On What Cathy Read Next last week
Monday – As part of the blog tour, I published my review of The Teacher by Tim Sullivan along with a letter to help spell out a clue.
Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2024.
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 shared my sign-up post for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2024.
Friday – I published my review of crime novel, The Distant Dead by Lesley Thomson.
New arrivals
Someone ran amok on NetGalley…
The Household by Stacey Halls (eARC, Manilla Press via NetGalley)
London, 1847. In a quiet house in the countryside outside London, the finishing touches are being made to welcome a group of young women. The house and its location are top secret, its residents unknown to one another, but the girls have one thing in common: they are fallen. Offering refuge for prostitutes, petty thieves and the destitute, Urania Cottage is a second chance at life – but how badly do they want it?
Meanwhile, a few miles away in a Piccadilly mansion, millionairess Angela Burdett-Coutts, one of the benefactors of Urania Cottage, makes a discovery that leaves her cold. Her stalker of ten years has been released from prison, and she knows it’s only a matter of time before their nightmarish game resumes once more.
As the women’s worlds collide in ways they could never have expected, they will discover that freedom always comes at a price . . .
A Plague of Serpents by K. J. Maitland (eARC, Headline via NetGalley)
London, 1608. Three years after the Gunpowder Treason, the King’s enemies prepare to strike again.
Daniel Pursglove is tasked by royal command with one final mission: he must infiltrate the Serpents – a secret group of Catholics plotting to kill the King – or risk his own execution. But other conspirators are circling, men who would blackmail Daniel for their own dark ends.
In the Serpents’ den, nothing is quite as it seems. And when Daniel spies a familiar face among their number, the game takes a dangerous turn.
As plague returns to London, tensions reach breaking point. Can Daniel escape the web of treason in which he finds himself ensnared – or has his luck finally run out?
Sufferance by Charles Palliser (eARC, Guernica Editions via NetGalley)
When his nation is invaded and occupied by a brutal enemy, a well-intentioned man persuades his wife that they should give temporary shelter to a young girl who is at school with their daughter.
He has no idea that the girl belongs to a community against whom the invader intends to commit genocide.
Days stretch into weeks and then months while the enemy’s pitiless hatred of the girl’s community puts all of the family in danger. Nobody outside the family can be trusted with the dangerous secret and the threat from outside unlocks a darkness that threatens to derail them all.
James by Percival Everett (eARC, Mantle via NetGalley)
The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town.
Thus begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the Mississippi River, toward the elusive promise of free states and beyond. As James and Huck begin to navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise. With rumours of a brewing war, James must face the burden he the family he is desperate to protect and the constant lie he must live. And together, the unlikely pair must face the most dangerous odyssey of them all . . .
On What Cathy Read Next this week
Currently reading
Planned posts
- Book Review: Back Trouble by Clare Chambers
- Book Review: Perfume River by Robert Olen Butler
- Book Review: Munich Wolf by Rory Clements
- Book Review: The Slowworm’s Song by Andrew Miller
- Book Review: History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund
The What’s In A Name Challenge is being hosted again for 2024 by Andrea at Carolina Book Nook. Having succeeded in completing the challenge last year, I’m going to join in again. 
