memes – Page 303 – 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

Untitled: The Real Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor by Anna Pasternak (ebook, NetGalley)

Who was the real Wallis: an opportunistic American social climber, a master manipulator or the true love of Edward’s life? Amid the cacophony of condemnation her story has become obfuscated. Untitled is an intimate biography of one of the most misunderstood women in British royal history.

His charisma and glamour ensured him the status of a rock star prince. Yet Edward gave up the British throne, the British Empire and his position as Emperor of India, to marry his true love, American divorcee Wallis Simpson.

So much gossip and innuendo has been levelled at Wallis Simpson that it has become nearly impossible to discern the real woman. Many have wondered why, when Edward could have had anyone he desired, he was smitten with this unusual American woman. As her friend Herman Rogers said to her in 1936 when news of her affair with Edward broke: ‘Much of what is being said concerns a woman who does not exist and never did exist.’

History is mostly perceived from the perspective of his-story. But what about her story? Anna Pasternak’s new book is the first ever to give Wallis a chance and a voice to show that she was a warm, loyal, intelligent woman adored by her friends, who was written off by cunning, influential Establishment men seeking to diminish her and destroy her reputation. As the author argues, far from being the villain of the abdication, she was the victim.

Anna Pasternak is appearing at Henley Literary Festival 2019

The Mathematical Bridge by Jim Kelly (hardcover, review copy courtesy of Allison & Busby)

Cambridge, 1940. It is the first winter of the war, and snow is falling. When an evacuee drowns in the river, his body swept away, Detective Inspector Eden Brooke sets out to investigate what seems to be a deliberate attack.

The following night, a local electronics factory is attacked, and an Irish republican slogan is left at the scene. The IRA are campaigning to win freedom for Ulster, but why has Cambridge been chosen as a target? And when Brooke learns that the drowned boy was part of the close-knit local Irish Catholic community, he begins to question whether there may be a connection between the boy’s death and the attack at the factory.

As more riddles come to light, can Brooke solve the mystery before a second attack claims a famous victim?

Recently finished

Fake Like Me by Barbara Bourland (paperback, review copy courtesy of riverrun)

After a fire decimates her studio, including the seven billboard-size paintings for her next show, a young, no-name painter is left with an impossible task: recreate her art in three months-or ruin her fledgling career.

Homeless and desperate, she flees to an exclusive retreat in upstate New York famous for its outrageous revelries and glamorous artists. And notorious as the place where brilliant young artist Carey Logan-one of her idols-drowned in the lake.

But when she arrives, the retreat is a ghost of its former self. No one shares their work. No parties light up the deck. No one speaks of Carey, though her death haunts the cabins and the black lake, lurking beneath the surface like a shipwreck. As the young painter works obsessively in Carey’s former studio, uncovers strange secrets and starts to fall–hard and fast–for Carey’s mysterious boyfriend, it’s as if she’s taking her place.

But one thought shadows her every move: What really happened to Carey Logan?

This Mortal Boy by Fiona Kidman (paperback, advance review copy courtesy of Gallic Books)

‘The offender is not one of ours. It is unfortunate that we got this undesirable from his homeland.’

Auckland, October 1955. If young Paddy Black sings to himself he can almost see himself back home in Belfast. Yet, less than two years after sailing across the globe in search of a better life, here he stands in a prison cell awaiting trial for murder. He pulled a knife at the jukebox that night, but should his actions lead him to the gallows? As his desperate mother waits on, Paddy must face a judge and jury unlikely to favour an outsider, as a wave of moral panic sweeps the island nation.

The Traitor of Treasure Island by John Drake (eARC, courtesy of Endeavour Quill)

Buried for nearly three hundred years and now brought triumphantly to light by Dr Livesey, this is, at last, the true story of what happened on the fateful Treasure Island…

The truth about Captain Flint and his fabled death.

The truth about Long John Silver and his coveted wife.

And the truth about Jim Hawkins, that double-dealing turncoat of the first order: the traitor of Treasure Island. (Review to follow as part of blog tour)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

The Beach at Doonshean by Penny Feeny (eARC, courtesy of Aria and NetGalley)

In Ireland, the past never dies…

Long ago, on a windswept Irish beach, a young father died saving the life of another man’s child.

Thirty years later, his widow, Julia, decides to return to this wild corner of Ireland to lay the past to rest. Her journey sparks others: her daughter Bel, an artist, joins her mother in Ireland, while son Matt and daughter-in-law Rachel, at home in Liverpool, embark on some soul-searching of their own.

As the threads of past and present intertwine, Julia’s family confront long-buried feelings of guilt, anger, fear and desire. Only then can they allow the crashing waves of the beach at Doonshean to bond them together once again.

The Tides Between by Elizabeth Jane Corbett (ebook, courtesy of the author and Odyssey Books)

In 1841, on the eve of her departure from London, Bridie’s mother demands she forget her dead father and prepare for a sensible, adult life in Port Phillip. Desperate to save her childhood, fifteen-year-old Bridie is determined to smuggle a notebook filled with her father’s fairy tales to the far side of the world.

When Rhys Bevan, a soft-voiced young storyteller and fellow traveller realises Bridie is hiding something, a magical friendship is born. But Rhys has his own secrets and the words written in Bridie’s notebook carry a dark double meaning.

As they inch towards their destination, Rhys’s past returns to haunt him. Bridie grapples with the implications of her dad’s final message. The pair take refuge in fairy tales, little expecting the trouble it will cause.

It’s the first Saturday of the month so 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 we’re tasked to start with the book we finished with in July, in my case The Great Darkness by Jim Kelly. The Great Darkness is set in Cambridge in the opening weeks of the Second World War. The title refers to the first Government imposed blackout covering southern England. In a neat twist, for the hero of the book, Inspector Eden Brooke, the darkness is a relief as his experiences at the hands of the enemy during World War One damaged his eyesight, leaving him extremely sensitive to light.

Eden Brooke returned for another case set in the darkened streets of Cambridge in the follow-up, The Mathematical Bridge.

Alis Hawkin’s historical novel, None So Blind, features a main character, Harry Probert-Lloyd, whose career as barrister has been curtailed by encroaching blindness forcing him to return home to the family estate in West Wales where he becomes involved in investigating the death of a young woman.

Another historical crime series featuring a blind central character is Bruce Alexander’s Sir John Fielding series, commencing with Blind Justice, in which the 18th century magistrate and co-founder (with his half brother, the novelist Henry Fielding) of London’s first police force, the Bow Street Runners, solves various crimes.

Another character for whom sight loss seems to prove no disadvantage is special agent Jenny Aaron, the protagonist of In The Dark by Andreas Pfluger.

In Anthony Doerr’s All The Light We Cannot See, a blind twelve-year old girl, Marie-Laure, and her father, caretaker of the Museum of Natural History, flee Paris following the Nazis occupation of the city.

Since we started with darkness, let’s end with light and the conclusion of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte in which Rochester, blinded in the fire which consumes Thornfield, finally recovers a little of his sight so that ‘when his first-born was put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes, as they once were – large, brilliant, and black.’

Next month’s starting book is A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.