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
Fled by Meg Keneally (paperback, courtesy of Zaffre and Readers First)
She will do anything for freedom, but at what cost?
Jenny Trelawney is no ordinary thief. Forced by poverty to live in the forest, she becomes a successful highwaywoman – until her luck runs out.
Transported to Britain’s furthest colony, Jenny must tackle new challenges and growing responsibilities. And when famine hits the new colony, Jenny becomes convinced that those she most cares about will not survive. She becomes the leader in a grand plot of escape, but is survival any more certain in a small open boat on an unknown ocean?
Meg Keneally’s debut solo novel is an epic historical adventure based on the extraordinary life of convict Mary Bryant.
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 Peter Carey’s late style masterpiece; 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.
Recently finished
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje (hardcover)
It is 1945, and London is still reeling from years of attritional war. 15-year-old Nathaniel and his sister seem to have been abandoned by their parents in a big house in Putney, and the ruined city is a strange Expressionist jungle after the Blitz, which the teenagers use as their playground. The Black Market and petty criminals are thriving and the two children’s eccentric guardians – nicknamed the Moth and the Darter – are busy smuggling munitions through the darkened London streets, or greyhounds from France through the rivers and canals.
When the children discover that their mother has not gone to Singapore as announced, and is actually engaged in perilous work for British Intelligence – and that the Moth and the Darter are protecting them from harm – the novel darkens and deepens into Nathaniel’s search for the truth: for the mother he lost once and may well lose again.
Michael Ondaatje, one of our greatest living writers, surpasses himself with this vivid, thrilling new novel: a classic adventure with a cast of brilliantly-drawn characters on secret missions through the Suffolk countryside and the London blackout, and one boy’s quest to discover his mother – who she was, and who she really is. (Review to follow)
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Armin (ebook)
Four very different women respond to an advertisement in The Times appealing to “those who appreciate wisteria and sunshine” to rent a small medieval Italian castle for a month.
Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot, the original two respondents, are joined in their act of escape by the youthful Lady Caroline, whose beauty and general melodiousness have become something of a burden to her, and the formidable Mrs Fisher, who insists that everyone think of her “just as an old lady with a stick” as she sets about imposing her will on the rest. Each one is vaguely unsatisfied with their lot and Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot both have marriages of quiet English unhappiness.
The climate and the castle eventually start to have an effect on the four women. Their perceptions shift and they wake up to the love in their lives.
What Cathy (will) Read Next
The Playground Murders (The Detective’s Daughter #7) by Lesley Thomson (hardcover, review copy courtesy of Head of Zeus)
Wormwood Scrubs playground, 1980. The wind blows across the common, and the girl in her shorts shivers. The playground is isolated, timeless. Far from the prying eyes of grown-ups, she and her friends can play make-believe here. The looming slide is a mountain; the upturned log a pirate ship. But six-year-old Sarah Ferris does not know that in two days’ time, she will be dead: a victim of jealousy, betrayal, and her own innocence.
Hammersmith, 2019. Cleaner Stella Darnell loves rooting into shadowy places and restoring order. She’ll clear your attic, polish your kitchen and scrub your bath—but she also investigates cold cases. Stella can spend hours sifting through forgotten evidence looking for shreds of evidence the police might have missed. So when a woman is found dead, and the killer is linked to the Sarah Ferris murder, Stella is the woman for the case. But dredging up the past can be dangerous. Especially if the playground killer is back.
What Cathy Read Next... 