Tag: Read

My Week in Books – 12th August ’18

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MyWeekinBooks

New arrivals  

NIGHT FLIGHT TO PARISNight Flight to Paris by David Gilman (eARC, NetGalley)

PARIS, 1943. The swastika flies from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Soldiers clad in field grey patrol the streets. Buildings have been renamed, books banned, art stolen and people disappeared. Amongst the missing is an Allied intelligence cell.

Gone to ground? Betrayed? Dead? Britain’s Special Operations Executive need to find out. They recruit ex-Parisian and Bletchley Park codebreaker Harry Mitchell to return to the city he fled two years ago.

Mitchell knows Occupied Paris – a city at war with itself. Informers, gangsters, collaborators and Resistance factions are as ready to slit each other’s throats as they are the Germans’. The occupiers themselves are no better: the Gestapo and the Abwehr – military intelligence – are locked in their own lethal battle for dominance. Mitchell knows the risks: a return to Paris not a mission – it’s a death sentence.

But he has good reason to put his life on the line: the wife and daughter he was forced to leave behind have fallen into the hands of the Gestapo and Michell will do whatever it takes to save them. But with disaster afflicting his mission from the outset, it will take all his ingenuity, all his courage, to even get into Paris… unaware that every step he takes towards the capital is a step closer to a trap well set and baited.

Blackbird RoadBlackbird Road (Jake Caldwell #3) by James L. Weaver (eARC, courtesy of Lakewater Press)

With his wedding day fast approaching and his PI boss heading out of town, ex-mob enforcer Jake Caldwell decides to take one more job before a much needed vacation. But in a matter of days, his client is assassinated and her six-year-old son kidnapped.  With just a few clues, Jake calls on old friends to help track down the person responsible. Only this time his fiancée Maggie, desperate for Jake to leave his violent history behind, can’t guarantee she’ll be there when, or if, he comes home.  But Jake can’t turn his back on those who need him. It’s in his blood.

A perilous plot of lies and secrets unfolds, and Jake encounters criminals more brutal than ever. And when a threat to thousands of innocent lives is uncovered, Jake once again dives back into his past, requesting favors from some unexpected and unsavory contacts.

Jake needs to stay one step ahead of the bad guys if he’s to have any future at all.

Pre-order Blackbird Road from Amazon UK

HeatandDustHeat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala  (paperback)

Set in India, Heat and Dust is the story of Olivia, beautiful, spoilt and bored, who outrages society in the tiny, suffocating town where her husband is a civil servant, by eloping with an India prince – and of her step-granddaughter who, 50 years later, goes back to the heat, the dust and the squalor of the Satipur bazaars to solve the enigma of Olivia’s scandal.

Joseph BarnabyJoseph Barnaby by Susan Roebuck (eARC, courtesy of Crooked Cat Books and Rachel’s Random Resources)

Stand by your beliefs – even if it means going to the end of the Earth.

By standing up for his principles, horse farrier Joseph Barnaby lost everything. Now, when a personal vendetta goes too deep to fight, he escapes to the Portuguese island of Madeira where he finds work on a small farm only accessible by boat. The balmy climate and never-ending supply of exotic fruit, vegetables, and honey make it sound like paradise. But, for Joseph, it’s the ideal place to hide from the world.

Not everyone is prepared to give up on life’s misfortunes. The local fishing village has its own surprises and the inhabitants of Quinta da Esperança have more grit in them than the pebbled beach that borders the property.

Pre-order Joseph Barnaby from Amazon UK

The Last of Our KindThe Last of Our Kind by Adelaïde de Clermont-Tonnerre (eARC, NetGalley)

Werner Zilch was adopted as an infant, and knows nothing of his biological family. But when, in 1970s New York, he meets the family of Rebecca, the woman he has fallen in love with, a mysterious link means he must uncover the truth of his past, or run the risk of losing her.

Spanning 1945 Dresden, the Bavarian Alps and uncovering Operation Paperclip, this is a riveting novel of family and love that seamlessly blends fact with fiction.

MacbethMacbeth by Jo Nesbo  (eARC, NetGalley)

He’s the best cop they’ve got.

When a drug bust turns into a bloodbath it’s up to Inspector Macbeth and his team to clean up the mess.

He’s also an ex-drug addict with a troubled past.

He’s rewarded for his success. Power. Money. Respect. They’re all within reach.

But a man like him won’t get to the top.

Plagued by hallucinations and paranoia, Macbeth starts to unravel. He’s convinced he won’t get what is rightfully his.

Unless he kills for it.

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of the atmospheric The Story Keeper by Anna Mazzola.

Tuesday – I hosted a slot on the blog tour for The Romanov Empress by C. W. Gortner, sharing my review of this fictionalised life of Maria, mother of the last Tsar of Russia.

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 published my Q&A with author Lindsey Hutchinson as part of the blog tour for her latest book, The Girl on the Doorstep.

Thursday – For Throwback Thursday I published my review of a fun historical mystery starring Lord Ambrose, Regency rake turned detective: Diamond Cut Diamond by Jane Jakeman.

Saturday – I published a spoiler-free introduction to the next book in my Buchan of the Month reading project, Huntingtower by John Buchan.

Challenge updates

Rather than update my reading challenges on a weekly basis as I have been doing up until now, I’m planning to do a separate monthly update in future.  Not only will it be less time-consuming for me to keep track of, I hope there will be more progress to report!

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Island on Fire by Sophie Schiller
  • Cover Reveal: Another Day in Winter by Shari Low
  • Book Review: In the Blood by Ruth Mancini
  • Book Review: A Quiet Genocide by Glenn Bryant
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Unlikely Heroics of Sam Holloway by Rhys Thomas
  • Book Review: The Secrets of Primrose Square by Claudia Carroll

Book Review -Diamond Cut Diamond by Jane Jakeman

whatcathyreadnext

About the Book

It is 1835, and Lord Ambrose Malfine is outside the walls of the ruined castle of Pribyslav in Bohemia. As he watches his horse graze, he contemplates how he got there…

The story begins at Lord Ambrose’s mansion, where he and Elisabeth are entertaining friends for dinner. They admire a beautiful necklace worn by the wife of Ambrose’s friend Dr Lawrence.  Later, the gentlemen learn that Lawrence has taken credit of £1,000 for the necklace. Elizabeth is shocked; her experience having told her the stones of the necklace are false, albeit very good fakes.

Ambrose takes it upon himself to find the jeweller who sold his friend the false stones. Whilst there, he is introduced to a countess who sold the original necklace to the jeweller and seems also to have been defrauded. As a reward for his services, the lady gives him a small key and a clue to the whereabouts of the lock it will open. This should perhaps have been the end of the matter, but Ambrose’s natural curiosity and gentlemanly behaviour result in him following the countess home, at a distance, and finding out from a local urchin that she is from Bohemia.  And thereby begins Lord Ambrose’s adventure in Bohemia…

Format: ebook (123 pages)  Publisher: Endeavour Media
Publication date: 17th January 2017 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find Diamond Cut Diamond on Goodreads

Purchase Diamond Cut Diamond from Amazon [Link provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme]

My Review

Diamond Cut Diamond is a fun, lively historical mystery with reformed Regency rake, Lord Ambrose Malfine, as its engaging hero. His instinctive curiosity is, luckily for him, indulged by love of his life, Elisabeth: “Well, Ambrose, I know you too well to try and persuade you to act against your nature.”  Soon Ambrose is setting off on the trail of the mystery countess he encountered whilst exposing the jeweller who sold his friend a fake diamond necklace.

His quest involves a journey to Bohemia that turns out to be more perilous than he imagined.  Before long it becomes clear Ambrose has a dangerous enemy on his trail, moreover one with few scruples.   However, as Ambrose admits himself, ‘I have this nature – the more I am warned against doing something, the greater my determination to do it.’   Thankfully, Ambrose gathers some useful allies along the way and there is an unexpected but very welcome encounter with an old friend.    This will prove vital in the exciting, explosive and dramatic climax to the book.

As well as the satisfying mystery, I really enjoyed the humour in the book, such as the running joke that Ambrose is frequently identified as an Englishmen by the quality of his footwear.  For example, on one occasion, a stranger remarks “I have not seen such fine boots.  You must be from London!”

I didn’t feel coming in at book four in the series had any impact on my enjoyment of the book. In fact, I quite enjoyed spotting the little nuggets of information about events from earlier books the author included. 

In three words: Entertaining, lively, mystery
Try something similar:  Lady Helena Investigates by Jane Steen 

Try something similar… Lady Helena Investigates by Jane Steen (click here to read my review)

About the Author

Jane Jakeman is an art historian who has travelled in the Mediterranean and the Middle East and has had numerous articles on art, food and travel published in newspapers and magazines, including The Independent, The Sunday Times and The Guardian.

She studied English at the University of Birmingham and has a doctorate from Oxford University in the architectural history of Islamic Cairo. She lives in Oxford and is at present on the staff of the Bodleian Library.

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