Currently Reading

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 Man in the Bunker (Tom Wilde #6) 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 Führer 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…

The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. (Quercus)

Isaiah and Samuel are lovers, the barn is their home on the Halifax plantation, the place they go to be alone together away from the prying eyes of Massa Paul and the dutiful Amos. A space of radiance that contains itself and their bond, blurring all around them.

Since finding faith and credence from Paul, Amos has begun to direct suspicion towards the two men and their refusal to bend; their flickering glances, unspoken words and wilful intention. But the others know that there are many ways to hide one’s self from doom and keeping tender secrets between the group is one of them.

Since the fruits of toubabs’ teachings had been bitten into, the blistering sun drenched the Plantation day after day in a stark intruding light. Samuel and Isaiah are all-the-way-to-the-bone tired. When night falls, they are ready to face the darkness, emanating a fire nowhere and from each other.

Recently finished

Finding Edith Pinsent (Netta Wilde #2) by Hazel Ward (Hope St Press)

Before We Grow Old by Clare Swatman (Boldwood Books)

Resistance: Book 1 Liberty by Eilidh McGinness

Bravery, courage, fear, treachery and love in a time of war.

A chance meeting draws Sabine Faure into the shadowy world of the French Resistance where she meets the charismatic Hérisson and his intriguing comrade Loup.

Set in Dordogne in South-west France during World War II, the friends’ relationships and strengths are tested to the very limits as life changes in unbelievably horrific ways, The friends find themselves facing frightening situations and responding in ways they never thought possible as bravery and resistance take different forms in each of their actions. (Review to follow for blog tour)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

The Manningtree Witches by A. K. Blakemore (Granta)

England, 1643. Parliament is battling the King; the war between the Roundheads and the Cavaliers rages. Puritanical fervour has gripped the nation, and the hot terror of damnation burns black in every shadow.

In Manningtree, depleted of men since the wars began, the women are left to their own devices. At the margins of this diminished community are those who are barely tolerated by the affluent villagers – the old, the poor, the unmarried, the sharp-tongued.

Rebecca West, daughter of the formidable Beldam West, fatherless and husbandless, chafes against the drudgery of her days, livened only by her infatuation with the clerk John Edes. But then newcomer Matthew Hopkins, a mysterious, pious figure dressed from head to toe in black, takes over The Thorn Inn and begins to ask questions about the women of the margins. When a child falls ill with a fever and starts to rave about covens and pacts, the questions take on a bladed edge.

On 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.

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2022

New arrivals

The 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 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.

Seek 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.