new arrivals

MyWeekinBooks

Sympathy by Olivia Sudjic (paperback, subscription box)

An electrifying novel of blood ties, online identities, and our tormented efforts to connect in the digital age.

At twenty-three, Alice Hare leaves England for New York. She falls in love with Manhattan, and becomes fixated on Mizuko Himura, an intriguing Japanese writer whose life has strange parallels to her own.

As Alice closes in on Mizuko, her ‘internet twin’, realities multiply and fact and fiction begin to blur. The relationship between the two women exposes a tangle of lies and sexual encounters. Three families collide as Alice learns that the swiftest answer to an ancient question – where do we come from? – can now be found online.

The Murder of Harriet Monckton by Elizabeth Haynes (ebook)

From the award-winning and bestselling author of Into the Darkest Corner comes a delicious Victorian crime novel based on a true story that shocked and fascinated the nation.

On 7th November 1843, Harriet Monckton, 23 years old and a woman of respectable parentage and religious habits, is found murdered in the privy behind the chapel she regularly attended in Bromley, Kent. The community is appalled by her death, apparently as a result of swallowing a fatal dose of prussic acid, and even more so when the surgeon reports that Harriet was around six months pregnant.

Drawing on the coroner’s reports and witness testimonies, Elizabeth Haynes builds a compelling picture of Harriet’s final hours through the eyes of those closest to her and the last people to see her alive. Her fellow teacher and companion, her would-be fiancé, her seducer, her former lover—all are suspects; each has a reason to want her dead.

Brimming with lust, mistrust and guilt, The Murder of Harriet Monckton is a masterclass of suspense from one of our greatest crime writers.

So Much Life Left Over by Louis de Bernières (hardcover, library loan)

A sweeping, heartbreaking novel following Daniel in his troubled marriage with Rosie as they navigate the unsettled time between the World Wars.

Rosie and Daniel have moved to Ceylon with their little daughter to start a new life at the dawn of the 1920s, attempting to put the trauma of the First World War behind them, and to rekindle a marriage that gets colder every day. However, even in the lush plantation hills it is hard for them to escape the ties of home and the yearning for fulfilment that threatens their marriage.

Back in England, Rosie’s three sisters are dealing with different challenges in their searches for family, purpose and happiness. These are precarious times, and they find themselves using unconventional means to achieve their desires. Around them the world is changing, and when Daniel finds himself in Germany he witnesses events taking a dark and forbidding turn.

By turns humorous and tragic, gripping and touching, So Much Life Left Over follows a cast of unique and captivating characters as they navigate the extraordinary interwar years both in England and abroad.

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of one of the events I attended at Henley Literary Festival 2018: Alan Johnson talking about his latest book, In My Life: A Music Memoir.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Longest Books I’ve Ever Read. I found plenty of whoppers in my Read shelf on Goodreads but interestingly they were all books read some years ago. My inclination to tackle big books seems to have waned. However, I did publish my review of the fairly chunky Macbeth by Jo Nesbo.

Wednesday – WWW Wednesday is the opportunity to share what I’ve just finished reading, what I’m reading now and what I’ll be reading next.

Thursday – My Throwback Thursday post was my review of The Dark Tide by Vera Brittain, a book from my Classics Club list. As part of the blog tour, I also shared my review of historical novel The Black Prince by Adam Roberts, based on previously unpublished material by Anthony Burgess.

Saturday – I joined the blog tour for Susan Roebuck’s latest book, Joseph Barnaby, a romance/mystery story set on the island of Madeira. I also published my (spoiler free) introduction to my Buchan of the Month: Witch Wood by John Buchan.

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Next week I’m having an Autumn break in Falmouth, Cornwall so there will be plenty of Cornish themed blog posts, reviews… and reading!

Currently reading

Planned posts

Cornwall Week: Books Set in Cornwall (multiple posts)
Book Review: Wrecker by Noel O’Reilly
Book Review: False Lights by K. J. Whittaker
Book Review: A Ration Book Christmas by Jean Fullerton
Book Review: Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks
Book Review: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Book Review: Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson

MyWeekinBooks

New arrivals

In My Life: A Music Memoir by Alan Johnson (hardcover)

From being transported by the sound of ‘True Love’ by Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly on the radio, as a small child living in condemned housing in ungentrified West London in the late 1950s, to going out to work as a postman humming ‘Watching the Detectives’ by Elvis Costello in 1977, Alan Johnson’s life has always had a musical soundtrack. In fact music hasn’t just accompanied his life, it’s been an integral part of it.

In the bestselling and award-winning tradition of This Boy, In My Life vividly transports us to a world that is no longer with us – a world of Dansettes and jukeboxes, of heartfelt love songs and heart-broken ballads, of smoky coffee shops and dingy dance halls. From Bob Dylan to David Bowie, from Lonnie Donnegan to Bruce Springsteen, all of Alan’s favourites are here. As are, of course, his beloved Beatles, whom he has worshipped with undying admiration since 1963.

But this isn’t just a book about music. In My Life adds a fourth dimension to the story of Alan Johnson the man.

The book, signed by the author, was a gift from my lovely husband to thank me for getting tickets for us to hear Alan speak at Henley Literary Festival and enabling my husband to meet Alan afterwards (albeit briefly).

Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield (proof copy)

A dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the Thames. The regulars are entertaining themselves by telling stories when the door bursts open on an injured stranger. In his arms is the drowned corpse of a little child.

Hours later the dead girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life.

Is it a miracle? Is it magic? Or can it be explained by science?

Replete with folklore, suspense and romance, as well as with the urgent scientific curiosity of the Darwinian age, Once Upon a River is as richly atmospheric as Setterfield’s bestseller The Thirteenth Tale.

Pre-order Once Upon A River from Amazon UK

A Ration Book Christmas by Jean Fullerton (paperback, giveaway prize courtesy of Corvus and Readers First)

In the darkest days of the Blitz, Christmas is more important than ever.

With Christmas approaching, the Brogan family of London’s East End are braving the horrors of the Blitz. With the men away fighting for King and Country and the ever-present dangers of the German Luftwaffe’s nightly reign of death and destruction, the family must do all they can to keep a stiff upper lip.

For Jo, the youngest of the Brogan sisters, the perils of war also offer a new-found freedom. Jo falls in love with Tommy, a man known for his dangerous reputation as much as his charm. But as the falling bombs devastate their neighbourhood and rationing begins to bite, will the Brogans manage to pull together a traditional family Christmas? And will Jo find the love and security she seeks in a time of such grave peril?

Pre-order A Ration Book Christmas from Amazon UK

Blackberry and Wild Rose by Sonia Velton (eARC, courtesy of Quercus and NetGalley)

When Esther Thorel, the wife of a Huguenot silk-weaver, rescues Sara Kemp from a brothel she thinks she is doing God’s will. Sara is not convinced being a maid is better than being a whore, but the chance to escape her grasping ‘madam’ is too good to refuse.

Inside the Thorels’ tall house in Spitalfields, where the strange cadence of the looms fills the attic, the two women forge an uneasy relationship. The physical intimacies of washing and dressing belie the reality: Sara despises her mistress’s blindness to the hypocrisy of her household, while Esther is too wrapped up in her own secrets to see Sara as anything more than another charitable cause.

It is silk that has Esther so distracted. For years she has painted her own designs, dreaming that one day her husband will weave them into reality. When he laughs at her ambition, she strikes up a relationship with one of the journeyman weavers in her attic who teaches her to weave and unwittingly sets in motion events that will change the fate of the whole Thorel household.

Pre-order Blackberry and Wild Rose from Amazon UK

The Senator’s Assignment by Joan E. Histon (eARC, courtesy of Top Hat Books and Random Things Tours)

Being trusted by a Caesar makes him an enemy of the Roman who crucified Jesus Christ, and puts him under threat from Rome itself…

Rome 30 AD – A Senator is plunged into the dark heart of the Roman Empire, sent to investigate the corrupt practices of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem by Caesar Tiberius. In this tense historical thriller can Senator Vivius Marcianus outmanoeuvre charges of treason, devastating secrets resurfaced from his own troubled past, and the political snake pit of Rome to save himself and the woman he loves?

Pre-order The Senator’s Assignment from Amazon UK

The Conviction of Cora Burns by Carolyn Kirby (proof copy, courtesy of No Exit Press)

Cora was born in a prison. But is this where she belongs?

Birmingham, 1885. Born in a gaol and raised in a workhouse, Cora Burns has always struggled to control the violence inside her. Haunted by memories of a terrible crime, she seeks a new life working as a servant in the house of scientist Thomas Jerwood. Here, Cora befriends a young girl, Violet, who seems to be the subject of a living experiment. But is Jerwood also secretly studying Cora…?

With the power and intrigue of Laura Purcell’s The Silent Companions and Sarah Schmidt’s See What I Have Done, Carolyn Kirby’s stunning debut takes the reader on a heart-breaking journey through Victorian Birmingham and questions where we first learn violence: from our scars or from our hearts.

Pre-order The Conviction of Cora Burns from Amazon UK

The Page by M. Jonathan Lee (paperback, giveaway prize courtesy of Hideaway Fall)

Following a tragic car accident, Michael Sewell is alone for the first time. The loss of his wife, Margaret, after thirty years of marriage has left a hole far greater than Michael could have imagined.

Persuaded to go on holiday by his daughter Jane, he’s at the pool when a page blown from a book sticks to his chest. The words from the page resonate with Michael, describing in detail the exact events leading up to the accident. Now, Michael must delve into his past and face his future, taking him and his family on a horrifying and tragic journey toward the truth…

The Page combines dark humour with a racing storyline, as the reader tries to work out what will happen to the main character before he does.