This Week in Books is a feature hosted by Lipsy at Lipsyy Lost and Found that allows bloggers to share:
- What they’ve recently finished reading
- What they are currently reading
- What they are planning to read next
A similar meme is run by Taking on a World of Words.
I finished Table for Two by Amor Towles, and then deviated from my reading plan when my pre-order of Queen B by Juno Dawson arrived. I did then read Morgan is My Name by Sophie Keetch, and for those who expressed an interest in it – I absolutely loved it. Review to come. Probably.
Amor Towles fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood.
The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages.
In the novella, Eve in Hollywood, Towles returns to one of the characters at the heart of his debut novel Rules of Civility: the indomitable Evelyn Ross, who leaves New York City in September 1938 with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from multiple points of view, Eve in Hollywood describes how Towles’ heroine crafts a new future for herself and others in a noirish tale that takes us through the movie sets, bungalows and dive bars of Los Angeles.
Written with wit, humour and sophistication, Table for Two is a glittering and stylish offering from the author of A Gentleman in Moscow, The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility.
The next enchanting instalment of the sensational #1 Sunday Times bestselling HER MAJESTY’S ROYAL COVEN fantasy series takes us back to the reign of Henry VIII and the origins of Her Majesty’s Royal Coven under the beautiful, the bewitching, Anne Boleyn.
BOW DOWN WITCHES
It’s 1536 and the Queen has been beheaded.
Lady Grace Fairfax, witch, knows that something foul is at play – that someone had betrayed Anne Boleyn and her coven.
Wild with the loss of their leader – and her lover, a secret that if spilled could spell Grace’s own end – she will do anything in her power to track down the traitor.
But there’s more at stake than revenge: it was one of their own, a witch, that betrayed them, and Grace isn’t the only one looking for her. King Henry VIII has sent witchfinders after them, and they’re organized like they’ve never been before under his new advisor, the impassioned Sir Ambrose Fulke, a cold man blinded by his faith. His cruel reign could mean the end of witchkind itself.
If Grace wants to find her revenge and live, she will have to do more than disappear.
She will have to be reborn.
In this gripping, propulsive, sultry novella, Juno Dawson takes us back to the bloody beginnings of Her Majesty’s Royal Coven to show us the strength, steel and sacrifice it takes to make a sisterhood. With beautiful illustrations from Emma Vieceli throughout.
My name is Morgan… And there aren’t enough words for all that I am.
When King Uther Pendragon murders her father and tricks her mother into marriage, Morgan refuses to be crushed. Trapped amid the machinations of men in a world of isolated castles and gossiping courts, she discovers secret powers. Vengeful and brilliant, it’s not long before Morgan becomes a worthy adversary to Merlin, influential sorcerer to the king.
But fighting for her freedom, she risks losing everything – her reputation, her loved ones and her life.
I’m currently reading We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer.
You let them back in.
You shouldn’t have…
Young couple Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they got on an old house deep in the mountains. One day, a man knocks on the door. He says he lived there years before and asks if he can show his family around.
As soon as they enter, strange things start to happen, and Eve is desperate for them to leave and never come back. But they can’t – or won’t – take the hint that they are no longer welcome.
Then, Charlie vanishes, and Eve begins to lose her grip on reality. She’s convinced there’s something terribly wrong with the house and its past inhabitants . . . or is it all in her head?
The Turn of the Key meets Parasite in this gripping, eerily haunting debut and Reddit hit – soon to be a Netflix original movie starring Blake Lively – that will keep you up into the early hours. Perfect for fans of Stephen King and Leave the World Behind.
My next read might be By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult. I picked this up from a proof party at Hay, and am very intrigued by the argument made by the author regarding the question of Shakespeare authorship.
What if the greatest writer of all time isn’t who we think he is?
What if he isn’t even a he?
Step back four hundred years and discover the female author who hid behind the mask of the man we know as William Shakespeare . . .
In Elizabethan London, young Emilia Bassano is a ward of English aristocrats. Her education has endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling, but still she is allowed no voice of her own.
Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees the theatre, Emilia discovers the power of stories to beguile audiences. Secretly, she forms a plan to bring a play of her own to the stage – by paying an actor named William Shakespeare to front her work.
In modern-day Manhattan, playwright Melina Green finds a woman’s voice is still worth less than a man’s. But, inspired by the life of her ancestor Emilia Bassano, Melina takes a lesson from history and submits a play under a male pseudonym . . .
Moving between Elizabethan England and modern day Manhattan, By Any Other Name is a beautifully written, compelling novel that explores the theme of identity and the ways in which two women, centuries apart—one of whom might just be the real author of Shakespeare’s plays—are both forced to hide behind another name to make their voices heard.
And that’s my week in books! What are you reading this week? Let me know in the comments! 😎
Jo's Book Blog 
I’ve had my eye on By Any Other Name for a while, Jo. I so can’t wait to see what you think of it! x
Sounds good, doesn’t it? x