Category: Read

My Week in Books – 24th January 2021

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MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of crime thriller, Forgotten Lives by Ray Britain. 

Tuesday –  This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books I Meant To Read in 2020. I also shared an extract from One Chance: Surviving London’s Gangs by Terroll Lewis.

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…as well as have a good nose around to see what other bloggers are reading. I also published my review of Artist, Lover, Soldier, Muse by Arthur D. Hittner.

Thursday – I shared my publication day review of A Prince and a Spy (Tom Wilde #5) by Rory Clements.

Friday – As part of the blog tour, I shared my review of historical crime mystery, To The Dark (Simon Westow #3) by Chris Nickson.

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

New arrivals

A Lifetime of MenA Lifetime of Men by Ciahnan Darrell (e-book, courtesy of the author and Random Things Tours)

Tolan has always let her mother have one secret – how she got that scar on her face – playing along with her mother’s game of inventing outlandish tales to explain the wound away. But when she finds a manuscript on her mother’s computer that promises to reveal the true story, Tolan only hesitates for a moment before curiosity compels her to read on.

She’s hoping for answers, but instead, she finds more mysteries tucked away in her mother’s past. Her mother appears to be associated with Bo, a feisty photojournalist who flies to Cuba in pursuit of a story and becomes embedded with Castro’s rebels, but Tolan can’t quite work out their connection. She’s more clear about the relationship between her mother and Michael, a man twelve years her senior. They bond over their shared outcast status, and their friendship quickly becomes intimate, but the relationship antagonizes the self-appointed moral watchdogs in their small town, who start to convert their threats into action. Tolan is pretty sure that Michael is her father. Her mother told her he died years ago, but the book suggests their story had a different ending.

Almost overnight, everything Tolan thought she knew about herself and her family has changed. She wants answers, but to find them, she risks destroying her closest relationships.

Saving MissySaving Missy by Beth Morrey (eARC, courtesy of Harper Collins via NetGalley and Random Things Tours) 

Seventy-nine is too late for a second chance. Isn’t it?

Missy Carmichael is prickly, stubborn – and terribly lonely. Until a chance encounter in the park with two very different women opens the door to something new. Something wonderful.

Missy was used to her small, solitary existence, listening to her footsteps echoing around the empty house, the tick-tick-tick of the watching clock. After all, she had made her life her way.

Now another life is beckoning to Missy – if she’s brave enough…

You Let Me GoYou Let Me Go by Eliza Graham (eARC, courtesy of Lake Union Press via NetGalley and Rachel’s Random Resources) 

A secret family history of love, anguish and betrayal.

After her beloved grandmother Rozenn’s death, Morane is heartbroken to learn that her sister is the sole inheritor of the family home in Cornwall – while she herself has been written out of the will. With both her business and her relationship with her sister on the rocks, Morane becomes consumed by one question: what made Rozenn turn her back on her?

When she finds an old letter linking her grandmother to Brittany under German occupation, Morane escapes on the trail of her family’s past. In the coastal village where Rozenn lived in 1941, she uncovers a web of shameful secrets that haunted Rozenn to the end of her days. Was it to protect those she loved that a desperate Rozenn made a heartbreaking decision and changed the course of all their lives forever?

Morane goes in search of the truth but the truth can be painful. Can she make her peace with the past and repair her relationship with her sister?

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: The Dead of Winter by S. J. Parris
  • Top Ten Tuesday 
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Mint by S. R. Wilsher
  • Book Review: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

#BookReview To The Dark by Chris Nickson @SevernHouse @RandomTTours

whatcathyreadnext1 Comment

To The Dark BT Poster

Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for To The Dark by Chris Nickson, the third book in his Simon Westow historical mystery series. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to participate in the tour and to Severn House for my digital review copy via NetGalley.

To The DarkAbout the Book

Winter is about to take a chilling twist…

Leeds, 1822. The city is in the grip of winter, but the chill deepens for thief-taker Simon Westow and his young assistant, Jane, when the body of Laurence Poole, a petty local thief, emerges from the melting snow by the river at Flay Cross Mill.

A coded notebook found in Laurence’s room mentions Charlie Harker, the most notorious fence in Leeds who’s now running for his life, and the mysterious words: To the dark. What was Laurence hiding that caused his death? Simon’s hunt for the truth pits him against some dangerous, powerful enemies who’ll happily kill him in a heartbeat – if they can.

Format: ebook (224 pages)                       Publisher: Severn House
Publication date: 31st December 2020 Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime, Mystery

Find To The Dark on Goodreads

Purchase links
Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

To The Dark is the third book in Chris Nickson’s historical crime series featuring thief-taker Simon Westow. Having not read the previous two books in the series, I can testify to the fact To The Dark works perfectly well as a standalone. Indeed for the benefit of new readers like myself the author includes nuggets of information about the back stories of the main characters – Simon himself, his wife Rosie and his assistant Jane.

Jane is a particularly intriguing character. Clearly she has a troubled past but possesses an uncanny ability to pass unnoticed in a crowd, mingling with those on the boundaries of society in order to gather information helpful to Simon’s investigations. And she’s more than capable of looking after herself in risky situations.

Simon is an intuitive reader of others’ actions and intentions – useful in a fight, when seeking information or in a game of cards. It’s just as well because his work as a thief-taker (recovering stolen goods for a fee) brings him into contact with some pretty shady types. Now a family man, he has more to protect than before.

Set in early 19th century Leeds, readers familiar with that city are likely to recognize many of the locations featured in the book. It’s a city that is changing though as it becomes more industrialized with many of its inhabitants taking up employment in the new “manufactories” that fill the air with smog and smoke. I enjoyed the way the author conjured up the sights and sounds of the city such as during this evening stroll down Briggate.

“The night was alive with people. Groups moved from beer shop to dram shop, singing and laughing. The whores stood their pitches at the entrances to courts, joking and teasing for business. Lights glowed behind shutters and reflected in puddles on the pavement. Someone played a fiddle, a rousing jig that carried in the winter air.”

From the beginning, Simon senses there’s more than meets the eye about his engagement to help find the murderer of Laurence Poole, especially as that should be the responsibility of the city’s Constable. “He knew he was caught up in something political, a twisted, grubby little spectacle.” His suspicions are proved correct when the hunter becomes the hunted. Soon there are scores to be settled and justice to be served.

To The Dark is a well-crafted historical mystery with plenty of twists and turns. I liked the fact that Simon’s role is not that of traditional detective or police officer. It’s certainly a series I shall be looking out for more of in the future.

In three words: Suspenseful, assured, atmospheric

Try something similar: None So Blind by Alis Hawkins

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Chris Nickson Author PicAbout the Author

Chris Nickson has published 28 novels, all historical crime, most of them set in Leeds, whose people and history are his passion. The Richard Nottingham series began things, taking place in the 1730s, followed by the Tom Harper novels, which begin in 1890 and have now moved to the 20th century. Between them, Lottie Armstrong, Urban Raven and Dan Markham cover Leeds from the 1920s to the 1950s.

The three books featuring thief-taker Simon Westow explore a changing Leeds, growing rapidly in the 1820s as industry – the factories and mills and belching chimneys – comes to dominate the town. The Hocus Girl, the second in the series, received starred reviews from Kirkus, which called it a “tour de force,” and Publishers Weekly, which declared “historical mysteries don’t get much better than this.’

Chris grew up in Leeds, but lived in the US for many years, making his living as a music journalist. He still reviews occasional releases, but his focus these days is fiction.

Connect with Chris
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