new arrivals

MyWeekinBooks

The Hidden Bones by Nicola Ford (ARC courtesy of Allison and Busby)

The dead rarely leave matters tidy, widow Clare Hills knows that all too well. In search of a new start, Clare reconnects with university friend Dr David Barbrook and is pleased when he asks for her help sifting through the effects of recently deceased archaeologist Gerald Hart. Together they stumble the lost finds from Gerald’s most glittering dig. Hidden from view for decades, and supposedly destroyed in an arson attack, the discovery of the Hungerbourne Barrows archive is every archaeologist’s dream. However, the dream soon turns to a nightmare which puts Clare at the centre of a murder inquiry.

After the Party by Cressida Connolly (eARC, NetGalley)

‘Had it not been for my weakness, someone who is now dead could still be alive. That is what I believed and consequently lived with every day in prison.’

It is the summer of 1938 and Phyllis Forrester has returned to England after years abroad. Moving into her sister’s grand country house, she soon finds herself entangled in a new world of idealistic beliefs and seemingly innocent friendships. Fevered talk of another war infiltrates their small, privileged circle, giving way to a thrilling solution: a great and charismatic leader, who will restore England to its former glory.

At a party hosted by her new friends, Phyllis lets down her guard for a single moment, with devastating consequences. Years later, Phyllis, alone and embittered, recounts the dramatic events which led to her imprisonment and changed the course of her life forever.

Summer of Love by Caro Fraser (eARC, courtesy of Head of Zeus)

The dark days of the war are over, but the family secrets they held are only just dawning.

In the hot summer of 1949, a group of family and friends gather at Harry Denholm’s country house in Kent. Meg and Dan Ranscombe, emerging from a scandal of their own making; Dan’s godmother, Sonia; and her two young girls, Laura and Avril, only one of whom is Sonia’s biological daughter. Amongst the heat, memories, and infatuations, a secret is revealed to Meg’s son, Max, and soon a terrible tragedy unfolds that will have consequences for them all.

Afterward, Avril, Laura, and Max must come of age in a society still reeling from the war, haunted by the choices of that fateful summer. Cold, entitled Avril will go to any lengths to take what is hers. Beautiful, naive Laura finds refuge and love in the London jazz clubs, but Max, with wealth and unrequited love, has the capacity to undo it all.

The Mountain Man’s Badge by Gary Corbin (eARC, courtesy of the author)

Lehigh Carter never wanted to be sheriff. And he sure never wanted to arrest his new father-in-law for murder.

Mountain Man Lehigh Carter got talked into serving the unexpired term of disgraced long-time Mt. Hood County sheriff Buck Winters, hoping for a quiet nine months in office before the voters selected a new, permanent office-holder. But a few months into the job, poachers discover the body of Everett Downey, a sleazy local businessman, and the evidence points to Lehigh’s brand-new father-in-law, the once-powerful senator George McBride. To his chagrin and his new bride’s fury, Lehigh is forced to arrest George for the murder, and suddenly his happy marriage is on the rocks. Soon he’s living in a tent with only his two dogs for companionship.

While most people in Mt. Hood County appreciate Lehigh’s honesty and his willingness to fight the cronyism and corruption that have plagued Mt. Hood County law enforcement for decades, his desire for reform ruffles some important feathers. Lehigh finds himself fighting unseen enemies, determined to portray him as inept and even more corrupt than his predecessor – even at the cost of protecting the integrity of the murder investigation. Even his own deputies seem intent on bringing back the old guard, and a series of evidence leaks put Lehigh’s reputation and ability to serve as sheriff in jeopardy.

Lehigh’s not a quitter, though, and with dogged persistence, begins to chip away at the investigation, discovering facts that don’t add up…and leads him to suspect why some of those most intent on removing him from office have reasons far more sinister than Lehigh’s reform agenda. Can Lehigh uncover the truth behind Everett Downey’s murder without becoming the killer’s next victim?

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I took part in the blog tour for Ecstasy by Mary Sharratt, sharing my review of this fascinating fictionalised account of the life of Alma Schindler who came the wife of Gustav Mahler. I also posted the first in a new series called Fact in Fiction, revealing five things I learned from the fiction titles I read the previous week.

Tuesday – Another blog tour, this time with an extract from historical novel Her Hidden Life by V. S. Alexander, which is based on a true story. I also shared my Top Ten Tuesday list of books with my favourite colour in the title, although I diverged a bit by featuring the colours of the rainbow.

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. I also shared my review of The Burning Chambers, the first in a new trilogy from Queen of historical fiction, Kate Mosse. Quite a few people commented on my Mary Berry analogy!

Thursday –My Throwback Thursday book was Fortune’s Wheel by Carolyn Hughes which I chose to complement the cover reveal on the same day for the next book in Carolyn’s Meonbridge Chronicles series, A Woman’s Lot.

Saturday –I took a tour of my TBR pile in order to participate in the My Blog’s Name in Books meme. I also published my review of a book by another Queen of historical fiction, Alison Weir. It’s the third book in her Six Tudor Queens series, Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen.

Challenge updates

Goodreads 2018 Reading Challenge – 72 out of 156 books read, 6 more than last week
Classics Club Challenge – 14 out of 50 books read, same as last week
NetGalley/Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2018 (Silver) – 23 ARCs read and reviewed out of 25, 3 more than last week
From Page to Screen– 10 book/film comparisons out of 15 completed, same as last week
2018 TBR Pile Challenge – 5 out of 12 books read, same as last week
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2018 – 36 books out of 50 read, 4 more than last week
When Are You Reading? Challenge 2018 – 7 out of 12 books read, same as last week
What’s In A Name Reading Challenge – 0 out of 6 books read, same as last week
Buchan of the Month – 4 out of 12 books read, same as last week

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

Book Review: Mr Peacock’s Possessions by Lydia Syson
Blog Tour/Review: The Boy at the Door by Alex Dahl
Book Review/Guest Post: The Magpie Tree by Katherine Stansfield
Blog Tour/Review/Q&A: The Things We Learn When We’re Dead by Charlie Laidlaw
Blog Tour/Review: Juliet & Romeo by David Hewson
Book Review: The Cliff House by Amanda Jennings
Book Review: Our Kind of Cruelty by Araminta Hall

MyWeekinBooks

New arrivals

The Last Day by Claire Dyer (review copy courtesy of The Dome Press)

They say three’s a crowd but when Boyd moves back into the family home with his now amicably estranged wife, Vita, accompanied by his impossibly beautiful twenty-seven-year-old girlfriend, Honey, it seems the perfect solution: Boyd can get his finances back on track while he deals with his difficult, ailing mother; Honey can keep herself safe from her secret, troubled past; and Vita can carry on painting portraits of the pets she dislikes and telling herself she no longer minds her marriage is over.

But the house in Albert Terrace is small and full of memories, and living together is unsettling.

For Vita, Boyd and Honey love proves to be a surprising, dangerous thing and, one year on, their lives are changed forever.

Call of the Curlew by Elizabeth Brooks (review copy courtesy of Doubleday)

Virginia Wrathmell has always known she will meet her death on the marsh in reparation for the mistakes of her childhood.

On New Year’s Eve, at the age of eighty-six, Virginia feels the time has finally come.

In 1939, Virginia is ten, an orphan arriving to meet her new adoptive parents, Clem and Lorna Wrathmell, at their mysterious house, Salt Winds. The house sits right on the edge of a vast marsh, a beautiful but dangerous place. It’s the start of a new life for Virginia, but she quickly senses that all is not right between Clem and Lorna – in particular, the presence of their wealthy neighbour Max Deering, who takes an unhealthy interest in the family. When a German fighter plane crashes into the marsh, Clem ventures onto the deadly sands to rescue the airman. And that is when things really begin to go wrong…

Room by Emma Donaghue (ebook)

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it’s where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it’s not enough…not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son’s bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed

Black Out (Inspector Troy #1) by John Lawton (ebook)

As the Luftwaffe makes its last, desperate assaults on the battered city in 1944, Londoners take to the underground shelters amidst the black out. Detective-Sergeant Troy starts with the clue of a neatly dismembered corpse leading him into a world of stateless refugees, military intelligence, and corruption all the way to the top of Allied High Command.

The Pale Criminal (Bernie Gunther #2) by Phillip Kerr (ebook)

Five German schoolgirls are missing. Four have been found dead. But unlike the undesirables who make up the majority of dead and missing people in Hitler’s Berlin, these girls were blonde and blue-eyed – the Aryan flower of German maidenhood – and their gruesome deaths recall ritual killings.

Busy with a blackmail case, Bernie is reluctant when he is asked to rejoin the Berlin police in order to track down the murderer. But when the person doing the asking is none other than head of the SD, Reinhard Heydrich, it’s not exactly a request he can turn down. As Bernie gets closer to the truth, he realises that at the heart of this case is much more than one lone madman – in fact, there is a conspiracy at work more chilling than he could ever have imagined.

The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich (ebook)

Before Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working to help defend men accused of murder, she thinks her position is clear. The child of two lawyers, she is staunchly anti-death penalty. But the moment convicted murderer Ricky Langley’s face flashes on the screen as she reviews old tapes―the moment she hears him speak of his crimes―she is overcome with the feeling of wanting him to die. Shocked by her reaction, she digs deeper and deeper into the case. Despite their vastly different circumstances, something in his story is unsettlingly, uncannily familiar.

Crime, even the darkest and most unsayable acts, can happen to any one of us. As Alexandria pores over the facts of the murder, she finds herself thrust into the complicated narrative of Ricky’s childhood. And by examining the details of Ricky’s case, she is forced to face her own story, to unearth long-buried family secrets, and reckon with a past that colors her view of Ricky’s crime. But another surprise awaits: She wasn’t the only one who saw her life in Ricky’s.

An intellectual and emotional thriller that is also a different kind of murder mystery, The Fact of a Body is a book not only about how the story of one crime was constructed―but about how we grapple with our own personal histories. Along the way it tackles questions about the nature of forgiveness, and if a single narrative can ever really contain something as definitive as the truth. This groundbreaking, heart-stopping work, ten years in the making, shows how the law is more personal than we would like to believe―and the truth more complicated, and powerful, than we could ever imagine.

Artist, Soldier, Lover, Muse by Arthur D. Hittner (review copy courtesy of the author)

Freshly graduated from Yale in 1935, Henry J. Kapler parlays his talent, determination, and creative energy into a burgeoning art career in New York under the wing of artists such as Edward Hopper and Reginald Marsh. The young artist first gains notoriety when his depiction of a symbolic, interracial handshake between ballplayers is attacked by a knife-wielding assailant at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington.

Yet even as his art star rises, his personal life turns precarious—and perilous—when his love for Fiona, a young WPA muralist, collides with his growing attraction to the exquisitely beautiful Alice, an ex-chorus girl who becomes his model and muse. Alice is the girlfriend of Fiona’s cousin, Jake Powell, the hotheaded, hard-drinking outfielder for the New York Yankees whose jealousy explodes into abuse and rage, endangering the lives of all three. While Henry wrestles with his complicated love life, he also struggles mightily to reconcile his pacifism with the rabid patriotism of his Jewish-Russian émigré father. As war draws near, Henry faces two difficult choices, one of which could cost him his life.

A Woman’s Lot (Meonbridge Chronicles #2) by Carolyn Hughes (eARC courtesy of the author) Cover Reveal Coming Soon!

How can mere women resist the misogyny of men?

When a resentful peasant rages against a woman’s efforts to build up her flock of sheep. Or a husband, grown melancholy and ill-tempered, succumbs to idle talk that his wife’s a scold. Or a priest, fearful of women’s “unnatural” power, determines to keep them in their place.

The devastation wrought two years ago by the Black Death changed the balance of society, and gave women a chance to break free from the yoke of chatteldom, to learn a trade, build a business, be more than just men’s wives. But many men still hold fast to the teachings of the Church, and fear the havoc the daughters of Eve might wreak if they’re allowed to usurp men’s roles, and gain control over their own lives.

Not all men resist women’s quest for change – indeed, they want change for themselves. Yet it takes only one or two misogynists to unleash the hounds of hostility and hatred…

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I took part in the blog tour for The Million Dollar Duchesses by Julie Ferry, sharing my review of this fascinating look at the American heiresses who married into English aristocracy and the women who – behind the scenes – facilitated the process. I also published my review of my Buchan of the Month, Greenmantle and my Classics Club Spin book, The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby.

Tuesday – Another blog tour and another review, this time for crime thriller Fault Lines by Doug Johnstone. I also published my reviews of historical fiction novel, The Illumination of Ursula Flight by Maria-Anna Crowhurst and historical crime novel, Prussian Blue (Bernie Gunther #12) by the late lamented Phillip Kerr. As you may have noticed above, I’m gradually adding to my stack of the earlier books in the latter series.

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. I also shared my Five Favourite April Reads.

Thursday –My Throwback Thursday book was The Du Lac Devil by Mary Anne Yarde.

Friday – I introduced May’s Buchan of the Month, A Lost Lady of Old Years with a spoiler free look at this historical romance written early in John Buchan’s writing career.

Saturday –I took part in the 6 Degrees of Separation meme making bookish connections from The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver to Catherine Dickens: Outside the Magic Circle by Heera Datta.

Sunday – I hosted a stop on the blog tour for Grace After Henry by Eithne Shortall, sharing my list of ten reasons I think readers will love this book. Gosh, what a busy blogging week!

Challenge updates

Goodreads 2018 Reading Challenge – 66 out of 156 books read, 3 more than last week
Classics Club Challenge – 14 out of 50 books read, 1 more than last week
NetGalley/Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2018 (Silver) – 20 ARCs read and reviewed out of 25, 1 more than last week
From Page to Screen– 10 book/film comparisons out of 15 completed, same as last week
2018 TBR Pile Challenge – 5 out of 12 books read, same as last week
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2018 – 32 books out of 50 read, 2 more than last week
When Are You Reading? Challenge 2018 – 7 out of 12 books read, same as last week
What’s In A Name Reading Challenge – 0 out of 6 books read, same as last week
Buchan of the Month – 4 out of 12 books read, same as last week