new arrivals

MyWeekinBooks

Tell Me Where You Are by Moira Forsyth (paperback, courtesy of Sandstone Press and Ruth Killick Publicity)

Frances spent thirteen years not wanting to hear her sister’s name.

The last thing Frances wants is a phone call from Alec, the husband who left her for her sister thirteen years ago. But Susan has disappeared, abandoning Alec and her daughter Kate, a surly teenager with an explosive secret. Reluctantly, Frances is drawn into her sister’s turbulent life.

Pre-order Tell Me Where You Are from Amazon UK (link provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme)

The Playground Murders (The Detective’s Daughter #7) by Lesley Thomson (hardcover, advance review copy courtesy of Head of Zeus)

Wormwood Scrubs playground, 1980. The wind blows across the common, and the girl in her shorts shivers. The playground is isolated, timeless. Far from the prying eyes of grown-ups, she and her friends can play make-believe here. The looming slide is a mountain; the upturned log a pirate ship. But six-year-old Sarah Ferris does not know that in two days’ time, she will be dead: a victim of jealousy, betrayal, and her own innocence.

Hammersmith, 2019. Cleaner Stella Darnell loves rooting into shadowy places and restoring order. She’ll clear your attic, polish your kitchen and scrub your bath – but she also investigates cold cases. Stella can spend hours sifting through forgotten evidence looking for shreds of evidence the police might have missed. So when a woman is found dead, and the killer is linked to the Sarah Ferris murder, Stella is the woman for the case. But dredging up the past can be dangerous. Especially if the playground killer is back.

The Long Take by Robin Robertson (audiobook)

Walker, a young Canadian recently demobilised after war and his active service in the Normandy landings and subsequent European operations. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and unable to face a return to his family home in rural Nova Scotia, he goes in search of freedom, change, anonymity and repair. We follow Walker through a sequence of poems as he moves through post-war American cities of New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. (Shortlisted for The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2019)

De Bohun’s Destiny (The Meonbridge Chronicles #3) by Carolyn Hughes (eARC, courtesy of Rachel’s Random Resources

How can you uphold a lie when you know it could destroy your family?

Margaret, Lady de Bohun, is horrified when her husband lies about their grandson Dickon’s entitlement to inherit Meonbridge. Margaret knows that Richard lied for the very best of reasons – to safeguard his family and its future – but lying is a sin, and an assured road to ruin. Yet Margaret has no option but to perpetuate her husband’s falsehood…

Margaret’s companion, Matilda Fletcher, decides that the truth about young Dickon’s birth really must be told, if only to Thorkell Boune, the man she’s set her heart on winning. But Matilda’s “honesty” serves only her own interests, and she is oblivious to the potential for disaster.

Thorkell doesn’t scruple to pursue exactly what he wants, by whatever means are necessary, no matter who or what gets in his way…

Liar by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, trans. by Sondra Silverston (paperback)

If being old meant making up things so you wouldn’t be alone, then it really wasn’t very different from being seventeen.

Nofar is just an average teenage girl – so average, she’s almost invisible. Serving customers ice cream all summer long, she is desperate for some kind of escape. One afternoon, a terrible lie slips from her tongue. And suddenly everyone wants to talk to her: the press, her schoolmates, and the boy upstairs – the only one who knows the truth.

Then Nofar meets Raymonde, an elderly woman whose best friend has just died. Raymonde keeps her friend alive the only way she knows how – by inhabiting her stories. But soon, Raymonde’s lies take on a life of their own.

A heart-stopping novel about deception and its consequences, Liar brilliantly explores how far a lie can travel – and how much we are willing to believe.

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Tuesday – I published my review of The Conviction of Cora Burns by Carolyn Kirby as part of the blog tour. This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Things That Make Me Pick Up A Book.

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 published my review of Sunwise by Helen Steadman, the sequel to Widdershins as part of the blog tour. I also picked my five favourite books I read in March.

Friday – I shared my review of historical fiction novel Josephine’s Daughter by A.B. Michaels, the fifth book in the author’s ‘The Golden’ City series.

Saturday – I took part in the blog tour for historical mystery, Barnabas Tew and the Case of the Cursed Serpent by Columbkill Noonan by publishing a spotlight post. I also participated in the monthly Six Degrees of Separation meme.

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

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

Event Review: Ursula Buchan at Oxford Literary Festival
Blog Tour/Book Review: The Storyteller by Pierre Jarawan
Waiting on Wednesday
Blog Tour/Guest Post: The Spitfire Girl in the Skies by Fenella J. Miller
Blog Tour/Book Review: The Golden Hour (The Lady Evelyn Mysteries #4) by Malia Zaidi
Book Review/Giveaway: The Confessions of Frannie Langston by Sara Collins

MyWeekinBooks

New arrivals

Birdie & Jude by Phyllis H. Moore (ebook, courtesy of Rachel’s Random Resources)

A serendipitous meeting on a beach in Galveston before a hurricane forces two strangers to take shelter with each other. Birdie, an older woman, and Jude, a young woman and lone survivor of a fatal accident are destined to spend time together during a strengthening storm. Their lives couldn’t be any different. However, they recognize something in the other that forges a friendship between them.

As their relationship solidifies, they share glimpses of their past. Birdie is a product of the ’60’s, an aging hippie, with a series of resentments hovering over her present life. She had a sheltered childhood in an upper class family. Her parents longed to see her make the Texas Dip at their krewe’s Mardi Gras ball. Jude, however, entered foster care as an infant. Her parents, victims of a murder/suicide, left her and her siblings orphans and separated into different homes.

Their backgrounds couldn’t have been more different, but there is something about their connection that strikes Birdie as familiar. Can souls know each other in different lives? Birdie struggles with the awareness that she has had regrets and hasn’t lived an authentic life, while Jude faces an uncomfortable truth about her own life. It’s a character driven story set on Galveston Island with memories of the protests and inequality plaguing the 1960’s and the secrets many have protected to fit into society.

Storm of Steel (Bernicia Chronicles #6) by Matthew Harffy (eARC, courtesy of Aria and NetGalley)

Heading south to lands he once considered his home, Beobrand is plunged into a dark world of piracy and slavery when an old friend enlists his help to recover a kidnapped girl.

Embarking onto the wind-tossed seas, Beobrand pursues his quarry with single-minded tenacity. But the Whale Road is never calm and his journey is beset with storms, betrayal and violence.

As the winds of his wyrd blow him ever further from what he knows, will Beobrand find victory on his quest or has his luck finally abandoned him?

Pre-order Storm of Steel from Amazon UK (link provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme)

Beyond the Thirty-Nine Steps: A Life of John Buchan by Ursula Buchan (hardcover, advance review copy courtesy of Bloomsbury Publishing)

John Buchan’s name is known across the world for The Thirty-Nine Steps. In the past one hundred years the classic thriller has never been out of print and has inspired numerous adaptations for film, television, radio and stage, beginning with the celebrated version by Alfred Hitchcock.

Yet there was vastly more to ‘JB’. He wrote more than a hundred books, fiction and non-fiction and about a thousand articles for newspapers and magazines. He was a scholar, antiquarian, barrister, colonial administrator, journal editor, literary critic, publisher, war correspondent, director of wartime propaganda, member of parliament and imperial proconsul – given a state funeral when he died, a deeply admired and loved Governor-General of Canada.

His teenage years in Glasgow’s Gorbals, where his father was the Free Church minister, contributed to his ease with shepherds and ambassadors, fur-trappers and prime ministers. His improbable marriage to a member of the aristocratic Grosvenor family means that this account of his life contains, at its heart, an enduring love story.

Ursula Buchan, his granddaughter, has drawn on recently discovered family documents to write this comprehensive and illuminating biography. With perception, style, wit, and a penetratingly clear eye, she brings vividly to life this remarkable man and his times.

Pre-order Beyond the Thirty-Nine Steps: A Life of John Buchan from Amazon UK (link provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme)

Fled by Meg Keneally (paperback, advance review copy courtesy of Zaffre and Readers First)

She will do anything for freedom, but at what cost?

Jenny Trelawney is no ordinary thief. Forced by poverty to live in the forest, she becomes a successful highway-woman – until her luck runs out.

Transported to Britain’s furthest colony, Jenny must tackle new challenges and growing responsibilities. And when famine hits the new colony, Jenny becomes convinced that those she most cares about will not survive. She becomes the leader in a grand plot of escape, but is survival any more certain in a small open boat on an unknown ocean?

Meg Keneally’s debut solo novel is an epic historical adventure based on the extraordinary life of convict Mary Bryant.

Pre-order Fled from Amazon UK (link provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme)