Category: My Week in Books

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I celebrated Valentine’s Day by featuring Katy Moran’s Regency romance series. 

Tuesday – I shared my review of dual time historical novel The Paris Network by Siobhan Curham as part of the blog tour.

Wednesday –  WWW Wednesday is my 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 shared my reviews of historical novel The Porcelain Doll by Kristen Loesch and the Crime Writers’ Association latest anthology of short stories, Music of the Night edited by Martin Edwards.

Friday – I published my review of historical crime mystery The Mirror Game by Guy Gardner as part of the blog tour.

Saturday – I shared my review of The Reading Party by Fenella Gentleman.

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

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New arrivals

The Dark Flood by Deon Meyer (ARC, Hodder & Stoughton)

One last chance. Almost fired for insubordination, detectives Benny Griessel and Vaughan Cupido find themselves demoted, exiled from the elite Hawks unit and dispatched to the leafy streets of Stellenbosch. Working a missing persons report on student Callie de Bruin is not the level of work they are used to, but it’s all they get. And soon, it takes a dangerous, deeply disturbing turn.

One last chance. Stellenbosch is beautiful, but its economy has been ruined by one man. Jasper Boonstra and his gigantic corporate fraud have crashed the local property market, just when estate agent Sandra Steenberg desperately needs a big sale. Bringing up twins and supporting her academic husband, she is facing disaster. Then she gets a call. From Jasper Boonstra, fraudster, sexual predator and owner of a superb property worth millions, even now.

For Sandra, the stakes are high and about to get way higher.

For Benny Griessel, clinging to sobriety and the relationship that saved his life, the truth about Callie can only lead to more trouble.

Ranger (Storm of War #1) by Timothy Ashby (Sharpe Books)

West Indies, 1796. Alexander Charteris – the mixed-race son of an aristocratic planter and a slave mother – is raised as a gentleman amidst the country houses and London drawing rooms of Georgian England. Tricked out of his inheritance by his cousin Pemberton – Chart is kidnapped and transported to the island of Grenada where he endures the hell of slavery on a sugar plantation.

When Pemberton arrives at the plantation, accompanied by Chart’s former lover, Lady Arabella, he orders Chart’s torture and execution.

A slave revolt ensues, before the order can be carried out. Chart initially joins the revolutionaries but is sentenced to death for refusing to take part in a massacre of British colonists. Aided by the beautiful daughter of the rebel general, Julian Fédon, Chart escapes.

He is recruited into a new British unit called the Loyal Black Rangers and promised freedom if he fights against the French. Chart confronts conflicting loyalties as he leads his men in vicious bush-fighting. He rises through the ranks and plays a pivotal role in the bloody battle that crushes the rebellion.

But the soldier must confront one more enemy, that of his treacherous cousin, before he can find peace.

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On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

• Book Review: Ghosts of Spring by Luis Carrasco
• Blog Tour/Book Review: Unhinged by Thomas Enger & Jørn Lier Horst
• Blog Tour/Book Review: The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin by Paul Vidich
• Blog Tour/Book Review: The One by Claire Frost 

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I published my review of The Dust Bowl Orphans by Suzette D. Harrison as part of the blog tour.

Tuesday – I shared my Five Favourite January 2022 Reads.

Wednesday –  WWW Wednesday is my 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 shared my review of The City of Tears by Kate Mosse as part of the blog tour.

Friday – I published my review of They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera. 

Saturday – I shared details of the books on the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2022 longlist. 

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

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New arrivals

The Fall by Rachael Blok (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

The wind is cold this high up. The man shouts out, but nobody hears. The cathedral roof has caught his fall, but it will not hold him for long. The night is dark. And it is such a long way down…

On Good Friday, the verger of St Albans cathedral was supposed to be preparing the Easter service. Instead he discovers a man lying dead, fallen from the famous fifty-foot-high spire. Did he jump, or was he pushed?

For DCI Maarten Jansen, it’s a simple case of suspected suicide. Until a stranger, Willow, who witnessed the jump, prompts a deeper investigation into a long-buried past, involving a mental hospital, a pregnant woman, and fifty years of silence. As Willow’s own family history entwines with the case, Jaansen starts to wonder how everything is connected.

The Fall is a haunting literary thriller about loss, trauma, silence, and how our past shapes who we are.

China Room by Sunjeev Sahota (Harvill Secker)  

Mehar, a young bride in rural 1929 Punjab, is trying to discover the identity of her new husband. She and her sisters-in-law, married to three brothers in a single ceremony, spend their days hard at work in the family’s ‘china room’, sequestered from contact with the men. When Mehar develops a theory as to which of them is hers, a passion is ignited that will put more than one life at risk.

Spiralling around Mehar’s story is that of a young man who in 1999 travels from England to the now-deserted farm, its ‘china room’ locked and barred. In enforced flight from the traumas of his adolescence – his experiences of addiction, racism, and estrangement from the culture of his birth – he spends a summer in painful contemplation and recovery, finally gathering the strength to return home.

Learwife by J. R. Thorp (Canongate)

“I am the queen of two crowns, banished fifteen years, the famed and gilded woman, bad-luck baleful girl, mother of three small animals, now gone. I am fifty-five years old. I am Lear’s wife. I am here.”

Word has come. Care-bent King Lear is dead, driven mad and betrayed. His three daughters too, broken in battle. But someone has survived: Lear’s queen. Exiled to a nunnery years ago, written out of history, her name forgotten. Now she can tell her story.

Though her grief and rage may threaten to crack the earth open, she knows she must seek answers. Why was she sent away in shame and disgrace? What has happened to Kent, her oldest friend and ally? And what will become of her now, in this place of women? To find peace she must reckon with her past and make a terrible choice – one upon which her destiny, and that of the entire abbey, rests.

Giving unforgettable voice to a woman whose absence has been a tantalising mystery, Learwife is a breathtaking novel of loss, renewal and how history bleeds into the present.

The One by Claire Frost (ARC, Simon & Schuster)

What happens when you lose the love of your life just three months after you meet him?

Lottie Brown has finally found The One. Leo is everything she’s ever wanted – he’s handsome, kind, funny and totally gets her. Three months into their relationship, Lottie is in love and happier than ever before. But then Leo tragically dies, and Lottie is left floundering.

As she struggles to stop her life falling apart, Lottie learns more about the man she thought she knew, and starts to question whether Leo really was as perfect as he seemed… 

Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu (eARC, Wildfire via NetGalley)

With every misfortune there is a blessing and within every blessing, the seeds of misfortune, and so it goes, until the end of time.

It is 1938 in China and, as a young wife, Meilin’s future is bright. But with the Japanese army approaching, Meilin and her four year old son, Renshu, are forced to flee their home. Relying on little but their wits and a beautifully illustrated hand scroll, filled with ancient fables that offer solace and wisdom, they must travel through a ravaged country, seeking refuge.

Years later, Renshu has settled in America as Henry Dao. Though his daughter is desperate to understand her heritage, he refuses to talk about his childhood. How can he keep his family safe in this new land when the weight of his history threatens to drag them down? Yet how can Lily learn who she is if she can never know her family’s story?

Spanning continents and generations, Peach Blossom Spring is a bold and moving look at the history of modern China, told through the story of one family. It’s about the power of our past, the hope for a better future, and the haunting question: What would it mean to finally be home?

The Woman with the Map by Jan Carey (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

February 1941. The world is at war and Joyce Cooper is doing her bit for the war effort. A proud member of the Civil Defence, it is her job to assist the people of Notting Hill when the bombs begin to fall. But as the Blitz takes hold of London, Joyce is called upon to plot the devastation that follows in its wake. Night after night she must stand before her map and mark the trail of loss and suffering inflicted upon the homes, families and businesses she knows so well.

February 1974. Decades later from her basement flat Joyce watches the world go by above her head. This is her haven; the home she has created for herself having had so much taken from her in the war. But now the council is tearing down her block of flats and she’s being forced to move. Could this chance to start over allow Joyce to let go of the past and step back into her life?

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On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

• Book Blitz: 10 Reasons To Love Katy Moran’s Regency Romances 
• Blog Tour/Book Review: The Paris Network by Siobhan Curham
• Blog Tour/Book Review: Music of the Night ed. by Martin Edwards
• Book Review: The Porcelain Doll by Kristen Loesch 
• Blog Tour/Book Review: The Mirror Game by Guy Gardner
• Book Review: The Reading Party by Fenella Gentleman