#WWWWednesday – 16th August 2023

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

The PostcardThe Postcard by Carly Schabowski (eARC, Bookouture)

When her beloved grandmother, Ilse , is taken into hospital, Mia drops everything to travel to Germany and care for the woman who raised her. But when her grandmother briefly wakes up and asks for a man called Szymon , Mia is confused. Who is he? And why does her grandmother need to see him so desperately?

Later that night, Mia returns to her grandmother’s apartment to search for clues. She soon discovers a small parcel hidden inside one of Ilse’s suitcases. When she removes the wrapping, she finds a stack of faded postcards neatly bound together, signed with a name that makes her heart stop in her Szymon .

Desperate to find Szymon before it is too late, Mia unearths a story her grandmother never told of childhood friendship and heartbreaking young love on the eve of the Second World War, and of a plan to rescue a young man imprisoned by the Nazis. Mia can’t quite believe her grandmother was so brave, and risked so much to save this man’s life… But did she succeed?

As the final pieces of the past come together, Mia realizes that she is about to find out what really happened to her grandmother during the war. But she doesn’t expect to uncover a secret that will change everything…

The Night RaidsThe Night Raids (Nighthawk #3) by Jim Kelly (Allison & Busby)

A lone German bomber crosses the east coast of Britain on a moonless night in the long, hot summer of 1940. The pilot picks up the silver thread of a river and, following it to his target, drops his bomb over Cambridge’s rail yards. The shell falls short of its mark and lands in a neighbourhood of terraced streets on the edge of the city’s medieval centre.

DI Eden Brooke is first on the scene and discovers the body of an elderly woman, Nora Wylde, in a house on Elm Street, two fingers on her left hand severed, in what looks like a brutal attempt by looters to steal her rings.

When the next day Nora’s teenage granddaughter Peggy, a munitions worker, is reported missing, Brooke realises there is more to the situation than meets the eye.


Recently finished

A Fenland Garden by Frances Pryor (Head of Zeus)

The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks (Hutchinson Heinemann)

Treason by James Jackson (Zaffre)


What Cathy (will) Read Next

China BlueChina Blue (Dudley Sisters #3) by Madalyn Morgan

At the beginning of World War II Claire Dudley joins the WAAF. She excels in languages and is recruited by the Special Operations Executive to work in German occupied France with Captain Alain Mitchell, of the RCAF, and the French Resistance.

Against SOE rules Claire falls in love. The affair has to be kept secret. Even after her lover falls into the hands of the Gestapo, Claire cannot tell anyone they are more than comrades.

As the war reaches its climax, Claire fears she will never again see the man she loves.

#TopTenTuesday Characters from Different Books Who Should Team Up #TuesdayBookBlog

Top Ten Tuesday

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.

Crime SolvingThis week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is Characters from Different Books Who Should Team Up, a topic suggested  by Cathy at What Cathy Read Next. Wait a minute, that’s me! I felt obliged to make an extra effort with this one so have come up with characters I think would make great crime-fighting partnerships.

  1. Sherlock Holmes and Christopher John Francis Boone from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, who together should be able to solve the mystery in ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  2. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Dr John Watson and Anthony Horowitz’s Anthony Horowitz from the The Word is Murder – two literary sidekicks probably keen to take centre stage
  3. Colin Dexter’s Endeavour Morse and Dorothy L. Sayer’s Lord Peter Wimsey who, both being Oxford University men, should be able to solve the latest murder to take place in ‘the city of dreaming spires’
  4. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Alexander McCall Smith’s Mma Ramotswe, both expert observers of village life and of the clues that will solve a crime 
  5. I think J. K. Rowling’s Hermione Grainger and Cormoran Strike would be magic together
  6. Agatha Christie’s famously fastidious Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and Roger Hargreaves’ Little Miss Tidy I’m confident would clear up the messiest of mysteries 
  7. Ian Fleming’s James Bond and Lee Child’s Jack Reacher were surely born to take on the world’s baddies together and, if not, they could always challenge each other to a cage fight ala Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk
  8. Sir Ian Rankin’s John Rebus and Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander who, if they couldn’t solve the case, could at least drown their sorrows together
  9. Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin and Wilkie Collins’ Sergeant Cuff who, having apprehended the culprit, could discuss which of them was the first fictional detective
  10. And finally, in the event you find yourself accused of a crime, Mr Jaggers from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and Sir Wilfrid Robarts from Witness for the Prosecution by Agatha Christie would make a formidable defence team

What fictional dream teams did you come up with?