Tag: Reviews

My Week in Books – 14th November 2021

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MyWeekinBooks

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I published my review of The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett.

Tuesday – I shared my publication day review of historical crime mystery, Down A Dark River by Karen Odden.

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 to have a good nose around what others are reading. I also published my review of crime novel, The Quiet People by Paul Cleave as part of the blog tour.

Thursday – I shared my review of My Secret Sister by Lauren Westwood as part of the blog tour which includes a giveaway.

Friday – I published my review of Gods of Rome (Rise of Emperors #3) by Gordon Doherty and Simon Turney as part of the blog tour. 

Saturday – As part of NetGalley November I shared my review of historical novel, Lily by Rose Tremain.

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

New arrivals

Before We Grow OldBefore We Grow Old by Clare Swatman (eARC, Boldwood via NetGalley)

Some people are just made for each other…

When seven-year-old Fran first met Will they knew instantly that they were made for each other. For eleven years they were inseparable, but then, at the age of eighteen, Will just upped and disappeared.

Twenty-five years later Will is back. Is fate trying to give them a second chance?

Still nursing the heart break from all those years ago, Fran is reluctant to give Will the time of day. The price Will must pay is to tell the truth – the truth about why he left, the truth about why he’s back… And Fran has her own secrets to hide. The time has come to decide what Fran and Will really want from life – before it’s too late.

The Man in the BunkerThe Man in the Bunker by Rory Clements (eARC, Zaffre via NetGalley)

Germany, late summer 1945 – The war is over but the country is in ruins. Millions of refugees and holocaust survivors strive to rebuild their lives in displaced persons camps. Millions of German soldiers and SS men are held captive in primitive conditions in open-air detention centres. Everywhere, civilians are desperate for food and shelter. No one admits to having voted Nazi, yet many are unrepentant.

Adolf Hitler is said to have killed himself in his Berlin bunker. But no body was found – and many people believe he is alive. Newspapers are full of stories reporting sightings and theories. Even Stalin, whose own troops captured the bunker, has told President Truman he believes the former Fuhrer is not dead.  Day by day, American and British intelligence officers subject senior members of the Nazi regime to gruelling interrogation in their quest for their truth.

Enter Tom Wilde – the Cambridge professor and spy sent in to find out the truth… 

WahalaWahala by Nikki May (eARC, Doubleday via NetGalley)

Ronke, Simi, Boo are three mixed-race friends living in London. They have the gift of two cultures, Nigerian and English, though not all of them choose to see it that way.

Everyday racism has never held them back, but now in their thirties, they question their future. Ronke wants a husband (he must be Nigerian); Boo enjoys (correction: endures) stay-at-home motherhood; while Simi, full of fashion career dreams, rolls her eyes as her boss refers to her urban vibe yet again.

When Isobel, a lethally glamorous friend from their past arrives in town, she is determined to fix their futures for them.

Cracks in their friendship begin to appear, and it is soon obvious Isobel is not sorting but wrecking. When she is driven to a terrible act, the women are forced to reckon with a crime in their past that may just have repeated itself.

Red Is My HeartRed Is My Heart by Antoine Laurain & Le Sonneur (ARC, Gallic Books)

How can you mend a broken heart? Do you write a letter to the woman who left you – and post it to an imaginary address? Buy a new watch, to reset your life? Or get rid of the jacket you wore every time you argued, because it was in some way … responsible?

Combining the wry musings of a rejected lover with playful drawings in just three colours – red, black and white – bestselling author of The Red Notebook, Antoine Laurain, and renowned street artist Le Sonneur have created a striking addition to the literature of unrequited love.

Sharp, yet warm, whimsical and deeply Parisian, this is a must for all Antoine Laurain fans.

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Blog Tour/Book Review: The Custard Corpses by M.J. Porter
  • Book Review: Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller 
  • Book Review: No Way To Die by Tony Kent 
  • Book Review: Eureka by Anthony Quinn
  • Book Review: The Red Monarch by Bella Ellis

#BookReview Lily by Rose Tremain @vintagebooks

whatcathyreadnext3 Comments

LilyAbout the Book

Nobody knows yet that she is a murderer…

Abandoned at the gates of a London park one winter’s night in 1850, baby Lily Mortimer is saved by a young police constable and taken to the London Foundling Hospital. Lily is fostered by an affectionate farming family in rural Suffolk, enjoying a brief childhood idyll before she is returned to the Hospital, where she is punished for her rebellious spirit. Released into the harsh world of Victorian London, Lily becomes a favoured employee at Belle Prettywood’s Wig Emporium, but all the while she is hiding a dreadful secret…

Across the years, policeman Sam Trench keeps watch over the young woman he once saved. When Sam meets Lily again, there is an instant attraction between them and Lily is convinced that Sam holds the key to her happiness – but might he also be the one to uncover her crime and so condemn her to death?

Format: Hardcover (288 pages)             Publisher: Vintage
Publication date: 11th November 2021 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find Lily on Goodreads

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My Review

Subtitled ‘A Tale of Revenge’, the narrative moves back and forth in time between Lily’s early years spent with a foster family, her time at the London Foundling Hospital and her subsequent employment at Belle Prettywood’s Wig Emporium. Throughout the book Lily is convinced that the crime she has committed will one day be discovered and that she will be condemned to death as a result. The circumstances of the crime are only revealed towards the end of the book, posing the question whether a crime of this nature can ever be justified even if its motivation is to save others.  

The book has echoes of the novels of Charles Dickens in the way it describes the experiences of those unfortunate enough to find themselves orphans. However, the cruel treatment experienced by the children taken in by the London Foundling Hospital is of a more extreme, and perverted, nature than anything found within the pages of Oliver Twist.  That treatment is in stark contrast to the affection Lily experiences from her foster family, Nellie and Perkin Buck and their three sons, on their farm in Suffolk. That idyllic existence comes to a sudden end when, at the age of six, Lily is removed from the family and returned to the Foundling Hospital. There, along with the other foundlings, she is ordered to ‘forget absolutely’ those who cared for her during the first years of her life; indeed she is told her foster family looked after her only because they were paid. The foundlings’ position is compared to slaves whose masters care nothing for them, but recognise only their monetary value. ‘You are like them… You are like those slaves. For did you not work for the people paid to care for you?’ In fact, Lily is cruelly beaten when, in an early expression of defiance, she attempts to write a letter to Nellie Buck.

A further cruel feature of the system is the way the foundlings are regarded as being the ‘carriers’ of the sins of their mothers – not their fathers, note. They are told they possess an innate wickedness, ‘a blood-wickedness which could lead then into deep thickets of sin and transgression’. Only through obedience and hard work can they pay for the supposed degeneracy of their mothers. As it transpires, wickedness and degeneracy is the province of others, particularly one especially monstrous character.

I found the absence of chapter breaks and the sudden unannounced changes in timeline (at least in my ARC) rather distracting and left me confused at times. However, whatever reservations I may have had about the book’s structure, there’s no doubt about the author’s ability to create beautiful prose. For example, when Lily and her friend, Bridget, travel through the countryside as evening falls in search of a place of refuge. ‘The air they breathed had a taste to it of things burned and gone. And it was not still. It moved in strange patterns, like a wispy black scarf threatening to touch their faces, then suddenly disappearing to reveal the way ahead..’  

A side plot involves Lily search for the mother who abandoned her. The book also depicts Lily’s growing friendship with her employer, the irrepressible and flamboyant Belle, and Lily’s confused feelings towards Sam who is both her guardian angel but also the person who might bring her to justice.

Lily is a character you can’t help rooting for and, although bleak at times, the book has great period atmosphere and a touching ending that offers a little ray of light in the darkness.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Vintage via NetGalley.

In three words: Dark, moving atmospheric

Try something similar: A Book of Secrets by Kate Morrison

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RoseTremainAbout the Author

Rose Tremain’s best-selling novels have won many awards, including the Baileys Women’s Prize, the Whitbread Novel of the Year, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Prix Femina Etranger. Restoration, the first of her novels to feature Robert Merivel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She lives in Norfolk and London with the biographer Richard Holmes. (Photo/bio: Goodreads author page)

Connect with Rose
Website | Goodreads