On What Cathy Read Next last week
Blog posts
Monday – I published my review of Artefacts and Other Stories by Rebecca Burns.
Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Bookish Discoveries in 2019.
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…and have a good nose around to see what other bloggers are reading.
Thursday – I shared my review of Mrs P’s Book of Secrets by Lorna Gray.
Friday – I published my review of Magician and Fool by Susan Wands.
Saturday – I shared my reading list for this year’s Buchan of the Month reading project.
As always, thanks to everyone who has liked, commented on or shared my blog posts on social media this week.
New arrivals
Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts (paperback, giveaway prize courtesy of Quercus)
Maud Gage Baum, widow of the author of the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, met Judy Garland, the young actress playing the role of Dorothy on the set of The Wizard of Oz in 1939. At the time, Maud was seventy-eight and Judy was sixteen. In spite of their age difference, Maud immediately connected to Judy–especially when Maud heard her sing “Over the Rainbow,” a song whose yearning brought to mind the tough years in South Dakota when Maud and her husband struggled to make a living–until Frank Baum’s book became a national sensation.
This wonderfully evocative two-stranded story recreates Maud’s youth as the rebellious daughter of a leading suffragette, and the prairie years of Maud and Frank’s early days when they lived among the people–especially young Dorothy–who would inspire Frank’s masterpiece. Woven into this past story is one set in 1939, describing the high-pressured days on The Wizard of Oz film set where Judy is being badgered by the director, producer, and her ambitious stage mother to lose weight, bind her breasts, and laugh, cry, and act terrified on command. As Maud had promised to protect the original Dorothy back in Aberdeen, she now takes on the job of protecting young Judy.
Wild Spinning Girls by Carol Lovekin (e-book, courtesy of Honno Press)
Ida Llewellyn loses her job and her parents in the space of a few weeks and, thrown completely off course, she sets off to Wales to the house her father has left her.
But Heather, the young woman still in her teens whose home it was, keeps the house as a shrine to her late mother and is determined to scare Ida away.
The two girls battle with suspicion and fear before discovering that the secrets harboured by their thoughtless parents have grown rotten with time, and that any ghosts Ty’r Cwmwl harbours are of their own making.
Their broken hearts will only mend once they cast off the house and its history, and let go of the keepsakes that they treasure like childhood dreams.
Distorted Days by Louise Worthington (e-book, courtesy of Rachel’s Random Resources)
Heart-rending, humorous and above all authentic, Distorted Days is an exquisitely written account of the ways in which life can knock you off our feet – and how you can pick yourself up again.
If you’ve experienced the fickleness of fortune, this is a book that you’ll never forget.
On What Cathy Read Next this week
Currently reading
Planned posts
- Top Ten Tuesday: Most Recent Additions To My Bookshelf
- Waiting on Wednesday
- Book Review: Burning Cold by Lisa Lieberman
- Book Review: The Lady of the Ravens by Joanna Hickson
- Blog Tour/Book Review: A Messy Affair by Elizabeth Mundy
- Buchan of the Month: Introducing Sir Quixote of the Moors
John Buchan (1875 – 1940) was an author, poet, lawyer, publisher, journalist, war correspondent, Member of Parliament, University Chancellor, keen angler and family man. He was ennobled and, as Lord Tweedsmuir, became Governor-General of Canada. In this role, he signed Canada’s entry into the Second World War. Nowadays he is probably best known – maybe only known – as the author of 
