Tag: Currently Reading

My Week in Books – 28th April 2024

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My Week in Books

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – To celebrate Earth Day 2024, my spotlight post featured Land Marks: A Novel by Maryann Lesert. 

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday was Unread Books On My Shelves I Want To Read Soon. 

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 review of the witty and thought-provoking satire, Mania by Lionel Shriver.

Friday – I published my review of historical novel, The Household by Stacey Halls.

Saturday – I shared my review of futuristic thriller, The Coming Storm by Greg Mosse.

New arrivals

Dead GroundDead Ground by Graham Hurley (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

1936. Anglo-Breton translator Annie Wrenne is working in Madrid when the Spanish Civil War breaks out. Annie becomes a nurse on the front line, but after falling in love with a patient, she ends up pregnant – and abandoned – by a man she thought she knew.

Annie passes the rest of the war in a haze, her only consolation her relationship with mysterious Republican fighter Carlos Ortega. Annie finds herself caught up in Ortega’s world, a web of intrigue, which leads to her recruitment into MI5.

On her first mission, Annie must pose as Ortega’s wife and head to Algeciras. Hitler’s Operation Felix – his plan to control the Mediterranean and force Churchill to the negotiating table – has been set into motion, and the ‘couple’ must help prevent the Nazis from seizing Gibraltar.

But Ortega has secretly been working for the Nationalists, part of Madrid’s Fifth Column. If it falls to Annie – and Ortega – to save the day for the Allied cause, can she trust a man who has changed sides yet again?

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: James by Percival Everett
  • My Five Favourite April 2024 Reads
  • #6Degrees of Separation
  • Book Review: Darkness Does Not Come At Once by Glenn Bryant
  • Book Review: The Montford Maniac by M. R. C. Kasasian

#WWWWednesday – 24th April 2024

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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 The Montford Maniac by M.R.C. KasasianThe Montford Maniac by M.R.C. Kasasian (ARC, Canelo) 

Lady Violet Thorn’s awful Aunt Igitha has arrived uninvited and she’s wreaking havoc in the household. When Violet plucks up courage to ask her to leave, Igitha’s chilling threats are soon realised with deadly effect.

In a devastating series of events, a woman is impaled, another is hanged outside Violet’s window, and a wild beast is delivered to her house.

Violet is soon struck by the similarities between these events, and the unsolved murders committed ten years earlier by the sadistic serial killer known as the Montford Maniac. Could he have returned? Is Igitha behind the crimes? Or could there be someone even more terrifying on the prowl? The horrors have only just begun.

Book cover of The Coming Storm by Greg MosseThe Coming Storm by Greg Mosse (eARC, Moonflower Books)

He may have prevented the world from falling into ruin, but Alexandre Lamarque knows his work is not done yet.

There’s still a controlling intelligence out there, pulling together the strands of a new and even more destructive conspiracy.

Battling with personal tragedy on one hand, and the intrusion of new-found celebrity on the other, Alex must re-emerge from self-imposed exile to reunite with Mariam – the woman he loves – and Amaury – his truest friend – to face the fight of their lives.

From the streets of Paris, the lithium mines of southern Mali, and the mighty Aswan Dam, they come up against forces whose intentions are as devious as they are malign. Time is against them, and there’s more at stake than ever.

Recently finished

The Paris Peacemakers by Flora Johnston (Allison & Busby) 

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent (Penguin) 

The Household by Stacey Halls (Manilla Press)

What Cathy Will Read Next

How to Make a BombHow To Make A Bomb: A Novel by Rupert Thomson (eARC, Apollo via NetGalley)

If he suddenly found what surrounded him unbearable, it was because it was artificial. Everything had been designed and manufactured, and he was trapped in it.

Philip Notman, an acclaimed historian, attends a conference in Bergen, Norway. On his return to London, and to his wife and son, something unexpected and inexplicable happens to him, and he is unable to settle back into his normal life.

Seeking answers, he flies to Cadiz to see Inés, a Spanish academic with whom he shared a connection at the conference, but his journey doesn’t end there. A chance encounter with a wealthy, elderly couple sends him to a house on the south coast of Crete. Is he thinking of leaving his wife, whom he claims he still loves, or is he trying to change a reality that has become impossible to bear? Is he on a quest for a simpler and more authentic existence, or is he utterly self-deluded?

As he tries to make sense of both his personal circumstances and the world surrounding him, he finds himself embarking on a course of action that will push him to the very brink of disaster.