Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:
- What are you currently reading?
- What did you recently finish reading?
- What do you think you’ll read next?
Why not join in too? Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!
What I’m Currently Reading
Goodbye Chinatown by Kit Fan (World Editions via NetGalley)
Amber Fan, a young Oxford-educated chef, opens the first Chinese fusion joint in London’s Chinatown following the failure of her father’s traditional restaurant. When her parents decide to return to Hong Kong, taking with them their young son Bobby as well as the haunting secret surrounding his birth, Amber is left alone in London. That is, until a woman called Celeste hires out the restaurant, coughing up three grand for a dinner for one. Who is this extravagant stranger, and how did she get so wealthy?
Set in the aftermath of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule, Goodbye Chinatown shows a family torn between two countries. Offering a behind-the-scenes of this iconic hub of London’s hospitality economy, and using food to reflect on identity, Goodbye Chinatown paints a portrait of an enterprising émigré who, faced with divided loyalties, invents her own language for home through the culinary arts.
Once the Deed Is Done by Rachel Seiffert (Virago) Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2026
To be truly alive means having to make choices.To be truly alive is also, quite simply, to love.
Northern Germany, 1945. Dead of night and dead of winter, a boy hears soldiers and sees strangers – forced labourers – fleeing across the heathland by his small town: shawls and skirts in the snowfall. The end days are close, war brings risk and chance, and Benno is witness to something he barely understands.
Peace brings more soldiers – but English this time – and Red Cross staff officers. Ruth, on her first posting from London, is given charge of a refugee camp on the heathland, crowded with former forced labourers. As ever more keep arriving, she hears whispers, rumours of dark secrets about that snowy night.
The townspeople close ranks, shutting their mouths and minds to the winter’s events, but the town children are curious about the refugees on their doorstep, and Benno can’t carry his secret alone.
What I’ve Just Read
Where the Shadows End by Louisa Bello (epoque press)
Flashlight by Susan Choi (Vintage)
A moment is all it takes to shatter a family. The echoes last a lifetime…
One evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father, Serk, take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town. Hours later, Louisa wakes on the beach, soaked to the skin. Her father is missing: presumably drowned.
This sudden event shatters their small family. As Louisa and her American mother return to the US, Serk’s disappearance reverberates across time and space, and the mystery of what really happened that night slowly unravels. (Review to follow)
Relative Failures: The Lives of Willie Wilde, Mabel Beardsley and Howard Sturgis by Matthew Sturgis (Apollo)
History remembers the greats – but what about those who lived alongside them?
In the cultural ferment of late nineteenth-century London, three fascinating but often overlooked figures navigated the world in the shadow of their celebrated brothers. Willie Wilde, the hapless yet charming older sibling of Oscar, never quite matched his brother’s literary genius. Mabel Beardsley, the striking and ambitious sister of Aubrey, played a crucial role in his artistic ascent before forging her own path on the stage. And Howard Sturgis, a minor novelist with a sharp wit, watched as his brother Julian achieved the success he himself never quite grasped.
Moving through bohemian clubland, West End theatres, literary salons, and the pages of The Yellow Book, these siblings were more than just footnotes to history. Their lives – filled with ambition, scandal, devotion, and missteps – offer a fresh perspective on the glittering world of the 1890s.
Drawing on family history, sharp storytelling, and original research, Matthew Sturgis reveals the vibrant, overlooked figures who shaped their era. For lovers of literary and cultural history, it is an invitation to explore the road less travelled. (Review to follow)
What I’ll Be Reading Next
Bane of Bernicia (The Bernicia Chronicles #11) by Matthew Harffy (Head of Zeus via NetGalley)
Returning from a dangerous mission to Rome, warlord Beobrand looks forward to peace at home, but bloodshed remains his constant companion.
While bringing criminals to justice Beobrand believes he has discovered a secret alliance between two of Bernicia’s enemies: the Picts and the Mercians. He hastens to warn his king, but finds Oswiu distracted, preparing to marry his eldest son to the daughter of former adversary Penda of Mercia, who remains as slippery as ever.
Dismayed, Beobrand finds himself blamed for breaking the truce with the Mercians, and must fight once more for his life. Worse, Penda insists on taking Oswiu’s young son as a hostage.
Beobrand is surprised when Queen Eanflæd concocts a plot to rescue her son and orders him to take part. It will take all their guile to achieve their goal… and keep their heads, when half the kingdoms of Albion want Bernicia destroyed.
What Cathy Read Next... 