#WWWWednesday – 14th October 2020

WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!


Currently reading

Still reading the same two books from my Henley Literary Festival 2020 reading list and a book for the #1956Club (which finished last week)

The Push Ashley AudrainThe Push by Ashley Audrain (ARC, courtesy of Michael Joseph)

What if your experience of motherhood was nothing like what you hoped for – but everything you always feared?

‘The women in this family, we’re different…’

The arrival of baby Violet was meant to be the happiest day of my life. It was meant to be a fresh start. But as soon as I held her in my arms I knew something wasn’t right. I have always known that the women in my family aren’t meant to be mothers.

My husband Fox says I’m imagining it. He tells me I’m nothing like my own mother, and that Violet is the sweetest child. But she’s different with me. Something feels very wrong. Is it her? Or is it me? Is she the monster? Or am I?

The Wild Silence Raynor WinnThe Wild Silence by Raynor Winn (eARC, courtesy of Michael Joseph via NetGalley)

Nature holds the answers for Raynor and her husband Moth. After walking 630 homeless miles along The Salt Path, living on the windswept and wild English coastline; the cliffs, the sky and the chalky earth now feel like their home.

Moth has a terminal diagnosis, but against all medical odds, he seems revitalized in nature. Together on the wild coastal path, with their feet firmly rooted outdoors, they discover that anything is possible.

Now, life beyond The Salt Path awaits and they come back to four walls, but the sense of home is illusive and returning to normality is proving difficult – until an incredible gesture by someone who reads their story changes everything.

A chance to breathe life back into a beautiful farmhouse nestled deep in the Cornish hills; rewilding the land and returning nature to its hedgerows becomes their saving grace and their new path to follow.

The Wild Silence is a story of hope triumphing over despair, of lifelong love prevailing over everything. It is a luminous account of the human spirit’s instinctive connection to nature, and how vital it is for us all.

9781844089611The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault 

Athens and Sparta, the mighty city states of ancient Greece, locked together in a quarter century of conflict: the Peloponnesian War.

Alexias the Athenian was born, passed through childhood and grew to manhood in those troubled years, that desperate and dangerous epoch when the golden age of Pericles was declining into uncertainty and fear for the future.

Of good family, he and his friends are brought up and educated in the things of the intellect and in athletic and martial pursuits. They learn to hunt and to love, to wrestle and to question. And all the time his star of destiny is leading him towards the moment when he must stand alongside his greatest friend Lysis in the last great clash of arms between the cities.


Recently finished

Links from the titles will take you to my reviews

Betrayal by Lilja Sigurðardóttir

A Conspiracy of Silence (DI Gillian Marsh #5) by Anna Legat

When a body is found in the grounds of a prestigious Wiltshire private school, DI Gillian Marsh takes on the case. The young groundsman, Bradley Watson, has been shot dead, pierced through the heart with an arrow.

​As the investigation gathers pace, DI Marsh is frustrated to find the Whalehurst staff and students united in silence. This scandal must not taint their reputation. But when Gillian discovers pictures of missing Whalehurst pupil, fifteen-year-old Rachel Snyder, on Bradley’s dead body – photos taken on the night she disappeared, and he was murdered – the link between the two is undeniable.

​But what is Whalehurst refusing to reveal? And does Gillian have what it takes to bring about justice? (Review to follow for blog tour)


What Cathy (will) Read Next

Endless Skies by Jane Cable (ebook, courtesy of Sapere Books and Rachel’s Random Resources)

As archaeologist Rachel excavates a World War Two airfield, could a love story from the past hold a lesson for her as well?

After yet another disastrous love affair Rachel has been forced to leave her long-term position for a temporary role as an Archaeology Lecturer at Lincoln University. Rachel has sworn off men and is determined to spend her time away clearing her head and sorting her life out. But when one of her students begins flirting with her, it seems she could be about to make the same mistakes again…

She distracts herself by taking on some freelance work for local property developer, Jonathan Daubney. He introduces her to an old Second World War RAF base. And from her very first visit something about it gives Rachel chills…

As Rachel makes new friends and delves into local history, she is also forced to confront her own troubled past. Could a wartime love story have any bearing on her own situation? Could this time be different?

#BookReview Betrayal by Lilja Sigurðardóttir @RandomTTours @OrendaBooks

Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Betrayal by Lilja Sigurðardóttir, translated by Quentin Bates. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to participate in the tour and to Orenda for my digital review copy. Do check out the post by my tour buddy for today, Gemma at Between The Pages Book Club.

About the Book

Burned out and traumatised by her horrifying experiences around the world, aid worker Úrsula has returned to Iceland. Unable to settle, she accepts a high-profile government role in which she hopes to make a difference again.

But on her first day in the post, Úrsula promises to help a mother seeking justice for her daughter, who had been raped by a policeman, and life in high office soon becomes much more harrowing than Úrsula could ever have imagined. A homeless man is stalking her – but is he hounding her, or warning her of some danger? And why has the death of her father in police custody so many years earlier reared its head again?

As Úrsula is drawn into dirty politics, facing increasingly deadly threats, the lives of her stalker, her bodyguard and even a witch-like cleaning lady intertwine. Small betrayals become large ones, and the stakes are raised ever higher…

Format: Paperback (276 pages) Publisher: Orenda
Publication date: 1st October 2020 Genre: Crime,

Find Betrayal on Goodreads

Purchase links*
Amazon UK | Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

In the book, betrayal comes in many forms: infidelity, broken promises, compromised principles, false accusations and disloyalty. Many of these are manifested in the character of Úrsula herself. Driven by the same need to make a difference that saw her work in disaster relief around the world, she undertakes to try to right an injustice. That decision will have consequences she could not have foreseen. In the process, Úrsula gets a lesson in the power of vested interests and a glimpse of the decidedly murky side of politics.

The strains on Úrsula’s family life of her high profile role as Minister of the Interior are soon apparent. The change that was supposed to bring the family closer together has done just the opposite, widening the fractures that already existed in her marriage to Nonni. Úrsula’s own actions and her inability to share with him the traumatic scenes she witnessed during her aid work only add to the tensions in their relationship.

The book has a complex web of different storylines and secondary characters that demand the reader’s full attention but definitely repay the effort. (The exception for me were the more bizarre elements of the storyline involving Stella.) Some of the connections between the characters seem obvious from the beginning, others less so. However, all the threads are cleverly woven together in the end to create a picture you may not have been expecting. And you’ll have learned about Icelandic naming conventions along the way.

The short chapters and the fact that events unfold over the space of only a few weeks create a sense of pace. And the author has certainly mastered the art of finishing a chapter with a sentence that will chill, thrill or force you as a reader to say, okay just one more chapter…

Betrayal is a skilfully-crafted and gripping thriller full of contemporary resonance, touching as it does on topics such as press intrusion into the private lives of those in public office, political corruption, police brutality, the toxic nature of social media, drug culture, homelessness, racial discrimination…to name just a few.

In three words: Intense, compelling, suspenseful


Follow this blog via Bloglovin

About the Author

Icelandic crime-writer Lilja Sigurdardóttir was born in the town of Akranes in 1972 and raised in Mexico, Sweden, Spain and Iceland. An award-winning playwright, Lilja has written four crime novels, including Snare, Trap and Cage, making up the Reykjavik Noir trilogy, which have hit bestseller lists worldwide. The film rights have been bought by Palomar Pictures in California. She lives in Reykjavík with her partner.

Connect with Lilja
Website | Twitter