My Week in Books – 19th May 2024

My Week in Books

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I shared my review of How to Make A Bomb: A Novel by Rupert Thomson

Tuesday – I went off-piste for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday with Books Set in Workplaces.

Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading.

Thursday – I shared my experience of attending recordings of BBC Radio 4’s Bookclub 

Friday – I published my review of historical novel, A Plague of Serpents by K. J. Maitland.

Saturday – I shared my review of Absolutely & Forever by Rose Tremain, one of the books on the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2024.


New arrivals

Book cover of Cabaret Macabre by Tom MeadCabaret Macabre by Tom Mead (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

Hampshire, 1938. Victor Silvius is confined in a private sanatorium after attacking prominent judge Sir Giles Drury. When Sir Giles starts receiving sinister threatening letters, his wife suspects Silvius. Meanwhile, Silvius’ sister Caroline is convinced her brother is about to be murdered… by none other than his old nemesis Sir Giles.

Caroline seeks the advice of Scotland Yard’s Inspector Flint, while the Drurys, eager to avoid a scandal, turn to Joseph Spector. Spector, renowned magician turned sleuth, has an uncanny knack for solving complicated crimes – but this case will test his powers of deduction to their limits.

At a snowbound English country house, a body is found is impossible circumstances, and a killer’s bullet is fired through a locked window without breaking the glass. Spector and Flint’s investigations soon collide as they find themselves trapped by the snowstorm where anyone could be the next victim – or the killer…

Book cover of Six Lives by Lavie TidharSix Lives by Lavie Tidhar (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

Six lives, connected through blood and history, each rooted in the dirt of their inheritance, look to the future, and what it might hold.

THE GUANO MERCHANT
In 1855, Edward Feebes travels to the guano islands of South America, to investigate an irregularity in the accounts of the House of Feebes & Co.

THE BLACKMAILER
In 1912, post-mortem photographer and reluctant blackmailer Annie Connolly plots her escape from Ireland to America on board the Titanic.

THE IDEALIST
In 1933, idealistic Edgar Waverley faces a choice of the heart when he becomes embroiled in a country house murder.

THE SPY
In 1964, hapless KGB agent Vasily Sokolov makes his career conjuring valuable information from worthless detritus.

THE MOVIE STAR
In 1987, actor Mariam Khouri looks back at ‘Black Dirt’, the movie that lifted her from the streets of Cairo.

THE HEIRESS
In 2012, Isabelle Feebes attempts to break with her poisonous heritage once and for all. Can she forge a new life for herself in the New World? Can you ever truly escape your past?


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading


Planned posts

  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Small Museum by Jody Cooksley
  • Book Review: Estella’s Revenge by Barbara Havelocke

My Week in Books – 12th May 2024

My Week in Books

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I shared the list of books I hope to read for this year’s 20 Books of Summer reading challenge, hosted by Cathy at 746Books.

Tuesday – My take on this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Book Titles That Evoke Spring.

Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading.

Thursday – I shared a list of Five Books I’ve Read About Gardens & Plant Collecting.  

Friday – I published my review of Afterlight by Jaap Robben, translated by David Doherty.

Saturday – I shared my review of James by Percival Everett, a reimagining of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn


New arrivals

The TrapThe Trap by Ava Glass (eARC, Penguin via NetGalley)

How far would you go to catch a killer?

This is the question UK agent Emma Makepeace must ask herself when she is sent to Edinburgh for the upcoming global G7 Summit.

The Russians are in town and Emma and her team know a high-profile assassination is being planned. But who is their target? There is only one way to find out. Emma must set a trap using herself as bait.

As the most powerful leaders in the world arrive and the city becomes gridlocked, Emma knows the clock is ticking.

The Comfort of GhostsThe Comfort of Ghosts (Maisie Dobbs #18) by Jacqueline Winspear (eARC, Allison & Busby via NetGalley)

Psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs unravels a profound mystery from her past in a war-torn nation grappling with its future.

London, 1945: Four adolescent orphans with a dark wartime history are squatting in a vacant Belgravia mansion—the owners having fled London under heavy Luftwaffe bombing. Soon after a demobilized British soldier, ill and reeling from his experiences overseas, takes shelter with the group, Maisie Dobbs visits the mansion on behalf of the owners.

Maisie is deeply puzzled by the children’s reticence. Their stories are evasive and, more mysteriously, they appear to possess self-defense skills one might expect of trained adults in wartime. Her quest to bring comfort and the promise of a future to the youngsters and to the ailing soldier brings to light a decades-old mystery concerning Maisie’s first husband, James Compton, who was killed while piloting an experimental aircraft.

As Maisie picks apart the threads of her dead husband’s life, she is forced to examine her own painful past and question beliefs she has always accepted as true.


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading


Planned posts

  • Book Review: How To Make A Bomb by Rupert Thomson
  • Book Review: Absolutely & Forever by Rose Tremain