Read – Page 911 – What Cathy Read Next…

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I shared my Five Favourite of the books I read in February.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Single Word Book Titles.

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 – I published my review of The Lost Lights of St Kilda by Elisabeth Gifford.

Friday – I shared my thoughts on The Widow’s Miteby Allie Cresswell as part of the blog tour. I also published my write-up of Waterstones Reading’s event – A Very Tudor Evening – to mark the publication of The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel

Saturday – I took part in the #6Degrees of Separation meme forging a chain from Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar to El Hacho by Luis Carrasco.

As always, thanks to everyone who has liked, commented on or shared my blog posts on social media this week.

New arrivals

Another crop of goodies this week including ARCs from publishers and the book everyone who loves historical fiction has been talking about…and itching to get their hands on, me included.

The Saracen’s Mark by S. W. Perry (ARC, courtesy of Corvus and Readers First )

Betrayal has many guises…

London, 1593: Five years on from the Armada and England is taking its first faltering steps towards a future as a global power. Nicholas Shelby – reluctant spy and maverick physician – and his companion Bianca Merton are settling into a life on Bankside. But in London there is always a plot afoot…

Robert Cecil, the Queen’s spymaster, once again recruits Nicholas to embark on a dangerous undercover mission that will take him to the back alleys of Marrakech in search of a missing informer. However, while Nicholas hunts for the truth across the seas, plague returns once more to London – ravaging the streets and threatening those dearest to him.

Can Bianca and Nicholas’ budding relationship weather the threats of pestilence and conspiracy? And will Nicholas survive the dangers of his mission in a hostile city to return safely home?

Lionheart by Ben Kane (proof copy, courtesy of Orion)

1179. Henry II’s Norman conquerors have swept through England, Wales – and now Ireland.

Irish nobleman Ferdia has been imprisoned in Wales to ensure the good behaviour of his rebellious father. But during a skirmish on a neighbouring castle, Ferdia saves the life of the man who would become one of the most legendary warriors to have ever lived: Richard Plantagenet. The Lionheart.

Taken as Richard’s squire, Ferdia crosses the Narrow Sea to resist the rebellious nobles in Aquitaine, besieging castles and fighting bloody battles with brutal frequency. But treachery and betrayal lurk around every corner. Infuriated by his younger brother Richard’s growing reputation, Henry rebels. And Ferdia learns that the biggest threat to Richard’s life may not be a foreign army – but Richard’s own family…

The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel (hardcover)

‘If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?’

England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, before Jane dies giving birth to the male heir he most craves.

Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on; he has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. But can a nation, or a person, shed the past like a skin? Do the dead continually unbury themselves? What will you do, the Spanish ambassador asks Cromwell, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him?

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

Blog Tour/Book Review: Distorted Days by Louise Worthington
Top Ten Tuesday: Authors Who Have a Fun Social Media Presence
Waiting on Wednesday
Blog Tour/Extract: The Treadstone Resurrection by Joshua Hood
Audiobook Review: Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke
Book Review: The Recovery of Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel
Buchan of the Month: Introducing…A Lodge in the Wilderness by John Buchan

It’s the first Saturday of the month so it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation!

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post. You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees.

This month’s starting book is Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar a book I’d never heard of let alone read before seeing it mentioned here. However, I understand it concerns a woman living alone on the isolated island of the title until she is forced to flee with her granddaughter to escape some kind of threat.

Staying with wolves but travelling back to 9th century Anglo-Saxon England, Wolf of Wessex by Matthew Harffy also concerns a woman in peril and alone. She joins forces with former warrior, Dunston, in the hunt for the perpetrators of a murder.

Thomas Hardy set all his novels, including Tess of the D’Urbevilles, in an area of South and Southwest England that he named Wessex, after the Anglo Saxon kingdom.

In ‘The Mezzotint‘ in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James, one of the characters remarks that the scene depicted in the mezzotint (a print made from an engraved copper or steel plate) resembles something out of a Hardy novel such as Tess of the D’Urbevilles. His colleague replies rather dismissively, “Yes, I dare say. It’s not a book I could ever read myself.”

The Visitor at Anningley Hall by Chris Thorndycroft is a prequel to ‘The Mezzotint’ in which the author goes behind the scenes of the picture to recount and enlarge upon the events eventually discovered in the original M. R. James story.

The Road to Grantchester by James Runcie is also a prequel, in this case to his historical crime series featuring priest, Sidney Chambers. In the first part of the book, Sidney is exposed to the harsh realities of war as he is caught up in the brutal WW2 Battle of Monte Cassino.

A battle of a different kind – this time against the elements – is the focus of El Hacho by Luis Carrasco. Olive farmer, Curro struggles to save his crops and his livelihood in the face of drought and flood.