New arrivals
The Serpent Sword (The Bernicia Chronicles #1) by Matthew Harffy (e-book, NetGalley)
BRITAIN 633 A.D. Certain that his brother’s death is murder, young farmhand Beobrand embarks on a quest for revenge in war-torn Northumbria. When he witnesses barbaric acts at the hands of warriors he considers his friends, Beobrand questions his chosen path and vows to bring the men to justice.
Relentless in pursuit of his enemies, Beobrand faces challenges that change him irrevocably. Just as a great sword is forged by beating together rods of iron, so his adversities transform him from a farm boy to a man who stands strong in the clamour and gore of the shieldwall.
As he closes in on his kin’s slayer and the bodies begin to pile up, can Beobrand mete out the vengeance he craves without sacrificing his own honour … or even his soul?
Ponti by Sharlene Teo (paperback)
2003, Singapore. Friendless and fatherless, sixteen-year-old Szu lives in the shadow of her mother Amisa, once a beautiful actress and now a hack medium performing séances with her sister in a rusty house. When Szu meets the privileged, acid-tongued Circe, an unlikely encounter develops into an intense friendship and offers Szu a means of escape from her mother’s alarming solitariness.
Seventeen years later, Circe is struggling through a divorce in fraught and ever-changing Singapore when a project comes up at work: a remake of the cult seventies horror film series ‘Ponti’, the very project that defined Amisa’s short-lived film career. Suddenly Circe is knocked off balance: by memories of the two women she once knew, by guilt, and by a past that threatens her conscience.
Told from the perspectives of all three women, Ponti is about friendship and memory, about the things we do when we’re on the cusp of adulthood that haunt us years later.
On What Cathy Read Next last week
Blog posts
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. I also joined the blog tour for De Bohun’s Destiny (The Meonbridge Chronicles #3) by Carolyn Hughes, sharing my review.
Thursday – Another blog tour and another review, this time of Storm of Steel (The Bernicia Chronicles #6) by Matthew Harffy.
Friday – I published my introduction to this month’s Buchan of the Month, The Three Hostages.
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
- Event Review: Henley Literary Festival Pop-Up Event with Antony Beevor
- Book Review: Where the Hornbeam Grows by Beth Lynch
- Top Ten Tuesday: Page to Screen Freebie
- Waiting on Wednesday
- Blog Tour/Book Review: Cultivating a Fuji by Miriam Drori
What Cathy Read Next... 