On What Cathy Read Next last week
Monday – I shared My Five Favourite November 2023 Reads.
Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday was Books I Hope Santa Brings.
Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading.
Thursday – I shared my review of The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan.
Friday – I published my review of The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne.
New arrivals
A book for Radio 4’s Bookclub, a Christmas present and a couple of charity shop finds from my wishlist
His Bloody Project by Graham Macrae Burnet (Contraband)
The year is 1869. A brutal triple murder in a remote community in the Scottish Highlands leads to the arrest of a young man by the name of Roderick Macrae.
A memoir written by the accused makes it clear that he is guilty, but it falls to the country’s finest legal and psychiatric minds to uncover what drove him to commit such merciless acts of violence.
Was he mad? Only the persuasive powers of his advocate stand between Macrae and the gallows.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (Canongate)
Between life and death there is a library.
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.
The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren’t always what she imagined they’d be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.
Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?
Paris Spring (Will Flemyng #2) by James Naughtie (Head of Zeus)
Paris, April 1968. The cafes are alive with talk of revolution, but for Will Flemyng – secret servant at the British embassy – the crisis is personal. A few words from a stranger on the metro change his life. His family is threatened and he faces the spy’s oldest fear: exposure.
A bizarre murder draws him into a web of secrets and lifelong loyalties are tested as never before. The streets of Paris become a smoke-filled battleground, and Felmyng learns that when secrets are at stake, no one is safe.
Closed Casket (New Hercule Poirot Mysteries #2) by Sophie Hannah (Harper Collins)
“What I intend to say to you will come as a shock…”
With these words, Lady Athelinda Playford — one of the world’s most beloved children’s authors — springs a surprise on the lawyer entrusted with her will. As guests arrive for a party at her Irish mansion, Lady Playford has decided to cut off her two children without a penny . . . and leave her vast fortune to someone else: an invalid who has only weeks to live.
Among Lady Playford’s visitors are two strangers: the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and Inspector Edward Catchpool of Scotland Yard. Neither knows why he has been invited — until Poirot begins to wonder if Lady Playford expects a murder. But why does she seem so determined to provoke a killer? And why — when the crime is committed despite Poirot’s best efforts to stop it — does the identity of the victim make no sense at all?
On What Cathy Read Next this week
Currently reading
Planned posts
- Book Review: Perfume River by Robert Olen Butler
- Book Review: Back Trouble by Clare Chambers
- Book Review: The Slowworm’s Song by Andrew Miller
What Cathy Read Next... 