#WWWWednesday – 10th November 2021

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

LilyLily by Rose Tremain (eARC, Chatto & Windus)

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?

Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller (Sceptre via NetGalley)

One rain-swept February night in 1809, an unconscious man is carried into a house in Somerset. He is Captain John Lacroix, home from Britain’s disastrous campaign against Napoleon’s forces in Spain. Gradually Lacroix recovers his health, but not his peace of mind – he cannot talk about the war or face the memory of what happened in a village on the gruelling retreat to Corunna. After the command comes to return to his regiment, he sets out instead for the Hebrides, with the vague intent of reviving his musical interests and collecting local folksongs.

Lacroix sails north incognito, unaware that he has far worse to fear than being dragged back to the army: a vicious English corporal and a Spanish officer are on his trail, with orders to kill. The haven he finds on a remote island with a family of free-thinkers and the sister he falls for are not safe, at all.


Recently finished

The Quiet People by Paul Cleave (Orenda)

Down A Dark River (Inspector Corravan #1) by Karen Odden (Crooked Lane)

My Secret Sister by Lauren Westwood

Gods of Rome (Rise of Emperors #3) by Gordon Doherty and Simon Turney (Aries)


What Cathy (will) Read Next

EurekaEureka (Freya Wyley #2) by Anthony Quinn (eARC, Jonathan Cape via NetGalley)

Summer, 1967. As London shimmers in a heat haze and swoons to the sound of Sergeant Pepper, a mystery film – Eureka – is being shot by German wunderkind Reiner Werther Kloss. The screenwriter, Nat Fane, would do anything for a hit but can’t see straight for all the acid he’s dropping. Fledgling actress Billie Cantrip is hoping for her big break but can’t find a way out of her troubled relationship with an older man. And journalist Freya Wyley wants to know why so much of what Kloss touches turns to ash in his wake. Meanwhile, the parallel drama of Nat’s screenplay starts unfurling its own deep secrets.

Sexy, funny, nasty, Eureka probes the dark side of creativity, the elusiveness of art and the torment of love. 

#BlogTour #BookReview The Quiet People by Paul Cleave @OrendaBooks @RandomTTours

Quiet People Bt Poster

Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Quiet People by Paul Cleave. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Orenda for my digital review copy. The Quiet People is available now as an ebook and will be published in paperback on 25th November 2021.


The Quiet People CoverAbout the Book

Cameron and Lisa Murdoch are successful New Zealand crime writers, happily married and topping bestseller lists worldwide. They have been on the promotional circuit for years, joking that no one knows how to get away with crime like they do. After all, they write about it for a living.

So when their challenging seven-year-old son Zach disappears, the police and the public naturally wonder if they have finally decided to prove what they have been saying all this time… Are they trying to show how they can commit the perfect crime?

Multi-award winning bestseller Paul Cleave returns with an electrifying and chilling thriller about family, public outrage and what a person might be capable of under pressure, that will keep you guessing until the final page…

Format: Paperback (300 pages)              Publisher: Orenda Books
Publication date: 25th November 2021 Genre: Crime, Thriller

Find The Quiet People on Goodreads

Purchase links
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My Review

So, in The Quiet People we have a crime novelist writing a crime novel about two crime novelists who write crime novels. If that doesn’t get your head spinning just wait for what follows. A plot with more twists than a helter skelter, more turns than a merry-go-round and which will transport you into a dark hall of mirrors.

In their career as crime novelists the Murdochs have imagined all sorts of terrible things happening to other people but what if what’s happening to them is worse than anything they could have conjured up? After all, if you were going to commit the ‘perfect crime’, would you really choose your own child as the potential victim?

As the book progresses it builds up speed until it’s hurtling along like an express train, throwing its passengers (us readers) from side to side as it heads towards its unknown destination. But are Cameron and Lisa Murdoch driving the train or are they just passengers along with everyone else, powerless to determine what will happen next?

When everyone turns against you and suspects you of the worst crime possible, who can you rely on? Cameron, in particular, is about to find out and the answer may be more devastating than even he could have imagined. One piece of advice – probably best not to listen to Mr What If.

Incorporating elements such as press intrusion, betrayal, corruption, and the desire for revenge and retribution, The Quiet People exposes both the best and worst in people. It’s a terrific piece of crime writing and the epitome of a page-turner.

In three words: Clever, dark, gripping

Try something similar: End of Summer by Anders de la Motte

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Paul CleaveAbout the Author

Paul is an award-winning author who divides his time between his home city of Christchurch, New Zealand, where most of his novels are set, and Europe. He has won the New Zealand Ngaio Marsh Award three times, the Saint-Maur book festival’s crime novel of the year award in France, and has been shortlisted for the Edgar and the Barry in the US and the Ned Kelly in Australia. His books have been translated into over twenty languages. He’s thrown his frisbee in over forty countries, plays tennis badly, golf even worse, and has two cats – which is often two too many.

Connect with Paul
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