Tag: Currently Reading

My Week in Books – 24th April 2022

whatcathyreadnext

MyWeekinBooksOn What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I published my review of The Capsarius by Simon Turney as part of the blog tour.

Tuesday – I shared my review of Fortune by Amanda Smyth, one of the four books on the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize 2022.  

Wednesday – A busy day for blog tours with reviews of Mr Bunting at War by Robert Greenwood and The Dark Flood by Deon Meyer. WWW 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 went Down The TBR Hole again in an attempt to prune my To-Read shelf on Goodreads of books I no longer want to read.

Friday – I shared my review of another in the Imperial War Museum’s Wartime Classics series, Mailed Fist by John Foley. 

Saturday – Indulging my other love – gardening – I took part in the #SixonSaturday meme with a few highlights from my horticultural week.

New arrivals

The Murder RuleThe Murder Rule by Dervla McTiernan (eARC, Harper Collins via NetGalley)

First Rule: Make them like you.
Second Rule: Make them need you.
Third Rule: Make them pay.

They think I’m a young, idealistic law student, that I’m passionate about reforming a corrupt and brutal system.

They think I’m working hard to impress them.

They think I’m here to save an innocent man on death row.

They’re wrong. I’m going to bury him.

Only May CoverOnly May by Carol Lovekin (eARC, Honno)

Listen. The bee walks across my finger, slow as anything and I can see through the gauzy wing, to the detail of my skin. You aren’t looking in the right place.  If you look her in the eye and tell a lie, May Harper will see it. And if she doesn’t see it, the bees will hum it in her ear. 

Her kind mother and her free-spirited aunt have learned to choose their words with care. Her beloved invalid father lives in a world of his own, lost in another time, the war he cannot forget. 

On May’s seventeenth birthday, a casual evasion from her employer hints at a secret hiding at the heart of the family. Determined to discover the truth, May starts listening at doors… She begins watching the faces of the people she loves best in all the world, those she suspects are hiding the biggest lie of all.

The White Girl CoverThe White Girl by Tony Birch (eARC, Harper Collins)

Odette Brown has lived her whole life on the fringes of a small country town. After her daughter disappeared and left her with her granddaughter Sissy to raise on her own, Odette has managed to stay under the radar of the welfare authorities who are removing fair-skinned Aboriginal children from their families. When a new policeman arrives in town, determined to enforce the law, Odette must risk everything to save Sissy and protect everything she loves.

In The White Girl, Miles-Franklin-shortlisted author Tony Birch shines a spotlight on the 1960s and the devastating government policy of taking Indigenous children from their families.

Finally, I received four of this year’s Quick Reads courtesy of The Reading Agency for World Book Night which took place yesterday.

World Book Night Quick Reads

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: In Place of Fear by Catriona McPherson 
  • Book Review: The Birdcage by Eve Chase 
  • Book Review: Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner 

#WWWWednesday – 20th April 2022

whatcathyreadnext2 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

Mailed_Fist_CoverMailed Fist by John Foley (ARC, Imperial War Museum)

In April 1943, newly commissioned John Foley is posted to command Five Troop and their trusty Churchill tanks Avenger, Alert, and Angler – thus begins his initiation into the Royal Armoured Corps. Covering the trials of training, embarkation to France and battle experience through Normandy, the Netherlands, the Ardennes campaign and into Germany, Foley’s intimate and detailed account follows the fate of this group of men in the latter stages of the Second World War. If this book can be said to be a history of anything, it is a history of Five Troop. Not of the squadron, or of the regiment. If anybody wants to know what happened in other troops, or in other squadrons, it’s all recorded painstakingly in the War Diaries and lodged in a Records Office somewhere.

In Place of FearIn Place of Fear by Catriona McPherson (eARC, Hodder & Stoughton via NetGalley)

Helen leaned close enough to fog the mirror with her breath and whispered, ‘You, my girl, are a qualified medical almoner and at eight o’clock tomorrow morning you will be on the front line of the National Health Service of Scotland.’ Her eyes looked huge and scared. ‘So take a shake to yourself!”

Edinburgh, 1948. Helen Crowther leaves a crowded tenement home for her very own office in a doctor’s surgery. Upstart, ungrateful, out of your depth – the words of disapproval come at her from everywhere but she’s determined to take her chance and play her part.

She’s barely begun when she stumbles over a murder and learns that, in this most respectable of cities, no one will fight for justice at the risk of scandal. As Helen resolves to find a killer, she’s propelled into a darker world than she knew existed, hardscrabble as her own can be. Disapproval is the least of her worries now.

Recently finished

The Capsarius by Simon Turney (Head of Zeus)

Fortune by Amanda Smyth (Peepal Tree) 

Mr Bunting at War by Robert Greenwood (Imperial War Museum)

The Dark Flood by Deon Mayer (Hodder & Stoughton) 

What Cathy (will) Read Next

The MagicianThe Magician by Colm Tóibín (Viking) 

The Magician tells the story of Thomas Mann, whose life was filled with great acclaim and contradiction. He would find himself on the wrong side of history in the First World War, cheerleading the German army, but have a clear vision of the future in the second, anticipating the horrors of Nazism.

He would have six children and keep his homosexuality hidden; he was a man forever connected to his family and yet bore witness to the ravages of suicide. He would write some of the greatest works of European literature, and win the Nobel Prize, but would never return to the country that inspired his creativity.

Through one life, Colm Tóibín tells the breathtaking story of the twentieth century.