My Week in Books – 22nd March 2020

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

TuesdayThis week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was My Spring 2020 TBR. I have a feeling, given the current situation, I have a greater than usual chance of actually getting through my list.

WednesdayWWW Wednesday is the opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next…and have a good nose around to see what other bloggers are reading.

Thursday – I published an extract from Second Sister by Chan Ho-Kei as part of the blog tour.

Friday – I shared my thoughts on the audio book of Attica Locke’s latest crime novel Heaven, My Home.

Saturday – Prompted by this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic (see above), I took a look back at how I got on with My Winter 2019/20 TBR.

Sunday – I shared my review of crime novel Containment by Vanda Symon as part of the blog tour.

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


New arrivals

Three books, all for blog tours. 

HamnetHamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (eARC, courtesy of Tinder Press and Random Things Tours)

Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley Street, Stratford, and has three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet.

Award-winning author Maggie O’Farrell’s new novel breathes full-blooded life into the story of a loss usually consigned to literary footnotes, and provides an unforgettable vindication of Agnes, a woman intriguingly absent from history.

The Wheelwright's DaughterThe Wheelwright’s Daughter by Eleanor Porter (eARC, courtesy of Boldwood Books and Rachel’s Random Resources)

Can she save herself from a witch’s fate?

Martha is a feisty and articulate young woman, the daughter of a wheelwright, living in a Herefordshire villlage in Elizabethan England. Unusually for the time she is educated and so helps at the local school whilst longing to escape the confines and small-mindedness of a community riven by religious bigotry and poverty.

As she is able to read and is well-versed in herbal remedies she is suspected of being a witch. When a landslip occurs – opening up a huge chasm in the centre of the village – she is blamed for it and pursued remorselessly by the villagers.

But can her own wits and the love of local stablehand Jacob save her from a witch’s persecution and death..

A Ration Book WeddingA Ration Book Wedding by Jean Fullerton (eARC, courtesy of Corvus and Rachel’s Random Resources)

Because in the darkest days of the Blitz, love is more important than ever.

It’s February 1942 and the Americans have finally joined Britain and its allies. Meanwhile, twenty-three-year-old Francesca Fabrino, like thousands of other women, is doing her bit for the war effort in a factory in East London. But her thoughts are constantly occupied by her unrequited love for Charlie Brogan, who has recently married a woman of questionable reputation, before being shipped out to North Africa with the Eighth Army.

When Francesca starts a new job as an Italian translator for the BBC Overseas Department, she meets handsome Count Leonardo D’Angelo. Just as Francesca has begun to put her hopeless love for Charlie to one side and embrace the affections of this charming and impressive man, Charlie returns from the front, his marriage in ruins and his heart burning for Francesca at last. Could she, a good Catholic girl, countenance an illicit affair with the man she has always longed for? Or should she choose a different, less dangerous path?


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Canary Keeper by Clare Carson
  • Top Ten Tuesday: Genre Freebie
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Walls We Build by Jules Hayes
  • Buchan of the Month/Book Review: A Lodge in the Wilderness by John Buchan

My Week in Books – 15th March 2020

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I joined the blog tour for Distorted Days by Louise Worthington sharing my review.

TuesdayThis week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Authors With A Fun Social Media Presenceand I had a bit of fun imagining how authors from the past might have used social media.

WednesdayWWW Wednesday is the opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next…and have a good nose around to see what other bloggers are reading. I also participated in the blog tour for The Treadstone Resurrection by Joshua Hood, featuring an extract from the book.

Thursday – I published my review of The Recovery of Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel.

Friday – I shared my thoughts on Summer of the Three Pagodas by Jean Moran.

Saturday – I introduced my Buchan of the Month – The Lodge in the Wilderness by John Buchan.

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


New arrivals

Just two, both books for blog tours. 

Outlook-ecmtvntnLiving Among the Dead: My Grandmother’s Holocaust Survival Story of Love and Strength by Adena Bernstein Astrowsky (ebook, courtesy of Amsterdam Publishers and Random Things Tours)

This is the story of one remarkable young woman’s unimaginable journey through the rise of the Nazi regime, the Second World War, and the aftermath. Mania Lichtenstein’s dramatic story of survival is narrated by her granddaughter and her memories are interwoven with beautiful passages of poetry and personal reflection. Holocaust survivor Mania Lichtenstein used writing as a medium to deal with the traumatic effects of the war.

Many Jews did not die in concentration camps, but were murdered in their lifelong communities, slaughtered by mass killing units, and then buried in pits. As a young girl, Mania witnessed the horrors while doing everything within her power to subsist. She lived in Włodzimierz, north of Lvov (Ukraine), was interned for three years in the labor camp nearby, managed to escape and hid in the forests until the end of the war.

Although she was the sole survivor of her family, Mania went on to rebuild a new life in the United States, with a new language and new customs, always carrying with her the losses of her family and her memories.

Nearly eighty years after liberation, we are still witnessing acts of cruelty born out of hatred and discrimination. Living among the Dead reminds us of the beautiful communities that existed before WWII, the lives lost and those that lived on, and the importance to never forget these stories so that history does not repeat itself.

I Am DustI Am Dust by Louise Beech (ebook, courtesy of Orenda Books and Random Things Tours)

The Dean Wilson Theatre is believed to be haunted by a long-dead actress, singing her last song, waiting for her final cue, looking for her killer…

Now Dust, the iconic musical, is returning after twenty years. But who will be brave enough to take on the role of ghostly goddess Esme Black, last played by Morgan Miller, who was murdered in her dressing room?

Theatre usher Chloe Dee is caught up in the spectacle. As the new actors arrive, including an unexpected face from her past, everything changes. Are the eerie sounds and sightings backstage real or just her imagination? Is someone playing games? Is the role of Esme Black cursed? Could witchcraft be at the heart of the tragedy? And are dark deeds from Chloe’s past about to catch up with her?

Not all the drama takes place onstage. Sometimes murder, magic, obsession and the biggest of betrayals are real life. When you’re in the theatre shadows, you see everything. And Chloe has been watching…


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Audiobook Review: Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke
  • Top Ten Tuesday: Spring 2020 TBR
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Book Review: A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Containment by Vanda Symon