Tag: Currently Reading

My Week in Books – 18th June 2023

whatcathyreadnext

MyWeekinBooksOn What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I published my review of The Geometer Lobachevsky by Adrian Duncan, one of the books on the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2023. (The winner was announced on Thursday – These Days by Lucy Caldwell.)

Tuesday – For this week’s Top Ten Tuesday I shared Books On My Wishlist.   

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. 

Friday – I published my review of historical novel, The Wall by Adrian Goldsworthy, the final book in the trilogy set in Roman Britain.  

Saturday – I joined other keen gardeners with a #SixonSaturday garden update.

New arrivals

The Soldier's ChildThe Soldier’s Child by Tetyana Denford (eARC, Bookouture via NetGalley)

“He is mine, he is ours,” she whispers, as the tears in her eyes gather in the corners. She holds her baby tightly, her breath coming out in ragged gasps, knowing that she needs to give her child to her brother forever. But will she ever be able to tell her child the truth about who his real mother is?

Ukraine, 1941 . War has ripped Katya ’s country and heart in two. When two soldiers knock down her door and force her into a truck, she knows deep down that this might be the last time she ever sees home. As she is driven away to a labour camp, she looks out the tiny window at the barren winter landscape and thinks only of her son Alexander , who she was forced to leave behind and may never see again…

Decades later, Katya has tried to rebuild her life after the horrors of war, but she still clings on to the hope of being reunited with her precious son. But whilst Katya has stayed in Ukraine, little does she know that her son moved his family to America years before in search of a better life.

Can she find peace without knowing what happened to him? Will Katya ever be able to reunite with Alexander and tell the truth about who she is? Or will they be defeated by the war that has already taken so much from them?

The List of Suspicious ThingsThe List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey (ARC, Hutchinson & Women’s Prize Live)

‘What if we decided to try and find him?’

‘What on earth are you on about?’ she said. ‘How are we going to catch the Yorkshire Ripper, when the police haven’t even managed to?’

I sighed. Her questioning my ideas was a recent and unwelcome element to our friendship. But it was a valid point. How would we catch him? We needed some sort of plan, a way of gathering clues and putting them into order.

I thought about what the policeman had said about structure, and then about Aunty Jean and her notebook, and the idea I had hardened like toffee. I knew exactly what we needed to do.

‘We’ll make a list,’ I said. ‘A list of the people and things we see that are suspicious.

And then . . . And then we’ll investigate them.’

The List of Suspicious Things is a tender and moving coming of age story about family, friendship and community. Sometimes the strongest connections are found in the most unlikely of places.

The Hollow ThroneThe Hollow Throne (The Sarmatian Trilogy #3) by Tim Leach (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

180 AD. North of the Wall, Sarmatian warrior Kai and his adopted tribe, the Votadini, struggle for survival, cast into unfamiliar lands by Roman reprisals.

When news arrives that an old enemy is in charge of the Votadini’s hated foes, a confederation of tribes known as the Painted People, and has roused them to action, Kai heads south towards the Wall, hoping to ally with the Romans against this resurgent threat.

Meanwhile, the Romans have heard tales of butchery and mayhem beyond the Wall. Lucius, Legate of the North, believes is is Kai and his allies who are responsible, and sends forth an expedition to capture his old comrade.

Can Kai and his loved ones survive the onslaught – or will the combined might of Rome and the hatred of their enemies spell the end for the warrior and his tribe?

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: Voices of the Dead by Ambrose Parry
  • Book Review: The Voluble Topsy by A. P. Herbert

#WWWWednesday – 14th June 2023

whatcathyreadnext1 Comment

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

The Sun Walks DownThe Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane (Sceptre) Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2023

In September 1883, a small town in the South Australian outback huddles under strange, vivid sunsets. After a dust storm, a dreadful discovery is made: six-year-old Denny Wallace has gone missing.

As they scour the desert and mountains for the lost boy, the residents of Fairly – newlyweds, landowners, farmers, mothers, artists, Aboriginal trackers, cameleers, children, schoolteachers, widows, maids, policemen – confront their relationships with one another and with the ancient landscape they inhabit.

The colonial Australia of The Sun Walks Down is unfamiliar, multicultural and noisy with opinions, arguments, longings and terrors. It’s haunted by many gods – the sun among them, rising and falling on each day in which Denny could be found, or lost forever.

The WallThe Wall (City of Victory #3) by Adrian Goldsworthy (eARC, Aries via NetGalley)

Britannia, AD 117: Roman centurion Flavius Ferox is trying to live a quiet life of dignified leisure, overseeing his wife’s estate and doing his best to resist the urge to murder an annoying neighbour – until someone else does it for him. Dragged back into a life of violence, Ferox finds himself chasing raiders, fighting chieftains and negotiating with kings, journeying far into the north just as war breaks out.

With the new emperor, Hadrian, sending agents from Rome, the whole world seems to be changing: old friends become enemies, enemies claim they are friends, and new and deadly threats lurk in the shadows.

When, five years later, Hadrian himself comes to Britannia to inspect his great wall, a new war erupts suddenly, dividing tribes and families. Ferox is the only one who can save the emperor – but with his family, and his own life, in danger, Ferox must first decide whose side he is on…

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

The Voluble Topsy collects A P Herbert’s The Trials of Topsy (1928), Topsy MP (1929) and Topsy Turvy (1947) in one volume for the pleasure and admiration of a new generation.

It is the late 1920s. Topsy is a girl about town, a society deb, a dashing flapper. She writes breathless, exuberant letters to her best friend Trix about her life, her parties, her intrigues, and the men in her life. She deploys her native acumen and remarkable talent for kindness as well as being a doughty fighter for what she thinks is right (she hides a fox from the Hunt in her car). Then Topsy is unexpectedly drawn into politics, and to her amazement, she is elected as a member of Parliament.

Topsy’s extensive social life, her adventures in and out of the House of Commons (and her audacious attempts to legislate for the Enjoyment of the People), and her wartime activity as the mother of twins were recorded faithfully by the great comic writer A P Herbert as a series of satires in Punch.

Recently finished

The Geometer Lobachevsky by Adrian Duncan (Tuskar Rock Press) 

What Cathy (will) Read Next

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

Edinburgh, 1854, and a killer stalks the streets.

Body parts have been found across the city – a foot in the Surgeon’s Hall, another beneath a debtor’s floorboards, more pieces in the soil of a freshly filled grave – and Will Raven, assistant to the great Dr Simpson, is being asked questions about the crime.

His day job is demanding enough, striving to make his name as an obstetrician, and his home life with a second child on the way is exhausting. But Will usually finds the company of his colleague Sarah Fisher, a young widow and fellow-trainee, reviving. She is unrepentantly curious about all things: medicine, upcoming scientific advances like mesmerism, and details of this strange crime. So what is it about this killing that is beginning to turn Will into a man he doesn’t recognise?

As the clues converge and all the evidence begins to point towards a dark connection between Will’s past and Sarah’s own investigations, both must use their full skills to prevent the most terrible crime of all . . .