Tag: Currently Reading

My Week in Books – 31st October 2021

whatcathyreadnext3 Comments

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I shared my review of short story collection Liberty Terrace by Madeleine D’Arcy.

Tuesday – I published my review of historical novel Born Of No Woman by Franck Bouysse, as part of the blog tour. This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was a freebie on the theme of Hallowe’en so I shared some of my favourite ghost stories by M R James.

Wednesday – WWW Wednesday is the opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to have a good nose around what others are reading.

Thursday – I shared my proposed reading list for the NetGalley November reading challenge. 

Friday – I published my review of historical novel Sergeant Salinger by Jerome Charyn.

Saturday – I speculated on what books published in 2021 might feature on the longlist for The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2022 when it’s announced next February.

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

New arrivals

Where God Does Not WalkWhere God Does Not Walk (Gregor Reinhardt #4) by Luke McCallin (eARC, Oldcastle Books via NetGalley)

The Western Front, July 1918. Gregor Reinhardt is a young lieutenant in a stormtrooper battalion on the Western Front when one of his subordinates is accused of murdering a group of officers, and then subsequently trying to take his own life. Not wanting to believe his friend could have done what he is accused of, Reinhardt begins to investigate. He starts to uncover the outline of a conspiracy at the heart of the German army, a conspiracy aimed at ending the war on the terms of those who have a vested interest in a future for Germany that resembles her past.

The investigation takes him from the devastated front lines of the war, to the rarefied heights of Berlin society, and into the hospitals that treat those men who have been shattered by the stress and strain of the war. Along the way, Reinhardt comes to an awakening of the man he might be. A man freed of dogma, whose eyes have been painfully opened to the corruption and callousness all around him. A man to whom calls to duty, to devotion to the Fatherland and to the Kaiser, ring increasingly hollow…

No Way To DieNo Way To Die by Tony Kent (eARC, Elliott & Thompson)

A deadly threat. A ghost from the past. And time is running out…

When traces of a radioactive material are found alongside a body in Key West, multiple federal agencies suddenly descend on the crime scene. This is not just an isolated murder: a domestic terrorist group is ready to bring the US government to its knees.

The threat hits close to home for Agent Joe Dempsey when he discovers a personal connection to the group. With his new team member, former Secret Service agent Eden Grace, Dempsey joins the race to track down the terrorists’ bomb before it’s too late. But when their mission falls apart, he is forced to turn to the most unlikely of allies: an old enemy he thought he had buried in his past.

Now, with time running out, they must find a way to work together to stop a madman from unleashing horrifying destruction across the country.

Jane's Country YearJane’s Country Year by Malcolm Saville (ARC, Handheld Press)

At last she reached the brow of the hill … now the country opened out below her and she looked down into a wide and lovely valley … Still patched with snow the little fields spread like a carpet below her and here and there a farmhouse with barns and golden ricks was clearly seen. Across the plain ran, straight as a ruler, a railway line and she saw a toy train puffing and crawling across the picture.

Malcolm Saville’s classic novel from 1946 is about eleven-year old Jane’s discovery of nature and country life during a year spent convalescing on her uncle’s farm, after having been dangerously ill in post-war London.  The novel is also a record of rural England eighty years ago, written by one of the great twentieth-century English nature writers.

Gods of RomeGods of Rome (Rise of Emperors #3) by Gordon Doherty and Simon Turney (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

For one to rule, the other must die.

AD 312: A year of horrific and brutal warfare. Although outnumbered, Constantine’s legions seem unstoppable as they surge through Maxentius’ Italian heartlands. Constantine is determined to reach and seize the ancient capital of Rome from his rival, yet his army is exhausted, plagued by religious rivalries and on the verge of revolt. Maxentius meanwhile contends with a restive and dissenting Roman populace. Neither general can risk a prolonged war.

When the two forces clash amidst portents and omens in a battle that will shape history, there are factors at work beyond their control. Only one thing is certain: Constantine and Maxentius’ rivalry must end. With one on a bloodied sword and the other the sole ruler of an Empire…

BetrayalBetrayal (Dan Raglan #2) by David Gilman (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

Someone’s going to start a war. And Raglan’s just walked into the kill zone.

It has been many years since Dan Raglan served in the French Foreign Legion, but the bonds forged in adversity are unbreakable and when one of his comrades calls for help, Raglan is duty-bound to answer.

An ex-legionnaire, now an intelligence officer at the Pentagon, disappears. He leaves only this message: should he ever go missing, contact Raglan. But Raglan’s not the only one looking for the missing man. From the backstreets of Marseilles, Raglan finds himself following a trail of death that will lead him to Florida, to the camaraderie of a Vietnam vet in Washington D.C., and into the heart of a bitter battle in the upper echelons of the US intelligence community.

Pursued by both the CIA and a rogue female FBI agent, Raglan’s search will place him in the cross hairs of an altogether more lethal organisation. Tracking his old comrade, he finds himself in the midst of deadly conspiracy, and on a journey to a fatal confrontation deep in the Honduran rainforest.

White DogWhite Dog by Rupert Whewell (ARC, Whitefox)

White Dog is a literary thriller set against the backdrop of the contemporary art world. It follows the fortunes of Ryder, a cynical art dealer who aspires to the heights, yet despises the people who populate those realms. On his way to the top, back down, and back up again, Ryder encounters a picaresque collection of characters and gets drawn into a web of intrigue that involves murder, money-laundering and materialism. But can his new-found fame and fortune ever make up for the loss of the one thing he ever really valued in life?

White Dog will take you on a roller-coaster ride of sex, drugs and art – of violence, blackmail, hedonism and dark politics. Are you ready to face the wolves?

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • My Five Favourite October 2021 Reads
  • Blog Tour/Extract: Lucifer’s Game by Cristina Loggia
  • Book Review: A Memory For Murder by Anne Holt
  • Book Review: A Stranger from the Storm by William Burton McCormick
  • #6Degrees of Separation
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Girl from Bletchley Park by Kathleen McGurl

#WWWWednesday – 27th October 2021

whatcathyreadnext11 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

The Vanishing HalfThe Vanishing Half  by Brit Bennett (Dialogue Books)

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities.

Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined.

What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?

Sergeant Salinger by Jerome Charyn (eARC, No Exit Press)

J.D. Salinger, mysterious author of The Catcher in the Rye, is remembered today as a reclusive misanthrope. Jerome Charyn’s Salinger is a young American WWII draftee assigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps, a band of secret soldiers who trained with the British. A rifleman and an interrogator, he witnessed all the horrors of the war – from the landing on D-Day to the relentless hand-to-hand combat in the hedgerows of Normandy, to the Battle of the Bulge, and finally to the first Allied entry into a Bavarian death camp, where corpses were piled like cordwood.

After the war, interned in a Nuremberg psychiatric clinic, Salinger became enchanted with a suspected Nazi informant. They married, but not long after he brought her home to New York, the marriage collapsed. Maladjusted to civilian life, he lived like a ‘spook’, with invisible stripes on his shoulder, the ghosts of the murdered inside his head, and stories to tell.

Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller (Sceptre via NetGalley)

One rain-swept February night in 1809, an unconscious man is carried into a house in Somerset. He is Captain John Lacroix, home from Britain’s disastrous campaign against Napoleon’s forces in Spain. Gradually Lacroix recovers his health, but not his peace of mind – he cannot talk about the war or face the memory of what happened in a village on the gruelling retreat to Corunna. After the command comes to return to his regiment, he sets out instead for the Hebrides, with the vague intent of reviving his musical interests and collecting local folksongs.

Lacroix sails north incognito, unaware that he has far worse to fear than being dragged back to the army: a vicious English corporal and a Spanish officer are on his trail, with orders to kill. The haven he finds on a remote island with a family of free-thinkers and the sister he falls for are not safe, at all.

Recently finished

Black Drop by Leonora Nattrass (Viper)

Liberty Terrace by Madeleine D’Arcy (Doire Press)

Born Of No Woman by Franck Bouysse, translated by Lara Vergnaud (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

Lucifer’s Game by Cristina Loggia (eARC, Lume Books)

Rome, 1942. Cordelia Olivieri is a young, determined hotel owner desperate to escape Mussolini’s racial persecution. But as Fascist leaders gather in Rome, Cordelia is suddenly surrounded by the world’s most ruthless and powerful commanders. In an effort to keep her Jewish heritage a secret and secure safe passage out of Italy, Cordelia forms a dangerous alliance with the British army who want to push the Axis out of North Africa once and for all.

Going undercover, Cordelia begins obtaining and leaking military intelligence to a British agent, hoping the intel will secure her freedom. But the more Cordelia uncovers, the greater the risks – especially for one handsome German Afrika Korps officer.  How far must Cordelia go to protect her identity and secure passage out of Rome?