#WWWWednesday – 9th September 2020

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

A book from my TBR pile and an ARC

The Artist and the SoldierThe Artist and the Soldier by Angelle Petta (ebook, courtesy of the author)

Two young men come of age and fall in love against the backdrop of true events in World War II.

It’s 1938. Bastian Fisher and Max Amsel meet at a Nazi-American summer camp, Camp Siegfried. Neither boy has any idea what to do with their blooming, confusing feelings for one another. Before they can begin to understand, the pair is yanked back into reality and forced in opposite directions.

Five years later, during the heart of World War II, Bastian’s American army platoon has landed in Salerno, Italy. Max is in Nazi-occupied Rome where he has negotiated a plan to hire Jews as ‘extras’ in a movie – an elaborate ruse to escape the Nazis. Brought together by circumstance and war Bastian and Max find one another again in Rome.

9781838770709City of Spies by Mara Timon (ARC, courtesy of Zaffre and Readers First)

LISBON, 1943. After escaping from Nazi-Occupied France, SOE agent Elisabeth de Mornay, codename Cecile, receives new orders: she must infiltrate high society in neutral Lisbon and find out who is leaking key information to the Germans about British troop movements. As Solange Verin, a French widow of independent means, she will be able to meet all the rich Europeans who have gathered in Lisbon to wait out the war. One of them is a traitor and she must find out who before more British servicemen die.

Complications arise when ‘Solange’ comes to the attention of German Abwehr officer, Major Eduard Graf. As they get to know each other, she struggles to keep her lies close to the truth.

But in a city that is filled with spies, how can she tell who is friend, or foe?


Recently finished

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

Talland House by Maggie Humm (eARC, courtesy of She Writes Press and Random Things Tours)

Charlotte by Helen Moffett (ARC, courtesy of Zaffre and Readers First)

Adrift by Amin Maalouf (ARC, courtesy of World Editions)

The United States is losing its moral credibility. The European Union is breaking apart. Africa, the Arab world, and the Mediterranean are becoming battlefields for various regional and global powers. Extreme forms of nationalism are on the rise. Thus divided, humanity is unable to address global threats to the environment and our health.

How did we get here and what is yet to come?

World-renowned scholar and bestselling author Amin Maalouf seeks to raise awareness and pursue a new human solidarity. In Adrift, Maalouf traces how civilizations have drifted apart throughout the 20th century, mixing personal narrative and historical analysis to provide a warning signal for the future. (Review to follow)

The Ghost Tree (A Betty Church Mystery Book 3) by M. R. C. Kasasian (eARC, courtesy of Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

Detective Betty Church is forced to revisit ghosts from her past when a skeleton is found buried in the woods.

July, 1914: Sixteen-year-old Etterly, running from something, hides inside the trunk of a tree and disappears. The police search but find no trace. Her family and friends rack their brains, but come up with nothing. And so slowly life returns to normal. The hole in the tree is boarded up and the town of Sackwater moves on. Only Etterly’s best friend, Betty, clings to hope, insisting she can hear her friend crying for help.

June, 1940: A skeleton is discovered buried in the woods. Though most clues have long since decayed, it is wearing an unusual necklace. As soon as Inspector Betty Church sees the evidence she recognises it. The necklace belonged to Etterly. Fearing the worst, Betty is determined to solve this strange case once and for all.

What happened to Etterly? And why has this secret remained buried for so long? (Review to follow)


What Cathy (will) Read Next

9781785631887The Girl from the Hermitage by Molly Gartland (eARC, courtesy of Lightning Books and Rachel’s Random Resources)

It is December 1941, and eight-year-old Galina and her friend Katya are caught in the siege of Leningrad, eating soup made of wallpaper, with the occasional luxury of a dead rat. Galina’s artist father Mikhail has been kept away from the front to help save the treasures of the Hermitage. Its cellars could now provide a safe haven, provided Mikhail can navigate the perils of a portrait commission from one of Stalin’s colonels.

Nearly 40 years later, Galina herself is a teacher at the Leningrad Art Institute. What ought to be a celebratory weekend at her forest dacha turns sour when she makes an unwelcome discovery. The painting she embarks upon that day will hold a grim significance for the rest of her life, as the old Soviet Union makes way for the new Russia and Galina’s familiar world changes out of all recognition.

#TopTenTuesday Books With Inspiring Young Characters

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 topic is Books for My Younger Self. Rather than stick strictly to the topic, my list contains books (both fiction and nonfiction) that feature young people who do remarkable things. Something to educate and inspire readers of all ages.


The Boy With Blue Trousers by Carol Jones – in the goldfields of 19th-century Australia, two very different girls try to escape their past

The Girl from Vichy by Andie Newton – a young woman joins the French Resistance

The Young Survivors by Debra Barnes – five children of a Jewish family must survive the loss of their home and separation from their parents when Germany invades France in WW2

The Wanderers by Tim Pears – a young boy travels alone through the West Country

The Bird in the Bamboo Cage by Hazel Gaynor – a group of schoolchildren and their teachers endure the Japanese occupation of China

Summerland by Lucy Adlington – a young refugee has to make a life in a new country

Then We Take Berlin by John Lawton – a young girl evacuated from her home in Berlin during WW2 becomes involved in documenting the identities of the survivors of a wartime atrocity

The Hidden Village by Imogen Matthews – young Jewish children are forced to take refuge in a village hidden deep within a Belgian forest during WW2

Song by Michelle Jana Chan – a boy leaves behind his impoverished family in China to travel to Guyana in the hope of making his fortune

Queen of Katwe by Tim Crothers – a girl from the slums of Kampala becomes a chess champion