sensible. Whilst her best friend Kathy is living it up in Portugal and her insufferable ex Adam is travelling the world, Alice is working hard to pay for the beloved London house she has put her heart and soul into renovating.

But then a postcard from Buenos Aires turns Alice’s life upside down. One very unsensible decision later and she is in Cascais, Portugal, and so begins her lesson in ‘going with the flow’; a lesson that sees her cat-sitting, paddle boarding, dancing on top of bars and rediscovering her artistic talents.

But perhaps the most important part of the lesson for Alice is that you don’t always need a house to be at home.

cover173526-mediumRequiem for a Knave by Laura Carlin (eARC, courtesy of Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley)

After the death of his mother, young Alwin of Whittaker leaves the only home he has ever known to seek answers about his unknown father through a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. On the journey, Alwin falls in with a band of violent and marauding soldiers and is witness to their terrible crimes. When Alwin later joins up with a group of pilgrims, he must hide his identity . . . but he is not the only one with secrets to keep.

Rosamund, a young woman travelling the same path, has much to conceal too. The journey to discovering who he really is will lead Alwin into great danger and great passion. These are dark times, and through them, Alwin must shine a light. Will the revelations to come destroy everything that came before?

Asylum RoadAsylum Road (Jake Caldwell 4) by James L Weaver (eARC, courtesy of Lakewater Press)

Nearly two years ago, former mafia leg-breaker Jake Caldwell had ruthless drug lord Shane Langston staring down the wrong end of Jake’s pistol. Instead of pulling the trigger like he should have, Jake let the law handle it.

Now Langston’s escaped from a Missouri maximum security prison with a deadly goal – kill the men who put him there. With Langston’s crosshairs focused on Jake and his best friend, Sheriff Bear Parley, the duo must scramble to protect those they love and stop Langston’s bloody quest for vengeance.

As the hunt for Langston intensifies, Jake and Bear stumble upon a hard-nosed gang of bikers with their claws deep in murder, meth, guns and sex trafficking.

Teaming up with some new allies to unravel the mystery and nail Langston, Jake finds himself caught up in a game of cat and mouse with some seriously deadly consequences.

Death Makes No DistinctionDeath Makes No Distinction by Lucienne Boyce (eARC, courtesy of the author and Rachel’s Random Resources)

Two women at opposite ends of the social scale, both brutally murdered.

Principal Officer Dan Foster of the Bow Street Runners is surprised when his old rival John Townsend requests his help to investigate the murder of Louise Parmeter, a beautiful writer who once shared the bed of the Prince of Wales. Her jewellery is missing, savagely torn from her body. Her memoirs, which threaten to expose the indiscretions of the great and the good, are also missing.

Frustrated by the chief magistrate’s demand that he drop the investigation into the death of the unknown beggar woman, found savagely raped and beaten and left to die in the outhouse of a Holborn tavern, Dan is determined to get to the bottom of both murders. But as his enquiries take him into both the richest and the foulest places in London, and Townsend’s real reason for requesting his help gradually becomes clear, Dan is forced to face a shocking new reality when the people he loves are targeted by a shadowy and merciless adversary.

The investigation has suddenly got personal.

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I shared my Five Favourite August Reads.

Tuesday – This week’s topic Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books I Enjoyed That Are Outside My Comfort Zone.

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…and have a good nose around to see what other bloggers are reading.

Thursday – I joined the blog tour for A Superior Spectre by Angela Meyer, publishing my Q&A with the author.

Friday – I took part in the blog tour for One Day in Winter by Shari Low, sharing my review of the book to mark its publication in paperback. (It was previously published under the title One Day in December.) I also revisited my review of Sleeping Through War by Jackie Carreira as part of the book’s birthday blog blitz.

Saturday – I participated in the 6 Degrees of Separation meme creating a chain of books from A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles to Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom.

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

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott
  • Book Extract: Hands Up by Stephen Clark
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Book Review: The Courts of the Morning by John Buchan
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Wicked By Design by Katy Moran

#WWWWednesdays 4th September ’19

whatcathyreadnext4 Comments

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 Single ThreadA Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier (eARC, courtesy of Harper Collins and NetGalley)
It is 1932, and the losses of the First World War are still keenly felt. Violet Speedwell, mourning for both her fiancé and her brother and regarded by society as a ‘surplus woman’ unlikely to marry, resolves to escape her suffocating mother and strike out alone.

A new life awaits her in Winchester. Yes, it is one of draughty boarding-houses and sidelong glances at her naked ring finger from younger colleagues; but it is also a life gleaming with independence and opportunity. Violet falls in with the broderers, a disparate group of women charged with embroidering kneelers for the Cathedral, and is soon entwined in their lives and their secrets. As the almost unthinkable threat of a second Great War appears on the horizon Violet collects a few secrets of her own that could just change everything…

Warm, vivid and beautifully orchestrated, A Single Thread reveals one of our finest modern writers at the peak of her powers.

the mathematical bridgeThe Mathematical Bridge by Jim Kelly (hardcover, review copy courtesy of Allison & Busby)
Cambridge, 1940. It is the first winter of the war, and snow is falling. When an evacuee drowns in the river, his body swept away, Detective Inspector Eden Brooke sets out to investigate what seems to be a deliberate attack. The following night, a local electronics factory is attacked, and an Irish republican slogan is left at the scene. The IRA are campaigning to win freedom for Ulster, but why has Cambridge been chosen as a target?

And when Brooke learns that the drowned boy was part of the close-knit local Irish Catholic community, he begins to question whether there may be a connection between the boy’s death and the attack at the factory. As more riddles come to light, can Brooke solve the mystery before a second attack claims a famous victim?

Chanels RivieraChanel’s Riviera: The Cote d’Azur in Peace and War, 1930-1944 by Anne De Courcy (audio book)

Far from worrying about the onset of war, the burning question on the French Riviera in 1938 was whether one should curtsey to the Duchess of Windsor.

Featuring a sparkling cast of historical figures, writers and artists including Winston Churchill, Daisy Fellowes, Salvador Dalí, the Windsors, Aldous Huxley and Edith Wharton – and the enigmatic Coco Chanel at its heart – Chanel’s Riviera is a sparkling account of a period where such deep extremes of luxury and terror had never before been experienced.

From the glamour of the pre-war parties and casinos, to Robert Streitz’s secret wireless transmitter in the basement of La Pausa – Chanel’s villa that he created – while Chanel had her German lover to stay during the war, Chanel’s Riviera explores the fascinating world of the Cote d’Azur elite in the 1930s and 1940s, enriched with original research that brings the lives of both rich and poor, protected and persecuted, to vivid life.

Recently finished (click on title for review)

NadineNadine by John Steinberg (ebook)

London 1972 – and Peter Greenberg is riding high. Thanks to his magic touch, every play he puts on in Theatreland is a hit and the money is rolling in. The young man’s empire feels secure – but then everything changes. One evening, he calls in to see a rival’s musical and falls head over heels in love.

The beautiful Paris-born dancer who catches his eye is Nadine – a major star in the making. Like Greenberg, the young dancer too is in love – but with someone else. The eternal triangle is complicated by the birth of a child, and by tragic secrets that go back before World War Two; slowly, those secrets reveal themselves in a drama that out-performs anything on the West End stage or Broadway.

Nadine is a poignant story of unrequited love, a love that will one day be returned – and in a most unexpected way…

The Courts of the MorningThe Courts of the Morning by John Buchan (hardcover)

South America is the setting for this adventure from the author of The Thirty-Nine Steps. When Archie and Janet Roylance decide to travel to the Gran Seco to see its copper mines they find themselves caught up in dreadful danger; rebels have seized the city. Janet is taken hostage in the middle of the night and it is up to the dashing Don Luis de Marzaniga to aid her rescue. (Review to follow)

20190824_143008Welcome to America by Linda Bostrom Knausgard (paperback, review copy courtesy of World Editions)

Ellen has stopped talking. She thinks she may have killed her dad. Her brother’s barricaded himself in his room. Their mother, a successful actress, carries on as normal. We’re a family of light! she insists. But darkness seeps in everywhere and in their separate worlds each of them longs for togetherness.

Welcome to America is an exquisite portrait of a sensitive, strong-willed child in the throes of trauma, a family on the brink of implosion, and the love that threatens to tear them apart. (Review to follow)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

The Secrets We KeptThe Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott (eARC, courtesy of Cornerstone)

At the height of the Cold War, two secretaries are pulled out of the typing pool at the CIA and given the assignment of a lifetime. Their mission: to smuggle Doctor Zhivago out of the USSR, where no one dare publish it, and help Pasternak’s magnum opus make its way into print around the world. Glamorous and sophisticated Sally Forrester is a seasoned spy who has honed her gift for deceit all over the world–using her magnetism and charm to pry secrets out of powerful men. Irina is a complete novice, and under Sally’s tutelage quickly learns how to blend in, make drops, and invisibly ferry classified documents.

The Secrets We Kept combines a legendary literary love story — the decades-long affair between Pasternak and his mistress and muse, Olga Ivinskaya, who was sent to the Gulag and inspired Zhivago’s heroine, Lara— with a narrative about two women empowered to lead lives of extraordinary intrigue and risk. From Pasternak’s country estate outside Moscow to the brutalities of the Gulag, from Washington, D.C. to Paris and Milan, The Secrets We Kept captures a watershed moment in the history of literature—told with soaring emotional intensity and captivating historical detail. And at the center of this unforgettable debut is the powerful belief that a piece of art can change the world.