Tag: myweekinbooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I published my review of thriller Sleep When You’re Dead by Jude O’Reilly as part of the blog tour. 

Tuesday – With the deadline for submissions closed, I shared my thoughts on books that might appear on the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2023. 

Wednesday – 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 published my review of dual-time novel, The House of Birds by Morgan McCarthy. 

Friday – I shared my review of historical novel Squire’s Hazard by Carolyn Hughes as part of the blog tour. 

Sunday – I joined the blog tour for SBS Special Boat Squadron by Iain Gale. 

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New arrivals

A Complicated Matter by Anne Youngson (eARC, Doubleday via NetGalley)

I used to believed the world had been created for me; every stone and grain of sand, every sunrise and sunset. As I grew older, I began to think of myself as something tacked on to the edge.

1939, London: From McPhail’s Passage by the dockyards to Kensington’s Grand Palace Hotel, resilient and reserved Rose is forcibly evacuated from her home and dropped in an alien city of falling bombs, perplexing class rules and bad weather. Despite being ‘flagrantly foreign’ to the locals, she becomes an efficient go-between for the upper-class ladies helping out with the war effort and her own tribe of noisy displaced families.

It is only when she is shifted to the countryside to become secretary to the plain-speaking and sightless Major Inchbold that Rose’s dizzying journey to womanhood will become more surreal than ever, as she drinks tea at the vicarage, shields her best friend from abuse and stands up for the lower orders. But Rose’s greatest dilemma is yet to come, as she must decide where her home – and her heart – really lies.

Forest of Foes (The Benicia Chronicles #9) by Matthew Harffy (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley) 

AD 652. Beobrand has been ordered to lead a group of pilgrims to the holy city of Rome. Chief among them is Wilfrid, a novice of the Church with some surprisingly important connections. Taking only Cynan and some of his best men, Beobrand hopes to make the journey through Frankia quickly and return to Northumbria without delay, though the road is long and perilous.

But where Beobrand treads, menace is never far behind. The lands of the Merovingian kings are rife with intrigue. The queen of Frankia is unpopular and her ambitious schemes, though benevolent, have made her powerful enemies. Soon Wilfrid, and Beobrand, are caught up in sinister plots against the royal house.

After interrupting a brutal ambush in a forest, Beobrand and his trusted gesithas find their lives on the line. Dark forces will stop at nothing to seize control of the Frankish throne, and Beobrand is thrown into a deadly race for survival through foreign lands where he cannot be sure who is friend and who is foe.

The only certainty is that if he is to save his men, thwart the plots, and unmask his enemies, blood will flow.

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On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

• Book Review/Q&A: House of Tigers by William Burton McCormick
• Book Review: The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I shared my Five Favourite September 2022 Reads. 

Tuesday – I published my review of historical mystery, Under a Veiled Moon by Karen Odden.

Wednesday – I shared my review of Robert Harris’s appearance at Henley Literary Festival. And 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 made another trip Down the TBR Hole in an effort to reduce the number of books on my To-Read shelf on Goodreads.

Sunday – I published a round-up of the events I attended at this year’s Henley Literary Festival. 

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New arrivals

Henley Literary Festival has a lot to answer for!

Mother’s Boy by Patrick Gale (Tinder Press)

Laura, an impoverished Cornish girl, meets her husband when they are both in service in Teignmouth in 1916. They have a baby, Charles, but Laura’s husband returns home from the trenches a damaged man, already ill with the tuberculosis that will soon leave her a widow. In a small, class-obsessed town she raises her boy alone, working as a laundress, and gradually becomes aware that he is some kind of genius.

As an intensely privately young man, Charles signs up for the navy with the new rank of coder. His escape from the tight, gossipy confines of Launceston to the colour and violence of war sees him blossom as he experiences not only the possibility of death, but the constant danger of a love that is as clandestine as his work.

One of Our Ministers Is Missing by Alan Johnson (Wildfire Books)

On holiday in Crete, Lord Bellingham had been solo trekking in the White Mountains when he mysteriously disappeared. After a vast search and rescue operation, the local police have no leads, save for a mobile phone discarded on a cliff edge.

Assistant Commissioner Louise Mangan of the Met Police is sent to assist in the investigation but soon discovers that there are more layers to this case than the local police realise.

Lady Bellingham is less than forthcoming, the family nanny is hiding something, and a scandal is brewing back in London that could destroy the minister’s reputation for good.

Under pressure from the powers that be, can Louise find the missing minister, or will she discover something much more sinister at play?

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday)

1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time.

The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven, whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within. For beneath the dazzle of Soho’s gaiety, there is a dark underbelly, a world in which it is all too easy to become lost.

Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry (eARC, Viking via NetGalley)

Retired policeman Tom Kettle is enjoying the quiet of his new home, a lean-to annexed to a white Victorian Castle in Dalkey overlooking the sea. For months he has barely seen a soul, but his peace is interrupted when two former colleagues turn up at his door to ask questions about a decades-old case. A traumatic case which Tom never quite came to terms with.

His peace is further disturbed by a young mother and family who move in next door, a woman on the run from her own troubles. And what of Tom’s family, his wife June, and their two children?

The Witches of Vardø by Anya Bergman (eARC, Zaffre via NetGalley)

Norway, 1662. A dangerous time to be a woman, when even dancing can lead to accusations of witchcraft. When Zigri, desperate and grieving after the loss of her husband and son, embarks on an affair with the local merchant, it’s not long before she is sent to the fortress at Vardø, to be tried and condemned as a witch.

Zigri’s daughter Ingeborg sets off into the wilderness to try to bring her mother back home. Accompanying her on this quest is Maren – herself the daughter of a witch ­- whose wild nature and unconquerable spirit gives Ingeborg the courage to venture into the unknown, and to risk all she has to save her family.

Also captive in the fortress is Anna Rhodius, once the King of Denmark’s mistress, who has been sent to Vardø in disgrace. What will she do – and who will she betray – to return to her privileged life at court?

These Witches of Vardø are stronger than even the King of Denmark. In an age weighted against them they refuse to be victims. They will have their justice. All they need do is show their power. 

House of Tigers by William Burton McCormick (eARC, courtesy of the author)

Ilya Dudnyk, a corrupt but romantic Russian police inspector, is trapped inside his oligarch employer’s Siberian mansion with an unknown killer, a duplicitous Latvian journalist chained to his arm, and an apocalyptic insect plague raging for hundreds of kilometers beyond the smoke barriers and barricaded windows.

Can Ilya track down the killer before he is the next victim? Or will the endless swarms find a way inside and all are consumed by a hundred trillion ravenous, blood-sucking mosquitoes? 

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On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

• Blog Tour/Book Review: Sleep When You’re Dead by Jude O’Reilly
• Book Review: House of Birds by Morgan McCarthy
• Book Review: The Secret Diary of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph
• Blog Tour/Book Review: Squire’s Hazard by Carolyn Hughes
• Blog Tour/Book Review: SBS Special Boat Squadron by Iain Gale