My Week in Books – 19th May 2024

My Week in Books

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I shared my review of How to Make A Bomb: A Novel by Rupert Thomson

Tuesday – I went off-piste for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday with Books Set in Workplaces.

Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a 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 experience of attending recordings of BBC Radio 4’s Bookclub 

Friday – I published my review of historical novel, A Plague of Serpents by K. J. Maitland.

Saturday – I shared my review of Absolutely & Forever by Rose Tremain, one of the books on the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2024.


New arrivals

Book cover of Cabaret Macabre by Tom MeadCabaret Macabre by Tom Mead (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

Hampshire, 1938. Victor Silvius is confined in a private sanatorium after attacking prominent judge Sir Giles Drury. When Sir Giles starts receiving sinister threatening letters, his wife suspects Silvius. Meanwhile, Silvius’ sister Caroline is convinced her brother is about to be murdered… by none other than his old nemesis Sir Giles.

Caroline seeks the advice of Scotland Yard’s Inspector Flint, while the Drurys, eager to avoid a scandal, turn to Joseph Spector. Spector, renowned magician turned sleuth, has an uncanny knack for solving complicated crimes – but this case will test his powers of deduction to their limits.

At a snowbound English country house, a body is found is impossible circumstances, and a killer’s bullet is fired through a locked window without breaking the glass. Spector and Flint’s investigations soon collide as they find themselves trapped by the snowstorm where anyone could be the next victim – or the killer…

Book cover of Six Lives by Lavie TidharSix Lives by Lavie Tidhar (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

Six lives, connected through blood and history, each rooted in the dirt of their inheritance, look to the future, and what it might hold.

THE GUANO MERCHANT
In 1855, Edward Feebes travels to the guano islands of South America, to investigate an irregularity in the accounts of the House of Feebes & Co.

THE BLACKMAILER
In 1912, post-mortem photographer and reluctant blackmailer Annie Connolly plots her escape from Ireland to America on board the Titanic.

THE IDEALIST
In 1933, idealistic Edgar Waverley faces a choice of the heart when he becomes embroiled in a country house murder.

THE SPY
In 1964, hapless KGB agent Vasily Sokolov makes his career conjuring valuable information from worthless detritus.

THE MOVIE STAR
In 1987, actor Mariam Khouri looks back at ‘Black Dirt’, the movie that lifted her from the streets of Cairo.

THE HEIRESS
In 2012, Isabelle Feebes attempts to break with her poisonous heritage once and for all. Can she forge a new life for herself in the New World? Can you ever truly escape your past?


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading


Planned posts

  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Small Museum by Jody Cooksley
  • Book Review: Estella’s Revenge by Barbara Havelocke

#WWWWednesday – 15th May 2024

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

Book cover of Estella's Revenge by Barbara HavelockeEstella’s Revenge by Barbara Havelocke (Hera) 

You know Miss Havisham. The world’s most famous jilted bride. This is her daughter’s story.

Raised in the darkness of Satis House where the clocks never tick, the beautiful Estella is bred to hate men and to keep her heart cold as the grave. She knows she doesn’t feel things quite like other people do but is this just the result of her strange upbringing?

As she watches the brutal treatment of women around her, hatred hardens into a core of vengeance and when she finds herself married to the abusive Drummle, she is forced to make a deadly choice: Should she embrace the darkness within her and exact her revenge?

A Plague of SerpentsA Plague of Serpents (Daniel Pursglove #4) by K. J. Maitland (Headline via NetGalley)

London, 1608. Three years after the Gunpowder Treason, the King’s enemies prepare to strike again.

Daniel Pursglove is tasked by royal command with one final mission: he must infiltrate the Serpents – a secret group of Catholics plotting to kill the King – or risk his own execution. But other conspirators are circling, men who would blackmail Daniel for their own dark ends.

In the Serpents’ den, nothing is quite as it seems. And when Daniel spies a familiar face among their number, the game takes a dangerous turn.

As plague returns to London, tensions reach breaking point. Can Daniel escape the web of treason in which he finds himself ensnared – or has his luck finally run out?


Recently finished

How To Make A Bomb: A Novel by Rupert Thomson (Apollo)

Absolutely & Forever by Rose Tremain (Chatto & Windus)

How do you find the courage to make your own life?

Marianne Clifford, teenage daughter of a peppery army colonel and his vain wife, falls helplessly and absolutely for eighteen-year-old Simon Hurst, whose cleverness and physical beauty suggest that he will go forward into a successful and monied future, helped on by doting parents. But fate intervenes. Simon’s plans are blown off course, he leaves for Paris and Marianne is forced to bury her dreams of a future together.

It is Marianne who tells this piercing story of first love, characterising herself as ignorant and unworthy, whilst her smart, ironic narration tellingly reveals so much more. Finding her way in 1960s Chelsea, and supported by her courageous Scottish friend, Petronella, she continues to seek the life she never stops craving. And in Paris, beneath his blithe exterior, Simon Hurst continues to nurse the secret which will alter everything. (Review to follow)


What Cathy Will Read Next

Book cover A Beginner's Guide to Breaking and Entering by Andrew Hunter MurrayA Beginner’s Guide to Breaking and Entering by Andrew Hunter Murray (Hutchinson Heinemann)

Property might be theft. But the housing market is murder.

My name is Al.

I live in wealthy people’s second homes while their real owners are away.

I don’t rob them, I don’t damage anything. I’m more an unofficial house-sitter than an actual criminal.

Life is good. Or it was – until last night, when my friends and I broke into the wrong place, on the wrong day, and someone wound up dead.

And now … now we’re in a great deal of trouble.