My Week in Books

June 11, 2017 whatcathyreadnext2 Comments

New arrivals

The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson (ebook, 99p)

It is late summer in East Sussex, 1914. Amidst the season’s splendour, fiercely independent Beatrice Nash arrives in the coastal town of Rye to fill a teaching position at the local grammar school. There she is taken under the wing of formidable matriarch Agatha Kent, who, along with her charming nephews, tries her best to welcome Beatrice to a place that remains stubbornly resistant to the idea of female teachers. But just as Beatrice comes alive to the beauty of the Sussex landscape, and the colourful characters that populate Rye, the perfect summer is about to end. For the unimaginable is coming – and soon the limits of progress, and the old ways, will be tested as this small town goes to war.

Rise of Princes (Homeric Chronicles #2) by Janell Rhiannon (ebook, free)

The Iliad and the Odyssey and a canon of Greek mythology meet in this epic retelling of the Trojan War. After the heartbreaking sacrifice at Aulis, the western Greeks unite to plunder Troy and recapture Menelaus’ wife, Helen. For nine years Agamemnon and his horde lay siege to Trojan allies, but it is Achilles, the Golden Warrior, who brutally ravages the Troad lands becoming the Sacker of Cities. His fierce onslaught prompts the gods to intervene on behalf of the Trojans and their allies. Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love and Beauty and patroness of Troy, sends the Princess Briseis to calm the bloody fury of Achilles. Hektor, the Golden Prince, leads the Trojan army against the western invaders, keeping Troy safe behind the Great Wall. As Defender of the Citadel, he grants sanctuary to thousands of refugees seeking safety from the death and destruction sweeping the land. Behind the solidarity of the royal family, tensions over the continued presence of Helen of Sparta threaten to topple the empire. When the fate of Troy appears most grim, a ray of hope is offered by a new prophesy. Despite his private losses, Hektor vows to remain the strength his people need. Across the Aegean, the Greek kingdoms struggle with disturbing news from Troy. Queen Clytemnestra of Mycenae, reeling from Agamemnon’s ruthless betrayal, loses faith in the gods and plots her revenge. Queen Penelope of Ithaka, young and uncertain, prays to Athena for her husband’s swift return. And Tyndareus, the former king of Sparta, works to usurp Menelaus’ throne.

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (ebook, 99p)

The American Civil War rages while President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son lies gravely ill. In a matter of days, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy’s body. From this seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of realism, entering a thrilling, supernatural domain both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself trapped in a transitional realm – called, in Tibetan tradition, the bardo – and as ghosts mingle, squabble, gripe and commiserate, and stony tendrils creep towards the boy, a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.

Vienna Spies by Alex Gerlis (ebook, 99p)

‘One other thing, Edgar: you mentioned about our network in Vienna. I didn’t realise we still have one there?’

‘That’s the thing Fowler: we don’t. Not yet, at any rate.’

With the end of the Second World War in sight, the Allies begin to divide up the spoils and it proves to be a dangerous game. The British have become aware that, contrary to what’s been agreed, the Soviet Union is intent on controlling Austria once the war ends. And Major Edgar is given the job of establishing an espionage unit in Vienna. He sends in a married Swiss couple – Rolf Eder and Katharina Hoch – who, in fact, have only met each other a week before their journey. Their job is to track down Austria’s most respected politician – in hiding from the Nazis – and bring him over to the British cause. But the feared Soviet spy Viktor Krasotkin is already in the wartorn city, embarking on exactly the same mission.

The Boy Who Saw (Solomon Creed #2) by Simon Toyne (paperback, Goodreads giveaway prize)

Who is Solomon Creed? A dangerous psychiatric patient, who has escaped from a high-security facility in America, or an innocent amnesiac trying to establish his true identity? His search for the truth about himself takes Solomon to the beautiful southern French town of Cordes. But his arrival coincides with the brutal murder of an elderly French tailor, the words ‘Finishing what was begun’ daubed in blood on the walls. Instinctively, Solomon knows he must help the tailor’s granddaughter and great grandson escape, and together they go on the run. Their flight, though, will set in motion a terrible sequence of events, leading to the exposure of a far-reaching conspiracy with its origins in the Holocaust but with terrible consequences for modern-day Europe. And what will it mean for Solomon himself?

The Vanishing Futurist by Charlotte Hobson (ebook)

When twenty-two-year-old Gerty Freely travels to Russia to work as a governess in early 1914, she has no idea of the vast political upheavals ahead nor how completely her fate will be shaped by them. Yet as her intimacy with the charismatic inventor, Nikita Slavkin, deepens, she’s inspired by his belief in a future free of bourgeois clutter, alight with creativity and sleek as a machine. In 1917, revolution sweeps away the Moscow Gerty knew. The middle classes – and their governesses – are fleeing the country, but she stays, throwing herself into an experiment in communal living led by Slavkin. In the white-washed modernist rooms of the commune the members may be cold and hungry, but their overwhelming feeling is of exhilaration. They abolish private property and hand over everything, even their clothes, to the collective; they swear celibacy for the cause. Yet the chaos and violence of the outside world cannot be withstood for ever. Nikita Slavkin’s sudden disappearance inspires the Soviet cult of the Vanishing Futurist, the scientist who sacrificed himself for the Communist ideal. Gerty, alone and vulnerable, must now discover where that ideal will ultimately lead.

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Book Reviews

On Wednesday I published my review of More Than A Soldier by D. M. Annechino. Based on a true story, this recounts the exciting wartime experiences of Angelo DiMarco, a US Army Ranger. Thursday saw the publication of my review of The Former Chief Executive by Kate Vane, a dark intense psychological study. On Friday, I reviewed Secrets of Southern Girls by Haley Harrigan, a well-paced mystery about the search for the truth about a tragic death. Finally, on Saturday I reviewed A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker, one of the novels shortlisted for The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. I’m aiming to read all the shortlisted novels and make my own choice/prediction before the winner is announced on 17^th June.

Other posts

On Monday, I was delighted to feature a guest post from Helen Steadman, author of Widdershins, all about the real life 17^th century witch-finders that inspired her novel. On Tuesday, Mark Roberts, author of the crime mystery Day of the Dead, took part in a Q&A about the book and his approach to writing in general. The same day, I shared excerpts from Janell Rhiannon’s exciting retelling of the Trojan Wars, Rise of Princes. And on Saturday, I published my interview with Matthew Harffy about Killer of Kings, the latest instalment in his Bernicia Chronicles series.

Challenge updates

Goodreads 2017 Reading Challenge – 69 out of 78 books read (4 more than last week)
Classics Club – 2 out of 50 books reviewed (same as last week)
NetGalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2017 (Gold) – 36 ARCs reviewed out of 50 (2 more than last week)
From Page to Screen – 6 book/film comparisons completed (same as last week)
The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction Shortlist 2017 – 6 out of 7 read (1 more than last week)

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

Book Review: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Q&A: Weave A Murderous Web by Anne Rothman-Hicks & Ken Hicks
Blog Tour/Q&A: The Summer Letters by Elyse Douglas
Book Review: Golden Hill by Francis Spufford
Book Review: Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
Blog Tour/Review: Under A Tuscan Sky by Karen Aldous
Book Review: Final Girls by Riley Sager
Blog Tour/Extract: The Farm Girl’s Dream by Eileen Ramsay
Q&A: Pigeon-Blood Red by Ed Duncan

Reviews to be added to NetGalley

None, just at this moment! I need to finish a few more books so I can get to 50 reviews and claim my shiny badge!

My Week In Books

June 4, 2017June 4, 2017 whatcathyreadnext4 Comments

New arrivals

The Room by the Lake by Emma Dibdin (eARC, NetGalley)

When Caitlin moved from London to New York, she thought she had left her problems behind: her alcoholic father, her dead mother, the pressure to succeed. But now, down to her last dollar in a foreign city, she is desperately lonely. Then she meets Jake. Handsome, smart, slightly damaged Jake. He lives off-grid, in a lakeside commune whose members practise regular exercise and frequent group therapy. Before long, Caitlin has settled into her idyllic new home. It looks like she has found the fresh start she longed for. But, as the commune tightens its grip on her freedom and her sanity, Caitlin realizes too late that she might become lost forever…

Under A Tuscan Sky by Karen Aldous (eARC, NetGalley)

A summer she’ll never forget… When Olivia Montague’s grandmother passes away, she decides it’s finally time to make some changes in her own life. So she breaks up with her ‘going nowhere’ boyfriend and embarks on a journey to her Nonna’s home in Tuscany. Until now, Olivia has always believed that she’s incapable of love, after being abandoned by her parents as a baby. But with each day spent at the gorgeous villa nestled in the rolling Italian hills, she feels her heart begin to flutter… And when handsome antiques dealer Hugh St. James arrives on the scene, she realises things might be about to change forever!

A Kind of Light by H. R. F. Keating (ebook, 99p)

Two stories, two journeys into the darkness… Thomasina le Mesurier writes in her journal of finding a miraculous plant which has the potential to save thousands of lives with its medicinal properties. A plant which could have saved her beloved mentor and friend, Doctor Diver, who fell ill with the Typhoid Fever. She insists on venturing deep into the jungle to source the healing plant and take it back to England. Although told she is being foolhardy, Thomasina ventures off, following Doctor Diver’s notes… But is she chasing after a delusion? The forest is rumoured to hold unmentionable terrors and unfathomable enigmas, but regardless, Thomasina embarks on her journey into the heart of Africa, accompanied only by three native bearers. Can she survive the dangers of the dark? And what will her journey bring? In the present day a young couple, David Teigh and Theresa Olivia Mountjoy, stumble upon an article expounding the writings of Thomasina. They soon set off on their journey, following in Thomasina’s footsteps, to discover the remaining notebooks preserved in the depths of Africa, all the while recording a documentary film of their treacherous journey. Will the adventurers’ respective searches come to a satisfying, or a more macabre, end? One thing is certain, no traveller who undertakes this expedition can emerge unchanged… A homage to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, A Kind of Light will take you on a perilous journey through Africa’s forests.

Liberty Boy (The Liberty Series #1) by David Gaughran (ebook, free)

Dublin has been on a knife-edge since the failed rebellion in July, and Jimmy O’Flaherty suspects a newcomer to The Liberties – Kitty Doyle – is mixed up in it. She accuses him of spying for the English, and he thinks she’s a reckless troublemaker. All Jimmy wants is to earn enough coin to buy passage to America. But when the English turn his trading patch into a gallows, Jimmy finds himself drawn into the very conflict he’s spent his whole life avoiding.

Plague Land (Oswald de Lacy #1) by S. D. Sykes (ebook, 99p)

Oswald de Lacy was never meant to be the Lord of Somerhill Manor. Despatched to a monastery at the age of seven, sent back at seventeen when his father and two older brothers are killed by thePlague, Oswald has no experience of running an estate. He finds the years of pestilence and neglect have changed the old place dramatically, not to mention the attitude of the surviving peasants. Yet some things never change. Oswald’s mother remains the powerful matriarch of the family, and his sister Clemence simmers in the background, dangerous and unmarried. Before he can do anything, Oswald is confronted by the shocking death of a young woman, Alison Starvecrow. The ambitious village priest claims that Alison was killed by a band of demonic dog-headed men. Oswald is certain this is nonsense, but proving it – by finding the real murderer – is quite a different matter. Every step he takes seems to lead Oswald deeper into a dark maze of political intrigue, family secrets and violent strife. And then the body of another girl is found.

Six Stories by Matt Wesolowski (ebook, 99p)

The novel is constructed as a series of podcasts, in which an investigative journalist describes the circumstances around the death of a teenage boy in an outward-bound centre, interviewing witnesses, suspects and people close to the incident. Their six accounts form the six stories of the title, creating a “chilling and compelling, page-turning thriller that also delves deep into notions of truth, perception and loyalty”.

House of Names by Colm Toibin (ebook, NetGalley)

On the day of his daughter’s wedding, Agamemnon orders her sacrifice. His daughter is led to her death, and Agamemnon leads his army into battle, where he is rewarded with glorious victory. Three years later, he returns home and his murderous action has set the entire family – mother, brother, sister – on a path of intimate violence, as they enter a world of hushed commands and soundless journeys through the palace’s dungeons and bedchambers. As his wife seeks his death, his daughter, Electra, is the silent observer to the family’s game of innocence while his son, Orestes, is sent into bewildering, frightening exile where survival is far from certain. Out of their desolating loss, Electra and Orestes must find a way to right these wrongs of the past even if it means committing themselves to a terrible, barbarous act. House of Names is a story of intense longing and shocking betrayal. It is a work of great beauty, and daring, from one of our finest living writers.

Wake Me When I’m Gone by Odafe Atogun (eARC, NetGalley)

Everyone says that Ese is the most beautiful woman in the region, but a fool. A young widow, she lives in a village, where the crops grow tall and the people are ruled over by a Chief on a white horse. She married for love, but now her husband is dead, leaving her with nothing but a market stall and a young son to feed. When the Chief knocks on Ese’s door demanding that she marry again, as the laws of the land dictate she must, Ese is a fool once more. There is a high price for breaking the law, and an even greater cost for breaking the heart of a Chief. Ese will face the wrath of gods and men in the fight to preserve her heart, to keep her son and to right centuries of wrongs. She will change the lives of many on the road to freedom, and she will face the greatest pain a mother ever can.

The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde by Eve Chase (eARC, NetGalley)

From the present day… Applecote Manor captivates Jessie with it promise of hazy summers in the Cotswolds. She believes it’s the perfect escape for her troubled family. But the house has an unsettling history, and strange rumours surround the estate.

To the fifties… When teenage Margot and her three sisters arrive at Applecote during the heatwave of ’59, they find their aunt and uncle still reeling from the disappearance of their daughter Audrey five years before. The sisters are drawn into the mystery of Audrey’s vanishing – until the stifling summer takes a shocking, deadly turn. Will one unthinkable choice bind them together, or tear them apart?

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Book Reviews

On Tuesday I published my review of Fata Morgana by Steven R. Boyett & Ken Mitchroney, a highly entertaining mash up of historical fiction, sci-fi and time travel. Thursday saw my review of The Outcasts of Time by Ian Mortimer, coincidentally another combination of historical fiction and time travel! On Friday, I reviewed The Floating Theatre by Martha Conway set in the southern states of America in the 1840s.

Other posts

On Monday, I discussed What Makes A Good Author Q&A, including some tips on how to research and come up with good interview questions. On Wednesday I tried my best to put that good advice into practice in a Q&A with Michael Pronko, author of the Tokyo-set thriller, The Last Train, to coincide with its publication. Finally, on Friday I highlighted my favourite books that I read in May.

Challenge updates

Goodreads 2017 Reading Challenge – 65 out of 78 books read (3 more than last week)
Classics Club – 2 out of 50 books reviewed (same as last week)
NetGalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2017 (Gold) – 34 ARCs reviewed out of 50 (1 more than last week)
From Page to Screen – 6 book/film comparisons completed (same as last week)
The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction Shortlist 2017 – 5 out of 7 read (2 more than last week)