My Week in Books – 1st August 2021

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of With Face Aflame by A. E. Walnofer as part of the blog tour organised by Zoë at Zooloo’s Blog Tours.

Tuesday This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books I’d Want With Me On A Desert Island

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.  I also published my review of One August Night by Victoria Hislop as part of the blog tour organised by Anne at Random Things Tours.

Thursday – I shared my publication day review of historical novel, Cecily by Annie Garthwaite.

Friday – I celebrated completing The Classics Club reading challenge. 

Saturday – I shared my Five Favourite July 2021 Reads.

Sunday – I was delighted to feature Why Are You Here? by Radhika Iyer, the first title to be released by new publisher Castles in the Air Press 

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


New arrivals

Wolf at the DoorWolf at the Door (A Bradecote and Catchpoll Investigation, #9) by Sarah Hawkswood (eARC, Allison & Busby via NetGalley) 

All Hallow’s Eve, 1144. The savaged body of Durand Wuduweard, the solitary and unpopular keeper of the King’s Forest of Feckenham, is discovered beside his hearth, his corpse rendered barely identifiable by sharp teeth.

Whispers of a wolf on the prowl grow louder and Sheriff William de Beauchamp’s men, Hugh Bradecote and Serjeant Catchpoll, are tasked with cutting through the clamour. They must uncover who killed Durand and why while beset by superstitious villagers, raids upon manors and further grim deaths. Out of the shadows of the forest, where will the wolf’s fangs strike next?

Three Words for GoodbyeThree Words for Goodbye by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb (eARC, William Morrow) 

Three cities, two sisters, one chance to correct the past . . .

New York, 1937: When estranged sisters Clara and Madeleine Sommers learn their grandmother is dying, they agree to fulfill her last wish: to travel across Europe—together. They are to deliver three letters, in which Violet will say goodbye to those she hasn’t seen since traveling to Europe forty years earlier; a journey inspired by famed reporter, Nellie Bly.

Clara, ever-dutiful, sees the trip as an inconvenient detour before her wedding to millionaire Charles Hancock, but it’s also a chance to embrace her love of art. Budding journalist Madeleine relishes the opportunity to develop her ambitions to report on the growing threat of Hitler’s Nazi party and Mussolini’s control in Italy.

Constantly at odds with each other as they explore the luxurious Queen Mary, the Orient Express, and the sights of Paris and  Venice,, Clara and Madeleine wonder if they can fulfil Violet’s wish, until a shocking truth about their family brings them closer together. But as they reach Vienna to deliver the final letter, old grudges threaten their reconciliation again. As political tensions rise, and Europe feels increasingly volatile, the pair are glad to head home on the Hindenburg, where fate will play its hand in the final stage of their journey.

In Every Mirror She's BlackIn Every Mirror She’s Black by Lola Akinmade Åkerström (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

Three black women are linked in unexpected ways to the same influential white man in Stockholm as they build their new lives in the most open society run by the most private people.

Successful marketing executive Kemi Adeyemi is lured from the U.S. to Sweden by Jonny von Lundin, CEO of the nation’s largest marketing firm, to help fix a PR fiasco involving a racially tone-deaf campaign. A killer at work but a failure in love, Kemi’s move is a last-ditch effort to reclaim her social life.

A chance meeting with Jonny in business class en route to the U.S. propels former model-turned-flight-attendant Brittany-Rae Johnson into a life of wealth, luxury, and privilege – a life she’s not sure she wants – as the object of his unhealthy obsession.

And refugee Muna Saheed, who lost her entire family, finds a job cleaning the toilets at Jonny’s office as she works to establish her residency in Sweden and, more importantly, seeks connection and a place she can call home.

Told through the perspectives of each of the three women, In Every Mirror She’s Black is a fast-paced, richly nuanced yet accessible contemporary novel that touches on important social issues of racism, classism, fetishization, and tokenism, and what it means to be a black woman navigating a white-dominated society.


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: This Lovely City by Louise Hare
  • Top Ten Tuesday
  • WWW Wednesday
  • Book Review: The Fair Botanists by Sara Sheridan 
  • Book Review: Three Little Truths by Eithne Shortall
  • #6Degrees of Separation

My Week in Books – 25th July 2021

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams.

Tuesday This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books I Read In One Sitting

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 published my review of Vanish in an Instant by Margaret Millar.

Friday – I shared my review of Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor.

Saturday – I picked out a few events that have caught my eye in the programme for Henley Literary Festival which takes place in October. 

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


New arrivals

The Beekeeper of Aleppo and Cartes PostalesCartes Postale from Greece by Victoria Hislop

Week after week, the postcards arrive, addressed to someone Ellie does not know, each signed with an initial: A.

These alluring cartes postales of Greece brighten her life and cast a spell on her. She decides she must see this country for herself.

On the morning Ellie leaves for Athens, a notebook arrives. Its pages tell the story of a man’s odyssey through Greece. Moving, surprising and sometimes dark, A‘s tale unfolds with the discovery not only of a culture, but also of a desire to live life to the full once more.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri

Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Afra, an artist. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo – until the unthinkable happens. When all they care for is destroyed by war, they are forced to escape. But what Afra has seen is so terrible she has gone blind, and so they must embark on a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece towards an uncertain future in Britain. On the way, Nuri is sustained by the knowledge that waiting for them is Mustafa, his cousin and business partner, who has started an apiary and is teaching fellow refugees in Yorkshire to keep bees.

As Nuri and Afra travel through a broken world, they must confront not only the pain of their own unspeakable loss, but dangers that would overwhelm the bravest of souls. Above all – and perhaps this is the hardest thing they face – they must journey to find each other again.

Planet of ClayPlanet of Clay by Samar Yazbek, translated by Leri Price (ARC, courtesy of World Editions)

Rima is a young girl in war-torn Damascus. Her feet seem to work independently, she says. Is this an affluction? Or is she just an inquisitive, adventurous young child? Her exhausted mother keeps her tied with a rope around her wrist to stop her wandering off.

As a young girl, Rima also loses the ability to speak, although she can recite sutras of Qur’an. And she can use her voice to scream – which, tragically, happens more as the story progresses.

Hidden in the library of the school where her mother works as a cleaner, she finds refuge in a fantasy world full of coloured crayons, secret planets, and The Little Prince, reciting passages of the Qur’an like a mantra as everything and everyone around her is blown to bits.

Since Rima hardly ever speaks, people think she’s crazy, but she is no fool – the madness is in the battered city around her. One day while taking a bus through Damascus, a soldier opens fire and her mother is killed. Rima, wounded, is taken to a military hospital before her brother leads her to the besieged area of Ghouta – where, between bombings, she writes her story.

In Planet of Clay, Samar Yazbek offers a surreal depiction of the horrors taking place in Syria, in vivid and poetic language and with a sharp eye for detail and beauty.


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Blog Tour/Book Review: With Face Aflame by A. E. Walnofer
  • Top Ten Tuesday
  • WWW Wednesday
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: One August Night by Victoria Hislop