My Week in Books – 9th February 2020

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of historical thriller, Burning Cold by Lisa Lieberman.

Tuesday – I  joined the blog tour for Inexpressible Island by Paullina Simons. This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books In My TBR I Predict Will Be 5* Reads. I’m tough when it comes to handing out five stars but I adopted a spirit of optimism and who knows?

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 Requiem for a Knave by Laura Carlin. 

Friday – I published my review of The Bermondsey Bookshop by Mary Gibson as part of the blog tour.

Saturday – I shared My 5 Favourite January Reads.

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


New arrivals

cover181979-mediumThe Glass House by Eve Chase (eARC, courtesy of Michael Joseph and NetGalley)

Outside a remote manor house in an idyllic wood, a baby girl is found.

The Harrington family takes her in and disbelief quickly turns to joy. They’re grieving a terrible tragedy of their own and the beautiful baby fills them with hope, lighting up the house’s dark, dusty corners. Desperate not to lose her to the authorities, they keep her secret, suspended in a blissful summer world where normal rules of behaviour – and the law – don’t seem to apply.

But within days a body will lie dead in the grounds. And their dreams of a perfect family will shatter like glass. Years later, the truth will need to be put back together again, piece by piece . . .

From the author of Black Rabbit Hall, The Glass House is a emotional, thrilling book about family secrets and belonging – and how we find ourselves when we are most lost.

cover181688-mediumPeople Like Us by Louise Fein (eARC, courtesy of Head of Zeus and NetGalley)

‘I nearly drowned and Walter rescued me. That changes everything.’

Leipzig, 1930’s Germany. Hetty Heinrich is a perfect German child. Her father is an SS officer, her brother in the Luftwaffe, herself a member of the BDM. She believes resolutely in her country, and the man who runs it.

Until Walter changes everything. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, perfect in every way Walter. The boy who saved her life. A Jew.

Anti-Semitism is growing by the day, and neighbours, friends and family members are turning on one another. As Hetty falls deeper in love with a man who is against all she has been taught, she begins to fight against her country, her family and herself. Hetty will risk have to risk everything to save Walter, even if it means sacrificing herself.

20200207_130145_kindlephoto-77579891The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant by Kayte Nunn (giveaway, courtesy of Orion Books)

A cache of unsent love letters from the 1950s is found in a suitcase on a remote island in this mysterious love story by top ten bestselling author, Kayte Nunn

1951. Esther Durrant, a young mother, is committed to an isolated mental asylum by her husband. Run by a pioneering psychiatrist, the hospital is at first Esther’s prison but soon becomes her refuge.

2018. Free-spirited marine scientist Rachel Parker embarks on a research posting in the Isles of Scilly, off the Cornish coast. When a violent storm forces her to take shelter on a far-flung island, she discovers a collection of hidden love letters. Captivated by their passion and tenderness, Rachel determines to track down the intended recipient.

Meanwhile, in London, Eve is helping her grandmother, a renowned mountaineer, write her memoirs. When she is contacted by Rachel, it sets in motion a chain of events that threatens to reveal secrets kept buried for more than sixty years.

The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant is a deeply atmospheric, resonant novel that charts the heart’s wild places, choices and consequences. If you love Elizabeth Gilbert and Kate Morton you will devour this book.


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

 

Planned posts

  • Q&A: Sandy Day, author of Head on Backwards, Chest Full of Sand
  • Top Ten Tuesday: Love Freebie
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Book Review: Summerland by Lucy Adlington
  • Buchan of the Month: Introducing… John Burnet of Barns

My Week in Books – 2nd February 2020

MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I joined the blog tour for The Other You by J. S. Monroe.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was a freebie on the theme of Book Covers and I chose to focus on covers featuring flora and fauna.

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 Sir Quixote of the Moorsby John Buchan.

Friday – I published my review of Katherine by Anya Seton.

Saturday – I took part in the monthly Six Degrees of Separation meme forging a chain from Fleishman Is In Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner to The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear.

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


New arrivals

cover182150-mediumHow To Belong by Sarah Franklin (eARC, courtesy of Zaffre and NetGalley)

In the follow up to her acclaimed novel Shelter, Sarah Franklin returns to the Forest of Dean, this time exploring what it means to belong to a rural community in a rapidly changing world.

Jo grew up in the Forest of Dean, but she was always the one destined to leave for a bigger, brighter future. When her parents retire from their butcher’s shop, she returns to her beloved community to save the family legacy, hoping also to save herself. But things are more complex than the rose-tinted version of life which sustained Jo from afar.

Tessa is a farrier, shoeing horses two miles and half a generation away from Jo, further into the forest. Tessa’s experience of the community couldn’t be more different. Now she too has returned, in flight from a life she could have led, nursing a secret and a past filled with guilt and shame.

Compelled through circumstance to live together, these two women will be forced to confront their sense of identity, and reconsider the meaning of home.

cover181972-mediumThe Sea Gate by Jane Johnson (eARC, courtesy of Head of Zeus and NetGalley)

After the death of her mother, Rebecca begins the sad task of sorting through her empty flat. Starting with the letters piling up on the doormat, she finds an envelope post-marked from Cornwall. In it is a letter that will change her life forever. A desperate plea from her mother’s elderly cousin, Olivia, to help save her beloved home.

Rebecca arrives at Chynalls to find the house crumbling into the ground and Olivia stuck in hospital with no hope of being discharged until her home is made habitable.

Though slightly daunted, Rebecca sets to work. But as she peels back the layers of paint, plaster and grime, she uncovers secrets buried for more than seventy years. Secrets from a time when Olivia was young, the Second World War was raging, and danger and romance lurked round every corner…

20200131_142931A Registry Of My Passage Upon The Earth by Daniel Mason (proof copy courtesy of Mantle Books)

From the bestselling, award-winning author of The Winter Soldier and The Piano Tuner, a collection of interlaced tales of men and women as they face the mysteries and magic of the world

On a fateful flight, a balloonist makes a discovery that changes her life forever. A telegraph operator finds an unexpected companion in the middle of the Amazon. A doctor is beset by seizures, in which he is possessed by a second, perhaps better, version of himself. And in Regency London, a bare-knuckle fighter prepares to face his most fearsome opponent, while a young mother seeks a miraculous cure for her ailing son.

At times funny and irreverent, always moving and deeply urgent, these stories – among them a National Magazine Award and a Pushcart Prize winner – cap a fifteen-year project. From the Nile’s depths to the highest reaches of the atmosphere, from volcano-racked islands to an asylum on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, these are tales of ecstasy, epiphany, and what the New York Times Magazine called the “struggle for survival…hand to hand, word to word,” by “one of the finest prose stylists in American fiction.”


On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Heaven My HomeRequiem for a KnaveThe Bermondsey Bookshop

Planned posts

  • Top Ten Tuesday: Books In My TBR I Predict Will Be 5* Reads
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • Book Review: Burning Cold by Lisa Lieberman
  • Blog Tour/Spotlight: Inexpressible Island by Paullina Simons
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Bermondsey Bookshop by Mary Gibson
  • Book Review: Requiem for a Knave by Laura Carlin
  • Buchan of the Month: Introducing… John Burnet of Barns