Tag: new arrivals

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of The Mathematical Bridge by Jim Kelly.

Tuesday –  The Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books With Numbers in their Titles and I was inspired to take two different approaches to it in Part 1 and Part 2.

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 Jeweller by Caryl Lewis (translated by Gwen Davies) as part of the blog tour.

Thursday – I shared my review of the latest book in one of my favourite action-packed crime series, Asylum Road by James L. Weaver.

Friday – I shared my Five Favourite Books I read in September.

Saturday – I participated in the 6 Degrees of Separation meme creating a chain from Three Women by Lisa Taddeo to The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers.

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

---

New arrivals

The Recovery of Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel (uncorrected proof copy, courtesy of Michael Joseph)

A chilling exploration into obsession, reconciliation and revenge in 2020’s must-read.

Rose Gold Watts believed she was sick for eighteen years. She thought she needed the feeding tube, the surgeries, the wheelchair . . .

Turns out her mum, Patty, is a really good liar.

After five years in prison Patty Watts is finally free. All she wants is to put old grievances behind her, reconcile with her daughter and care for her new infant grandson. When Rose Gold agrees to have Patty move in, it seems their relationship is truly on the mend.

But Rose Gold knows her mother. Patty won’t rest until she has her daughter back under her thumb. Which is a smidge inconvenient because Rose Gold wants to be free of Patty. Forever.

Only one Watts will get what she wants. Will it be Patty of Rose Gold? Mother, or daughter?

Conviction by Hope Adams (uncorrected proof copy, courtesy of Michael Joseph)

London, 1841.  Two hundred Englishwomen file aboard the Rajah, embarking on a three-month voyage to the other side of the world.

They’re daughters, sisters, mothers – and convicts.  Transported for petty crimes. Except one of their number has a deadly secret, and will do anything to flee justice.

When a woman is mortally wounded, the hunt is on for the culprit.  But who would harm one of their own, and why?

Based on a true story, Conviction is a sweeping tale of confinement, loss, love, and above all, hope in the unlikeliest of places.

Christmas at Ladywell by Nicola Slade (eARC, courtesy of Crooked Cat Books and Rachel’s Random Resources)

A time for spilling secrets…

Having refurbished her inherited house and upcycled her whole life in the process, Freya – now happily married to Patrick, and with a small child – has to transform her tiny stone barn into a romantic hideaway for a mystery guest who is also looking for change. With Christmas only a week away, things don’t go according to plan…

In the past, old uncertainties are resolved when a woman seeks the truth of a legend on Christmas Eve and confesses to a deception; a Tudor wife listens to a story that must never be repeated and is given a precious relic that must never be displayed; and in the early nineteenth century, an old woman tells a younger one the story of the hares at Ladywell.

Past and present are only a whisper apart when Freya learns of an astonishing discovery that will make Ladywell famous, but while her house is full of unexpected visitors, she has a turkey to cook – and a very special secret of her own that must be told.

Wolf of Wessex by Matthew Harffy (eARC, courtesy of Aria)

AD 838. Deep in the forests of Wessex, Dunston’s solitary existence is shattered when he stumbles on a mutilated corpse.

Accused of the murder, Dunston must clear his name and keep the dead man’s daughter alive in the face of savage pursuers desperate to prevent a terrible secret from being revealed.

Rushing headlong through Wessex, Dunston will need to use all the skills of survival garnered from a lifetime in the wilderness. And if he has any hope of victory against the implacable enemies on their trail, he must confront his long-buried past – becoming the man he once was and embracing traits he had promised he would never return to. The Wolf of Wessex must hunt again; honour and duty demand it.

Joan Smokes by Angela Meyer (ARC, courtesy of Saraband Books)

She used to be someone else, but now she’s arrived in Vegas, where she can start again. It won’t do to let the past leak in. It’s the Sixties now. She’s going to become … Joan. She makes a list: Buy a new dress (fitted, floral). Dye her hair (dark). Curl it. Buy red lipstick. Buy cigarettes and a lighter, too: Joan, she decides, is a smoker. There’s no need to dwell on why she’s here, what went before. She is just moving forward, one foot in front of the other, becoming that new person. Joan. This city of flashing neon, casinos and shows is full of distractions. Finding a job will be quick and easy. Things to do. New people to meet. A clean sheet. She’s certainly not thinking about Jack, or … No. Not anymore. Her new life starts right here, right now. (Winner of the inaugural Mslexia Novella Award 2019).

---

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

 

Planned posts

• Book Review: The Blanket of the Dark by John Buchan
• Event Review: Michael Joseph Proof Party at Henley Literary Festival 2019
• Top Ten Tuesday: Character Traits I Love
• Waiting on Wednesday
• Blog Tour/Book Review: Rivals by Sam Michaels
• Book Review: Welcome to America by Linda Bostrom Knausgard
• Blog Tour/Book Review: A Ration Book Childhood by Jean Fullerton
• Event Review: David Suchet at Henley Literary Festival 2019
• Event Review: Anne De Courcy at Henley Literary Festival 2019
• Event Review: Victoria Hislop at Henley Literary Festival 2019

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my introduction to my Buchan of the Month, The Blanket of the Dark by John Buchan.

Tuesday –  The Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books On My Autumn 2019 TBR.

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.

Thursday – I shared my review of crime novel, Dead Flowers by Nicola Monaghan as part of the blog tour.

Friday – Another blog tour and another review, this time for Eight Hours From England by Anthony Quayle, one of the books recently published as part of the Imperial War Museum’s ‘Wartime Classics’ series.

Saturday – I rounded off a productive week by sharing my review of The Familiars by Stacey Halls.

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

---

New arrivals

The Second Sleep by Robert Harris (audiobook)

All civilisations think they are invulnerable. History warns us none is.

1468 – A young priest, Christopher Fairfax, arrives in a remote Exmoor village to conduct the funeral of his predecessor. The land around is strewn with ancient artefacts – coins, fragments of glass, human bones – which the old parson used to collect. Did his obsession with the past lead to his death?

As Fairfax is drawn more deeply into the isolated community, everything he believes – about himself, his faith and the history of his world – is tested to destruction.

Heaven, My Home (Highway 59 #2) by Attica Locke (audiobook)

Nine-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; now he’s alone in the darkness of vast Caddo Lake, in a boat whose motor just died. A sudden noise distracts him – and all goes dark.

Darren Matthews is trying to emerge from another kind of darkness; after the events of his previous investigation, his marriage is in a precarious state of re-building, and his career and reputation lie in the hands of his mother, who’s never exactly had his best interests at heart. Now she holds the key to his freedom, and she’s not above a little maternal blackmail to press her advantage.

An unlikely possibility of rescue arrives in the form of a case down Highway 59, in a small lakeside town where the local economy thrives on nostalgia for ante-bellum Texas – and some of the era’s racial attitudes still thrive as well. Levi’s disappearance has links to Darren’s last case, and to a wealthy businesswoman, the boy’s grandmother, who seems more concerned about the fate of her business than that of her grandson.

Darren has to battle centuries-old suspicions and prejudices, as well as threats that have been reignited in the current political climate, as he races to find the boy, and to save himself.

The Woman With Wings by James MacManus (eARC, courtesy of Endeavour Quill)

Alison Spedding is a loner; no real friends, no boyfriend and a job in which she goes unnoticed. At thirty-two, her only passion is birdwatching.

One afternoon, high on a Scottish mountain, earnestly waiting for the rarest of sights – a white tailed eagle returning to its nest – she slips, falling silently. In shock, her fellow twitchers return to the hostel to raise the alarm, heavy with the realisation that she must be dead. What they find shocks them even more. Alison is already there, alive and unscathed…

Further similar episodes cause Alison’s grip on reality to slip, her mind spiralling towards breaking point. In her dreams she sees a huge shadow on the ground, as if there was a creature above her, a creature with huge wings…

Her infatuated colleague Jed is concerned. Can he intervene before Alison finally loses control?

This is an extraordinary novel, exploring one woman’s identity whilst posing universal questions: Who is she? Where does she belong? And must she accept her fate, or can she spread her wings and be free at last?

Dreamland by Nancy Bilyeau (eARC, courtesy of Endeavour Quill and NetGalley)

The year is 1911 when twenty-year-old heiress Peggy Batternberg is invited to spend the summer in America’s Playground.

The invitation to the luxurious Oriental Hotel a mile from Coney Island is unwelcome. Despite hailing from one of America’s richest families, Peggy would much rather spend the summer working at the Moonrise Bookstore than keeping up appearances with New York City socialites and her snobbish, controlling family.

But soon it transpires that the hedonism of nearby Coney Island affords Peggy the freedom she has been yearning for, and it’s not long before she finds herself in love with a troubled pier-side artist of humble means, whom the Batternberg patriarchs would surely disapprove of.

Disapprove they may, but hidden behind their pomposity lurks a web of deceit, betrayal and deadly secrets. And as bodies begin to mount up amidst the sweltering clamour of Coney Island, it seems the powerful Batternbergs can get away with anything…even murder.

The Photographer of the Lost by Caroline Scott (eARC, courtesy of Simon & Schuster)

1921 – Families are desperately trying to piece together the fragments of their broken lives. While many survivors of the Great War have been reunited with their loved ones, Edie’s husband Francis has not come home. He is considered ‘missing in action’, but when Edie receives a mysterious photograph taken by Francis in the post, hope flares. And so she begins to search.

Harry, Francis’s brother, fought alongside him. He too longs for Francis to be alive, so they can forgive each other for the last things they ever said. Both brothers shared a love of photography and it is that which brings Harry back to the Western Front. Hired by grieving families to photograph gravesites, as he travels through battle-scarred France gathering news for British wives and mothers, Harry also searches for evidence of his brother.

And as Harry and Edie’s paths converge, they get closer to a startling truth.

The Listening Walls by Margaret Millar (paperback, advance review copy courtesy of Pushkin Vertigo)

Amy Kellogg is not having a pleasant vacation in Mexico. She’s been arguing nonstop with her friend and traveling companion, Wilma, and she wants nothing more than to go home to California. But their holiday takes a nightmarish turn when Wilma is found dead on the street below their room-an apparent suicide.

Rupert Kellogg has just returned from seeing his wife Amy through the difficulties surrounding the apparent suicide of her friend in Mexico. But Rupert is returning alone-which worries Amy’s brother. Amy was traumatized by the suicide, Rupert explains, and has taken a holiday in New York City to settle her nerves. But as gone girl Amy’s absence drags on for weeks and then months, the sense of unease among her family changes to suspicion and eventual allegations.

A Stranger In My Grave by Margaret Millar (paperback, review copy courtesy of Pushkin Vertigo)

A nightmare is haunting Daisy Harker. Night after night she walks a strange cemetery in her dreams, until she comes to a grave that stops her in her tracks. It’s Daisy’s own, and according to the dates on the gravestone she’s been dead for four years.

What can this nightmare mean, and why is Daisy’s husband so insistent that she forget it? Driven to desperation, she hires a private investigator to reconstruct the day of her dream death. But as she pieces her past together, her present begins to fall apart…

Vanish in an Instant by Margaret Millar (paperback, review copy courtesy of Pushkin Vertigo)

Virginia Barkeley is a nice, well brought-up girl. So what is she doing wandering through a snow storm in the middle of the night, blind drunk and covered in someone else’s blood?

When Claude Margolis’ body is found a quarter of a mile away with half-a-dozen stab wounds to the neck, suddenly Virginia doesn’t seem such a nice girl after all. Her only hope is Meecham, the cynical small-town lawyer hired as her defence. But how can he believe in Virginia’s innocence when even she can’t be sure what happened that night? And when the answer seems to fall into his lap, why won’t he just walk away?

 

---

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

• Book Review: The Mathematical Bridge by Jim Kelly
• Book Review: The Blanket of the Dark by John Buchan
• Top Ten Tuesday: Numbers by the Book
• Waiting on Wednesday
• Blog Tour/Book Review: The Jeweller by Caryl Lewis
• Book Review: Welcome to America by Linda Bostrom Knausgard
• Book Review: Asylum Road by James L. Weaver
• Six Degrees of Separation