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

My Week in Books – 8th March 2020

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I shared my Five Favourite of the books I read in February.

TuesdayThis week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Single Word Book Titles.

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 my review of The Lost Lights of St Kilda by Elisabeth Gifford.

Friday – I shared my thoughts on The Widow’s Miteby Allie Cresswell as part of the blog tour. I also published my write-up of Waterstones Reading’s event – A Very Tudor Evening – to mark the publication of The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel

Saturday – I took part in the #6Degrees of Separation meme forging a chain from Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar to El Hacho by Luis Carrasco.

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


New arrivals

Another crop of goodies this week including ARCs from publishers and the book everyone who loves historical fiction has been talking about…and itching to get their hands on, me included. 

20200229_141812-1The Saracen’s Mark by S. W. Perry (ARC, courtesy of Corvus and Readers First )

Betrayal has many guises…

London, 1593:
 Five years on from the Armada and England is taking its first faltering steps towards a future as a global power. Nicholas Shelby – reluctant spy and maverick physician – and his companion Bianca Merton are settling into a life on Bankside. But in London there is always a plot afoot…

Robert Cecil, the Queen’s spymaster, once again recruits Nicholas to embark on a dangerous undercover mission that will take him to the back alleys of Marrakech in search of a missing informer. However, while Nicholas hunts for the truth across the seas, plague returns once more to London – ravaging the streets and threatening those dearest to him.

Can Bianca and Nicholas’ budding relationship weather the threats of pestilence and conspiracy? And will Nicholas survive the dangers of his mission in a hostile city to return safely home?

LionheartLionheart by Ben Kane (proof copy, courtesy of Orion)

1179. Henry II’s Norman conquerors have swept through England, Wales – and now Ireland.

Irish nobleman Ferdia has been imprisoned in Wales to ensure the good behaviour of his rebellious father. But during a skirmish on a neighbouring castle, Ferdia saves the life of the man who would become one of the most legendary warriors to have ever lived: Richard Plantagenet. The Lionheart.

Taken as Richard’s squire, Ferdia crosses the Narrow Sea to resist the rebellious nobles in Aquitaine, besieging castles and fighting bloody battles with brutal frequency. But treachery and betrayal lurk around every corner. Infuriated by his younger brother Richard’s growing reputation, Henry rebels. And Ferdia learns that the biggest threat to Richard’s life may not be a foreign army – but Richard’s own family…

20200306_092432-1The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel (hardcover)

‘If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?’

England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, before Jane dies giving birth to the male heir he most craves.

Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on; he has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. But can a nation, or a person, shed the past like a skin? Do the dead continually unbury themselves? What will you do, the Spanish ambassador asks Cromwell, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him?


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Distorted Days by Louise Worthington
  • Top Ten Tuesday: Authors Who Have a Fun Social Media Presence
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Blog Tour/Extract: The Treadstone Resurrection by Joshua Hood
  • Audiobook Review: Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke
  • Book Review: The Recovery of Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel
  • Buchan of the Month: Introducing…A Lodge in the Wilderness by John Buchan