Category: My Week in Books

New arrivals

This Green and Pleasant Land by Ayisha Malik (hardcover, courtesy of Readers First)

Accountant Bilal Hasham and his journalist wife, Mariam, plod along contentedly in the sleepy, chocolate box village they’ve lived in for eight years.

Then Bilal is summoned to his dying mother’s bedside in Birmingham. Sakeena Hasham is not long for this world but refuses to leave it until she ensures that her son remembers who he is: a Muslim, however much he tries to ignore it. She has a final request. Instead of whispering her prayers in her dying moments, she instructs Bilal to go home to his village, Babbels End, and build a mosque.

Mariam is horrified. The villagers are outraged. How can a grieving Bilal choose between honouring his beloved mum’s last wish and preserving everything held dear in the village he calls home?

But it turns out home means different things to different people.

Battle lines are drawn and this traditional little community becomes the colourful canvas on which the most current and fundamental questions of identity, friendship, family and togetherness are played out.

What makes us who we are, who do we want to be, and how far would we go to fight for it?

The Traitor of Treasure Island by John Drake (eARC, courtesy of Endeavour Quill)

Buried for over 300 years and now brought triumphantly to light by Dr Livesay, this is, at last, the true story of what happened on the fateful Treasure Island…

The truth about Captain Flint and his fabled death. The truth about Long John Silver and his coveted wife.  And the truth about Jim Hawkins, that double-dealing turncoat of the first order: the traitor of Treasure Island.

---

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I shared my review of A Devil Comes to Town by Paolo Maurensig.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books I Wouldn’t Part With and I found plenty on my bookshelves vying for a place on the list.

Wednesday – WWW Wednesday is the opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next…and have a good nose around to see what other bloggers are reading.

Thursday – I published my review of historical romance Stealing Roses by Heather Cooper.

Friday – I joined the blog tour for Tell Me Where You Are by Moira Forsyth, sharing my review of this intimate family drama.

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

---

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

• Book Review: Where the Hornbeam Grows by Beth Lynch
• Book Review: Gold Digger: The Remarkable Baby Doe Tabor by Rebecca Rosenberg
• Waiting on Wednesday
• Book Review: The Lost Shrine by Nicola Ford
• Blog Tour/Book Review: Aurelia (Roma Nova #4) by Alison Morton
• Book Review/Reading The Walter Scott Prize Shortlist: The Long Take by Robin Robertson

New arrivals

A Modern Family by Helga Flatland (ebook, courtesy of Orenda Books and Random Things Tours)

When Liv, Ellen, and Håkon, along with their partners and children, arrive in Rome to celebrate their father’s 70th birthday, a quiet earthquake occurs: their parents have decided to divorce. Shocked and disbelieving, the siblings try to come to terms with their parents’ decision as it echoes through the homes they have built for themselves, and forces them to reconstruct the shared narrative of their childhood and family history.

A bittersweet novel of regret, relationships, and rare psychological insights, A Modern Family encourages us to look at the people closest to us a little more carefully, and ultimately reveals that it’s never too late for change.

The House by the Loch by Kirsty Wark (eARC, courtesy of John Murray Press and NetGalley)

Scotland, 1950s. Walter MacMillan is bewitched by the clever, glamorous Jean Thompson and can’t believe his luck when she agrees to marry him. Neither can she, for Walter represents a strong and steady and loving man who can perhaps quiet the demons inside her. Yet their home on remote Loch Doon soon becomes a prison for Jean and neither a young family, nor Walter’s care, can seem to save her.

Many years later Walter is with his adult children and adored grandchildren on the shores of Loch Doon where the family has been holidaying for two generations. But the shadows of the past stretch over them and will turn all their lives upside down on one fateful weekend.

A Long Way From Home by Peter Carey (audiobook)

Irene Bobs loves fast driving. Her husband is the best car salesman in rural southeastern Australia. Together with Willie, their lanky navigator, they embark upon the Redex Trial, a brutal race around the continent, over roads no car will ever quite survive.

A Long Way from Home is Peter Carey’s late style masterpiece – a thrilling high-speed story that starts in one way then takes you to another place altogether. Set in the 1950s in the embers of the British Empire, painting a picture of Queen and subject, black, white and those in between, this brilliantly vivid novel illustrates how the possession of an ancient culture spirals through history – and the love made and hurt caused along the way.

The Serpent’s Mark by S.W. Perry (review copy courtesy of Corvus and Readers First)

Treason sleeps for no man…

London, 1591. Nicholas Shelby, physician and reluctant spy, returns to his old haunts on London’s lawless Bankside. But, when the queen’s spymaster Robert Cecil asks him to investigate the dubious practices of a mysterious doctor from Switzerland, Nicholas is soon embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens not just the life of an innocent young patient, but the overthrow of Queen Elizabeth herself.

With fellow healer and mistress of the Jackdaw tavern, Bianca Merton, again at his side, Nicholas is drawn into a dangerous world of zealots, charlatans and fanatics. As their own lives become increasingly at risk, they find themselves confronting the greatest treason of all: the spectre of a bloody war between the faiths…

---

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Page to Screen and I revisited my reviews of some book to film adaptations.

Wednesday – WWW Wednesday is the opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next…and have a good nose around to see what other bloggers are reading.

Thursday – I published my review of my Buchan of the Month for May, The Three Hostages.

Saturday – I shared my list of books for this year’s 20 Books of Summer Reading Challenge.

Sunday – I hosted a stop on the blog tour for Cultivating a Fuji by Miriam Drori, sharing my review.

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

---

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

 

 

Planned posts

• Book Review: Where the Hornbeam Grows by Beth Lynch
• Book Review: A Devil Comes To Town by Paolo Maurensig
• Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Refuse to Let Anyone Touch
• Waiting on Wednesday
• Book Review: Stealing Roses by Heather Cooper
• Blog Tour/Book Review: Tell Me Where You Are by Moira Forsyth
• Book Review/Reading The Walter Scott Prize Shortlist: The Long Take by Robin Robertson