#WWWWednesday – 1st June 2022

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

News of the DeadNews of the Dead by James Robertson (Hamish Hamilton)

Deep in the mountains of north-east Scotland lies Glen Conach, a place of secrets and memories, fable and history. In particular, it holds the stories of three different eras, separated by centuries yet linked by location, by an ancient manuscript and by echoes that travel across time.

In ancient Pictland, the Christian hermit Conach contemplates God and nature, performs miracles and prepares himself for sacrifice. Long after his death, legends about him are set down by an unknown hand in the Book of Conach.

Generations later, in the early nineteenth century, self-promoting antiquarian Charles Kirkliston Gibb is drawn to the Glen, and into the big house at the heart of its fragile community.

In the present day, young Lachie whispers to Maja of a ghost he thinks he has seen. Reflecting on her long life, Maja believes him, for she is haunted by ghosts of her own.

The Fire KillerThe Fire Killer (DI Barton #5) by Ross Greenwood (eARC, Boldwood Books)

When DI Barton is asked to investigate a seemingly innocuous fire that kills, he believes it’s either children fooling around or a worrying racially motivated crime.

As he delves deeper into the case, he soon realises that there is a history of similar blazes spread out over many years, all within a close area. And after an idea is suggested by pathologist Mortis, Barton suspects he has the arsonist’s motives wrong.

When a night worker comes forward with a tip, Barton narrows down the suspects. Yet all of them act suspiciously and he knows for sure that one or more of them are lying. And when a huge house blaze shocks everyone, Barton fears the killer has lost all control.

Who is The Fire Killer? What will be next to burn?


Recently finished

Twenty-Eight Pounds Ten Shillings: A Windrush Story by Tony Fairweather (HopeRoad Publishing)

Young Women by Jessica Moor (Zaffre)

Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers by Emma Smith (Allen Lane)


What Cathy (will) Read Next

Villager Cover ImageVillager by Tom Cox (eARC, Unbound)

There’s so much to know. It will never end, I suspect, even when it does. So much in all these lives, so many stories, even in this small place.

Villages are full of tales: some are forgotten while others become a part of local folklore. But the fortunes of one West Country village are watched over and irreversibly etched into its history as an omniscient, somewhat crabby, presence keeps track of village life.

In the late sixties a Californian musician blows through Underhill where he writes a set of haunting folk songs that will earn him a group of obsessive fans and a cult following. Two decades later, a couple of teenagers disturb a body on the local golf course. In 2019, a pair of lodgers discover a one-eyed rag doll hidden in the walls of their crumbling and neglected home. Connections are forged and broken across generations, but only the landscape itself can link them together. A landscape threatened by property development and superfast train corridors and speckled by the pylons whose feet have been buried across the moor.

My Week in Books – 29th May 2022

MyWeekinBooksOn What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I shared my review of Only May by Carol Lovekin as part of the blog tour.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Bookish Quotes

WednesdayWWW Wednesday is my 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 an extract from historical novel The Dark Earth by Gordon Doherty to celebrate publication day. I also published my review of The White Girl by Tony Birch as part of the blog tour. 

Friday – I shared my review of Twenty-Eight Pounds Ten Shillings by Tony Fairweather as part of the blog tour.

Saturday – I indulged my other love – gardening – by participating in the Six on Saturday meme.  


New arrivals

Thea and DeniseThea and Denise by Caroline Bond (ARC, Corvus via Readers First)

Two women. An open road. The trip of a lifetime.

Thea is confident, sorted, determined to have fun, but there are sorrows beneath the surface of her life. Denise is struggling under the weight of her many commitments and in desperate need of some excitement. When these polar opposites meet, and unexpectedly become friends, they realise they’re both looking to escape.

So begins a road trip that leads them far from home and yet closer to their true selves.

But they can’t outrun their pasts forever and when things start to become complicated, both women have an important decision to make. Do they give up or keep going? Turn around or drive on?

KatastropheKatastrophe by Graham Hurley (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

January, 1945. Wherever you look on the map, the Thousand Year Reich is shrinking. Even Goebbels has run out of lies to sweeten the reckoning to come. An Allied victory is inevitable, but who will reap the spoils of war?

Two years ago, Werner Nehmann’s war came to an abrupt end in Stalingrad. With the city in ruins, the remains of General Paulus’ Sixth Army surrendered to the Soviets and Nehmann was shipped to Russia’s arctic gulags. But now he’s riding on the back of one of Marshal Zhukov’s T-35 tanks, heading home with a message for the man who consigned him to the Stalingrad Cauldron.

With the Red Army about to fall on Berlin, Stalin fears his sometime allies are conspiring to deny him his prize. He needs to speak to Goebbels – and who better to broker the contact than Werner Nehmann, Goebbels’ one-time confidante?

Swapping the ruins of Stalingrad for the wreckage of Berlin, swapping Joseph Goebbels for Joseph Stalin, Nehmann’s war has taken a turn for the worse. The Germans have a word for it.

Katastrophe.

The White HareThe White Hare by Jane Johnson (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

In a valley steeped in legend lies an abandoned house where Edens may be lost, found and remade…

The White Valley in the far west of Cornwall cuts deeply through bluebell woods down to the sea. The house above the beach has lain neglected since the war. It comes with a reputation, which is why Mila and her mother Magda acquire it so cheaply in the fateful summer of 1954.

Magda plans to restore the house to its former glory: the venue for glittering parties, where the rich and celebrated gathered for bracing walks by day and sumptuous cocktails by night. Mila’s ambitions, meanwhile, are much less grand; she dreams of creating a safe haven for herself, and a happy home for her little girl, Janey.

The White Valley comes with a long, eventful history, laced with tall tales. Locals say that a white hare may be seen running through the woods there; to some she’s an ill omen, to others a blessing. Feeling fragile and broken-hearted, Mila is in need of as many blessings as she can get. But will this place provide the fresh start she so desperately needs?

The Bone FlowerThe Bone Flower by Charles Lambert (ARC, Gallic Books)

On a grey November evening in Victorian London, Edward Monteith, a moneyed but listless young man, stokes the fire at his local gentleman’s club, listening to its members: scientists, explorers and armchair philosophers discussing their supernatural experiences and their theories of life after death.

Edward is taken under the wing of some sceptics and attends a supposed seance where he is captivated by a beautiful young woman selling flowers outside the theatre.

What follows is a quintessential Gothic novel, a ghost story, and an uncanny love story. 


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Young Women by Jessica Moor
  • Book Review: The Death of Remembrance by Denzil Meyrick
  • My Five Favourite May 2022 Reads
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Fire Killer by Ross Greenwood
  • #6Degrees of Separation
  •