My Week in Books – 4th July 2021

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of The Penguin Book of Spanish Short Stories edited by Margaret Jull Costa.

Tuesday This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Most Anticipated Releases of the Second Half of 2021.

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 shared an extract from The Lady in the Veil by Allie Cresswell and published my review of The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi as part of the blog tour.

Thursday – I shared my Five Favourite June 2021 Reads

Friday – I published my review of This Shining Life by Harriet Kline as part of the blog tour. 

Saturday – I took part in this month’s #6Degrees of Separation meme creating a chain of books starting from Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynn Truss.

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


New arrivals

Snow CountrySnow Country by Sebastian Faulks (eARC, courtesy of Hutchinson via NetGalley)

1914: Young Anton Heideck has arrived in Vienna, eager to make his name as a journalist. While working part-time as a private tutor, he encounters Delphine, a woman who mixes startling candour with deep reserve. Entranced by the light of first love, Anton feels himself blessed. Until his country declares war on hers.

1927: For Lena, life with a drunken mother in a small town has been impoverished and cold. She is convinced she can amount to nothing until a young lawyer, Rudolf Plischke, spirits her away to Vienna. But the capital proves unforgiving. Lena leaves her metropolitan dream behind to take a menial job at the snow-bound sanatorium, the Schloss Seeblick.

1933: Still struggling to come terms with the loss of so many friends on the Eastern Front, Anton, now an established writer, is commissioned by a magazine to visit the mysterious Schloss Seeblick. In this place of healing, on the banks of a silvery lake, where the depths of human suffering and the chances of redemption are explored, two people will see each other as if for the first time.

How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her HouseHow the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones

In Baxter Beach, Barbados, moneyed ex-pats clash with the locals who often end up serving them: braiding their hair, minding their children, and selling them drugs.

Lala lives on the beach with her husband, Adan, a petty criminal with endless charisma whose thwarted burglary of one of the Baxter Beach mansions sets off a chain of events with terrible consequences.

A gunshot no one was meant to witness. A new mother whose baby is found lifeless on the beach. A woman torn between two worlds and incapacitated by grief. And two men driven by desperation and greed who attempt a crime that will risk their freedom – and their lives. 


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: Business as Usual by Jane Oliver & Ann Stafford
  • Top Ten Tuesday
  • WWW Wednesday
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Those I Have Lost by Sharon Maas
  • Book Review: Songbirds by Christy Lefteri
  • Audiobook Review: A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende

My Week in Books – 27th June 2021

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of The Readers’ Room by Antoine Laurain.

Tuesday This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Bookish Wishes to celebrate the birthday of Top Ten Tuesday host, Jana.

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 shared my publication day review of Yours Cheerfully by AJ Pearce and my review of One Last Time by Helga Flatland as part of the blog tour.

Friday – I shared an update on my progress with the What’s In A Name? 2021 Reading Challenge.

Saturday – I published my review of The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett.

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


New arrivals

Oh William!Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout (eARC, courtesy of Viking via NetGalley) 

Lucy Barton is a successful writer living in New York, navigating the second half of her life as a recent widow and parent to two adult daughters. A surprise encounter leads her to reconnect with William, her first husband – and longtime, on-again-off-again friend and confidante. Recalling their college years, the birth of their daughters, the painful dissolution of their marriage, and the lives they built with other people, Strout weaves a portrait, stunning in its subtlety, of a tender, complex, decades-long partnership.

Oh William! captures the joy and sorrow of watching children grow up and start families of their own; of discovering family secrets, late in life, that alter everything we think we know about those closest to us; and the way people live and love, against all odds. At the heart of this story is the unforgettable, indomitable voice of Lucy Barton, who once again offers a profound, lasting reflection on the mystery of existence. ‘This is the way of life,’ Lucy says. ‘The many things we do not know until it is too late.’


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: The Penguin Book of Spanish Short Stories 
  • Top Ten Tuesday
  • WWW Wednesday
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi
  • Blog Tour/Extract: The Lady in the Veil by Allie Cresswell
  • Blog Tour/ Book Review: This Shining Life by Harriet Kline
  • #6Degrees of Separation