Tag: Reviews

My Week in Books – 16th October 2022

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MyWeekinBooksOn What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I published my review of thriller Sleep When You’re Dead by Jude O’Reilly as part of the blog tour. 

Tuesday – With the deadline for submissions closed, I shared my thoughts on books that might appear on the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2023. 

Wednesday – 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 published my review of dual-time novel, The House of Birds by Morgan McCarthy. 

Friday – I shared my review of historical novel Squire’s Hazard by Carolyn Hughes as part of the blog tour. 

Sunday – I joined the blog tour for SBS Special Boat Squadron by Iain Gale. 

New arrivals

A Complicated Matter by Anne Youngson (eARC, Doubleday via NetGalley)

I used to believed the world had been created for me; every stone and grain of sand, every sunrise and sunset. As I grew older, I began to think of myself as something tacked on to the edge.

1939, London: From McPhail’s Passage by the dockyards to Kensington’s Grand Palace Hotel, resilient and reserved Rose is forcibly evacuated from her home and dropped in an alien city of falling bombs, perplexing class rules and bad weather. Despite being ‘flagrantly foreign’ to the locals, she becomes an efficient go-between for the upper-class ladies helping out with the war effort and her own tribe of noisy displaced families.

It is only when she is shifted to the countryside to become secretary to the plain-speaking and sightless Major Inchbold that Rose’s dizzying journey to womanhood will become more surreal than ever, as she drinks tea at the vicarage, shields her best friend from abuse and stands up for the lower orders. But Rose’s greatest dilemma is yet to come, as she must decide where her home – and her heart – really lies.

Forest of FoesForest of Foes (The Benicia Chronicles #9) by Matthew Harffy (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley) 

AD 652. Beobrand has been ordered to lead a group of pilgrims to the holy city of Rome. Chief among them is Wilfrid, a novice of the Church with some surprisingly important connections. Taking only Cynan and some of his best men, Beobrand hopes to make the journey through Frankia quickly and return to Northumbria without delay, though the road is long and perilous.

But where Beobrand treads, menace is never far behind. The lands of the Merovingian kings are rife with intrigue. The queen of Frankia is unpopular and her ambitious schemes, though benevolent, have made her powerful enemies. Soon Wilfrid, and Beobrand, are caught up in sinister plots against the royal house.

After interrupting a brutal ambush in a forest, Beobrand and his trusted gesithas find their lives on the line. Dark forces will stop at nothing to seize control of the Frankish throne, and Beobrand is thrown into a deadly race for survival through foreign lands where he cannot be sure who is friend and who is foe.

The only certainty is that if he is to save his men, thwart the plots, and unmask his enemies, blood will flow.

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review/Q&A: House of Tigers by William Burton McCormick
  • Book Review: The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph

#BlogTour #BookReview SBS Special Boat Squadron by Iain Gale

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SBS BLOG TOUR BANNER (1)Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for SBS Special Boat Squadron by Iain Gale. My thanks to Andrew at Head of Zeus for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my review copy.

SBS Special Boat SquadronAbout the Book

From this moment on, you and your men, you don’t exist.

Formed in the darkest hours of the Second World War, as nation after nation fell before the unstoppable Axis advance, the task of the Special Boat Squadron was to strike back at an enemy no army could meet in the field. Trained in sabotage and surveillance, the SBS raided deep behind enemy lines, sowing chaos and capturing much-needed intelligence. Soldiers, adventurers and rogues, their methods were unorthodox, their success rate unprecedented.

Operation Anglo, 31 August 1942. Beneath the waves of the Mediterranean, HMS Traveller closes in on the coast of Rhodes. Aboard, eight SBS commandos check their weapons as they prepare to infiltrate and sabotage two Axis bomber fields. Only two of the eight commandos will make it back to alive. Ex-Black Watch Sergeant Jim Hunter will be one of the lucky ones, but what he will face next will make Operation Anglo look like a cakewalk.

Format: Hardback (352 pages)           Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 13th October 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find SBS: Special Boat Squadron on Goodreads

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My Review

Inspired by actual events, the book tells the exciting story of the wartime exploits of the Special Boat Squadron, an elite group of ‘intelligence commandos’ created to carry out undercover missions.

Having together survived a disastrous operation that may in fact have been doomed from the start, Hunter and Woods are comrades on the battlefield but rivals in other respects. Cherchez la femme, as they say. However, as Woods explains, ‘If you think I’m fool enough to allow some petty differences to come between me and the life of a brother officer and a man I count as a friend, then you’re very much mistaken’. As the reader will discover, that principle will be tested beyond measure.

The circumstances which have given rise to the mission Hunter, Woods and their teams are asked to undertake may seem a little unlikely but of course there were a number of surprisingly unorthodox operations carried out during WW2.

The book features appearances by real life figures such as Xan Fielding and the flamboyant Patrick Leigh Fermor. WW2 film buffs may recall the latter was played by Dirk Bogarde in Ill Met by Moonlight which dramatised an actual but equally daring SOE operation in Crete. Included in the book’s characters is a rather famous author whose manner of introducing himself is likely to make you chuckle but whose role is, again, based on historical fact.

I particularly liked the way the book illustrated the courage of the Cretan resistance fighters – the andartes – who assisted Allied undercover operations. Their very personal reasons for wanting to do so are often harrowing to read about, even more so because they reflect the well-documented real life experience of those under German occupation.

The team assembled to carry out the mission possess, as Woods remarks, ‘unusual, or should I say […] unique abilities’. Amongst their skills are safe-cracking, knowledge of explosives, communications, code-breaking – and of course silent killing. Although we mainly see things through Hunter’s eyes, the author provides the reader with occasional glimpses into the thoughts of the other team members, most memorably Phelps. It’s a reminder that, although highly trained, they can still experience fear and doubt. And that, although a mission may be planned down to the last detail, things can go wrong and, when they do, the weakest link in the chain is the most dangerous.

SBS Special Boat Squadron, with its tense action scenes, daring accounts of undercover operations and colourful cast of characters, will appeal to fans of wartime adventures such as The Guns of Navarone.

In three words: Action-packed, authentic, dramatic

Try something similar: Eight Hours From England by Anthony Quayle

Iain GaleAbout the Author

Iain Gale is the author of twelve military historical novels and two works of military history. Iain was for many years a member of the Scottish Committee of Combat Stress, the armed forces’ PTSD charity. He also sat on the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Waterloo Committee at Edinburgh Castle and was privileged to be invited by the regiment to take a major part in its bicentenary commemorations.

He is a recognised authority on the Battle of Waterloo, and has taken numerous tours there, including leading a tactical military exercise of thirty-two serving US Army officers. Ian also guides regular small battlefield tours to the Somme, Arnhem, Dunkirk and Normandy and presents military history lectures. He is married with six children and lives in Fife and Edinburgh.

Connect with Iain
Twitter | Goodreads