Tag: Currently Reading

My Week in Books – 25th June 2023

whatcathyreadnext

MyWeekinBooksOn What Cathy Read Next last week

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books On My Summer 2023 To-Read List.

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 published my review of The Voluble Topsy by A P Herbert.

Friday – I shared my review of historical crime mystery, Voices of the Dead by Ambrose Parry. 

Saturday – I published my wrap-up of The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2023, awarded this year to These Days by Lucy Caldwell.

New arrivals

HowToBeBraveHow To Be Brave by Louise Beech (Audiobook)

All the stories died that morning … until we found the one we’d always known.

When nine-year-old Rose is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, Natalie must use her imagination to keep her daughter alive. They begin dreaming about and seeing a man in a brown suit who feels hauntingly familiar, a man who has something for them.

Through the magic of storytelling, Natalie and Rose are transported to the Atlantic Ocean in 1943, to a lifeboat, where an ancestor survived for fifty days before being rescued.

Poignant, beautifully written and tenderly told, How To Be Brave weaves together the contemporary story of a mother battling to save her child’s life with an extraordinary true account of bravery and a fight for survival in the Second World War. A simply unforgettable debut that celebrates the power of words, the redemptive energy of a mother’s love and what it really means to be brave.

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
  • Book Review: Banyan Moon by Thao Thai

#WWWWednesday – 21st June 2023

whatcathyreadnext4 Comments

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

Banyan MoonBanyan Moon by Thao Thai (ARC, Quercus) 

Ann Tran s already at a crossroads when she gets the call that her beloved grandmother, Minh, has died. Ann has built a seemingly perfect life. She lives in a beautiful lake house and has a charming professor boyfriend, but it all crumbles with one positive pregnancy test.

With both her relationship and her carefully planned future now in question, Ann returns home to Florida to face her estranged mother, Huơng. Under the same roof for the first time in years, mother and daughter must face the simmering questions of their past, while trying to rebuild their relationship without the one person who’s always held them together.

Running parallel to this is Minh’s story, as she goes from a lovestruck teenager living in the shadow of the Vietnam War to a determined young mother immigrating to America in search of a better life for her children. And when Ann makes a shocking discovery in the Banyan House’s attic, long-buried secrets come to light, revealing how decisions Minh made in her youth affected the rest of her life.

The Square of SevensThe Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (eARC, Mantle via NetGalley)

‘My father had spelt it out to me. Choice was a luxury I couldn’t afford. This is your story, Red. You must tell it well….’

A girl known only as Red, the daughter of a Cornish fortune-teller, travels with her father making a living predicting fortunes using the ancient method: the Square of Sevens. When her father suddenly dies, Red becomes the ward of a gentleman scholar.

Now raised as a lady amidst the Georgian splendour of Bath, her fortune-telling is a delight to high society, but she cannot ignore the questions that gnaw at her soul: who was her mother? How did she die? And who are the mysterious enemies her father was always terrified would find him?

The pursuit of these mysteries takes her from Cornwall and Bath to London and Devon, from the rough ribaldry of the Bartholemew Fair to the grand houses of two of the most powerful families in England. And while Red’s quest brings her the possibility of great reward, it also leads into her grave danger . . .

Recently finished

The Wall (City of Victory #3) by Adrian Goldsworthy (Head of Zeus)

The Voluble Topsy, 1928-1947 by A. P. Herbert (Handheld Press)

Voices of the Dead (Raven, Fisher & Simpson #4) by Ambrose Parry (Canongate)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

North WoodsNorth Woods by Daniel Mason (eARC, John Murray via NetGalley)

When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and inhuman characters alike.

An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths a mass grave – only to discover that the ancient trees refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister conman, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: as each inhabitant confronts the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.