Tag: Reviews

My Week in Books – 16th January 2022

whatcathyreadnext

MyWeekinBooksOn What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I published my sign-up post for the What’s In A Name? 2022 reading challenge. 

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Most Recent Additions To My Book Collection.

Wednesday – WWW Wednesday is my 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 review of Jane’s Country Year by Malcolm Saville ahead of its publication in a new edition by Handheld Press on 18th January.

Friday – Another day, another reading challenge! I published my sign-up post for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2022. 

Saturday – I shared my review of Finding Edith Pinsent by Hazel Ward as part of the blog tour. 

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

New arrivals

The Matchmaker imageThe Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin by Paul Vidich (eARC, No Exit Press)

Berlin, 1989.  Protests across East Germany threaten the Iron Curtain and Communism is the ill man of Europe. Anne Simpson, an American who works as a translator at the Joint Operations Refugee Committee, thinks she is in a normal marriage with a charming East German. But then her husband disappears and the CIA and Western German intelligence arrive at her door.

Nothing about her marriage is as it seems. She had been targeted by the Matchmaker – a high level East German counterintelligence officer – who runs a network of Stasi agents. These agents are his “Romeos” who marry vulnerable women in West Berlin to provide them with cover as they report back to the Matchmaker. Anne has been married to a spy, and now he has disappeared, and is presumably dead.

The CIA are desperate to find the Matchmaker because of his close ties to the KGB.  They believe he can establish the truth about a high-ranking Soviet defector. They need Anne because she’s the only person who has seen his face – from a photograph that her husband mistakenly left out in his office – and she is the CIA’s best chance to identify him before the Matchmaker escapes to Moscow. Time is running out as the Berlin Wall falls and chaos engulfs East Germany.

But what if Anne’s husband is not dead? And what if Anne has her own motives for finding the Matchmaker to deliver a different type of justice?

The Night ShiftThe Night Shift by Alex Finlay (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

What connects a pair of small-town murders that happened fifteen years apart?

It’s New Year’s Eve of 1999 when four teenagers working late are attacked at a Blockbuster video store in New Jersey. Only one inexplicably survives. Police quickly identify a suspect, the boyfriend of one of the victims, who flees and is never seen again.

Fifteen years later, four more teenagers are attacked at an ice cream store in the same town, and again only one makes it out alive.

In the aftermath of the latest crime, three lives intersect: the lone survivor of the Blockbuster massacre who is forced to relive the horrors of her tragedy; the brother of the fugitive accused, who is convinced the police have the wrong suspect; and FBI agent Sarah Keller, who must delve into the secrets of both nights to uncover the truth about the night shift murders.

Cover Image Seek The Singing FishSeek The Singing Fish by Roma Wells (ARC, époque press)

Growing up in the lagoon town of Batticaloa, a young girl, with an unquenchable curiosity and love of the natural world, is entangled in the trauma and turmoil of the Sri Lankan civil war.

Uprooted from everything she holds dear, tragedy and betrayal set in motion an unforgettable odyssey.

Torn from east to west, struggling with what it means to belong, she desperately seeks a way home to the land of the singing fish.

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: Red Is My Heart by Antoine Laurain & Le Sonneur 
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Before We Grow Old by Clare Swatman
  • Book Review: The Queen’s Lady by Joanna Hickson
  • Blog Tour/Book Review: Liberty (Resistance #1) by Eilidh McGinness
  • Book Review: The Man in the Bunker (Tom Wilde #6) by Rory Clements

#BlogTour #BookReview Finding Edith Pinsent by Hazel Ward @rararesources

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Finding Edith Pinsent Full Tour Banner

Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Finding Edith Pinsent by Hazel Ward. My thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my digital review copy. Do check out the posts by my tour buddies for today, Madeleine at Ramblingmads and Preena at Bookshortie.

Finding Edith PinsentAbout the Book

Netta Wilde has a task to complete. She’s agreed to go through the late Edith Pinsent’s diaries and possessions personally. The problem is, she’s been busy sorting out her own life.  But she’s in a better place now. She’s free of her manipulative ex, has a new love in neighbour, Frank and has reunited with her kids. What better time to begin Edie’s story?

But the path to discovery is not easy. There are missing diaries to contend with, boxes of memories to uncover and revelations that turn everything on its head. Revelations that make Netta question if her own life really is sorted. Delving deeper into Edith’s history, Netta is overtaken by a need to revisit her own past and put things right, but to do that she has to find the two people who once meant everything to her.

As her two challenges intertwine, Netta realises that Edith had a purpose for her. One that she must fulfil. Bit by bit, the house yields a lifetime of secrets and the real Edith Pinsent begins to emerge. But will it be the Edith everyone thought they knew?

Format: Paperback (402 pages)       Publisher: Hope St Press
Publication date: 9th January 2022 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Find Finding Edith Pinsent (Netta Wilde #2) on Goodreads

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

My Review

Finding Edith Pinsent is the follow-up to the author’s earlier book, Being Netta Wilde. I haven’t read the first book and, although I think this would have given me a better understanding of Netta’s character, the author includes enough references to earlier events in Netta’s life to make it possible to read Finding Edith Pinsent as a standalone.

The book has a dual timeline structure with the reader witnessing events in Netta’s life in the present day (2019) whilst at the same time following her as she discovers more about Edith’s life, including why Edith (known as Edie) was so determined someone should reveal her story. Although Netta’s life and house (which was Edie’s former home) is filled with family and friends, at times she feels rather alone despite her lovely neighbour, Frank. Netta is still carrying some emotional baggage from previous relationships and is pondering on her future.

As Netta reads Edie’s journals she begins to feel a connection with her; that, in a way, she and Edie are ‘kindred spirits’ because of what they have both experienced. Indeed, as the book progresses, more and more parallels between the two women’s experiences become apparent. As Netta reflects, ‘Their stories were different but the themes were the same. Love, loss, grief and shame.’

Although I found myself becoming more engaged with Netta’s story as the book went on, the heart of the book – at least for me – was Edie’s story. It’s a story of gaining independence, experiencing first love and, like so many others during wartime, suffering loss. The prejudice encountered by those who found themselves in the position that Edie does is vividly described and I found Edie’s ostracism by her family and her struggle to cope alone heart-breaking. Edie comes across as a person with a great capacity for love, with an open heart and a trusting nature. At times this makes her vulnerable. As a result, she suffers disappointment when she discovers others do not feel as deeply or as sincerely as she does. As a result  she finds herself separated from those she loves the most and searching for some meaning in her life in other ways.

By the end of the book it’s clear there was much more to the old lady introduced to us in the opening chapter than we might have imagined. Indeed, to quote the title of the book’s final chapter, we discover  that she did indeed lead ‘an extraordinary life’ witnessing many changes in society and its attitudes.

Finding Edith Pinsent cleverly combines two stories that, if told separately, might have appealed to different types of reader. Blending the contemporary storyline with the historical storyline provides something for everyone I think. I particularly admired the author’s ability to create characters who, despite their flaws and sometimes dubious decisions, you really grow to care about. A third book in the series is due to be published later this year.

In three words: Heart-warming, touching, insightful

Try something similar: The Girl From Bletchley Park by Kathleen McGurl

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Hazel WardAbout the Author

Hazel Ward was born in inner city Birmingham. By the time the city council packed her family off to the suburbs, she was already something of a feral child who loved adventures. Swapping derelict houses and bomb pecks for green fields and gardens was a bit of a culture shock but she rose to the occasion and grew up loving outdoor spaces and animals.

Strangely, for someone who couldn’t sit still, she also developed a ferocious reading habit and a love of words. She wrote her first novel at fifteen, along with a lot of angsty poems, and was absolutely sure she wanted to be a writer. Sadly, it all came crashing down when her seventeen-year-old self walked out of school in a huff one day and was either too stubborn or too embarrassed to go back. It’s too long ago to remember which.

Against all odds, she somehow managed to blag her way into a successful corporate career until finally giving it all up to do the thing she’d always wanted to do. Shortly after, she began to write her debut novel, Being Netta Wilde.

Hazel still lives in Birmingham and that’s where she does most of her writing, although she spends a lot of time in Shropshire or gadding about the country in an old motor home. Not quite feral anymore but still up for adventures. For updates on Hazel’s books, freebies and various other bits of stuff you can join Hazel’s Reader’s Club here.

Connect with Hazel
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Finding Edith Pinsent