Tag: Currently Reading

My Week in Books – 14th February 2021

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MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford.

Tuesday –  This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was a freebie on the theme of Love/Valentine’s Day and I chose to share some book covers I’ve fallen in love with recently. I also published my review of The Girl at the Back of the Bus by Suzette D. Harrison as part of the blog tour.

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…as well as have a good nose around to see what books others have plucked from their shelves.  

Thursday – I shared my review of The Diplomat’s Wife by Michael Ridpath.

Saturday – I published my review of Land of the Living by Georgina Harding.

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

New arrivals

A Book of SecretsA Book of Secrets by Kate Morrison (eARC, courtesy of Jacaranda Books and Random Things Tours)

A Book of Secrets tells the story of a West African girl hunting for her lost brother through an Elizabethan underworld of spies, plots and secret Catholic printing presses.

Susan Charlewood is taken from Ghana (then known as Guinea) as a baby. Brought to England, she grows up as maidservant in a wealthy Catholic household. Living under a Protestant Queen in late 16th Century England, the family risk imprisonment or death unless they keep their faith hidden. When her mistress dies Susan is married off to a London printer who is deeply involved in the Catholic resistance. She finds herself embroiled in political and religious intrigue, all while trying to find her lost brother and discover the truth about her origins.

The Art of the AssassinThe Art of the Assassin by Kevin Sullivan (ARC, courtesy of Allison & Busby)

1899, Glasgow. A man is stabbed to death in a tenement courtyard, and Juan Camaron, photographer-cum-sleuth, is enlisted to assist the police investigation. Perhaps his innovative photographic method can bring to light what the eye may have overlooked.

Yet Juan has problems of his own. His late father’s legacy, a monumental photographic record of the architecture of colonial Cuba, is threatened by a charge of plagiarism from a mysterious senora. Meanwhile, Juan’s hoped-for happiness with his fiancee, Jane, might be over before it’s even begun, and even more so when a visiting professor is murdered and Jane is witnessed fleeing the scene. Juan is torn between finding the killer and finding Jane, but are they one and the same? The truth may be hidden in the photographs.

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: Saving the World – Women: The Twenty-First Century’s Factor For Change by Paola Diana
  • Top Ten Tuesday 
  • Book Review: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Book Review: Madam by Phoebe Wynne
  • Book Review: Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
  • Book Review: The Art of the Assassin by Kevin Sullivan

#WWWWednesday – 10th February 2021

whatcathyreadnext16 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

Daughters of NightDaughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (eARC, courtesy of Mantle via NetGalley)

Lucia’s fingers found her own. She gazed at Caro as if from a distance. Her lips parted, her words a whisper: ‘He knows.’

London, 1782. Desperate for her politician husband to return home from France, Caroline ‘Caro’ Corsham is already in a state of anxiety when she finds a well-dressed woman mortally wounded in the bowers of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. The Bow Street constables are swift to act, until they discover that the deceased woman was a highly-paid prostitute, at which point they cease to care entirely. But Caro has motives of her own for wanting to see justice done, and so sets out to solve the crime herself. Enlisting the help of thief-taker, Peregrine Child, their inquiry delves into the hidden corners of Georgian society, a world of artifice, deception and secret lives.

But with many gentlemen refusing to speak about their dealings with the dead woman, and Caro’s own reputation under threat, finding the killer will be harder, and more treacherous than she can know…

The Diplomat's WifeThe Diplomat’s Wife by Michael Ridpath (ARC, courtesy of Corvus and Readers First)

1936: Devastated by the death of her beloved brother Hugh, Emma seeks to keep his memory alive by wholeheartedly embracing his dreams of a communist revolution. But when she marries an ambitious diplomat, she must leave her ideals behind and live within the confines of embassy life in Paris and Nazi Berlin. Then one of Hugh’s old comrades reappears, asking her to report on her philandering husband, and her loyalties are torn.

1979: Emma’s grandson, Phil, dreams of a gap-year tour of Cold War Europe, but is nowhere near being able to fund it. So when his beloved grandmother determines to make one last trip to the places she lived as a young diplomatic wife, and to try to solve a mystery that has haunted her since the war, he jumps at the chance to accompany her. But their journey takes them to darker, more dangerous places than either of them could ever have imagined…

Recently finished

Links from the titles will take you to my reviews

Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford

The Girl at the Back of the Bus by Suzette D. Harrison

What Cathy (will) Read Next

MadamMadam by Phoebe Wynne (ARC, courtesy of Quercus)

Light a fire they can’t put out…

For 150 years, above the Scottish cliffs, Caldonbrae Hall has sat as a beacon of excellence in the ancestral castle of Lord William Hope. A boarding school for girls, it promises a future where its pupils will emerge ‘resilient and ready to serve society’. Rose Christie, a 26-year-old Classics teacher, is the first new hire for the school in over a decade. At first, Rose feels overwhelmed in the face of this elite establishment, but soon after her arrival she begins to understand that she may have more to fear than her own ineptitude.

When Rose stumbles across the secret circumstances surrounding the abrupt departure of her predecessor – a woman whose ghost lingers over everything and who no one will discuss – she realises that there is much more to this institution than she has been led to believe. As she uncovers the darkness that beats at the heart of Caldonbrae, Rose becomes embroiled in a battle that will threaten her sanity as well as her safety…