My Week in Books – 24th January 2021

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of crime thriller, Forgotten Lives by Ray Britain

Tuesday This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books I Meant To Read in 2020. I also shared an extract from One Chance: Surviving London’s Gangs by Terroll Lewis.

WednesdayWWW 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 other bloggers are reading. I also published my review of Artist, Lover, Soldier, Muse by Arthur D. Hittner.

Thursday – I shared my publication day review of A Prince and a Spy (Tom Wilde #5) by Rory Clements.

Friday – As part of the blog tour, I shared my review of historical crime mystery, To The Dark (Simon Westow #3) by Chris Nickson.

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


New arrivals

A Lifetime of MenA Lifetime of Men by Ciahnan Darrell (e-book, courtesy of the author and Random Things Tours)

Tolan has always let her mother have one secret – how she got that scar on her face – playing along with her mother’s game of inventing outlandish tales to explain the wound away. But when she finds a manuscript on her mother’s computer that promises to reveal the true story, Tolan only hesitates for a moment before curiosity compels her to read on.

She’s hoping for answers, but instead, she finds more mysteries tucked away in her mother’s past. Her mother appears to be associated with Bo, a feisty photojournalist who flies to Cuba in pursuit of a story and becomes embedded with Castro’s rebels, but Tolan can’t quite work out their connection. She’s more clear about the relationship between her mother and Michael, a man twelve years her senior. They bond over their shared outcast status, and their friendship quickly becomes intimate, but the relationship antagonizes the self-appointed moral watchdogs in their small town, who start to convert their threats into action. Tolan is pretty sure that Michael is her father. Her mother told her he died years ago, but the book suggests their story had a different ending.

Almost overnight, everything Tolan thought she knew about herself and her family has changed. She wants answers, but to find them, she risks destroying her closest relationships.

Saving MissySaving Missy by Beth Morrey (eARC, courtesy of Harper Collins via NetGalley and Random Things Tours) 

Seventy-nine is too late for a second chance. Isn’t it?

Missy Carmichael is prickly, stubborn – and terribly lonely. Until a chance encounter in the park with two very different women opens the door to something new. Something wonderful.

Missy was used to her small, solitary existence, listening to her footsteps echoing around the empty house, the tick-tick-tick of the watching clock. After all, she had made her life her way.

Now another life is beckoning to Missy – if she’s brave enough…

You Let Me GoYou Let Me Go by Eliza Graham (eARC, courtesy of Lake Union Press via NetGalley and Rachel’s Random Resources) 

A secret family history of love, anguish and betrayal.

After her beloved grandmother Rozenn’s death, Morane is heartbroken to learn that her sister is the sole inheritor of the family home in Cornwall – while she herself has been written out of the will. With both her business and her relationship with her sister on the rocks, Morane becomes consumed by one question: what made Rozenn turn her back on her?

When she finds an old letter linking her grandmother to Brittany under German occupation, Morane escapes on the trail of her family’s past. In the coastal village where Rozenn lived in 1941, she uncovers a web of shameful secrets that haunted Rozenn to the end of her days. Was it to protect those she loved that a desperate Rozenn made a heartbreaking decision and changed the course of all their lives forever?

Morane goes in search of the truth but the truth can be painful. Can she make her peace with the past and repair her relationship with her sister?


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: The Dead of Winter by S. J. Parris
  • Top Ten Tuesday 
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Mint by S. R. Wilsher
  • Book Review: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

#WWWWednesday – 20th January 2021

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

An ARC and a new acquisition…

A Prince and A SpyA Prince and a Spy by Rory Clements (ARC, courtesy of Zaffre and Readers First)

Sweden, 1942 – Two old friends meet. They are cousins. One is Prince George, Duke of Kent, brother of the King of England. The other is Prince Philipp von Hesse, a committed Nazi and close friend of Adolf Hitler.

Days later, the Prince George is killed in a plane crash in the north of Scotland. The official story is that it was an accident – but not everyone is convinced.

There is even a suggestion that the Duke’s plane was sabotaged, but with no evidence, Cambridge spy Tom Wilde is sent north to discover the truth…

20210117_102213-1The Dead of Winter by S.J. Parris (hardcover)

Three exhilarating novellas – The Secret Dead, The Academy of Secrets, and The Dead of Winter – following the early adventures of young priest Giordano Bruno in the dramatic days of sixteenth century Italy.

The Secret Dead – During the summer of 1566, a girl’s body is found within the walls of a Neapolitan monastery. Novice monk Giordano Bruno has a habit of asking difficult questions, but this time his investigations may lose him his place in the Dominican Order – or deliver him into the hands of the Inquisition.

The Academy of Secrets – An invitation arrives from a secret society of enlightened philosophers, led by the eccentric Don Giambattista della Porta. Bruno is captivated – even more so when he meets della Porta’s beautiful niece. But keeping these new heretical secrets soon becomes a matter of life or death…

A Christmas Requiem – When Giordano Bruno is told the pope wants to see him, he fears he may be walking into a trap. The pope is intrigued by Bruno’s talent for complex memory games, but Rome is a den of intrigue, trickery and blood, and Bruno will be lucky to escape the Eternal City alive.


Recently finished

Links from the titles will take you to my reviews

Artist, Soldier, Lover, Muse by Arthur D. Hittner 

The Art of Dying (Raven, Fisher & Simpson #2) by Ambrose Parry 

Game of the Gods by Paolo Maurensig, translated by Anne Milano Appel

Forgotten Lives (DCI Doug Stirling #2) by Ray Britain

To The Dark (Simon Westow #3) by Chris Nickson (eARC, courtesy of Severn House)

Winter is about to take a chilling twist…

Leeds, 1822. The city is in the grip of winter, but the chill deepens for thief-taker Simon Westow and his young assistant, Jane, when the body of Laurence Poole, a petty local thief, emerges from the melting snow by the river at Flay Cross Mill.

A coded notebook found in Laurence’s room mentions Charlie Harker, the most notorious fence in Leeds who’s now running for his life, and the mysterious words: To the dark. What was Laurence hiding that caused his death? Simon’s hunt for the truth pits him against some dangerous, powerful enemies who’ll happily kill him in a heartbeat – if they can. (Review to follow for blog tour)


What Cathy (will) Read Next

A Tree Grows in BrooklynA Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (paperback)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness – in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.