Tag: Read

My Week in Books – 11th November ’18

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MyWeekinBooks

New arrivals  

Bitter OrangeBitter Orange by Claire Fuller (ebook)

From the attic of a dilapidated English country house, she sees them — Cara first: dark and beautiful, clinging to a marble fountain of Cupid, and Peter, an Apollo. It is 1969 and they are spending the summer in the rooms below hers while Frances writes a report on the follies in the garden for the absent American owner. But she is distracted. Beneath a floorboard in her bathroom, she discovers a peephole which gives her access to her neighbours’ private lives.

To Frances’ surprise, Cara and Peter are keen to spend time with her. It is the first occasion that she has had anybody to call a friend, and before long they are spending every day together: eating lavish dinners, drinking bottle after bottle of wine, and smoking cigarettes till the ash piles up on the crumbling furniture. Frances is dazzled.

But as the hot summer rolls lazily on, it becomes clear that not everything is right between Cara and Peter. The stories that Cara tells don’t quite add up — and as Frances becomes increasingly entangled in the lives of the glamorous, hedonistic couple, the boundaries between truth and lies, right and wrong, begin to blur. Amid the decadence of that summer, a small crime brings on a bigger one: a crime so terrible that it will brand all their lives forever.

States of PassionStates of Passion by Nihad Sirees, trans. by Max Weiss (paperback, subscription box)

The world is so strange. The strangest things are the stories you overhear.

When a hapless bureaucrat finds himself stranded in the countryside during a raging storm, he seeks refuge in a grand yet isolated mansion, inhabited by only an elderly gentleman and his unwelcoming servant.

The tale of family secrets he encounters while sheltering there begins with a faded photograph in yellowed newspaper, of a beautiful woman stepping off a train at Aleppo station many years ago. It transports him to Syria’s golden age, to the heart of the mysterious, unconventional banat al-ishreh – the infamous women who live, dance and play music together – and into a tangled web of forbidden love.

States of Passion is a beautifully spun, playful novel about what it means to live within a memory of the past – and about the many faces of a city that might have been.

NemesisNemesis (Tom Wilde #3) by Rory Clements (eARC, courtesy of Bonnier Zaffre and NetGalley)

A race against time to unmask a Nazi spy

In a great English house, a young woman offers herself to one of the most powerful and influential figures in the land – but this is no ordinary seduction. She plans to ensure his death . . .

On holiday in France, Professor Tom Wilde discovers his brilliant student Marcus Marfield, who disappeared two years earlier to join the International Brigades in Spain, in the Le Vernet concentration camp in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Wilde secures his release just as German tanks roll into Poland.

Meanwhile, a U-boat sinks the liner Athenia in the Atlantic with many casualties, including Americans, onboard. Goebbels claims Churchill put a bomb in the ship to blame Germany and to lure America into the war.

As the various strands of an international conspiracy begin to unwind, Tom Wilde will find himself in great personal danger. For just who is Marcus Marfield? And where does his loyalty lie?

Pre-order Nemesis from Amazon UK

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday –  I stepped in to publish a round-up of the reviews of books read for the October theme of the BookBum Club on Goodreads (currently in hiatus).

Tuesday –  I hosted a stop on the blog tour A Pivotal Right (Shaking the Tree #2) by K. A. Servian, publishing my review of this historical novel set in 19th century New Zealand. This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Backlist Books I Want To Read.  Quite a few to choose from there then…  I also shared my Five Favourite October reads and signed-up (belatedly) for Nonfiction November.

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 – My Throwback Thursday post was my review of The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.

Friday – I published my review of The Magick of Master Lilly, a historical novel based on the life of 17th century astrologer, William Lilly.

Saturday –  I (belatedly) published my review of my October Buchan of the Month, Witch Wood  by John Buchan.

Sunday – To mark Remembrance Day and the one hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War, I published a feature on John Buchan and the Great War.  He lost a brother and a number of close friends in the First World War.

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

  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Price of Compassion (The Golden City #4) by A. B. Michaels
  • Book Review: A Ration Book Christmas by Jean Fullerton
  • Buchan of the Month: Introducing Memory-Hold-the-Door by John Buchan
  • Book Review: Christmas at War by Caroline Taggart
  • Book Review: Bells of Avalon by Libbet Bradstreet
  • Book Review: Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks
  • Cover Reveal: The Blameless Dead by Gary Haynes

Buchan of the Month/Book Review: Witch Wood by John Buchan

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Buchan of the Month

WitchWoodAbout the Book

Set against the religious struggles and civil wars of seventeenth century Scotland, John Buchan’s Witch Wood is a gripping atmospheric tale in the spirit of Robert Louis Stevenson.  As a moderate Presbyterian minister, young David Sempill disputes with the extremists of his faith, as all around, the defeated remnants of Montrose’s men are being harried and slaughtered.

There are still older conflicts to be faced however, symbolised by the presence of the Melanudrigall Wood, a last remnant of the ancient Caledonian forest. Here there is black magic to be uncovered, but also the more positive pre-Christian intimations of nature worship.  In such setting, and faced with the onset of the plague, David Sempill’s struggle and eventual disappearance take on a strange and timeless aspect.

Format: Hardcover Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: July 1941 [1927]  Genre: Historical Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com  ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Witch Wood  on Goodreads

My Review

Witch Wood is the tenth book in my Buchan of the Month reading project.  (I did read it in October – honestly! – but have only now got round to writing my review.) You can find out more about the project plus my reading list for 2018 here.  You can also read a spoiler-free introduction to the book here.   Witch Wood is also one of the books on my Classics Club list.

Witch Wood was reputedly John Buchan‘s own favourite of his many novels and is dedicated to his brother, Walter Buchan.  Shortly before writing the novel, Buchan had been carrying out research for his biography of Montrose, who does make a brief appearance in Witch Wood.  The backdrop to the events in the book is the religious and civil strife in Scotland between 1644 and 1646 when Scottish Royalists under Montrose fought the Covenanters who were allied with the English Parliament.

The central story of David Sempill and his fight against the superstitious practices that he finds still hold sway among some of the inhabitants of Woodilee is the most engaging and accessible element of the book.  In his honest attempts to root out evil and save the souls of his parishioners, David encounters opposition from religious extremists who seem to set more store by the Old Testament than the teachings of the New Testament.  Their response is to search out evidence of witchcraft and demonic possession, showing no mercy.  David’s calling is of a different nature: ‘The work for which he longed was to save and comfort human souls.’

I’ll admit to getting a little bogged down in the debates about religious doctrine and the role of Church and State in Scotland in this period of history.  Despite reading the relevant sections from Buchan’s scholarly The Kirk in Scotland, I’m still not sure I really understand the distinction between episcopacy and prelacy (if indeed there is one).  Another factor which may prove problematic for some readers is that Buchan presents much of the dialogue, especially of characters like David’s housekeeper, Isobel Veitch, in broad Scots, rendering it rather impenetrable at times.

Throughout the novel there is a great sense of the brooding presence of the ancient forest which abuts Woodilee.  Even David is not immune to it. ‘It must be an eerie life under the shadow of that ancient formless thing.’  An ideal spot for devilish practices, as it turns out. ‘The Black Wood could tell some tales if the trees could talk.’  Conversely, the forest becomes the scene of a much more life-changing and life-affirming encounter for David.

Witch Wood combines history and romance in the manner of Robert Louis Stevenson’s  Catriona or Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, with plenty of references to actual events and figures of the time as well as a touching and engaging love story.   And it wouldn’t be a Buchan novel if it didn’t  feature the themes of courage and self-sacrifice.

MemoryHoldTheDoorNext month’s Buchan of the Month is Memory-Hold-the-Door, Buchan’s autobiography. 

Look out for my introduction to the book in the next few days and my review towards the end of the month.

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In three words: Adventure, romance, superstition

Try something similar…The Magick of Master Lilly by Tobsha Learner (read my review here)

John BuchanAbout the Author

John Buchan (1875 – 1940) was an author, poet, lawyer, publisher, journalist, war correspondent, Member of Parliament, University Chancellor, keen angler and family man.  He was ennobled and, as Lord Tweedsmuir, became Governor-General of Canada.  In this role, he signed Canada’s entry into the Second World War.   Nowadays he is probably best known – maybe only known – as the author of The Thirty-Nine Steps.  However, in his lifetime he published over 100 books: fiction, poetry, short stories, biographies, memoirs and history.

You can find out more about John Buchan, his life and literary output by visiting The John Buchan Society website.