new arrivals

My Week in Books – 3rd May 2020

May 3, 2020May 2, 2020 whatcathyreadnext2 Comments

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I joined the blog tour for The Thunder Girls by Melanie Blake.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books I Wish I’d Read As A Child.

Thursday – I shared my review of Living Among The Dead by Adena Bernstein Astrowsky as part of the blog tour.

Friday – I picked my Five Favourite April Reads.

Saturday – I joined in with the monthly #6Degrees of Separation meme forming a chain from The Road by Cormac McCarthy to The Storyteller by Pierre Jarawan.

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

Rags of Time by Michael Ward (ebook, review copy courtesy of the author)

London, 1639. Spice merchant Thomas Tallant returns from India to find his city in turmoil – overcrowded, ravaged by crime and seething with sedition. A bitter struggle is brewing between King Charles I and Parliament as England slides into civil war.

A wealthy merchant is savagely killed; then his partner plunges to his death in the Tallant household. Suspicion falls on Tom, who soon finds himself being sucked into London’s turbulence. As he struggles to clear his name, he becomes entranced by the enigmatic Elizabeth Seymour, whose passion for astronomy and mathematics is matched only by her addiction to the gaming tables. Can her brilliance untangle the web of deceit that threatens to drag Tom under?

A thrilling murder mystery set in the murky streets of Stuart London, Rags of Time is an intriguing tale of murder, suspicion and the search for enlightenment that will keep you guessing until the final dramatic scene.

Hidden in the Shadows by Imogen Matthews (ebook, courtesy of Amsterdam Publishers and Random Things Tours)

Escape from the hidden village is just the beginning.

September 1944: The hidden village is in ruins. Stormed by the Nazis. Several are dead and dozens flee for their lives.

Instead of leading survivors to safety, Wouter panics and abandons Laura, the love of his life. He has no choice but to keep running from the enemy who want to hunt him down.

Laura must also stay hidden as she is Jewish. Moving from one safe house to another, she is concealed in attics and cellars. The threat of discovery is always close at hand.

On the run with no end in sight, the two young people despair of ever seeing each other again. As cold sweeps in signalling the start of the Hunger Winter, time is running out. Wouter’s search now becomes a battle for survival. Where can Laura be? Will they ever be reunited?

Hidden in the Shadows is an unforgettable story of bravery and love, inspired by historical events.

The Storm by Amanda Jennings (eARC, courtesy of HQ and NetGalley)

To the outside world Hannah married the perfect man. Behind the closed doors of their imposing home it’s a very different story.

Nathan controls everything Hannah does. He chooses her clothes, checks her receipts, and keeps her passport locked away. But why does she let him?

Years before, in the midst of a relentless storm, the tragic events of one night changed everything. And Hannah has been living with the consequences ever since. Keeping Nathan happy. Doing as she’s told. But the past is about to catch up with them.

Set against the unforgiving backdrop of a Cornish fishing port in the ’90s, this is a devastating exploration of the power of coercive control in a marriage where nothing is quite as it seems…

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

Reading The Walter Scott Prize 2020 Shortlist: Shadowplay by Joseph O’Connor
Top Ten Tuesday: Things I’d Have At My Bookish Party
Waiting on Wednesday
Blog Tour/Book Review: A Wedding in the Olive Garden by Leah Fleming
Buchan of the Month: Introducing…The Last Secrets by John Buchan
Blog Tour/Book Review: Hidden in the Shadows by Imogen Matthews

My Week in Books – 26th April 2020

April 26, 2020April 25, 2020 whatcathyreadnext

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys by John Buchan.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Book Titles That Would Make Good Band Names.

Wednesday – WWW 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 published my review of The Wheelwright’s Daughter by Eleanor Porter as part of the blog tour.

Thursday – I shared my review of A Life Without End by Frederic Beigbeder.

Friday – I published my review of historical crime mystery The Figure in the Photograph by Kevin Sullivan

Saturday – I shared my review of The Hidden Village by Imogen Matthews.

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

New arrivals

The Straits of Treachery by Richard Hopton (eARC, Allison & Busby, NetGalley)

September 1810. Raids across the Straits of Messina to disrupt preparations for the French invasion of the island have been repulsed with heavy casualties. George Warne, a bright young British officer, suspects treachery back in Messina, and is ordered to investigate. Warne uncovers a shadowy underworld of spies, traitors and informers where nothing is quite as it seems and where danger lurks around every corner. If the long-threatened French invasion erupts will Sicily’s defenders be prepared?

Then We Take Berlin (Joe Wilderness #1) by John Lawton (audio book)

Joe Wilderness is a World War II orphan, a condition that he thinks excuses him from common morality. Cat burglar, card sharp, and Cockney wide boy, the last thing he wants is to get drafted. But in 1946 he finds himself in the Royal Air Force, facing a stretch in military prison . . . when along comes Lt Colonel Burne-Jones to tell him MI6 has better use for his talents.

Posted to occupied Berlin, interrogating ex-Nazis, and burgling the odd apartment for MI6, Wilderness finds himself with time on his hands and the devil making work. He falls in with Frank, a US Army captain, with Eddie, a British artilleryman and with Yuri, a major in the NKVD and together they lift the black market scam to a new level. Coffee never tasted so sweet. And he falls for Nell Breakheart, a German girl who has witnessed the worst that Germany could do and is driven by all the scruples that Wilderness lacks.

Fifteen years later, June 1963. Wilderness is free-lance and down on his luck. A gumshoe scraping by on divorce cases. Frank is a big shot on Madison Avenue, cooking up one last Berlin scam . . . for which he needs Wilderness once more. Only now they’re not smuggling coffee, they’re smuggling people. And Nell? Nell is on the staff of West Berlin’s mayor Willy Brandt, planning for the state visit of the most powerful man in the world: “Ich bin ein Berliner!”

Paris Savages by Katherine Johnson (eARC, Allison & Busby, NetGalley)

Fraser Island, 1882. The population of the Badtjala people is in sharp decline following a run of brutal massacres. When German scientist Louis Müller offers to sail three Badtjala people – Bonny, Jurano and Dorondera – to Europe to perform to huge crowds, the proud and headstrong Bonny agrees, hoping to bring his people’s plight to the Queen of England. Accompanied by Müller’s bright, grieving daughter, Hilda, the group begins their journey to belle-Epoque Europe to perform in Hamburg, Berlin, Paris and eventually London. While crowds in Europe are enthusiastic to see the unique dances, singing, fights and pole climbing from the oldest culture in the world, the attention is relentless, and the fascination of scientists intrusive. When disaster strikes, Bonny must find a way to return home.