books – Page 170 – What Cathy Read Next…

On the blog last week

Monday – I published my review of Woman in Blue by Douglas Bruton.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books Set in Another Time.

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 Q&A with Amanda K. Jaros, author of In My Boots: A Memoir of Five Million Steps Along the Appalachian Trail.

Friday – I published an extract from The First Avocado by Greg Schindler.

Saturday – The first Saturday of the month means it’s time for the #6Degrees of Separation meme.

New on my shelves

Front cover of Days of Light by Megan Hunter

Days of Light by Megan Hunter (Picador via NetGalley)

She marvels at the way a single day can unravel everything, like ribbon pulled from a present.

Easter Sunday, 1938. Ivy is nineteen and ready for her life to finally begin. At Cressingdon, her sprawling, bohemian family and their friends gather for lunch and to await the arrival of a longed-for guest. Britain is on the cusp of war, but in the idyllic Sussex countryside anything feels possible.

It is a single, enchanted afternoon that ends in tragedy and will change Ivy’s life forever.

Chronicling six pivotal days across six decades, Days of Light moves through the Second World War and into the twentieth century on a radiant journey through a life lived in pursuit of love and in search of an answer.

Front cover of Defender of the Wall by Chris Thorndycroft

Defender of the Wall (Dragon of the North #1) by Chris Thorndycroft (eARC, courtesy of the author)

Britain, 390 A.D. As a barbarian prince fostered by a Roman family below Hadrian’s Wall, Cunedag’s loyalties have always been conflicted. His own people despise the Romans with a passion, yet he has grown to manhood among them and is now a cavalry officer stationed on the Wall.

But Rome’s grip on Britain is slipping and the north, sensing weakness, explodes in all-out rebellion. As the Picts sweep down to harry the frontier, the province marshals its forces to fight back. And Cunedag is presented with a difficult choice; continue to defend Rome or rule his people as a free king.

A Roman military novel packed with action and adventure, Defender of the Wall is the first part of a thrilling historical fiction trilogy which tells the story of the legendary King Cunedag; a dark age warlord who went on to build the Kingdom of Gwynedd from the ashes of post-Roman Britain.

Front cover of One Good Thing by Georgia Hunter

One Good Thing by Georgia Hunter (Allison & Busby via NetGalley)

Italy, 1941. Lili Passigli is studying at the University of Ferrara when Mussolini’s Racial Laws deem her of ‘inferior’ Jewish descent. As Hitler’s strength grows, Lili’s world begins to shrink around her, with the papers awash in Fascist propaganda and the city walls desecrated with antisemitic slurs.

When Germany invades northern Italy, however, Lili and her best friend Esti find themselves alone in Nazi-occupied territory. With the help of the resistance, they flee with Esti’s two-year-old son Theo in tow, traveling south toward the Allies and freedom. On this journey through war-torn Italy, they will face untold challenges and devastating decisions.

Front cover of Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon

Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon (Fig Tree)

Ancient Sicily. Enter GELON: visionary, dreamer, theatre lover. Enter LAMPO: feckless, jobless, in need of a distraction.

Imprisoned in the quarries of Syracuse, thousands of defeated Athenians hang on by the thinnest of threads. They’re fading in the baking heat, but not everything is lost: they can still recite lines from Greek tragedy when tempted by Lampo and Gelon with goatskins of wine and scraps of food. And so an idea is born. Because, after all, you can hate the invaders but still love their poetry.

It’s audacious. It might even be dangerous. But like all the best things in life – love, friendship, art itself – it will reveal the very worst, and the very best, of what humans are capable of. What could possibly go wrong?

Front cover of A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh

A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh (Tinder Press)

Ellen Lark is on the verge of marriage when she receives a visit from Alexander Graham Bell.

Once she believed she was important to Mr Bell. As one of his deaf students, she was among the first to learn of his dream to transmit a human voice along a wire: the telephone. Now Mr Bell’s idea is a reality, and he is beset by problems – and he expects Ellen to use her voice on his behalf.

But Ellen has a story of her own: of a man she loved, a language she discovered, and a community Bell betrayed. It is a story no one around her wants to hear – but there may never be a more important time for her to tell it.

Munichs by David Peace (Faber & Faber)

February 6, 1958, British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on take-off at Munich Airport. On board were the young Manchester United team, ‘the Busby Babes’, and the journalists who followed them. Twenty-one of the passengers died instantly, four were left fighting for their lives while six more were critically injured.

Munichs is the story of the crash and its aftermath, of those who survived and those who did not, of how Britain and football changed, and how it did not; a novel of tragedy, but also of hope.

What I’m currently reading

Look out for…

My Five Favourite February 2025 Reads
Extract: Defender of the Wall by Chris Thorndycroft
Interview with Ken Steele, author of The Promise of Unbroken Straw
Book Review: The Paris Dancer by Nicola Rayner
Interview with Jordan Gray, author of In the Joining of Souls
Book Review: Agricola: Warrior by Simon Turney

It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation.

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own #6Degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post. You can also check out links to posts on X using the hashtag #6Degrees.

Front cover of Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

This month’s starting book is Prophet Song by Paul Lynch which won the Booker Prize in 2023. It’s a book I haven’t read but is on my wishlist. Links from each title in the chain will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

My first link is rather literal, but I hope not blasphemous, involving the name of a prophet from the Bible – Gideon. Gideon’s Day by J. J. Marric (the pseudonym of crime writer John Creasey) chronicles a day in the life of Detective Superintendent George Gideon of Scotland Yard during which he deals with various cases including alleged bribery, a robbery and a murder.

Gideon’s Day was made into a film starring Jack Hawkins who also took the leading role in the film adaptation of the novel The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Montsarrat. It’s set on board a small warship, HMS Compass Rose, tasked with escorting convoys across the Atlantic Ocean in World War Two.

Another book which features life aboard a ship during WW2 is Splinter on the Tide by Philip Parotti. Naval reservist Ash Miller is given command of a 110-foot wooden ‘submarine chaser’ tasked with protecting merchant ships from attack by German U-boats along the US Atlantic coast.

Another small boat features in The Last Lifeboat by Hazel Gaynor, based on a true story. Its 1940 and Alice King is escorting a group of children to Canada when a Nazi U-boat torpedoes their ship, the S.S. Carlisle, leaving a single lifeboat adrift in the storm-tossed Atlantic.

In How to Build A Boat by Elaine Feeny, 13-year-old Jamie is persuaded that building a boat is more practical than the perpetual motion machine he wanted to construct in an effort to connect with his mother who died when he was born.

Boatbuilding would be a useful skill for Huck and escaped slave, Jim, as they travel down the Mississippi River on a raft in James by Percival Everett, the author’s re-imagining of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2024 taking us full circle to the starting book.

My chain has taken me from dystopian Ireland to the Mississippi River. Where did your chain take you?