Hosted by Should be Reading
FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list… whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library — wherever! (they aren’t necessarily books you purchased).
So, come on — share with us your FRIDAY FINDS!
Thinking in Fragments wrote a fantastic review of The Riot by Laura Wilson.
Blurb
August 1958. London is hot and tired, and nowhere more so than Notting Hill, where DI Stratton has just been posted.
Stratton’s new manor is dirt poor and rife with racial tension. The end of the war saw a flood of Caribbean migrants. Now, a decade later, working-class Teddy Boys are showing mounting hostility towards their black neighbours.
Notorious landlord Danny Perlmann, a Polish refugee, is taking full advantage of others’ reluctance to rent to the immigrants – or to prostitutes – and is making a fortune off the high rents he charges. Caught in the middle of this war over rents and turf is Irene, a young runaway on the verge of going on the game.
When Perlmann’s rent collector is murdered, Stratton is called to investigate. Notting Hill is a cauldron, soon to be the scene of the worst racial violence England has ever known, and Stratton is right at the heart of it. Amazon /blockquote>
This is five books into a series which starts with Stratton’s War so this may in fact be more than one book added this week….
Having just read The Moon Field set around World War I and the upcoming anniversary of the start of this war has drawn me to the following two books
The Tailor’s Girl by Fiona McIntosh was reviewed at Write Note Reviews
Blurb
From the bustling streets of 1920s London to the idyllic English countryside, this is a breathtaking story of passion and determination from a phenomenal Australian storyteller.
When a humble soldier, known only as Jones, wakes in a military hospital he has no recollection of his past. Jones’s few fleeting memories are horrifying moments from the battlefield of Ypres. His identity becomes a puzzle he must solve.
The Eden Valentine arrives in his world, a stunning seamstress who dreams of her own high-fashion salon in London. Mourning the loss of her brother in the war, Eden cannot turn away the soldier in desperate need of her help.
The key to Jones’s past – and Eden’s future – may lie with the mysterious Alex Wynter, aristocratic heir to the country manor Larksfell Hall. But the news that Alex bears will bring shattering consequences that threaten to tear their lives apart. Amazon
On Fiction Books I found my second book set during World War I, Dance the Moon Down by R.L. Bartram
Blurb
In 1910, no one believed there would ever be a war with Germany. Safe in her affluent middle-class life, the rumours held no significance for Victoria either. It was her father’s decision to enroll her at university that began to change all that. There she befriend the rebellious and outspoken Beryl Whittaker, an emergent suffragette, but it is her love for Gerald Avery, a talented young poet from a neighbouring university that sets the seal on her future. After a clandestine romance, they marry in January 1914, but with the outbreak of the First World War, Gerald volunteers but within months has gone missing in France. Convinced that he is still alive, Victoria’s initial attempts to discover what has become of him, implicate her in a murderous assault on Lord Kitchener resulting in her being interrogated as a spy, and later tempted to adultery. Now virtually destitute, Victoria is reduced to finding work as a common labourer on a run down farm, where she discovers a world of unimaginable ignorance and poverty. It is only her conviction that Gerald will some day return that sustains her through the dark days of hardship and privation as her life becomes a battle of faith against adversity. Amazon
Random House are still enabling my addiction to Netgalley – I have a copy of Don’t Stand So Close by Luana Lewis with a publication date of 13 February 2014
Blurb
What would you do if a young girl knocked on your door and asked for your help?
If it was snowing and she was freezing cold, but you were afraid and alone?
What would you do if you let her in, but couldn’t make her leave?
What if she told you terrible lies about someone you love, but the truth was even worse?
Stella has been cocooned in her home for three years. Severely agoraphobic, she knows she is safe in the stark, isolated house she shares with her husband, Max. The traumatic memories of her final case as a psychologist are that much easier to keep at a distance, too.
But the night that Blue arrives on her doorstep with her frightened eyes and sad stories, Stella’s carefully controlled world begins to unravel around her…
This sounds like my sort of psychological thriller…
So what did everyone else find this week?
Cleopatra Loves Books 