Tag: books

My Week in Books – 6th August 2023

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MyWeekinBooksOn What Cathy Read Next last week

Tuesday – I published my review of The Black Crescent by Jane Johnson, a historical novel set in 1950s Morocco, as part of the blog tour. This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Forgotten Backlist Titles. 

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 Five Favourite July 2023 Reads.

Friday – I published my review of The Well of Saint Nobody by Neil Jordan.

Saturday – I took part in the #6Degrees of Separation meme forging a chain from Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld to The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie. 

New arrivals

The TraitorThe Traitor by Ava Glass (eARC, Penguin via NetGalley)

LONDON. EARLY MORNING. A body is found in a padlocked suitcase. Investigator Emma Makepeace knows it’s murder. And it’s personal.

She quickly establishes that the dead man had been shadowing two oligarchs suspected of procuring illegal weapons in the UK. And it seems likely that an insider working deep within the British government is helping them.

To find out who the traitor is, Emma goes deep undercover on a superyacht owned by one of the oligarchs. But the glamorous veneer of the rich hides dark secrets. Out at sea, Emma is both hunter and prey, and no one can protect her. Never has the turquoise sea and golden sands of the Rivera seemed so dangerous.

As the hunt intensifies, Emma knows that she is in mortal danger. And that she needs to find the traitor before they find her …

The Seventh SonThe Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks (eARC, Hutchinson Heinemann via NetGalley)

A child will be born who will change everything.

When young American academic Talissa Adam offers to carry another woman’s child, she has no idea of the life-changing consequences.

Behind the doors of the Parn Institute, a billionaire entrepreneur plans to stretch the boundaries of ethics as never before. Through a series of IVF treatments, which they hope to keep secret, they propose an experiment that will upend the human race as we know it.

Seth, the baby, is delivered to hopeful parents Mary and Alaric, but when his differences start to mark him out from his peers, he begins to attract unwanted attention.

The Mystery of Yew Tree HouseThe Mystery of Yew Tree House by Lesley Thomson (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

1941. In the pleasant countryside of Bishopstone lies a house with a pill box in the backyard. Here, Rupert and Adelaide Stride raise their two daughters, Clare and Rosa, alongside a young evacuee, Henry. But when war calls, Rupert dies on the beaches of Dunkirk, leaving his family to fend for themselves as bombs drop and food is rationed.

2023. Decades later, held afloat by state pensions and unable to heat the large house – nor able to afford to leave – Clare and Rosa have retreated to the annex, where they remain single and trapped in the place they were raised: Yew Tree House.

When the sisters put their rooms up for rent, Jack Harmon sees the perfect spot for a month away with his twins and cleaner-turned-detective Stella Darnell. Their first family holiday. But one day, as the twins run free through the garden, they discover a skeleton with a hole in its skull hidden in the brambles of a decommissioned WWII pill box.

This home has always been a complicated one, but Stella and Jack will have to dig deep into a history of revenge, desperation, and wartime tragedy to uncover the truth of what happened at Yew Tree House…

The Oxford BrotherhoodThe Oxford Brotherhood by Guillermo Martínez, trans. by Alberto Manguel (Little, Brown)

Mathematics student G is trying to resurrect his studies, which is proving difficult as he finds himself – and not for the first time – drawn into investigating a series of mysterious crimes.

When Kristen, a researcher hired by the Lewis Carroll Brotherhood, makes a startling new discovery concerning pages torn from Carroll’s diary, she hesitates to reveal to her employers a hitherto unknown chapter in his life. Oxford would be rocked to its core if the truth about Lewis Carroll’s relationship with Alice Liddell – the real Alice – were brought to light.

After Kristen is involved in a surreal accident and members of the Brotherhood are anonymously sent salacious photographs of Alice, G joins forces with Kristen as they begin to realise that dark powers are at work. More pictures are received, and it becomes clear that a murderer is stalking anyone who shows too much interest in Carroll’s life.

G must stretch his mathematical mind to its limits to solve the mystery and understand the cryptic workings of the Brotherhood. Until then, nobody, not even G, is safe. 

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Hollow Throne by Tim Leach
  • Book Review: A Fenland Garden by Francis Pryor
  • Book Review: Treason by James Jackson

#BookReview The Well of Saint Nobody by Neil Jordan @HoZ_Books

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About the Book

William Barrow finds himself in lonely retirement in West Cork. Once an internationally renowned pianist, a terrible skin disease has attacked his hands and made it impossible for him to perform.

Tara is a piano teacher with barely enough pupils to pay the month’s rent. In the local café, the elegant writing of a job advertisement catches her ‘WANTED. HOUSEKEEPER.’

She begins to work in William’s house, keeping to herself the knowledge that they have met three times before, encounters that have changed her life. He is oblivious to this, while she spins tales of the well discovered in his back garden and of a mythical saint, of the healing powers of the water and the moss that surrounds it. But as the moss begins to heal William’s troubled hands, the lines between legend and reality begin to blur, secrets resurface, and past and present collide in unexpected ways.

Format: eARC (352 pages) Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 3rd August 2023 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Find The Well of Saint Nobody on Goodreads

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My Review

I’m always a little wary of books that seem to include an element of magical realism but in this case I was pleasantly surprised – although others may be disappointed – that it features relatively little in the story, or none at all depending on how you feel about the seemingly healing powers of the moss that grows on the walls of the ancient well. For me, it was much more a story about relationships although, later in the book, it briefly takes a more dramatic turn.

There’s a strong theme of storytelling in the book. For example, Tara’s recounting of the legend of the well takes on a life of its own as people become enthralled by the story and invest in its seemingly preternatural powers. Tara herself is, in a way, yearning for discovery of her own story, hoping to provoke a memory that, for a long time, seems unlikely to happen. Storytelling often involves invention and that too features in the book. If this is all sounding rather cryptic then that’s because I don’t want to give too much away.

The Well of Saint Nobody is a gentle, touching story about healing: physical, mental and emotional. Whether there’s magic involved I leave up to you to decide.

I received a digital review copy courtesy of Head of Zeus via NetGalley.

In three words: Intimate, engrossing, moving

Try something similar: Only May by Carol Lovekin

About the Author

Neil Jordan is an Irish film director, screenwriter and author based in Dublin. His first book, Night in Tunisia, won a Somerset Maugham Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1979. He is also a former winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Irish PEN Award, and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. Jordan’s films include Angel, the Academy Award-winning The Crying Game, Michael Collins and The Butcher Boy.

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