My Week in Books – 15th November 2020

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of The Forgers by Bradford Morrow .

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books That Would Make Great Song Titles

Wednesday – Hooray for WWW Wednesday, the opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next…as well as have a good nose around to see what other bloggers are reading.

Thursday – I shared my publication day review of How To Belong by Sarah Franklin.

Friday – I published my review of The Stasi Game (Karin Müller #6) by David Young, the final book (he says) in his ‘Stasi’ historical crime series.

Saturday – I introduced my Buchan of the Month for November, The King’s Grace by John Buchan. I also suggested some Book Pairings for week 2 of NonFiction November.

 As always, thanks to everyone who has liked, commented on or so shared my blog posts on social media.


New arrivals

CesareCesare: A Novel of War-Torn Berlin by Jerome Charyn (eARC, No Exit Press via NetGalley) 

On a windy night in 1937, a seventeen-year-old German naval sub-cadet is wandering along the seawall when he stumbles upon a gang of ruffians beating up a tramp, whose life he saves. The man is none other than spymaster Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the Abwehr, German military intelligence. Canaris adopts the young man and dubs him ‘Cesare’ after the character in the silent film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari for his ability to break through any barrier as he eliminates the Abwehr’s enemies.

Canaris is a man of contradictions who, while serving the regime, seeks to undermine the Nazis and helps Cesare hide Berlin’s Jews from the Gestapo. But the Nazis will lure many to Theresienstadt, a phony paradise in Czechoslovakia with sham restaurants, novelty shops, and bakeries, a cruel ghetto and way station to Auschwitz. When the woman Cesare loves, a member of the Jewish underground, is captured and sent there, Cesare must find a way to rescue her.

41XYua8Dx6L._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_The Northern Reach by W. S. Winslow (eARC, Flatiron via NetGalley)

Frozen in grief after the loss of her son at sea, Edith Baines stares across the water at a schooner, under full sail yet motionless in the winter wind and surging tide of the Northern Reach. Edith seems to be hallucinating. Or is she? Edith’s boat-watch opens The Northern Reach, set in the coastal town of Wellbridge, Maine, where townspeople squeeze a living from the perilous bay or scrape by on the largesse of the summer folk and whatever they can cobble together, salvage, or grab.

At the centre of town life is the Baines family, land-rich, cash-poor descendants of town founders, along with the ne’er-do-well Moody clan, the Martins of Skunk Pond, and the dirt farming, bootlegging Edgecombs. Over the course of the twentieth century, the families intersect, interact, and intermarry, grappling with secrets and prejudices that span generations, opening new wounds and reckoning with old ghosts.


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • My Five Favourite October Reads
  • Top Ten Tuesday
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The House in the Hollow by Allie Cresswell
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Morning Star by Gita M. Reddy
  • Book Review: This Green and Pleasant Land by Ayisha Malik

My Week in Books – 8th November 2020

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of When the Music Stops by Joe Heap  as part of the blog tour.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Non-Bookish Hobbies but I couldn’t stop myself introducing a literary element.

Wednesday – It wouldn’t be “hump day” without WWW Wednesday, the opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next…as well as have a good nose around to see what other bloggers are reading. I also shared My Year in Nonfiction as part of Nonfiction November.

Thursday – I published my review of Hell Gate by Jeff Dawson, the third in his Ingo Finch historical crime series.

Friday – I published my review of When I Come Home Again by Caroline Scott as part of the blog tour.

Saturday – I joined the blog tour for The Coral Bride by Roxanne Bouchard (translated by David Warriner), sharing my review of this follow-up to We Were the Salt of the Sea.

 As always, thanks to everyone who has liked, commented on or so shared my blog posts on social media.


New arrivals

9781838932855A Time For Swords by Matthew Harffy (eARC, courtesy of Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

There had been portents – famine, whirlwinds, lightning from clear skies, serpents seen flying through the air. But when the raiders came, no one was prepared. They came from the North, their dragon-prowed longships gliding out of the dawn mist as they descended on the kingdom’s most sacred site.

It is 8th June AD793, and with the pillage of the monastery on Lindisfarne, the Viking Age has begun. While his fellow monks flee before the Norse onslaught, one young novice stands his ground. He has been taught to turn the other cheek, but faced with the slaughter of his brothers and the pagan desecration of his church, forgiveness is impossible.

Hunlaf soon learns that there is a time for faith and prayer . . . and there is a time for swords.

downloadThe Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (eARC, courtesy of World Editions) 

Widely regarded as a modern classic, The Stone Diaries is the story of one woman’s life; that of Daisy Goodwill Flett, a seemingly ordinary woman born in Canada in 1905. Beautifully written and deeply compassionate, it follows Daisy’s life through marriage, widowhood, motherhood, and old age, as she charts her own path alongside that of an unsettled century. A subtle but affective portrait of an everywoman reflecting on an unconventional life, this multi-award-winning story deals with everyday issues of existence with an extraordinary vibrancy and irresistible flair.


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: The Forgers 
  • Top Ten Tuesday 
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Nonfiction November Week 2: Book Pairings
  • Book Review: This Green and Pleasant Land by Ayisha Malik
  • Buchan of the Month: Introducing…The King’s Grace by John Buchan