Tag: Currently Reading

My Week in Books – 27th February 2022

whatcathyreadnext

MyWeekinBooksOn What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I went Down the TBR Hole in a rather unsuccessful effort to weed some books from my To-Read shelf on Goodreads.  

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Dynamic Duos and I shared detective duos from some of my favourite historical crime series. 

Wednesday – I published my review of crime novel Unhinged by Thomas Enger and Jørn Lier Horst as part of the blog tour. Plus 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 shared my review of Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape by Cal Flyn.

Friday – I published reviews of spy thriller The Matchmaker by Paul Vidich and contemporary romance The One by Claire Frost, both as part of blog tours. 

Saturday – I ventured Down the TBR Hole again with significantly more success than last time.

As always, thanks to everyone who has liked, commented on or shared my blog posts on social media.

New arrivals

The CapsariusThe Capsarius (Legion XXII #1) by Simon Turney (eARC, Head of Zeus)

Egypt. 25 BC. Titus Cervianus and the Twenty Second Deiotariana have been sent to deal with uprisings and chaos in Egypt. Yet the Twenty Second is no ordinary legion. Founded as the private royal army of one of Rome’s most devoted allies, the king of Galatia, their ways are not the same as the other legions, a factor that sets them apart and causes friction with their fellow soldiers.

Cervianus is no ordinary soldier, either. A former surgeon from the city of Ancyra, he’s now a capsarius – a combat medic. Cervianus is a pragmatist, a scientist, and truly unpopular with his legion.

Marching into the unknown, Cervianus will find unexpected allies in a local cavalryman and a troublesome lunatic. Both will be of critical importance as the young medic marches into the searing sands of the south, finding forbidden temples, dark assassins, vicious crocodiles, and worst of all, the warrior queen of Kush…

Open WaterOpen Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson (Viking)

Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists – he a photographer, she a dancer – trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them.

Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence.

At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. 

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Extract: Ranger by Timothy Ashby
  • Book Review: Ghosts of Spring by Luis Carrasco
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Love in a Time of War by Adrienne Chinn 
  • Book Review: These Days by Lucy Caldwell
  • #6Degrees of Separation
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Sell Us The Rope by Stephen May 
a kid protesting against the war in ukraine
Photo by Matti on Pexels.com

#WWWWednesday – 23rd February 2022

whatcathyreadnext8 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

These DaysThese Days by Lucy Caldwell (Faber & Faber via Readers First)

Two sisters, four nights, one city.

April, 1941. Belfast has escaped the worst of the war – so far. Over the next two months, it’s going to be destroyed from above, so that people will say, in horror, My God, Belfast is finished. Many won’t make it through, and no one who does will remain unchanged.

Following the lives of sisters Emma and Audrey – one engaged to be married, the other in a secret relationship with another woman – as they try to survive the horrors of the four nights of bombing which were the Belfast Blitz, These Days is a timeless and heart-breaking novel about living under duress, about family, and about how we try to stay true to ourselves.

Love in a Time of War final revisedLove in a Time of War by Adrienne Chinn (One More Chapter)

Three sisters
The Great War
The end of innocence…

In 1913, in a quiet corner of London, the three Fry sisters are coming of age, dreaming of all the possibilities the bright future offers. But when war erupts their innocence is shattered and a new era of uncertainty begins.

Cecelia loves Max but his soldier’s uniform is German, not British, and suddenly the one man she loves is the one man she can’t have.

Jessie enlists in the army as a nurse and finally finds the adventure she’s craved when she’s sent to Gallipoli and Egypt, but it comes with an unimaginable cost.

Etta elopes to Capri with her Italian love, Carlo, but though her growing bump is real, her marriage certificate is a lie.

As the three sisters embark on journeys they never could have imagined, their mother Christina worries about the harsh new realities they face, and what their exposure to the wider world means for the secrets she’s been keeping… 

Recently finished

Unhinged by Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger, trans. by Megan Turney (Orenda Books)

The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin by Paul Vidich (No Exit Press)

The One by Claire Frost (Simon & Schuster) 

Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape by Cal Flyn (William Collins)

Ghosts of Spring by Luis Carrasco (époque press) 

A young girl, anonymous and ignored, sits through a cold, hard west-country winter, begging for change and searching for a warm place to sleep.

Ghosts of Spring explores one girl’s desire to transcend the limits of her environment and forge a new life against all the odds.  (Review to follow)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

Lean On MeLean On Me by Serge Joncour, trans. by Louise Rogers Lalaurie and Jane Aitken (Gallic Books) 

When a flock of crows invades their shared apartment block, farmer-turned-debt collector Ludovic and fashion designer Aurore speak for the first time. With nothing but the birds in common, the two are destined for separate lives, yet are drawn inexplicably together.

Though their story is set in Paris, the tale of Ludovic and Aurore is far from an idyllic romance. With one trapped in an unhappy marriage and the other lost in grief, the city of love has brought each of them only isolation and pain. As Aurore faces losing her business and Ludovic questions the ethics of his job, they begin a passionate affair. Love between such different people seems doomed to failure, but for these two unhappy souls trapped in ruthless worlds, perhaps loving one another is the greatest form of resistance.

From the award winning author of Wild Dog, Lean on Me explores the realities of unlikely love, and how connection and intimacy offer us an escape from all that is harsh and cold in our modern day lives.