Category: Currently Reading

My Week in Books – 28th January 2024

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MyWeekinBooksOn What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I published my review of History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books I Meant to Read in 2023.

Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading. 

Thursday – I published my review of To Kill a King by David Gilman.

New arrivals

book cover of The Mountain in my Shoe by Louise BeechThe Mountain in my Shoe by Louise Beech (Orenda)

A missing boy. A missing book. A missing husband. A woman who must find them all to find herself.

On the night Bernadette finally has the courage to tell her domineering husband that she’s leaving, he doesn’t come home. Neither does Conor, the little boy she’s befriended for the past five years. Also missing is his lifebook, the only thing that holds the answers. With the help of Conor’s foster mum, Bernadette must face her own past, her husband’s secrets and a future she never dared imagine in order to find them all. 

Little Fires EverywhereLittle Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (Penguin)

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned — from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren — an enigmatic artist and single mother — who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town — and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: Perfume River by Robert Olen Butler
  • Book Review: The Slowworm’s Song by Andrew Miller
  • Book Review: Other Worlds Were Possible by Joss Sheldon
  • Book Review: His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet

#WWWWednesday – 24th January 2024

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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

An audiobook, a book for my personal Backlist Burrow reading challenge (that I hoped to complete by the end of 2023 but didn’t) and a NetGalley ARC.

HowToBeBraveHow to be Brave by Louise Beech (audiobook, Orenda)

All the stories died that morning … until we found the one we’d always known.

When nine-year-old Rose is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, Natalie must use her imagination to keep her daughter alive. They begin dreaming about and seeing a man in a brown suit who feels hauntingly familiar, a man who has something for them.

Through the magic of storytelling, Natalie and Rose are transported to the Atlantic Ocean in 1943, to a lifeboat, where an ancestor survived for fifty days before being rescued.

All Day at the MoviesAll Day at the Movies by Fiona Kidman (Gallic Books)

When war widow Irene Sandle goes to work in New Zealand’s tobacco fields in 1952, she hopes to start a new, independent life for herself and her daughter – but the tragic repercussions of her decision will resonate long after Irene has gone.

Each of Irene’s children carries the events of their childhood throughout their lives, played out against a backdrop of great change – new opportunities emerge for women, but social problems continue to hold many back. Headstrong Belinda becomes a successful filmmaker, but struggles to deal with her own family drama as her younger siblings are haunted by the past.

SufferanceSufferance by Charles Palliser (eARC, Guernica Editions via NetGalley)

When his nation is invaded and occupied by a brutal enemy, a well-intentioned man persuades his wife that they should give temporary shelter to a young girl who is at school with their daughter. He has no idea that the girl belongs to a community against whom the invader intends to commit genocide.

Days stretch into weeks and then months while the enemy’s pitiless hatred of the girl’s community puts all of the family in danger. Nobody outside the family can be trusted with the dangerous secret and the threat from outside unlocks a darkness that threatens to derail them all. 

Recently finished

The Most Difficult Thing by Charlotte Philby (The Borough Press)

To Kill a King (Master of War #8) by David Gilman (Head of Zeus)

What Cathy Will Read Next

Where the Wind Calls HomeWhere the Winds Calls Home by Samar Yazbek, trans. by Leri Price (eARC, World Editions via NetGalley)

Ali, a nineteen-year-old soldier in the Syrian army, lies on the ground beneath a tree. He sees a body being lowered into a hole—is this his funeral? There was that sudden explosion, wasn’t there …

While trying to understand the extend of the damage, Ali works his way closer to the tree. His ultimate desire is to fly up to one of its branches, to safety.

Through rich vignettes of Ali’s memories, we uncover the hardships of his traditional Syrian Alawite village, but also the richness and beauty of its cultural and religious heritage.