Tag: Reviews

#WWWWednesday – 10th August 2022

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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

After She'd GoneAfter She’d Gone by Alex Dahl (ARC, Head of Zeus)

Liv keeps a low profile in Sandefjord, Norway: she’s just another tired single mother, trying to make ends meet. She has never told her son about the secrets she carries or the life she lived before he was born. She will do anything to keep him safe.

Anastasia‘s life is transformed when she moves from Russia to Milan to work as a model. She’s rich. She’s desired. But there’s a dark side to the high-pressure catwalk shows; the sun-baked Italian palazzos; the drink-fuelled after-parties hosted by powerful men. Soon, she will do anything to escape.

Selma is a journalist in Oslo. She’ s investigating scandals in the modelling industry, but can’ t get her article published. Then a woman goes missing in Sandefjord. Now Selma is about to uncover the biggest story of her life…

The Women of the CastleThe Women of the Castle by Jessica Shattuck (Zaffre)

The Third Reich has crumbled. The Russians are coming.

Marianne von Lingenfels – widow of a resister murdered by the Nazi regime – finds refuge in the crumbling Bavarian castle where she once played host to German high society. There she fulfils her promise to find and protect the wives and children of her husband’s brave conspirators, rescuing her dearest friend’s widow, Benita, from sexual slavery to the Russian army, and Ania from a work camp for political prisoners. As Marianne assembles this makeshift family she is certain their shared pain will bind them together.

But as Benita begins a clandestine relationship and Ania struggles to conceal her role in the Nazi regime, Marianne learns that her clear-cut, highly principled world view has no place in these new, frightening and emotionally-charged days.

All three women must grapple with the realities they now face, and the consequences of decisions each made in the darkest of times…

Recently finished

The Lost Diary of Samuel Pepys by Jack Jewers (Moonflower Publishing)

The Bone Road by N. E. Solomons (Polygon)

Bad Relations by Cressida Connolly (Viking)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

The Night ShipThe Night Ship by Jess Kidd (ARC, Canongate via Readers First)

1629. Embarking on a journey in search of her father, a young girl called Mayken boards the Batavia, the most impressive sea vessel of the age. During the long voyage, this curious and resourceful child must find her place in the ship’s busy world, and she soon uncovers shadowy secrets above and below deck. As tensions spiral, the fate of the ship and all on board becomes increasingly uncertain.

1989. Gil, a boy mourning the death of his mother, is placed in the care of his irritable and reclusive grandfather. Their home is a shack on a tiny fishing island off the Australian coast, notable only for its reefs and wrecked boats. This is no place for a teenager struggling with a dark past and Gil’s actions soon get him noticed by the wrong people.

The Night Ship is an enthralling tale of human cruelty, fate and friendship, and of two children, hundreds of years apart, whose fates are inextricably bound together.

#BlogTour #BookReview The Shimmer on the Water by Marina McCarron

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The Shimmer on the Water Blog Tour BannerWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Shimmer on the Water by Marina McCarron which was published as an ebook on 4th August and will be available in paperback later this year. My thanks to Amy at Head of Zeus for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my digital review copy via NetGalley.  Do check out the post by my tour buddy for today Wendy at Wendy Reads Books.

The Shimmer on the Water Author Square shareable 3About the Book

Three women. Two generations apart. One secret they share.

Maine, 1997. As the people of Fort Meadow Beach celebrate the Fourth of July, four-year-old Daisy Wright disappears and is never seen again.

Maine, 2022. Fired from her job and heart-broken, Peyton Winchester moves back home for the summer. Bored and aimless, she finds a renewed sense of purpose when an ad for a journalism course reminds her of a path not taken. Returning to life in her home town brings back all kind of memories – including Daisy’s disappearance when she was a young girl herself.

As Peyton begins to search for answers about Daisy’s disappearance, she finds that they might be closer to home than she thinks – and their lives become intertwined with irreversible consequences.

Format: ebook (413 pages)             Publisher: Aria
Publication date: 4th August 2022 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Find The Shimmer on the Water on Goodreads

Purchase links
Amazon UK
Link provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

The Shimmer on the Water alternates between two storylines, one in the present day and one starting in 1966.

The book is not so much about solving the mystery of Daisy Wright’s disappearance, although it does provide a number of connections between the two storylines, as about family secrets and the impact they have when they are finally revealed.  For Peyton, trying to discover the person responsible for Daisy’s disappearance allows her to focus on something other than recent events in her life. ‘Getting dumped. Getting fired. Losing friends. The embarrassment of all her failures.’ Having to return to her parents’ home feels like the final humilation. Peyton feels there is a story to be told about Daisy’s disappearance, one which might help in her ambition to become a journalist.  It’s not a plan that finds much favour with Peyton’s mother whose attitude to her daughter is one of disappointment and often cool indifference.

A separate storyline follows the early life of Euella and her younger sister, Minnie, in 1960s Tennessee. It’s a powerful and moving story which was the standout element of the book for me. Euella’s father and brother are both drunks prone to violent outbursts as a result of which her mother has become absent emotionally, and later literally absent. It is left to Euella to care for and protect her young sister. It’s a struggle to put food on the table and to keep them warm through the harsh winters. The family’s poverty and increasingly dysfunctional nature mean they are ostracised by the local community. Fuelled by anger and an innate fortitude, Euella is determined to make a better life for herself and her sister. ‘A plan is forming. New ideas are coming. She can feel herself changing, becoming something different. Someone different.’

The connections between the two storylines become apparent fairly early on but this doesn’t stop Eualla’s story continuing to be utterly compelling as we see her literally reinvent herself. That’s not to say she doesn’t make mistakes along the way, quite costly ones as it turns out that will have repercussions in the future. Gradually Peyton discovers more about her family, and in particular her mother. It will result in her seeing things in a completely new light and bring about a fundamental change in her relationship with her mother. It also triggers memories of events on the day Daisy Wright went missing. But after so many years can those memories be relied upon?

And the ‘shimmer on the water’ of the title? This early description of what Peyton observes as she gazes out to sea made me think it is the prospect of calm returning after a period of turmoil. ‘The sound of a boat grows louder and she turns to watch as it speeds by, the frothy white wake it leaves disturbing the shimmer on the water before it is absorbed again into the waves and the water is once again flat.’

If The Shimmer on the Water is less of a mystery novel than the book description might suggest, it is still a skilfully crafted dual time novel that explores the impact of fractured family relationships.

In three words: Moving, insightful, intriguing

Try something similar: Only May by Carol Lovekin

Marina Image by Julia HawkinsAbout the Author

Marina McCarron was born in eastern Canada and studied in Ottawa and Vancouver before moving to England. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Publishing degree. She has worked as a reporter, a freelance writer, a columnist and a manuscript evaluator. She loves reading and travelling and has been to six of the seven continents. She gets her ideas for stories from strolling through new places and daydreaming. Her debut novel, The Time Between Us, came to her as she stood at Pointe du Hoc on a windy June day and asked the magical question, what if…?

Connect with Marina
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