#WWWWednesday – 10th August 2022

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

After She'd GoneAfter She’d Gone by Alex Dahl (ARC, Head of Zeus)

Liv keeps a low profile in Sandefjord, Norway: she’s just another tired single mother, trying to make ends meet. She has never told her son about the secrets she carries or the life she lived before he was born. She will do anything to keep him safe.

Anastasia‘s life is transformed when she moves from Russia to Milan to work as a model. She’s rich. She’s desired. But there’s a dark side to the high-pressure catwalk shows; the sun-baked Italian palazzos; the drink-fuelled after-parties hosted by powerful men. Soon, she will do anything to escape.

Selma is a journalist in Oslo. She’ s investigating scandals in the modelling industry, but can’ t get her article published. Then a woman goes missing in Sandefjord. Now Selma is about to uncover the biggest story of her life…

The Women of the CastleThe Women of the Castle by Jessica Shattuck (Zaffre)

The Third Reich has crumbled. The Russians are coming.

Marianne von Lingenfels – widow of a resister murdered by the Nazi regime – finds refuge in the crumbling Bavarian castle where she once played host to German high society. There she fulfils her promise to find and protect the wives and children of her husband’s brave conspirators, rescuing her dearest friend’s widow, Benita, from sexual slavery to the Russian army, and Ania from a work camp for political prisoners. As Marianne assembles this makeshift family she is certain their shared pain will bind them together.

But as Benita begins a clandestine relationship and Ania struggles to conceal her role in the Nazi regime, Marianne learns that her clear-cut, highly principled world view has no place in these new, frightening and emotionally-charged days.

All three women must grapple with the realities they now face, and the consequences of decisions each made in the darkest of times…


Recently finished

The Lost Diary of Samuel Pepys by Jack Jewers (Moonflower Publishing)

The Bone Road by N. E. Solomons (Polygon)

Bad Relations by Cressida Connolly (Viking)


What Cathy (will) Read Next

The Night ShipThe Night Ship by Jess Kidd (ARC, Canongate via Readers First)

1629. Embarking on a journey in search of her father, a young girl called Mayken boards the Batavia, the most impressive sea vessel of the age. During the long voyage, this curious and resourceful child must find her place in the ship’s busy world, and she soon uncovers shadowy secrets above and below deck. As tensions spiral, the fate of the ship and all on board becomes increasingly uncertain.

1989. Gil, a boy mourning the death of his mother, is placed in the care of his irritable and reclusive grandfather. Their home is a shack on a tiny fishing island off the Australian coast, notable only for its reefs and wrecked boats. This is no place for a teenager struggling with a dark past and Gil’s actions soon get him noticed by the wrong people.

The Night Ship is an enthralling tale of human cruelty, fate and friendship, and of two children, hundreds of years apart, whose fates are inextricably bound together.

#6Degrees of Separation From The Book of Form and Emptiness to The Quiet People

background book stack books close up
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Pexels.com

It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation!

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees.


The Book of Form and EmptinessThis month’s starting book is The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki, winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022.  As is often the case, it’s a book I haven’t read but according to the blurb it concerns a fourteen-year-old boy who begins to hear voices and takes refuge in the silence of a public library.

Another book set around a library is The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams which starts with the discovery of a crumpled reading list tucked inside a tattered library book.

Another kind of list features in The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle. If you could name five people – living or dead – to have dinner with, who would you choose? In the book Sabrina arrives at her 30th birthday dinner to find her best friend, three significant people from her past… and Audrey Hepburn.

Audrey Hepburn starred in the 1961 film adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote who also wrote In Cold Blood. It tells the story of the real life murders of the Clutter family in Kansas in 1959 and is considered by many to be the first true crime ‘non-fiction novel’.

The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed is another book which is a fictionalized account of an actual crime, in this case the murder of a shopkeeper in 1950s Cardiff. It’s also a story of a miscarriage of justice.

This Mortal Boy by Fiona Kidman also has as its subject a possible miscarriage of justice. Set in Auckland in 1955, it describes the trial and conviction for murder of Albert ‘Paddy’ Black, a young Belfast man and recent immigrant to New Zealand.

New Zealand is also the setting for crime novel The Quiet People by Paul Cleave in which the young son of two successful crime writers disappears. Suspicion falls on them not least because they have frequently joked that, since they write about it for a living, no one knows how to get away with crime like they do.

My chain has taken us from the peace and quiet of a library to the clamour of press attention. Where did your chain take you?