#WWWWednesday – 22nd January 2020

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 Wordsand then go blog hopping!


Currently reading

A book for a blog tour, an audiobook and the book chosen for me for the latest Classics Club spin.

The Other YouThe Other You by J. S. Monroe (ebook, courtesy of Head of Zeus)

Kate used to be good at recognising people. So good, she worked for the police, identifying criminals in crowds of thousands. But six months ago, a devastating car accident led to a brain injury. Now the woman who never forgot a face can barely recognise herself in the mirror.

At least she has Rob. Young, rich, handsome and successful, Rob runs a tech company on the idyllic Cornish coast. Kate met him just after her accident, and he nursed her back to health. When she’s with him, in his luxury modernist house, the nightmares of the accident fade, and she feels safe and loved.

Until, one day, she looks at Rob anew. And knows, with absolute certainty, that the man before her has been replaced by an impostor.

Is Rob who he says he is? Or is it all in Kate’s damaged mind?

TBR#7KatherineKatherine by Anya Seton (ebook)

This classic romance novel tells the true story of the love affair that changed history—that of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the ancestors of most of the British royal family.

Set in the vibrant 14th century of Chaucer and the Black Death, the story features knights fighting in battle, serfs struggling in poverty, and the magnificent Plantagenets – Edward III, the Black Prince, and Richard II – who ruled despotically over a court rotten with intrigue. Within this era of danger and romance, John of Gaunt, the king’s son, falls passionately in love with the already married Katherine. Their well-documented affair and love persist through decades of war, adultery, murder, loneliness, and redemption.

This epic novel of conflict, cruelty, and untameable love has become a classic since its first publication in 1954.

Heaven My HomeHeaven, My Home (Highway 59 #2)by Attica Locke (audiobook)

Nine-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; now he’s alone in the darkness of vast Caddo Lake, in a boat whose motor just died. A sudden noise distracts him – and all goes dark.

Darren Matthews is trying to emerge from another kind of darkness; after the events of his previous investigation, his marriage is in a precarious state of re-building, and his career and reputation lie in the hands of his mother, who’s never exactly had his best interests at heart. Now she holds the key to his freedom, and she’s not above a little maternal blackmail to press her advantage.

An unlikely possibility of rescue arrives in the form of a case down Highway 59, in a small lakeside town where the local economy thrives on nostalgia for ante-bellum Texas – and some of the era’s racial attitudes still thrive as well. Levi’s disappearance has links to Darren’s last case, and to a wealthy businesswoman, the boy’s grandmother, who seems more concerned about the fate of her business than that of her grandson.

Darren has to battle centuries-old suspicions and prejudices, as well as threats that have been reignited in the current political climate, as he races to find the boy, and to save himself.


Recently finished

A Messy AffairA Messy Affair by Elizabeth Mundy (eARC, courtesy of Constable)

The only way is murder…

Lena Szarka, a Hungarian cleaner working in London, is forced to brush up on her detective skills for a third time when her cousin Sarika is plunged into danger.

Sarika and her reality TV star boyfriend Terry both receive threatening notes. When Terry stops calling, Lena assumes he’s lost interest. Until he turns up. Dead. Lena knows she must act fast to keep her cousin from the same fate.

Scrubbing her way through the grubby world of reality television, online dating and betrayed lovers, Lena finds it harder than she thought to discern what’s real – and what’s just for the cameras.

Hitlers SecretHitler’s Secret (Tom Wilde #4) by Rory Clements (eARC, courtesy of Zaffre and NetGalley)

In the Autumn of 1941, the war is going badly for Britain and its allies. If the tide is going to be turned against Hitler, a new weapon is desperately needed.

In Cambridge, brilliant history professor Tom Wilde is asked by an American intelligence officer to help smuggle a mysterious package out of Nazi Germany – something so secret, even Hitler himself doesn’t know of its existence.

Posing as a German-American industrialist, Wilde soon discovers the shocking truth about the ‘package’, and why the Nazis will stop at nothing to prevent it leaving Germany. With ruthless killers loyal to Martin Bormann hunting him down, Wilde makes a desperate gamble on an unlikely escape route.

But even if he reaches England alive, that will not be the end of his ordeal. Wilde is now convinced that the truth he has discovered must remain hidden, even if it means betraying the country he loves… (Review to follow)


What Cathy (will) Read Next

20200118_131258Sir Quixote of the Moors by John Buchan (hardcover)

In the mid-sixteenth century, Jean de Rohaine, a middle-aged French nobleman, journeys to Scotland in search of adventure and a new beginning. In Scotland he meets up with his old friend, Quentin Kennedy, who informs him of a great battle to be waged. To the Frenchman’s horror,when he rides with Kennedy’s men in search of honour he finds instead that the “war” is with unarmed religious dissidents – Covenanters – whom he watches massacred.

Disgusted, he sets off alone across the barren moors, where he wanders until he comes to a cottage containing a beautiful and unprotected young woman, Anne. Rohaine promises to be her protector, but his ideals of honour and duty will be put to the test when he finds himself gradually falling in love with her….

My Week in Books – 19th January 2020

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of Artefacts and Other Stories by Rebecca Burns.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Bookish Discoveries in 2019. 

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 have a good nose around to see what other bloggers are reading.

Thursday – I shared my review of Mrs P’s Book of Secrets by Lorna Gray.

Friday – I published my review of Magician and Fool by Susan Wands.

Saturday – I shared my reading list for this year’s Buchan of the Month reading project.

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


New arrivals

51NYxz1CnKL._SX323_BO1,204,203,200_Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts (paperback, giveaway prize courtesy of Quercus)

Maud Gage Baum, widow of the author of the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, met Judy Garland, the young actress playing the role of Dorothy on the set of The Wizard of Oz in 1939. At the time, Maud was seventy-eight and Judy was sixteen. In spite of their age difference, Maud immediately connected to Judy–especially when Maud heard her sing “Over the Rainbow,” a song whose yearning brought to mind the tough years in South Dakota when Maud and her husband struggled to make a living–until Frank Baum’s book became a national sensation.

This wonderfully evocative two-stranded story recreates Maud’s youth as the rebellious daughter of a leading suffragette, and the prairie years of Maud and Frank’s early days when they lived among the people–especially young Dorothy–who would inspire Frank’s masterpiece. Woven into this past story is one set in 1939, describing the high-pressured days on The Wizard of Oz film set where Judy is being badgered by the director, producer, and her ambitious stage mother to lose weight, bind her breasts, and laugh, cry, and act terrified on command. As Maud had promised to protect the original Dorothy back in Aberdeen, she now takes on the job of protecting young Judy.

41pum92q8oLWild Spinning Girls by Carol Lovekin (e-book, courtesy of Honno Press)

Ida Llewellyn loses her job and her parents in the space of a few weeks and, thrown completely off course, she sets off to Wales to the house her father has left her.

But Heather, the young woman still in her teens whose home it was, keeps the house as a shrine to her late mother and is determined to scare Ida away.

The two girls battle with suspicion and fear before discovering that the secrets harboured by their thoughtless parents have grown rotten with time, and that any ghosts Ty’r Cwmwl harbours are of their own making.

Their broken hearts will only mend once they cast off the house and its history, and let go of the keepsakes that they treasure like childhood dreams.

51l8f8qK2tLDistorted Days by Louise Worthington (e-book, courtesy of Rachel’s Random Resources)

Heart-rending, humorous and above all authentic, Distorted Days is an exquisitely written account of the ways in which life can knock you off our feet – and how you can pick yourself up again.

If you’ve experienced the fickleness of fortune, this is a book that you’ll never forget.


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Heaven My HomeTBR#7KatherineHitlers Secret

Planned posts

  • Top Ten Tuesday: Most Recent Additions To My Bookshelf
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Book Review: Burning Cold by Lisa Lieberman
  • Book Review: The Lady of the Ravens by Joanna Hickson
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: A Messy Affair by Elizabeth Mundy
  • Buchan of the Month: Introducing Sir Quixote of the Moors