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A Beautiful Way to Die by Eleni Kyriacou (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

PLAY THEIR GAME
Hollywood, 1953. Young actress Ginny Watkins is turning heads. Even the legendary – and married – actor Max Whitman can’t resist the allure of the hottest new starlet. He promises Ginny the world, in return for the right favour.

DO WHAT THEY SAY
London, 1954. Stella Hope, once the most famous actress in Hollywood, has been ousted to Ealing Studios after her divorce from the powerful Max. Just as she accepts her fate, she receives a letter, blackmailing her for a mistake she made many years ago.

OR THEY’LL BURY YOU
Two women on either side of stardom find themselves in the orbit of the same beguiling man. And one night, in the shadows of a glamorous Oscars afterparty, their lives are changed forever…

Eden’s Shore by Oisín Fagan (eARC, John Murray via NetGalley)

In the late 18th century, Angel Kelly sets sail from Liverpool aboard the Atlas, with the intention of setting up a Utopian commune in Brazil. Before he arrives, there is a mutiny on the ship, and he and the crew are left stranded upon the coast of an unnamed Spanish colony in Latin America.

Angel is rescued by a local Amerindian child named Esa, and brought to her settlement where all the crew are cared for, but later the crew conspire with a local colonist to displace their Amerindian hosts so as to make way for a mine.

Eight years later, Esa is looking for revenge, using the revolutionary fervour of the times to stage an uprising against the Spanish colonists, but she ends up finding herself trapped in a deadly game of espionage and proxy war between the European empires.

Returning from Brazil with his wife and daughter, Oisín is looking to rebuild a life in Ireland and reconnect with his mother, Brigid, who has early onset Alzheimer’s. As her condition deteriorates, she starts to speak Irish, the language of her youth, and reflects on her childhood dreams and aspirations.

Mother and son embark on a journey of personal discovery and as past traumas are exposed, they begin to understand what has shaped them and who they really are.

The Language of Remembering asks how we connect to the people we love and how we move on from the past to find meaning in the present.

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!

Time of the Child by Niall Williams (Bloomsbury via NetGalley)

Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in the little town of Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from his community. A visit from the doctor is always a sign of bad things to come.

His youngest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed her chance at real love – and passed up an offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.

But in the advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter’s lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Vintage)

Six astronauts rotate in their spacecraft above the earth. They are there to collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.

Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction. The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part – or protective – of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?

Recently finished

Blue Postcards by Douglas Bruton (Fairlight)

How To Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin (Quercus)

What Cathy Will Read Next

The Sea Road West by Sally Rena (Endeavour Press)

The road from the Scottish mainland to Kintillo lies across a ridge of craggy and forbidding hills, a natural barrier isolating the peninsular from the rest of the world and making Kintillo a place of both refuge and solitude.

But trouble begins when Father Macabe dies, and Father James, a new, young man arrives. Handsome and full of ideals, Father James is totally unprepared for the spell-binding beauty of the lonely country, and for the irrelevance of his philanthropic fervour to the lives of its inhabitants. For company, there is only a retired doctor, a charming and alcoholic wreck, and the inhabitants of the Hall – the Laird and his two pretty daughters.

Meriel Finlay is one of these daughters – a captivating 19 year old yearning for love and adventure. As mutual desire slowly ripens, can Father James continue to keep focus on his profession when it denies him his basic instincts?

Passions hidden below the surface, maturing in loneliness, erupt in a violent upsurge of love, hatred and jealousy which sweep through Kintillo like a storm…

Category: Currently Reading

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#WWWWednesday – 27th November 2024