memes – Page 13 – What Cathy Read Next…

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

Time of the Child by Niall Williams (Bloomsbury via NetGalley)

Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in the little town of Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from his community. A visit from the doctor is always a sign of bad things to come.

His youngest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed her chance at real love – and passed up an offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.

But in the advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter’s lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Vintage)

Six astronauts rotate in their spacecraft above the earth. They are there to collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.

Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction. The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part – or protective – of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?

Recently finished

Blue Postcards by Douglas Bruton (Fairlight)

How To Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin (Quercus)

What Cathy Will Read Next

The Sea Road West by Sally Rena (Endeavour Press)

The road from the Scottish mainland to Kintillo lies across a ridge of craggy and forbidding hills, a natural barrier isolating the peninsular from the rest of the world and making Kintillo a place of both refuge and solitude.

But trouble begins when Father Macabe dies, and Father James, a new, young man arrives. Handsome and full of ideals, Father James is totally unprepared for the spell-binding beauty of the lonely country, and for the irrelevance of his philanthropic fervour to the lives of its inhabitants. For company, there is only a retired doctor, a charming and alcoholic wreck, and the inhabitants of the Hall – the Laird and his two pretty daughters.

Meriel Finlay is one of these daughters – a captivating 19 year old yearning for love and adventure. As mutual desire slowly ripens, can Father James continue to keep focus on his profession when it denies him his basic instincts?

Passions hidden below the surface, maturing in loneliness, erupt in a violent upsurge of love, hatred and jealousy which sweep through Kintillo like a storm…

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want.
Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists.
Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is a freebie on the theme of Thankful/Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving isn’t a thing here in the UK but I know it is in the US and one of the traditions associated with it is the President “pardoning” two live turkeys. So going off on one of my weird tangents, here are ten books set all or partly in Turkey/Türkiye.

Links from the titles will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie – ‘Just after midnight, a snowdrift stops the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train is surprisingly full for the time of the year, but by the morning it is one passenger fewer.’
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk – ‘A transporting tale set amid the splendor and religious intrigue of sixteenth-century Istanbul.’
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak – ‘One rainy afternoon in Istanbul, a woman walks into a doctor’s surgery. ‘I need to have an abortion’, she announces. She is nineteen years old and unmarried. What happens that afternoon will change her life.’
A Woman of Opinion by Sean Lusk – ‘Lady Mary Wortley Montagu longs for adventure, freedom and love. Travelling to Constantinople, Mary finally discovers the autonomous life she dreams of.’
At the Breakfast Table by Defne Suman – ‘Buyukada, Turkey, 2017. In the glow of a late summer morning, family gather for the 100th birthday of the famous artist Shirin Saka.’
Elektra by Jennifer Saint – ‘The House of Atreus is cursed. This is the story of three women, their fates inextricably tied to this curse, and the fickle nature of men and gods.’
The Women of Troy by Pat Barker – ‘Troy has fallen and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an endless war—including the women of Troy themselves.’
The Drowning Guard by Linda Lafferty – ‘Each morning in the hour before dawn, a silent boat launches on the Bosphorous, moving swiftly into the deepest part of the waters halfway between Europe and Asia, where a man will die…’
Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières – ‘When war is declared, the peaceful fabric of life in one small community in south-west Anatolia is destroyed.’
Stamboul Train by Graham Greene – ‘As the Orient Express hurtles across Europe on its three-day journey from Ostend to Constantinople, the lives of several of its passengers become bound together.’