Category: Reviews

#WWWWednesday – 16th September 2020

whatcathyreadnext11 Comments

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

A book for a blog tour and a NetGalley ARC

Hermit by S.R. White (ARC, courtesy of Headline)

He disappeared for 15 years…she has 12 hours to find out why.

After the puzzling death of a shopkeeper in rural Australia, troubled detective Dana Russo has just 12 hours to interrogate the prime suspect – a silent, inscrutable man found at the scene of the crime, who simply vanished 15 years earlier.

Where has he been? And just how dangerous is he? Without conclusive evidence linking him to the killing, Dana must race against time to persuade him to speak. But over a series of increasingly intense interviews, Dana is forced to confront her own past if she wants him to reveal the shocking truth.

V2 Robert HarrisV2 by Robert Harris (eARC, courtesy of Cornerstone via NetGalley)

It’s November 1944–Willi Graf, a German rocket engineer, is launching Nazi Germany’s V2 rockets at London from Occupied Holland. Kay Connolly, once an actress, now a young English Intelligence officer, ships out for Belgium to locate the launch sites and neutralize the threat. But when rumors of a defector circulate through the German ranks, Graf becomes a suspect. Unknown to each other, Graf and Connolly find themselves on opposite sides of the hunt for the saboteur.

Their twin stories play out against the background of the German missile campaign, one of the most epic and modern but least explored episodes of the Second World War. Their destinies are on a collision course.

Recently finished

Links from the titles will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

The Artist and the Soldier by Angelle Petta 

The Girl From The Hermitage by Molly Gartland

City of Spies by Mara Timon 

LISBON, 1943. After escaping from Nazi-Occupied France, SOE agent Elisabeth de Mornay, codename Cecile, receives new orders: she must infiltrate high society in neutral Lisbon and find out who is leaking key information to the Germans about British troop movements. As Solange Verin, a French widow of independent means, she will be able to meet all the rich Europeans who have gathered in Lisbon to wait out the war. One of them is a traitor and she must find out who before more British servicemen die.

Complications arise when ‘Solange’ comes to the attention of German Abwehr officer, Major Eduard Graf. As they get to know each other, she struggles to keep her lies close to the truth.

But in a city that is filled with spies, how can she tell who is friend, or foe? (Review to follow)

Skelton’s Guide to Domestic Poisons by David Stafford 

Unassuming Yorkshireman, Arthur Skelton, is one of the most celebrated and recognizable barristers in the land. His success in the high-profile Dryden case – ‘the scandal of 1929’ – catapulted him to the front pages of the national newspapers. His services are now much in demand and, after careful consideration, he agrees to defend Mary Dutton. Dubbed ‘The Collingford Poisoner’ by the press, Mary is accused of poisoning her husband after years of abuse. Together with his trusted assistant, Skelton digs deeper and discovers that secrets and lies run deep in the Dutton family and all is not as it appears. (Review to follow)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

The Second Marriage by Gill Paul (eARC, courtesy of Avon and Random Things Tours)

JACKIE – When her first marriage ends in tragedy, Jackie Kennedy fears she’ll never love again. But all that changes when she encounters…

ARI – Successful and charming, Ari Onassis is a man who promises her the world. Yet soon after they marry, Jackie learns that his heart also belongs to another…

MARIA – A beautiful, famed singer, Maria Callas is in love with Jackie’s new husband – and she isn’t going to give up.

Little by little, Jackie and Maria’s lives begin to tangle in a dangerous web of secrets, scandal and lies. But with both women determined to make Ari theirs alone, the stakes are high. How far will they go for true love?

#BookReview The Girl From The Hermitage by Molly Gartland @EyeAndLightning

whatcathyreadnext1 Comment


Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Girl From The Hermitage by Molly Gartland. My thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Lightning Books for my digital review copy. Do check out the posts by my tour buddies for today, Nicole at BookmarkThat and on Instagram, Karen at karenandherbooks .

The Girl From The HermitageAbout the Book

Galina was born into a world of horrors. So why does she mourn its passing?

It is December 1941, and eight-year-old Galina and her friend Vera are caught in the siege of Leningrad, eating wallpaper soup and dead rats. Galina’s artist father Mikhail has been kept away from the front to help save the treasures of the Hermitage. Its cellars could provide a safe haven, as long as Mikhail can survive the perils of a commission from one of Stalin’s colonels.

Three decades on, Galina is a teacher at the Leningrad Art Institute. What ought to be a celebratory weekend at her forest dacha turns sour when she makes an unwelcome discovery. The painting she starts that day will hold a grim significance for the rest of her life, as the old Soviet Union makes way for the new Russia and her world changes out of all recognition.

Format: Paperback (288 pages)                 Publisher: Lightning Books
Publication date: 14th September 2020 Genre: Historical fiction

Find The Girl from the Hermitage on Goodreads

Purchase links*
Publisher (20% off with discount code HERMITAGETOUR. Free UK P&P) | Amazon UK | Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

The book’s opening chapters immediately immerse the reader in the horrors endured by the people of Leningrad during the siege of that city in WW2 – the desperate shortage of food, the freezing conditions, the unburied bodies lying in the streets under a blanket of snow, the life and death choices individuals were forced to make. As Galina later recalls, “For many, it was luck that determined who lived and who perished. But for her, it was the Hermitage that saved her.”

The book charts the life changes Galina’s experiences – from daughter, to mother, to grandmother – and the many events that challenge her – betrayal, the loss of friends and family. In parallel, the reader witnesses the political changes that take place – the end of World War 2, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the formation of modern day Russia with its increasing commercialization. Looking back, Galina reflects, “How is it possible that so much can change in twenty short years? […] The collapse of the Soviet Union. One by one, she lost them.”

Despite everything Galina endures, she remains loyal to her homeland. As she explains, “It’s the motherland. I suppose it is like a family. No matter what arguments and problems we encounter, we still love each other. Even though, at times, we do and say terrible, hurtful things.” Let down by others more times than she deserves, Galina often has to call upon the resilience she learned at an early age. I admired her magnanimity and ability to forgive others, and the strength of character that enables her to remake her life many times over.

I loved the way in which the act of painting is described in the book. For Galina’s father, Mikhail, not only is the portrait commission a means of ensuring his and his daughter’s survival, the act of painting it is also a mental distraction. “As he paints, he forgets about everything he cannot control. He loses himself, the Hermitage, war and hunger in the viscous paint. He creates a rhythm: palette, canvas, palette, canvas. The brushes keep time, dancing between the two.”  The portrait is also a dreadful reminder of the divisions in society that see some go hungry while others have plenty.

Later in the book, Mikhail’s artistic motivation is cleverly echoed in the feelings Galina experiences as she paints a portrait of a young girl by a lake on a day that will trigger both happy and sad memories in years to come. “Her brush dances, partnered with the symphony of squawking geese. The languid ebb and flow of their movements puts her in a trance as she focuses her attention on the emerging portrait.”

In the Afterword, Molly reveals the fascinating story – and the portrait – that inspired The Girl from the Hermitage. For those without access to the book, you can read about it on Molly’s website.

The Girl From The Hermitage is an enthralling and emotional life story, a celebration of the artistic impulse, and a revealing account of a nation during a period of upheaval and change.

In three words: Dramatic, emotional, intense

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Molly Gartland authorAbout the Author

Originally from Michigan, Molly Gartland worked in Moscow from 1994 to 2000 and has been fascinated by Russian culture ever since. She has an MA in Creative Writing from St Mary’s University, Twickenham and lives in London. The manuscript for her debut novel The Girl from the Hermitage was shortlisted for the Impress Prize and longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Competition, the Bath Novel Award and Grindstone Novel Award.

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