#WWWWednesday – 3rd April 2024

WWWWednesdays

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!


Currently reading

Sword of the War GodSword of the War God by Tim Hodkinson (ARC, Head of Zeus) 

436 AD. The Burgundars are confident of destroying Rome’s legions, for the Empire is weak. Their forces are strong and they have beaten the Romans in battle before. But they are annihilated, their king killed, his people scattered. Their fabled treasure is lost. For Rome has new allies: the Huns, whose taste for bloodshed knows no bounds.

Many years later, the Huns, led by the fearsome Attila, have become the deadliest enemies of Rome. Attila seeks the Burgundars’ treasure, for it includes the legendary Sword of the War God, said to make the bearer unbeatable.

No alliance can defeat Attila by conventional means. With Rome desperate for help, a one-eyed old warlord from distant lands and his strange band of warriors may have the answers… but oaths will be broken and the plains of Europe will run with blood before the end.

Bonjour, SophieBonjour, Sophie by Elizabeth Buchan (eARC, Corvus via NetGalley)

It’s 1959 and eighteen-year-old Sophie is determined that now is the time for her real life to start. Her existence in the village of Poynsdean, Sussex, with her austere foster-father, the Reverend Osbert Knox, and his frustrated wife Alice, is stultifying. She finds brief excitement in an illicit love affair, but soon realizes that if she wants to live life on a bigger canvas she must take matters into her own hands.

She dreams of escape to Paris, the wartime home her mother fled before her birth. Getting there will take spirit and ingenuity, but also offers the chance to discover more about her family background, and perhaps find a place where she can finally belong.

When Sophie eventually arrives in the city of her dreams it’s both everything she imagined, and not at all what she expected.


Recently finished

A Better PlaceA Better Place by Stephen Daisley (Text Publishing) Longlisted for The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2024

The old people in the district would often say that Roy was not quite the same after he come back. There was a brother. A twin brother, Tony. Tony Mitchell, different boy but a good rugby player. Bit of a mental case, they said, but Roy would have none of it. He always stayed close to Tony when they were growing up. They both went off to fight, must have been 1940. Only the one come back, though.

Crete, they thought. We lost Tony over there. (Review to follow)


What Cathy Will Read Next

Girl Friends NewGirl Friends by Alex Dahl (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

THEY CAN BUILD YOU UP

Charlotte has it all: the successful career, the loving family. But, secretly, she is dangerously bored of her life. So when she meets free-spirited Bianka, it feels like fate – Bianka is exactly the person that Charlotte needs.

OR TEAR YOU DOWN

On a girls’ trip to Ibiza, home is forgotten as Charlotte dives head first into a life that is looser, wilder. She feels free, but there are devastating consequences: someone doesn’t return home.

As the aftermath of the holiday rips through her life back in London, Charlotte soon regrets ever breaking out of her carefully constructed routine – and begins to wonder whether meeting Bianka was really an accident at all…

My Top 5 March 2024 Reads

My Top Five March 2024 ReadsWelcome to my wrap-up of the books I read in March. Mindful of how many ARCs I have that publish in April, I powered through the books in March in an effort to get ahead. I read some great books again this month including one – finally – that deserved five stars.

Links from each title will take you to my full review or the book description on Goodreads. Check out the list of all the books I’ve read so far in 2024. If we’re not already friends on Goodreads, send me a friend request or follow my reviews.

My thanks to Head of Zeus, Granta, Bloomsbury and Orion for the review copies.


Diva by Daisy Goodwin (Head of Zeus) – The absorbing (fictional) story of the highs and lows, the triumphs and tragedies of Maria Callas’s life.

Clear by Carys Davies (Granta) – A tender love story, and a hymn to a lost way of life and the raw beauty of the natural world, set on a remote Scottish island in 1843.

Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein (Bloomsbury) – Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, a powerful story set in 1940s Trinidad about ‘violence, religion, family and class’.

The Book of Secrets by Anna Mazzola (Orion) – A compelling story set in 17th century Rome, and based on actual events, about a group of women accused of responsibility for the suspicious deaths of a number of men.

A Better Place by Stephen Daisley (Text Publishing) – Set in WW2 and focusing on two brothers from New Zealand, a visceral and moving exposition of the brutality of war. Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

What were the best books you read last month? Have you read any of my picks?