My Week in Books – 11th October 2020

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Book Covers With Autumn Vibes.

Wednesday – I shared my review of Those Who Know (The Teifi Valley Coroner #3) by Alis Hawkins as part of the blog tour. And 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.

Thursday – I shared my Five Favourite September Reads.

Friday – I published my review of my Buchan of the Month for September, The Magic Walking Stick.

Saturday – I shared my thoughts on The Salt Path by Raynor Winn.

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


New arrivals

IMG_20201006_131149_209Nick by Michael Farris Smith (proof copy, courtesy of No Exit Press) 

Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg, and into Gatsby’s periphery, he was at the center of a very different story- one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I.

Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed firsthand, Nick delays his return home, hoping to escape the questions he cannot answer about the horrors of war. Instead, he embarks on a transcontinental redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance- doomed from the very beginning- to the dizzying frenzy of New Orleans – rife with its own flavor of debauchery and violence.

cover204611-mediumHell Gate by Jeff Dawson (eARC, courtesy of Canelo via NetGalley)

To solve this case, only an outsider will do… Ingo Finch faces his biggest challenge yet.

New York, 1904 – over a thousand are dead after the sinking of the General Slocum, a pleasure steamer full of German immigrants out for a day on the East River. The community is devastated, broken, in uproar.

With a populist senator preying on their grievances, a new political force is unleashed, pushing America to ally with Germany in any coming war.

Nine months later, Ingo Finch arrives in Manhattan, now an official British agent. Tasked with exposing this new movement, he is caught in a deadly game between Whitehall, Washington, Berlin… and the Mob.

Not everything in the Big Apple is as it seems. For Finch, completing the mission is one thing; surviving it quite another…

Screen-Shot-2020-09-12-at-12.01.21-pmBecoming Alfie by Neil Patterson (ebook, courtesy of the author and Rachel’s Random Resources)

Alfie Norrington was born into poverty in London’s East End in the first minute of the twentieth century. His life was a battle. From the Brick Lane markets where young Alfie pilfered and pickpocketed, to the trenches of Flanders, Alfie fought every step of the way.

Almost killed by a trench bomb he battled to recover and while in a military hospital Alfie made a promise that dramatically change’s his life. A true East End hero, Alfie begins his journey away from poverty armed with a robust moral compass and an open heart.

Becoming Alfie is the first in the Alfie Norrington series. It follows the life of a man who positively influenced thousands of people. The world needs more individuals like Alfie Norrington, that give much more than they take.


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Betrayal by Lijla Siguròardóttir
  • Top Ten Tuesday: Books With Long Titles
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Buchan of the Month: Introducing…The Free Fishers by John Buchan
  • Blog Tour/Extract: Sons of Rome by Gordon Doherty & Simon Turney
  • Book Review: This Green and Pleasant Land by Ayisha Malik
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: A Conspiracy of Silence by Anna Legat

My Week in Books – 4th October 2020

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I shared my review of Dear Child by Romy Hausmann as part of the blog tour.

Tuesday – My take on this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Book Titles That Are Quotations 

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.

Thursday – I shared my review of Green Hands by Barbara Whitton as part of the blog tour.

Friday – I joined the blog tour for Hunter Killer by Brad Taylor, sharing my review.

Saturday – For this month’s 6 Degrees of Separation I created a chain of books from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James to Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie.

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


New arrivals

A Conspiracy of SilenceA Conspiracy of Silence (DI Gillian Marsh #5) by Anna Legat (eARC, courtesy of Headline via NetGalley)

When a body is found in the grounds of a prestigious Wiltshire private school, DI Gillian Marsh takes on the case. The young groundsman, Bradley Watson, has been shot dead, pierced through the heart with an arrow.

As the investigation gathers pace, DI Marsh is frustrated to find the Whalehurst staff and students united in silence. This scandal must not taint their reputation. But when Gillian discovers pictures of missing Whalehurst pupil, fifteen-year-old Rachel Snyder, on Bradley’s dead body – photos taken on the night she disappeared, and he was murdered – the link between the two is undeniable.

But what is Whalehurst refusing to reveal? And does Gillian have what it takes to bring about justice?

How Beautiful We WereHow Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue (eARC, courtesy of Canongate via NetGalley)

“We should have known the end was near.”

Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells the story of a people living in fear amidst environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company.

Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of clean-up and financial reparations to the villagers are made – and ignored. The country’s government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interest. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back. Their struggle would last for decades and come at a steep price.

Told through the perspective of a generation of children and the family of a girl named Thula who grows up to become a revolutionary, How Beautiful We Were is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghost of colonialism, comes up against one community’s determination to hold onto its ancestral land and a young woman’s willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people’s freedom.


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
  • Top Ten Tuesday: Books With Autumn Vibes
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Those Who Know by Alis Hawkins
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Book Review: The Magic Walking Stick by John Buchan
  • My Five Favourite September Reads
  • Book Review: This Green and Pleasant Land by Ayisha Malik