#TopTenTuesday Most Recent Additions To My Bookshelf

Top Ten Tuesday newTop Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want. Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post. Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists. Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.


This week’s topic is Most Recent Additions To My Bookshelf. My list includes new arrivals on my physical and digital bookshelves. Links from the book titles will take you to the full book description on Goodreads.

Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts (paperback, giveaway prize courtesy of Quercus) – “A richly imagined novel that tells the story behind The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the book that inspired the iconic film, through the eyes of author L. Frank Baum’s intrepid wife, Maud”

Wild Spinning Girls by Carol Lovekin (e-book, published by Honno Press) – “If it wasn’t haunted before she came to live there, after she died, Ty’r Cwmwl made room for her ghost”

Distorted Days by Louise Worthington (e-book) – “an exquisitely written account of the ways in which life can knock you off our feet – and how you can pick yourself up again.”

Stasi Winter by David Young (paperback, published by Zaffre) – “In 1978 East Germany, nothing is as it seems…”

A Messy Affair by Elizabeth Mundy (e-book, published by Constable) – Hungarian cleaner, Lena Szarka, investigates a suspicious death

Real Life by Adeline Dieudonne (paperback, published by World Editions) – a “gripping, dark coming of age novel”

When We Fall by Carolyn Kirby (review copy courtesy of No Exit) -“published to coincide with the 75th anniversary of VE Day, a moving story of three lives forever altered by one fatal choice”

The Convalescent Corpse by Nicola Slade (e-book, giveaway prize courtesy of the author) – “A story of family, rationing and inconvenient corpses”

The Other You by J.S. Monroe (e-book, published by Head of Zeus) – “Is he who you think he is?”

The Bermondsey Bookshop by Mary Gibson (e-book, published by Head of Zeus) – “Set in 1920s London, the inspiring story of Kate Goss’s struggle against poverty, hunger and cruel family secrets”

My Week in Books – 19th January 2020

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of Artefacts and Other Stories by Rebecca Burns.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Bookish Discoveries in 2019

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 shared my review of Mrs P’s Book of Secrets by Lorna Gray.

Friday – I published my review of Magician and Fool by Susan Wands.

Saturday – I shared my reading list for this year’s Buchan of the Month reading project.

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


New arrivals

51NYxz1CnKL._SX323_BO1,204,203,200_Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts (paperback, giveaway prize courtesy of Quercus)

Maud Gage Baum, widow of the author of the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, met Judy Garland, the young actress playing the role of Dorothy on the set of The Wizard of Oz in 1939. At the time, Maud was seventy-eight and Judy was sixteen. In spite of their age difference, Maud immediately connected to Judy–especially when Maud heard her sing “Over the Rainbow,” a song whose yearning brought to mind the tough years in South Dakota when Maud and her husband struggled to make a living–until Frank Baum’s book became a national sensation.

This wonderfully evocative two-stranded story recreates Maud’s youth as the rebellious daughter of a leading suffragette, and the prairie years of Maud and Frank’s early days when they lived among the people–especially young Dorothy–who would inspire Frank’s masterpiece. Woven into this past story is one set in 1939, describing the high-pressured days on The Wizard of Oz film set where Judy is being badgered by the director, producer, and her ambitious stage mother to lose weight, bind her breasts, and laugh, cry, and act terrified on command. As Maud had promised to protect the original Dorothy back in Aberdeen, she now takes on the job of protecting young Judy.

41pum92q8oLWild Spinning Girls by Carol Lovekin (e-book, courtesy of Honno Press)

Ida Llewellyn loses her job and her parents in the space of a few weeks and, thrown completely off course, she sets off to Wales to the house her father has left her.

But Heather, the young woman still in her teens whose home it was, keeps the house as a shrine to her late mother and is determined to scare Ida away.

The two girls battle with suspicion and fear before discovering that the secrets harboured by their thoughtless parents have grown rotten with time, and that any ghosts Ty’r Cwmwl harbours are of their own making.

Their broken hearts will only mend once they cast off the house and its history, and let go of the keepsakes that they treasure like childhood dreams.

51l8f8qK2tLDistorted Days by Louise Worthington (e-book, courtesy of Rachel’s Random Resources)

Heart-rending, humorous and above all authentic, Distorted Days is an exquisitely written account of the ways in which life can knock you off our feet – and how you can pick yourself up again.

If you’ve experienced the fickleness of fortune, this is a book that you’ll never forget.


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Heaven My HomeTBR#7KatherineHitlers Secret

Planned posts

  • Top Ten Tuesday: Most Recent Additions To My Bookshelf
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Book Review: Burning Cold by Lisa Lieberman
  • Book Review: The Lady of the Ravens by Joanna Hickson
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: A Messy Affair by Elizabeth Mundy
  • Buchan of the Month: Introducing Sir Quixote of the Moors