What Cathy Read Next…

This meme was created by Lia at Lost in a Story as a way to tackle the gargantuan To-Read shelves a lot of us have on Goodreads.

The rules are simple:

1. Go to your Goodreads To-Read shelf.
2. Order on ascending date added.
3. Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books
4. Read the synopses of the books
5. Decide: keep it or should it go?
6. Repeat until the entire list has been filtered

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I now have a “mere” 503 books on my To-Read shelf so let’s see if we can get it below 500 with the latest instalment of this exercise. And, yes, I know another way to achieve it would be to read some of them! By the way, I cannot be held responsible for you adding some of these books to your own TBR piles or wishlists should you like the sound of them.

The Angolan Clan (African Diamonds Trilogy #1) by Christopher Lowery (added 3rd May 2017)

1974/5: After the Revolution of the Carnations, Portugal is transformed into a communist state. Capitalists are ruthlessly persecuted and the liberated Portuguese colony of Angola is thrust into one of the bloodiest civil wars in history. The fabled Angolan diamond mines are closed down, but not before a group of refugees escape with a hoard of the precious gems. Their lives promise wealth and success, but a legacy of revenge and greed will eventually find them all, with fatal consequences.

2008: A millionaire businessman drowns in the swimming pool of his mansion in Marbella; a wealthy Frenchman is killed while skiing in the Swiss Alps; and a Portuguese playboy and a prostitute are found murdered together in a seedy New York apartment. The series of seemingly unconnected deaths sets two women Jenny Bishop, a young English widow, and Angolan born Leticia da Costa on a terrifying journey into the past to revisit the Portuguese revolution and the Angolan civil war. Together they begin to unlock a 30 year old mystery that promises to change their lives forever if they survive to reveal the truth.

Verdict: Dump – The setting of Angola is intriguing as it’s a country whose history I don’t know a lot about. However, it’s over 600 pages long and this would have to be one helluva thriller to keep my interest for that long. 

The Other Mrs Walker by Mary Paulson-Ellis (added 6th May 2017)

Somehow she’d always known that she would end like this. In a small square room, in a small square flat. In a small square box, perhaps. Cardboard, with a sticker on the outside. And a name . . .

An old lady dies alone and unheeded in a cold Edinburgh flat on a snowy Christmas night. A faded emerald dress hangs in her wardrobe; a spilt glass of whisky pools on the floor.

A few days later a middle-aged woman arrives back in the city she thought she’d left behind, her future uncertain, her past in tatters.

She soon finds herself a job at the Office for Lost People, tracking down the families of those who have died neglected and alone.

But what Margaret Penny cannot yet know, is just how entangled her own life will become in the death of one lonely stranger . . .

Verdict: Keep – This has had some great reviews from bloggers whose opinion I rate and I still think it’s a book I might enjoy. 

The Illegal Gardener by Sara Alexi (added 8th May 2017)

Driven by a need for some control in her life, Juliet sells up on impulse and buys a run down farmhouse in a tiny Greek village, leaving her English life behind. Her boys have grown and she has finally divorced her bullying husband. This is her time now.

Whilst making her new home habitable, Juliet discovers she needs a sturdy helping hand with the unruly and neglected garden. Unwilling to share her newfound independence with anyone, but unable to do all the work by herself, she reluctantly enlists casual labour.

Aaman has travelled to Greece from Pakistan illegally. Desperate to find a way out of poverty, his challenge is to find work and raise money for the harvester his village urgently need to survive.

What he imagined would be a heroic journey in reality is fraught with danger and corruption. Aaman finds himself in Greece, and with each passing day loses a little more of himself as he survives his new life as an immigrant worker; illegal, displaced, unwanted and with no value. Hungry and stranded, how will he ever make it back home to Pakistan?

In what begins as an uncomfortable exchange, Juliet hires Aaman to be her gardener, but resents the intrusion even though she needs the help. Aaman needs the work and money but resents the humiliation.

In spite of themselves, as the summer progresses, they get to know one another and discover they have something in common. Pieces of their lives they have kept hidden even from themselves are exposed, with each helping the other to face their painful past.

Will Juliet and Amaan finally let each other in? And what will be the outcome of this improbable conjoining of two lost souls?

Verdict: Dump – I can see what attracted me to this book: the Greek setting and the idea of the restoration of a neglected garden.  However, some reviewers have found it slow and I think it may have too much of a romance element for me.

We Were The Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates (added 9th May 2017)

The Mulvaneys are seemingly blessed by everything that makes life sweet. They live together in the picture-perfect High Point Farm, just outside the community of Mt Ephraim, New York, where they are respected and liked by everybody.

Yet something happens on Valentine’s Day 1976. An incident involving Marianne Mulvaney, the pretty sixteen-year-old daughter, is hushed up in the town and never discussed within the family. The impact of this event reverberates throughout the lives of the characters.

As told by Judd, years later, in an attempt to make sense of his own past reveals the unspoken truths of that night that rends the fabric of the family life with tragic consequences.

Verdict: Keep – I’ve never read anything by Joyce Carol Oates but she’s one of those authors you kind of think you should have. So I might as well give this one a go. 

The Plague Charmer by Karen Maitland (added 13th May 2017)

1361. An unlucky thirteen years after the Black Death, plague returns to England. When the sickness spreads from city to village, who stands to lose the most? And who will seize this moment for their own dark ends?

The dwarf who talks in riddles?
The mother who fears for her children?
The wild woman from the sea?
Or two lost boys, far away from home?

Pestilence is in the air. But something much darker lurks in the depths.

Verdict: Keep – I’ve read quite a few of the author’s books and enjoyed them all. Plus this one is on my list for the 20 Books of Summer 2022 reading challenge. 

Perfect Remains (DI Callanach #1) by Helen Fields (added 13th May 2017) 

On a remote Highland mountain, the body of Elaine Buxton is burning. All that will be left to identify the respected lawyer are her teeth and a fragment of clothing. In the concealed back room of a house in Edinburgh, the real Elaine Buxton screams into the darkness…

Detective Inspector Luc Callanach has barely set foot in his new office when Elaine’s missing persons case is escalated to a murder investigation. Having left behind a promising career at Interpol, he’s eager to prove himself to his new team. But Edinburgh, he discovers, is a long way from Lyon, and Elaine’s killer has covered his tracks with meticulous care.

It’s not long before another successful woman is abducted from her doorstep, and Callanach finds himself in a race against the clock. Or so he believes … The real fate of the women will prove more twisted than he could have ever imagined.

Verdict: Dump – This has lots of positive reviews but some of those describe it as ‘gritty’, ‘chilling’ and even ‘brutal’.  That sounds a bit too dark for me.

A Sea of Straw by Julia Sutton (added 21st May 2017)

Will a man walk two thousand kilometres for a woman? In 1967, Zé will. Salazar’s Portugal has become a prison for him.

1966: When Jody, young mother and designer from the north of England, arrives on the Lisbon coast, she brings the lure of ‘Swinging London’ to Portuguese painter Zé’s existing dreams of freedom. A nascent love is interrupted when, back in England, husband Michael forces her to choose between their 2-year-old daughter Anna and Zé. And Zé, at home in Lisbon and grounded by the state’s secret police, can only wait.

For both Jody and Zé, love is revolution. And personal and political threads weave their story, a period piece set amid the then socially conservative North of England, the light and rugged landscapes of modern Portugal, and the darkness of the dying years of Europe’s longest-running dictatorship.

Verdict: Keep – If it hadn’t been for all the glowing reviews I think I might have been tempted to discard this one but it’s a relatively short novel and the setting and time period are interesting. 

Block 46 by Johana Gustawsson  (added 21st May 2017)

In Falkenberg, Sweden, the mutilated body of talented young jewelry designer Linnea Blix is found in a snow-swept marina. In Hampstead Heath, London, the body of a young boy is discovered with similar wounds to Linnea’s. Buchenwald Concentration Camp, 1944. In the midst of the hell of the Holocaust, Erich Hebner will do anything to see himself as a human again.

Are the two murders the work of a serial killer, and how are they connected to shocking events at Buchenwald?

Emily Roy, a profiler on loan to Scotland Yard from the Canadian Royal Mounted Police, joins up with Linnea’s friend, French true-crime writer Alexis Castells, to investigate the puzzling case. They travel between Sweden and London, and then deep into the past, as a startling and terrifying connection comes to light.

Verdict: Dump – I’ve read a few novels that involve descriptions of what went on in Nazi concentration camps and I’m not sure I want to read another one just now however well-crafted a crime novel it is.

At First Light by Vanessa Lafaye (added 30th May 2017)

1993, Key West, Florida. When a Ku Klux Klan official is shot in broad daylight, all eyes turn to the person holding the gun: a 96-year-old Cuban woman who will say nothing except to admit her guilt.

1919. Mixed-race Alicia Cortez arrives in Key West exiled in disgrace from her family in Havana. At the same time, damaged war hero John Morales returns home on the last US troop ship from Europe. As love draws them closer in this time of racial segregation, people are watching, including Dwayne Campbell, poised on the brink of manhood and struggling to do what’s right. And then the Ku Klux Klan comes to town…

Verdict: Keep – I enjoyed the author’s novel, Miss Marley, which was published posthumously and completed by fellow author, Rebecca Mascull. This is clearly quite different but I’m swayed by the host of positive reviews.  

Liberty Boy by David M. Gaughran (added 31st May 2017)

Dublin has been on a knife-edge since the failed rebellion in July, and Jimmy O’Flaherty suspects a newcomer to The Liberties – Kitty Doyle – is mixed up in it. She accuses him of spying for the English, and he thinks she’s a reckless troublemaker.

All Jimmy wants is to earn enough coin to buy passage to America. But when the English turn his trading patch into a gallows, Jimmy finds himself drawn into the very conflict he’s spent his whole life avoiding.

Verdict: Dump – The reviews for this one are mixed, some readers feeling that for a historical fiction novel there was a bit too much history and insufficient attention to the fictional storyline. It’s not calling to me.  

The Result – 5 kept, 5 dumped. Would you have made different choices? If so, convince me to change my mind.