Tag: Reviews

My Week in Books – 6th August 2023

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MyWeekinBooksOn What Cathy Read Next last week

Tuesday – I published my review of The Black Crescent by Jane Johnson, a historical novel set in 1950s Morocco, as part of the blog tour. This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Forgotten Backlist Titles. 

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 Five Favourite July 2023 Reads.

Friday – I published my review of The Well of Saint Nobody by Neil Jordan.

Saturday – I took part in the #6Degrees of Separation meme forging a chain from Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld to The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie. 

New arrivals

The TraitorThe Traitor by Ava Glass (eARC, Penguin via NetGalley)

LONDON. EARLY MORNING. A body is found in a padlocked suitcase. Investigator Emma Makepeace knows it’s murder. And it’s personal.

She quickly establishes that the dead man had been shadowing two oligarchs suspected of procuring illegal weapons in the UK. And it seems likely that an insider working deep within the British government is helping them.

To find out who the traitor is, Emma goes deep undercover on a superyacht owned by one of the oligarchs. But the glamorous veneer of the rich hides dark secrets. Out at sea, Emma is both hunter and prey, and no one can protect her. Never has the turquoise sea and golden sands of the Rivera seemed so dangerous.

As the hunt intensifies, Emma knows that she is in mortal danger. And that she needs to find the traitor before they find her …

The Seventh SonThe Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks (eARC, Hutchinson Heinemann via NetGalley)

A child will be born who will change everything.

When young American academic Talissa Adam offers to carry another woman’s child, she has no idea of the life-changing consequences.

Behind the doors of the Parn Institute, a billionaire entrepreneur plans to stretch the boundaries of ethics as never before. Through a series of IVF treatments, which they hope to keep secret, they propose an experiment that will upend the human race as we know it.

Seth, the baby, is delivered to hopeful parents Mary and Alaric, but when his differences start to mark him out from his peers, he begins to attract unwanted attention.

The Mystery of Yew Tree HouseThe Mystery of Yew Tree House by Lesley Thomson (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

1941. In the pleasant countryside of Bishopstone lies a house with a pill box in the backyard. Here, Rupert and Adelaide Stride raise their two daughters, Clare and Rosa, alongside a young evacuee, Henry. But when war calls, Rupert dies on the beaches of Dunkirk, leaving his family to fend for themselves as bombs drop and food is rationed.

2023. Decades later, held afloat by state pensions and unable to heat the large house – nor able to afford to leave – Clare and Rosa have retreated to the annex, where they remain single and trapped in the place they were raised: Yew Tree House.

When the sisters put their rooms up for rent, Jack Harmon sees the perfect spot for a month away with his twins and cleaner-turned-detective Stella Darnell. Their first family holiday. But one day, as the twins run free through the garden, they discover a skeleton with a hole in its skull hidden in the brambles of a decommissioned WWII pill box.

This home has always been a complicated one, but Stella and Jack will have to dig deep into a history of revenge, desperation, and wartime tragedy to uncover the truth of what happened at Yew Tree House…

The Oxford BrotherhoodThe Oxford Brotherhood by Guillermo Martínez, trans. by Alberto Manguel (Little, Brown)

Mathematics student G is trying to resurrect his studies, which is proving difficult as he finds himself – and not for the first time – drawn into investigating a series of mysterious crimes.

When Kristen, a researcher hired by the Lewis Carroll Brotherhood, makes a startling new discovery concerning pages torn from Carroll’s diary, she hesitates to reveal to her employers a hitherto unknown chapter in his life. Oxford would be rocked to its core if the truth about Lewis Carroll’s relationship with Alice Liddell – the real Alice – were brought to light.

After Kristen is involved in a surreal accident and members of the Brotherhood are anonymously sent salacious photographs of Alice, G joins forces with Kristen as they begin to realise that dark powers are at work. More pictures are received, and it becomes clear that a murderer is stalking anyone who shows too much interest in Carroll’s life.

G must stretch his mathematical mind to its limits to solve the mystery and understand the cryptic workings of the Brotherhood. Until then, nobody, not even G, is safe. 

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Hollow Throne by Tim Leach
  • Book Review: A Fenland Garden by Francis Pryor
  • Book Review: Treason by James Jackson

#6Degrees of Separation From Romantic Comedy to The ABC Murders

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It’s the first Saturday of the month which means 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.

Romantic ComedyThis month’s starting book is Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld which, as usual, is a book I haven’t read.

Curtis Sittenfeld is also the author of American Wife, a fictional autobiography of the wife of a US President, reputedly based on the life of Laura Bush. Therefore my first link is to a novel about another US president. Ike and Kay by James MacManus is a fictionalized account of the real life relationship between General Dwight ‘Ike’ Eisenhower and Kay Summersby, a young woman assigned to be his driver during a visit to London in 1942.

Also set in 1942 is The Blood of Others by Graham Hurley which depicts the disastrous Allied raid on Dieppe in August of that year, partly through the eyes of a young Canadian journalist.

Staying with WW2 and journalism, in Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce, Emmeline Lake dreams of becoming ‘a Lady War Correspondent’ but ends up answering letters sent to newspaper advice columnist Mrs Henrietta Bird.

Letters also feature in The Letter Reader by Jan Casey in which Connie Allinson, wanting ‘to do her bit’ for the war effort, joins the WRNS and is given the role of letter censor, tasked with reading and, if necessary, altering correspondence to ensure no sensitive information reaches the enemy.

In Three Words for Goodbye by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb, estranged sisters, Clara and Madeleine Sommers, agree to fulfill their grandmother’s last wish by travelling across Europe to deliver three letters in which she will say goodbye to people she hasn’t seen for forty years.

If you want to write a letter you need to know your alphabet so the final link in my chain is The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie in which a serial killer seems to be targeting victims in alphabetical order.

#6Degrees of Separation August

My chain started with romance and ended in murder. Where did your chain take you?