#WWWWednesday – 31st July 2024

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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

Berlin DuetBerlin Duet by S. W. Perry (Corvus via NetGalley)

In 1938, English spy Harry Taverner and Jewish photographer Anna Cantrell spend the night dancing at Berlin’s most elegant hotel. Anna is married to another man, the Nazi shadow is rising over Europe and neither expects to ever meet again.

But once peace is declared, they reunite in the ruins of Berlin, where Anna is searching for her missing children. With the blockade tightening and the Soviets set on conquest, Harry and Anna walk a treacherous line between love and duty, integrity and survival, loyalty and betrayal. And as the Cold War dawns, they are bound together by a secret that will only be revealed decades later, when Berlin finds itself on the cusp of another transformation…

Book cover of Cabaret Macabre by Tom MeadCabaret Macabre by Tom Mead (Head of Zeus via NetGalley) 

Hampshire, 1938. Victor Silvius is confined in a private sanatorium after attacking prominent judge Sir Giles Drury. When Sir Giles starts receiving sinister letters, his wife suspects Silvius. Meanwhile, Silvius’ sister Caroline is convinced her brother is about to be murdered… by none other than his old nemesis Sir Giles.

Caroline seeks the advice of Scotland Yard’s Inspector Flint, while the Drurys, eager to avoid a scandal, turn to Joseph Spector. Spector, renowned magician turned sleuth, has an uncanny knack for solving complicated crimes – but this case will test his powers of deduction to their limits.

At a snowbound English country house, a body is found is impossible circumstances. Spector and Flint’s investigations collide as they find themselves trapped by the snowstorm where anyone could be the next victim – or the killer…

Finding DorothyFinding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts (Quercus) #20BooksOfSummer24

Hollywood, 1938: As soon as she learns that MGM is adapting her late husband’s masterpiece, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, for the screen, Maud Gage Baum sets about trying to visit the set. Nineteen years after Frank’s passing, Maud is the only person who can help the producers stay true to the spirit of the book – because she’s the only one left who knows its secrets…

But the moment she hears Judy Garland rehearsing the first notes of ‘Over the Rainbow’, Maud recognizes the yearning that defined her own life story, from her rebellious youth as a suffragette’s daughter to her coming of age as one of the first women in the Ivy League, from her blossoming romance with Frank to the hardscrabble prairie years that inspired his famous work.

With the young actress under pressure from the studio as well as her ambitious stage mother, Maud resolves to protect her – the way she tried so hard to protect the real Dorothy.

Recently finished

West Heart Kill by Dann McDorman (Raven Books)

Normal Rules Don’t Apply by Kate Atkinson (Penguin)

In this first full collection since Not the End of the World, we meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep; a secretary who watches over the life she has just left; a man whose luck changes when a horse speaks to him.

With clockwork intricacy, inventiveness and sharp social observation, Kate Atkinson conjures a feast for the imagination, a constantly changing multiverse in which nothing is quite as it seems . . . (Review to follow)

The Trap (Alias Emma #3) by Ava Glass (Penguin) 

How far would you go to catch a killer?

This is the question UK agent Emma Makepeace must ask herself when she is sent to Edinburgh for the upcoming global G7 Summit.

The Russians are in town and Emma and her team know a high-profile assassination is being planned. But who is their target?

There is only one way to find out. Emma must set a trap using herself as bait.

As the most powerful leaders in the world arrive and the city becomes gridlocked, Emma knows the clock is ticking. (Review to follow for blog tour)

What Cathy Will Read Next

Heart, Be At PeaceHeart, Be At Peace by Donal Ryan (Transworld via NetGalley) #20BooksOfSummer24

‘I said it before. Madness comes circling around. Ten-year cycles, as true as the sun will rise…’

Some things can send a heart spinning; others will crack it in two.

In a small town in rural Ireland, the local people have weathered the storms of economic collapse and are looking towards the future. The jobs are back, the dramas of the past seemingly lulled, and although the town bears the marks of its history, new stories are unfolding.

But a fresh menace is creeping around the lakeshore and the lanes of the town, and the peace of the community is about to be shattered in an unimaginable way. Young people are being drawn towards the promise of fast money whilst the generation above them tries to push back the tide of an enemy no one can touch…

Book Review – The King’s Mother by Annie Garthwaite

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About the Book

Book cover of The King's Mother by Annie Garthwaite

1461. Through blood and battle Edward has gained England’s throne – king by right and conquest – eighteen years old and unstoppable. Cecily has piloted his rise to power and stands at his shoulder now, first to claim the title King’s Mother.

But to win a throne is not to keep it and war is come again. As brother betrays brother, and trusted cousins turn treacherous, other mothers rise up to fight for other sons. Cecily must focus her will to defeat every challenge. Wherever they come from. Whatever the cost.

For there can be only one King, and only one King’s Mother.

Format: Hardcover (400 pages) Publisher: Viking
Publication date: 11th July 2024 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Although the book is pitched as a battle between four women – Cecily Neville, Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beaufort and Marguerite of Anjou – to see their sons become of King of England and therefore be in a position to claim for themselves the title of King’s Mother, the book is really Cecily Part 2 as we see events entirely from her point of view.

As in the earlier book, she’s a schemer and a behind-the-scenes fixer whose favourite game is chess and is not averse to creating her own rules in order to win. She frequently finds herself having the task of cleaning up her sons’ messes. For example, suppressing knowledge of her eldest surviving son Edward’s secret ‘marriage’ to a young noblewomen that might, if it was discovered, threaten the legitimacy of future offspring and, in the process, the succession.

When it comes to Cecily’s second son, George, Duke of Clarence, lets just say that if he’d have written his autobiography it probably would have been entitled ‘Spare’ so visceral is his anger at being continually passed over for the wealth and status he believes he deserves. It leads him to make some disastrous decisions having been manipulated by others for their own ends that see him eventually put to death for treason. An habitual drunkard, the manner of his death – possibly at his own request – is said to have been drowning in a butt of Malmsey, although the author gives us a slightly different angle on this.

Cecily’s youngest son, the man who will become Richard III, gets a flattering portrayal. He’s a skilled soldier, able administrator, loving husband and doting father who would surely never dream of doing away with two young princes.

For the first half of the book, although exerting what influence she can, Cecily is pretty much an observer of events. I’ll be honest, I found myself yearning for a little less historical detail, a bit more pace and something that would make me more invested in all the women’s stories. I did get that in the latter part of the book as Cecily jockeys for position with Elizabeth and Margaret Beaufort who, it turns out, is a pretty good chess player herself. Marguerite of Anjou, although having a key role in events, remains rather in the shadows throughout.

Even if I couldn’t be quite as enthusiastic as other readers, The King’s Mother completes the fascinating story of the life of a woman who was at the heart of events during a turbulent period of England’s history.

I received a digital review copy courtesy of Viking via NetGalley. The King’s Mother is book 4 of my 20 Books of Summer 2024.

In three words: Detailed, fascinating, assured
Try something similar: The Queen’s Rival by Anne O’Brien

About the Author

Author Annie Garthwaite

Annie Garthwaite turned to fiction after a 30-year international business career, fulfilling her lifelong ambition to write an account of Cecily Neville, matriarch of the House of York during the Wars of the Roses and mother of Edward IV and Richard III. Her obsession with Cecily and her family began in school and never left her. Setting off in the world of work, she promised herself that, at age 55, she would give up the day job and write. She did just that, completing her novel while studying for a creative writing MA at the University of Warwick. Cecily, her debut novel, even before it’s publication was named a ‘top pick’ by The Times and Sunday Times. (Photo: Author website)

Connect with Annie
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