Category: Reviews

My Week in Books – 6th May 2023

whatcathyreadnext

MyWeekinBooksOn What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I shared my Five Favourite April 2023 Reads.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Random Titles From My Bookshelves.

Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading. 

Thursday – I published my review of historical novel, In the Shadows of Castles by G. K. Holloway.

Saturday – The first Saturday of the month means it’s time for the #6Degrees of Separation meme. 

New arrivals

Before the Swallows Come BackBefore the Swallows Come Back by Fiona Curnow (eARC)

Tommy struggles with people, with communicating, preferring solitude, drifting off with nature. He is protected by his Tinker family who keep to the old ways. A life of quiet seclusion under canvas is all he knows.

Charlotte cares for her sickly father. She meets Tommy by the riverside and an unexpected friendship develops. Over the years it becomes something more, something crucial to both of them. But when tragedy strikes each family they are torn apart.

Charlotte is sent far away.

Tommy might have done something very bad.

North WoodsNorth Woods by Daniel Mason (eARC, John Murray via NetGalley)

When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and inhuman characters alike.

An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths a mass grave – only to discover that the ancient trees refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister conman, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: as each inhabitant confronts the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

Sister of MineSister of Mine by Laurie Petrou (eARC, Verve)

Two sisters. One fire. A secret that won’t burn out.

The Grayson sisters are trouble. Everyone in their small town knows it. But no-one can know of the secret that binds them together.

Hattie is the light. Penny is the darkness. Together, they have balance.

But one night the balance is toppled. A match is struck. A fire is started. A cruel husband is killed. The potential for a new life flickers in the fire’s embers, but resentment, guilt, and jealousy suffocate like smoke.

Their lives have been engulfed in flames – will they ever be able to put them out?

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry 
  • Book Review: The Letter Reader by Jan Casey
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Sepulchre Street by Martin Edwards
  • Book Review: Tiny Pieces of Enid by Tim Ewins

#6Degrees of Separation From Hydra to Hidden Figures

whatcathyreadnext6 Comments

It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation!

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees.

HydraThis month’s starting book is Hydra by Adriane Howell. It’s a book I’ve not heard of, let alone read but I’ve learned that it was shortlisted for the Stella Prize 2023, a literary award which celebrates Australian women’s writing. (The winner of the prize, announced on 27th April 2023, was a poetry collection, The Jaguar, by Sarah Holland-Batt.)

The British equivalent of the Stella Prize is probably the Women’s Prize for Fiction. One of the books on the shortlist for the 2023 prize is Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris. It’s set in Sarajevo in 1992 during the period when that city was under siege.

The Good Father by S. R. Wilsher is also set in the besieged city of Sarajevo and depicts the horrors endured by nine year old Effie and her twelve year old brother Ajan following the loss of their parents.

Another book which focuses on the experiences of people under siege (and has ‘good’ in its title) is The Good Doctor of Warsaw by Elisabeth Gifford. This time the setting is the Warsaw ghetto during the period of the Nazi occupation of Poland.

A city under Nazi occupation, or more accurately a city within a city under occupation, is the focus of My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor. The book is based on the true story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, a priest based in Vatican City, who risked his life to smuggle thousands of Jews and escaped Allied prisoners out of Italy under the noses of the Nazis.

The Hidden Village by Imogen Matthews is set in WW2 Holland and tells the story of Berkenhout, a purpose-built village located deep in the Veluwe woods which protected dozens of persecuted people from discovery by the Nazis.

My last link concerns a different way of being invisible. Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly reveals the previously untold story of the vital role played by African-American female mathematicians in NASA’s space program.  The film of the same name was released in 2016.

My chain has taken me from Sarajevo to outer space. Where did your chain take you?

#6Degrees of Separation May