memes – Page 179 – 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

Lily by Rose Tremain (eARC, Chatto & Windus)

Nobody knows yet that she is a murderer…

Abandoned at the gates of a London park one winter’s night in 1850, baby Lily Mortimer is saved by a young police constable and taken to the London Foundling Hospital. Lily is fostered by an affectionate farming family in rural Suffolk, enjoying a brief childhood idyll before she is returned to the Hospital, where she is punished for her rebellious spirit. Released into the harsh world of Victorian London, Lily becomes a favoured employee at Belle Prettywood’s Wig Emporium, but all the while she is hiding a dreadful secret…

Across the years, policeman Sam Trench keeps watch over the young woman he once saved. When Sam meets Lily again, there is an instant attraction between them and Lily is convinced that Sam holds the key to her happiness – but might he also be the one to uncover her crime and so condemn her to death?

Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller (Sceptre via NetGalley)

One rain-swept February night in 1809, an unconscious man is carried into a house in Somerset. He is Captain John Lacroix, home from Britain’s disastrous campaign against Napoleon’s forces in Spain. Gradually Lacroix recovers his health, but not his peace of mind – he cannot talk about the war or face the memory of what happened in a village on the gruelling retreat to Corunna. After the command comes to return to his regiment, he sets out instead for the Hebrides, with the vague intent of reviving his musical interests and collecting local folksongs.

Lacroix sails north incognito, unaware that he has far worse to fear than being dragged back to the army: a vicious English corporal and a Spanish officer are on his trail, with orders to kill. The haven he finds on a remote island with a family of free-thinkers and the sister he falls for are not safe, at all.

Recently finished

The Quiet People by Paul Cleave (Orenda)

Down A Dark River (Inspector Corravan #1) by Karen Odden (Crooked Lane)

My Secret Sister by Lauren Westwood

Gods of Rome (Rise of Emperors #3) by Gordon Doherty and Simon Turney (Aries)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

Eureka (Freya Wyley #2) by Anthony Quinn (eARC, Jonathan Cape via NetGalley)

Summer, 1967. As London shimmers in a heat haze and swoons to the sound of Sergeant Pepper, a mystery film – Eureka – is being shot by German wunderkind Reiner Werther Kloss. The screenwriter, Nat Fane, would do anything for a hit but can’t see straight for all the acid he’s dropping. Fledgling actress Billie Cantrip is hoping for her big break but can’t find a way out of her troubled relationship with an older man. And journalist Freya Wyley wants to know why so much of what Kloss touches turns to ash in his wake. Meanwhile, the parallel drama of Nat’s screenplay starts unfurling its own deep secrets.

Sexy, funny, nasty, Eureka probes the dark side of creativity, the elusiveness of art and the torment of love.

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.

This month’s starting book is What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez. Once again, it’s a book I haven’t read so for my first link I’m going to another book by the same author, The Friend – which I also haven’t read! However, I understand it’s a story about how a bond forms between a woman and a dog.

This leads me to a book I actually have read – The Writer’s Cats by Muriel Barbery – a charming illustrated book in which the author reveals just how crucial a role her cats play in her writing.

My next link is the book that first introduced me to the work of Muriel Barbery, A Single Rose. In the book, Rose travels to Kyoto for the reading of the will of the Japanese father she never knew.

In Connectedness by Sandra Danby, an established artist asks a journalist to find the baby she gave away when she was an art student.

Staying on the theme of missing relatives, in The Vanished Child by M. J. Lee a genealogical investigator attempts to discover what happened to an illegitimate child given up for adoption many years before.

The final book in my chain is A Woman Made of Snow by Elisabeth Gifford in which a woman tries to discover the identity of her husband’s grandmother, a woman who seems to have been erased from the family’s history.

My chain has involved bonds formed and bonds broken. Where did your chain take you?