Currently Reading

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I shared My Five Favourite July Reads.

Tuesday – My take on this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books in the Cities – ten books set in cities you might want to visit. I also shared my review of thriller The Boy Who Saw by Simon Toyne, one of the books on my list for the 20 Books of Summer 2022 Reading Challenge.

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 Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason.

Friday – I published my review of historical crime mystery, The Lost Diary of Samuel Pepys by Jack Jewers.

Saturday – The first Saturday of the month means it’s time for the 6 Degrees of Separation meme.

New arrivals

At the Breakfast Table by Defne Suman (eARC, Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

Prinkipo Island, Turkey, 2017. In the glow of a late summer morning, family gather for the 100th birthday of the famous artist Sirin Saka. It ought to be a time of fond reminiscence, looking back on a long and fruitful artistic career, on memories spanning almost a century, and of an era when imperial forces fought over her homeland.

But the deep past is something Sirin has spent a lifetime trying to conceal. Her grandchildren, Nur and Fikret, and great grandchild, Selin, do not know what Sirin is hiding, though they are intimately aware of the secret’s psychological consequences. The siblings invite family friend and investigative journalist Burak along to interview Sirin for his weekly column in celebration of her 100th year. They hope he will help unravel the family secrets and persuade her to talk. Sirin’s life-long servant Sadik, is determined to do all he can to protect the artist.

Eventually Sirin begins to express her pain the only way she knows how. She paints the story onto her dining room wall, revealing a history wiped from public consciousness and the cause of her family’s anguish that has sat, ruinous, in their subconscious for generations.

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

Blog Tour/Book Review: The Shimmer on the Water by Marina McCarron
Book Review: Learwife by J R Thorp
Book Review: The Bone Road by N. E. Solomons

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!

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

On the road to discovery, even the dead have secrets.

High up on a mountain road in the Balkans, former Olympic cyclist Heather Bishop races her journalist boyfriend Ryan. But when he suddenly disappears during the ride, suspicion falls on her.

Local police inspector, Simo Subotić, already has his hands full investigating two mutilated bodies that have washed up on the banks of the River Drina. Something is telling him that these two cases are connected but nothing could prepare him for what is to come.

Only together can Simo and Heather hope to uncover the truth in time. Their search not only exposes the darkness of Ryan’s past but exhumes dangerous secrets of a region still reeling from the trauma of war. Are some secrets so devastating that they should remain buried?

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

It is the summer of 1669 and England is in dire straits. The treasury’s coffers are bare and tensions with the powerful Dutch Republic are boiling over. And now, an investigator sent by the King to look into corruption at the Royal Navy has been brutally murdered.

Loathe to leave the pleasures of London, Samuel Pepys is sent dragging his feet to Portsmouth to find the truth about what happened. Aided by his faithful assistant, Will Hewer, he soon exposes the killer.

But has he got the right man? The truth may be much more sinister. And if the real plot isn’t uncovered in time, England could be thrown into a war that would have devastating consequences …

Recently finished

The Shimmer on the Water by Marina McCallon (Aria)

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason (Orion)

Learwife by J. R. Thorp (Canongate)

“I am the queen of two crowns, banished fifteen years, the famed and gilded woman, bad-luck baleful girl, mother of three small animals, now gone. I am fifty-five years old. I am Lear’s wife. I am here.”

Word has come. Care-bent King Lear is dead, driven mad and betrayed. His three daughters too, broken in battle. But someone has survived: Lear’s queen. Exiled to a nunnery years ago, written out of history, her name forgotten. Now she can tell her story.

Though her grief and rage may threaten to crack the earth open, she knows she must seek answers. Why was she sent away in shame and disgrace? What has happened to Kent, her oldest friend and ally? And what will become of her now, in this place of women? To find peace she must reckon with her past and make a terrible choice – one upon which her destiny, and that of the entire abbey, rests. (Review to follow)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

The 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.