#WWWWednesday – 27th September 2023

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

The Book of FireThe Book of Fire by Christy Lefteri (Manilla Press via Readers First)

This morning, I met the man who started the fire. He did something terrible, but then, so have I. I left him. I left him and now he may be dead.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful village that held a million stories of love and loss and peace and war, and it was swallowed up by a fire that blazed up to the sky. The fire ran all the way down to the sea where it met with its reflection.

A family from two nations, England and Greece, live a simple life in a tiny Greek Irini, Tasso and their daughter, lovely, sweet Chara, whose name means joy. Their life goes up in flames in a single day when one man starts a fire out of greed and indifference. Many are killed, homes are destroyed, and the region’s natural beauty wiped out.

In the wake of the fire, Chara bears deep scars across her back and arms. Tasso is frozen in trauma, devastated that he wasn’t there when his family most needed him. And Irini is crippled by guilt at her part in the fate of the man who started the fire.

But this family has survived, and slowly green shoots of hope and renewal will grow from the smouldering ruins of devastation.

Byron and ShelleyByron and Shelley by Glenn Haybittle (eARC, Cheyne Walk via NetGalley)

The characters in Glenn Haybittle’s first collection of short stories are all caught in moments of life that bring about a revelation of identity.

A young woman who, after the war, catches sight of the guard who knocked to the ground her blind grandfather on the platform at Auschwitz. The backstory of the man accused of murdering Martin Luther King. The experience of a young girl on Kristallnacht and the subsequent tragic upheavals in her life. A dance teacher accused of sexually abusing one of his young students. A man constrained to return to his mother and look after her while she goes through dementia. A CIA operative grooming a patsy to take the blame for an assassination.


Recently finished

Night Train to Marrakech (Daughters of War #3) by Dinah Jefferies (HarperCollins)

North Woods by Daniel Mason (John Murray Press)

A Day of Reckoning (A Time for Swords #3) by Matthew Harffy (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

The Merchant’s Dilemma by Carolyn Hughes (eARC, Riverdown Books)


What Cathy (will) Read Next

In Two MindsIn Two Minds (Teifi Valley Coroner #2) by Alis Hawkins (Dome Press)

Harry Probert-Lloyd, a young barrister forced home from London by encroaching blindness, has begun work as the acting coroner of Teifi Valley with solicitor’s clerk John Davies as his assistant.

When a faceless body is found on an isolated beach, Harry must lead the inquest. But his dogged pursuit of the truth begins to ruffle feathers. Especially when he decided to work alongside a local doctor with a dubious reputation and experimental theories considered radical and dangerous.

Refusing to accept easy answers might not only jeopardise Harry’s chance to be elected coroner permnantly but could, it seems implicate his own family in a crime.

#WWWWednesday – 20th September 2023

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

Night Train to Marrakech IGNight Train to Marrakech (Daughters of War #3) by Dinah Jefferies (ARC, HarperCollins via Readers First)

MARRAKECH 1966. Vicky Baudin steps onto a train winding through Morocco, looking for the grandmother she has never met.

It’s an epic journey that’ll take her to the edge of Atlas Mountains – and closer to the answers she’s been craving all her life.

But dark secrets whisper amongst the dunes. And in unlocking the mystery of Clemence’s past, Vicky will unearth great danger too . . .

North WoodsNorth Woods by Daniel Mason (eARC, John Murray via NetGalley)

FOUR CENTURIES. A SINGLE HOUSE DEEP IN THE WOODS OF NEW ENGLAND.

A young Puritan couple on the run. An English soldier with a fantastic vision. Inseparable twin sisters. A lovelorn painter and a lusty beetle. A desperate mother and her haunted son. A ruthless con man and a stalking panther. Buried secrets. Madness, dreams and hope.

All are connected. The dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.


Recently finished

The Traitor by Ava Glass (Cornerstone)

The Traitor Blog Tour Banner September 2023 - FINAL


What Cathy (will) Read Next

The Merchant's DilemmaThe  Merchant’s Dilemma by Carolyn Hughes (eARC, Riverdown Books)

1362. Winchester. Seven months ago, accused of bringing plague and death from Winchester, Bea Ward was hounded out of Meonbridge by her former friends and neighbours. Finding food and shelter where she could, she struggled to make her way back to Winchester again. Yet, once she arrived, she wondered why she’d come.

For her former lover – the love of her life – Riccardo Marchaunt, had married a year ago. And she no longer had the strength to go back to her old life on the streets. Frail, destitute and homeless, she was reduced to begging. Then, in January, during a tumultuous and destructive storm, she found herself on Riccardo’s doorstep. She had no plan, beyond hoping he might help her, or at least provide a final resting place for her poor body.

When Bea awakes to find she’s lying in Riccardo’s bed once more, she’s thankful, thrilled, but mystified. But she soon learns that his wife died four months ago, along with their newborn son, and finds too that Riccardo loves her now as much as he ever did, and wants to make her his wife. But can he? And, even if he can, could she ever really be a proper merchant’s wife?

Riccardo could not have been more relieved to find Bea still alive, when he thought he had lost her forever. She had been close to death, but is now recovering her health. He adores her and wants her to be his wife. But how? His father would forbid such an “unfitting” match, on pain of denying him his inheritance. And what would his fellow merchants think of it? And their haughty wives?

Yet, Riccardo is determined that Bea will be his wife. He has to find a solution to his dilemma… With the help of his beloved mother, Emilia, and her close friend, Cecily, he hatches a plan to make it happen.

But even the best laid plans sometimes go awry. And the path of love never did run smooth…