Tag: books

#WWWWednesday – 22nd June 2022

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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

Think of MeThink of Me by Frances Liardet (4th Estate)

1942, Alexandria, Egypt. Covered in dust, Yvette and James hold hands for the first time as bombs explode above them. As the war rages on, they will find their way back to each other time and again, their love a beacon for their survival. After the war, their happiness takes root in England and blossoms, until a tragic event drives a wedge between them. The way back to one another is uncharted territory that both must be brave enough to face.

1974. Ten years after his wife’s death and with his son now at university, James craves change. He moves to the beautiful English village of Upton not thirty minutes from the city where he brought his bride Yvette, nearly twenty-five years ago. There he discovers a scarf that lights the dark edges of his memory. Could it be Yvette’s? As James makes a new home for himself and gently presses into the feelings the scarf evokes, he begins to unlock new revelations about his past that change everything he believes. Revelations that just might give James a new reason to live and the possibility of new love at last, after ten years alone.

Nothing Else Vis 3Nothing Else by Louise Beech (eARC, Orenda Books)

Heather Harris is a piano teacher and professional musician, whose quiet life revolves around music, whose memories centre on a single song that haunts her. A song she longs to perform again. A song she wrote as a child, to drown out the violence in their home. A song she played with her little sister, Harriet.

But Harriet is gone … she disappeared when their parents died, and Heather never saw her again.

When Heather is offered an opportunity to play piano on a cruise ship, she leaps at the chance. She’ll read her recently released childhood care records by day – searching for clues to her sister’s disappearance – and play piano by night … coming to terms with the truth about a past she’s done everything to forget.

Recently finished

Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris (Duckworth)

The Martins by David Foenkinos, trans. by Sam Taylor (Gallic Books)

Tasting Sunlight by Ewald Arenz, trans. by Rachel Ward (Orenda)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

TomboyTomboy (Jane Benjamin #2) by Shelley Blanton-Stroud (eARC, She Writes Press)

It’s 1939. On the brink of World War II, Jane Benjamin wants to have it all. By day she hustles as a scruffy, tomboy cub reporter. By night she secretly struggles to raise her toddler sister, Elsie, and protect her from their mother. But Jane’s got a plan: she’ll become the San Francisco Prospect’s first gossip columnist and make enough money to care for Elsie.

Jane finagles her way to the women’s championship at Wimbledon, starring her hometown’s tennis phenom and cover girl Tommie O’Rourke. She plans to write her first column there. But then she witnesses Edith “Coach” Carlson, Tommie’s closest companion, drop dead in the stands of apparent heart attack, and her plan is thrown off track.

While sailing home on the RMS Queen Mary, Jane veers between competing instincts: Should she write a social bombshell column, personally damaging her new friend Tommie’s persona and career? Or should she work to uncover the truth of Coach’s death, which she now knows was a murder, and its connection to a larger conspiracy involving US participation in the coming war?

Putting away her menswear and donning first-class ballgowns, Jane discovers what upper-class status hides, protects, and destroys. Ultimately – like nations around the globe in 1939 – she must choose what she’ll give up in order to do what’s right.

#BlogTour #BookReview Tasting Sunlight by Ewald Arenz, trans. by Rachel Ward

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Tasting Sunlight Blog Tour BannerWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Tasting Sunlight by Ewald Arenz, translated by Rachel Ward. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Orenda Books for my digital review copy.

Do check out the posts by my tour buddies for today, Monika at Monika Reads and over on Instagram Stacey Hammond.

Tasting SunlightAbout the Book

Teenager Sally has just run away from a clinic where she to be treated for anorexia. She’s furious with everything and everyone, and wants to be left in peace.

Liss is in her forties, living alone on a large farm that she runs single-handedly. She has little contact with the outside world, and no need for other people.

From their first meeting, Sally realises that Liss isn’t like other adults; she expects nothing of Sally and simply accepts who she is, offering her a bed for the night with no questions asked.

That night becomes weeks and then months, as an unlikely friendship develops and these two damaged women slowly open up – connecting to each other, reconnecting with themselves, and facing the darkness in their pasts through their shared work on the land.

Format: Paperback (276 pages)    Publisher: Orenda
Publication date: 23rd June 2022 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Find Tasting Sunlight on Goodreads

Pre-order/Purchase links
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My Review

Liss lives alone on a farm in a small village in rural Germany. Her days are taken up with tending the crops and livestock, and managing the forest and vineyard that belong to the farm. Her life is a solitary one, partly by choice but also because she is shunned by most of the villagers for reasons that will only gradually become apparent. It’s also a life governed by the rhythm of the seasons. Sally’s unexpected arrival disrupts the settled routine of Liss’s life.

Initially it appears Sally is the damaged individual and Liss a source of strength and calm. Liss seems instinctively to understand how to respond to Sally allowing her to make her own decisions about when to eat, when to talk and when to participate in the life of the farm.  Liss introduces Sally to different aspects of farming life such as harvesting potatoes and grapes or tending bee hives. I was struck by how some of the activities can be seen as metaphors for healing. For example, as Liss marks the trees in the forest that need to be thinned she says, ‘Sometimes you want a sapling to have enough light to grow… Then you have to make space.’ By taking her in, Liss provides Sally with that space but it doesn’t come without personal risk.

We learn that Liss too has been damaged by experiences in her past and discovering her story begins to dominate both Sally’s and the reader’s thoughts. I liked that we see a kind of role reversal with Sally becoming the one to provide support and encouragement. One particular scene that sticks in my mind is when Liss and Sally visit the pear orchard originally laid out in rigid lines by Liss’s controlling father. It’s a place Liss has avoided because of the memories it evokes but Sally’s take on the now overgrown orchard is quite different: ‘It’s like a punishment for trying to force growing things into a mould’. Both Sally and Liss have battled to gain control over their lives from those who want to forge them into a particular shape. Indeed, they have both at some point felt themselves caught in the ‘wrong’ lives, lashing out in anger as a result.

Although there is darkness in the book, there is also a sense of hope inspired by the cycle of nature. ‘The seed was already in the ground. Even when everything looked empty and picked and finished.’  The book’s title brilliantly conveys the process of emerging from darkness into light.

Tasting Sunlight is a beautiful story of friendship, resilience and the healing power of nature.

In three words: Intimate, insightful, poignant

Try something similar: The Offing by Benjamin Myers

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Ewald ArenzAbout the Author

Ewald Arenz was born in Nürnberg in 1965, studied English and American literature and history and now works as a teacher at a grammar school. His novels and plays have received numerous awards. Tasting Sunlight was shortlisted for the German Independent Booksellers’ Favourite Novel of 2019 and was on the Spiegel bestseller lists both as a hardback and paperback. Ewald lives with him family near Fürth.

Connect with Ewald
Website | Twitter

Tasting Sunlight Graphic 4