New arrivals
Gallowstree Lane by Kate London (hardcover, review copy courtesy of Corvus and Readers First)
Please don’t let me die. Please don’t.
The final words of teenager Spencer Cardoso as he bleeds out on a London street, his life cut short in a single moment of rage.
Detective Inspector Kieran Shaw’s not interested in the infantry. Shaw likes the proper criminals, the ones who can plan things. For two years he’s been painstakingly building evidence against an organized network, the Eardsley Bluds. Operation Perseus is about to make its arrests. So when a low-level Bluds member is stabbed to death on Gallowstree Lane, Shaw’s priority is to protect his operation. An investigation into one of London’s tit for tat killings can’t be allowed to derail Perseus and let the master criminals go free.
But there’s a witness to the murder, fifteen-year-old Ryan Kennedy. Already caught up in Perseus and with the Bluds, Ryan’s got his own demons and his own ideas about what’s important. As loyalties collide and priorities clash, a chain of events is triggered that draws in Shaw’s old adversary DI Sarah Collins and threatens everyone with a connection to Gallowstree Lane…
Pre-order Gallowstree Lane from Amazon UK
In A Time of Monsters: Travels Through a Middle East in Revolt by Emma Sky (hardcover, review copy courtesy of Atlantic Books and Readers First)
Returning to the UK in September 2010 after serving in Iraq as the political adviser to the top American general, Emma Sky felt no sense of homecoming. She soon found herself back in the Middle East travelling through a region in revolt.
In A Time of Monsters bears witness to the demands of young people for dignity and justice during the Arab Spring; the inability of sclerotic regimes to reform; the descent of Syria into civil war; the rise of the Islamic State; and the flight of refugees to Europe. With deep empathy for its people and an extensive understanding of the Middle East, Sky makes a complex region more comprehensible.
A great storyteller and observational writer, Sky also reveals the ties that bind the Middle East to the West and how blowback from our interventions in the region contributed to the British vote to leave the European Union and to the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States.
Pre-order In A Time of Monsters from Amazon UK
Poetic Justice by R. C. Bridgestock (paperback, review copy courtesy of The Dome Press)
From the husband and wife team, who are the storyline consultants to TV’s Happy Valley and Scott & Bailey, comes the brand new book in the D.I. Jack Dylan series, which takes the reader back to where it all began…
When Detective Jack Dylan heads home after a residential course, he has no idea that an extraordinary succession of events is about to turn his life upside down. A vicious, unprovoked attack is just the start. Soon his wife is dead and his step-daughter – dangerously depressed – is being expelled from university for drug use. And at work, two teenagers have gone missing.
An ordinary man might break under the strain, but Dylan is no ordinary man. He knows that his survival depends on him carrying on regardless, burying himself in his work.
He is determined to pursue the criminal elements behind the events – both personal and professional – whether his superiors like it or not. And, as his family disintegrates around him, a newcomer to the admin department, Jennifer Jones, seems to offer some sort of salvation.
Life may have changed, but nothing will stand in the way of Dylan’s quest for justice.
Pre-order Poetic Justice from Amazon UK
Blood & Sugar by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (ebook, courtesy of Mantle and NetGalley)
June, 1781 – An unidentified body hangs upon a hook at Deptford Dock – horribly tortured and branded with a slaver’s mark.
Some days later, Captain Harry Corsham – a war hero embarking upon a promising parliamentary career – is visited by the sister of an old friend. Her brother, passionate abolitionist Tad Archer, had been about to expose a secret that he believed could cause irreparable damage to the British slaving industry. He’d said people were trying to kill him, and now he is missing…
To discover what happened to Tad, Harry is forced to pick up the threads of his friend’s investigation, delving into the heart of the conspiracy Tad had unearthed. His investigation will threaten his political prospects, his family’s happiness, and force a reckoning with his past, risking the revelation of secrets that have the power to destroy him.
And that is only if he can survive the mortal dangers awaiting him in Deptford…
The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins (eARC, courtesy of Penguin and NetGalley)
They say I must be put to death for what happened to Madame, and they want me to confess. But how can I confess what I don’t believe I’ve done?
1826, and all of London is in a frenzy. Crowds gather at the gates of the Old Bailey to watch as Frannie Langton, maid to Mr and Mrs Benham, goes on trial for their murder. The testimonies against her are damning – slave, whore, seductress. And they may be the truth. But they are not the whole truth.
For the first time Frannie must tell her story. It begins with a girl learning to read on a plantation in Jamaica, and it ends in a grand house in London, where a beautiful woman waits to be freed.
But through her fevered confessions, one burning question haunts Frannie Langton: could she have murdered the only person she ever loved?
Pre-order The Confessions of Frannie Langton from Amazon UK
Louis & Louise by Julie Cohen (ebook, courtesy of Orion and NetGalley)
ONE LIFE. LIVED TWICE.
Louis and Louise are the same person born in two different lives. They are separated only by the sex announced by the doctor and a final ‘e’.
They have the same best friends, the same red hair, the same dream of being a writer, the same excellent whistle. They both suffer one catastrophic night, with life-changing consequences.
Thirteen years later, they are both coming home.
A tender, insightful and timely novel about the things that bring us together – and those which separate us.
Gold Digger: The Remarkable Bay Doe Tabor by Rebecca Rosenberg (eARC, courtesy of the author)
One look at Baby Doe and you know she was meant to be a legend! She was just twenty years old when she came to Colorado to work a gold mine with her new husband. Little did she expect that she’d be abandoned and pregnant and left to manage the gold mine alone. But that didn’t stop her!
She moved to Leadville and fell in love with a married prospector, twice her age. Horace Tabor struck the biggest silver vein in history, divorced his wife and married Baby Doe. Though his new wife was known for her beauty, her fashion, and even her philanthropy, she was never welcomed in polite society.
Discover how the Tabors navigated the worlds of wealth, power, politics, and scandal in the wild days of western mining.
On What Cathy Read Next last week
Blog posts
Tuesday – The Top Ten Tuesday topics was Books I Meant to Read in 2018 But Didn’t Get To AKA Confession Time! I also published my review of the third in Rory Clement’s historical thriller series set in WW2, Nemesis.
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 joined the blog tour for The Secret by Katharine Johnson sharing my review of this dual time novel set in present day and wartime Tuscany.
Friday – I published my review of The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood, the book selected for the latest Classics Club Spin.
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
- Book Review: Eagle & Crane by Suzanne Rindell
- Top Ten Tuesday: Most Recent Additions to My To-Read List
- Waiting on Wednesday
- Buchan of the Month/Book Review: Prester John by John Buchan
- Book Review: The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea
- Six Degrees of Separation: From Fight Club…
What Cathy Read Next... 