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
Birdie & Jude by Phyllis H. Moore (ebook, courtesy of Rachel’s Random Resources)
A serendipitous meeting on a beach in Galveston before a hurricane forces two strangers to take shelter with each other. Birdie, an older woman, and Jude, a young woman and lone survivor of a fatal accident are destined to spend time together during a strengthening storm. Their lives couldn’t be any different. However, they recognize something in the other that forges a friendship between them. As their relationship solidifies, they share glimpses of their past.
Birdie is a product of the ’60’s, an aging hippie, with a series of resentments hovering over her present life. She had a sheltered childhood in an upper class family. Her parents longed to see her make the Texas Dip at their krewe’s Mardi Gras ball. Jude, however, entered foster care as an infant. Her parents, victims of a murder/suicide, left her and her siblings orphans and separated into different homes.
Their backgrounds couldn’t have been more different, but there is something about their connection that strikes Birdie as familiar. Can souls know each other in different lives? Birdie struggles with the awareness that she has had regrets and hasn’t lived an authentic life, while Jude faces an uncomfortable truth about her own life.
The Dancing Floor by John Buchan (paperback)
Vernon Milbourne, orphaned since childhood and haunted by a recurring dream, is friends with the protective lawyer and MP, Sir Edward Leithen.
An Aegean cruise takes them to the mysterious island of Plakos, where Vernon is fascinated by the island’s myths.
Local superstitions turn to menace as Vernon’s encounter with a beautiful woman results in obsession and adventure.
Recently finished
A Long Way From Home by Peter Carey (audiobook)
Irene Bobs loves fast driving. Her husband is the best car salesman in rural south eastern Australia. Together with Willie, their lanky navigator, they embark upon the Redex Trial, a brutal race around the continent, over roads no car will ever quite survive.
A Long Way from Home is a thrilling high speed story that starts in one way, then takes you to another place altogether. Set in the 1950s in the embers of the British Empire, painting a picture of Queen and subject, black, white and those in-between, this brilliantly vivid novel illustrates how the possession of an ancient culture spirals through history – and the love made and hurt caused along the way.
Monopoli Blues by Tim Clark & Nick Cook (ebook, courtesy of Unbound and Random Things Tours)
In November 1944, Sub Lt Bob Clark, a twenty-year old agent with Britain’s top-secret Special Operations Executive, parachuted into northern Italy. He left behind the girl he had fallen in love with, Marjorie, his radio operator.
Captured by the enemy, Bob’s fate hangs in the balance and Marjorie won’t know for six months whether he is alive or dead.
Monopoli Blues recounts the story of Tim Clark’s journey to uncover the story of his parents’ war – and the truth behind the betrayal of his father’s Clarion mission to the Nazis…
The Serpent’s Mark by S. W. Perry (hardcover, courtesy of Corvus and Readers First)
Treason sleeps for no man…
London, 1591. Nicholas Shelby, physician and reluctant spy, returns to his old haunts on London’s lawless Bankside. But, when the queen’s spymaster Robert Cecil asks him to investigate the dubious practices of a mysterious doctor from Switzerland, Nicholas is soon embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens not just the life of an innocent young patient, but the overthrow of Queen Elizabeth herself.
With fellow healer and mistress of the Jackdaw tavern, Bianca Merton, again at his side, Nicholas is drawn into a dangerous world of zealots, charlatans and fanatics. As their own lives become increasingly at risk, they find themselves confronting the greatest treason of all: the spectre of a bloody war between the faiths… (Review to follow as part of blog tour)
What Cathy (will) Read Next
The Body Lies by Jo Baker (ebook, courtesy of Transworld and Random Things Tours)
When a young writer accepts a job at a university in the remote countryside, it’s meant to be a fresh start, away from the big city and the scene of a violent assault she’s desperate to forget. But despite the distractions of a new life and single motherhood, her nerves continue to jangle. To make matters worse, a vicious debate about violence against women inflames the tensions and mounting rivalries in her creative writing group.
When a troubled student starts sending in chapters from his novel that blur the lines between fiction and reality, the professor recognises herself as the main character in his book – and he has written her a horrific fate.
Will she be able to stop life imitating art before it’s too late?
A Modern Family by Helga Flatland (ebook, courtesy of Orenda and Random Things Tours)
When Liv, Ellen and Håkon, along with their partners and children, arrive in Rome to celebrate their father’s seventieth birthday, a quiet earthquake occurs: their parents have decided to divorce.
Shocked and disbelieving, the siblings try to come to terms with their parents’ decision as it echoes through the homes they have built for themselves, and forces them to reconstruct the shared narrative of their childhood and family history.
A bittersweet novel of regret, relationships and rare psychological insights, A Modern Family encourages us to look at the people closest to us a little more carefully, and ultimately reveals that it’s never too late for change…
What Cathy Read Next... 