Jeff & Michael Danna • Blood of Cuchulainn
Alti Ovarson • The return of the Eagle
Étiquette : Lucy Holland
Top 5 Wednesday • Great Leaders
Le thème de cette semaine fait écho à l’actualité américaine de ces derniers jours, puisque des élections ont lieu, notamment pour trois postes de gouverneurs. Pour marquer cet événement, il nous est proposé de répondre à la question suivante : parmi nos personnages préférés, lesquels sont ou feraient de grands leaders ? Il m’en manquerait un, mais j’ai beaucoup réfléchir et je n’en ai aucune idée.
Scout • Ne tirez pas sur l’oiseau moqueur de Harper Lee
Elle est certes très jeune dans ce roman, mais je pense sincèrement qu’en grandissant, elle fera un grand leader. Elle mène déjà son petit monde à la baguette et fait preuve d’une grande intelligence, notamment émotionnelle. Elle est honnête et loyale, des qualités que j’attends d’une meneuse.
Ethel Williams • Le Siècle de Ken Follet
Une femme de caractère qui a ses convictions et qui n’a pas peur de les crier haut et fort. C’est un personnages sans concession qu’il me tarde de retrouver dans le deuxième tome cette trilogie de Ken Follet. Elle a déjà parcouru beaucoup de chemin dans La chute des géants.
Keyne • Sistersong de Lucy Holland
De par son histoire dans ce livre, je pense qu’iel rentre parfaitement dans cette catégorie des grands leaders. Iel ferait preuve de fermeté, mais surtout de justesse et de tolérance envers son peuple. J’aimerai beaucoup que l’auteur lui consacre un roman après les événements de Sistersong.
Melora Persedeus • Lore d’Alexandra Bracken
Tout au long du roman, elle démontre qu’elle est une grande meneuse d’homme, loyale et juste. Elle a toutes les qualités que l’on peut attendre d’un tel personnage.
Lucy Holland • Sistersong (2021)
Sistersong • Lucy Holland • MacMillan • 400 pages • Avril 2021
535 AD. In the ancient kingdom of Dumnonia, King Cador’s children inherit a fragmented land abandoned by the Romans.
Riva, scarred in a terrible fire, fears she will never heal.
Keyne battles to be seen as the king’s son, when born a daughter.
And Sinne, the spoiled youngest girl, yearns for romance.
All three fear a life of confinement within the walls of the hold – a last bastion of strength against the invading Saxons. But change comes on the day ash falls from the sky, bringing Myrddhin, meddler and magician, and Tristan, a warrior whose secrets will tear the siblings apart. Riva, Keyne and Sinne must take fate into their own hands, or risk being tangled in a story they could never have imagined; one of treachery, love and ultimately, murder. It’s a story that will shape the destiny of Britain.
Sistersong est le genre d’oeuvre que j’apprécie énormément et que je recherche. Je suis une passionnée des légendes arthuriennes, de l’Empire romain et de cette Bretagne (actuellement Grande-Bretagne) à la fois historique et mythique. C’est un sujet qui revient progressivement à la mode. Il y a eu celui-ci qui a été publié cette année, mais également Half sick of shadows de Laura Sebastian, que je suis également impatiente de découvrir.
C’est vraiment le premier point que j’ai adoré dans ce roman. L’auteur situe son histoire peu de temps après que les Romains aient quitté l’île de Bretagne et le début des invasions saxonnes. Cela ajoute également un peu de tensions dans l’intrigue, car, au début, le royaume des trois soeurs semblent plutôt épargné, alors que proche de la mer. Cependant, les Saxons se rapprochent. Des éléments de la légende arthurienne interviennent également, puisqu’il y a la présence de magie, mais aussi d’un personnage mythique, Merlin. J’ai adoré cette adjonction à l’histoire, les explications sur la manière dont la magie fonctionne, son lien avec la terre… Autre point positif concerne le contexte et cette bataille entre la sauvegarde des anciennes traditions et divinités et le nouveau dieu unique, celui des Catholiques. Cet aspect du roman participe également au drame, en créant des clivages au sein du royaume et de la famille.
Ce drame qui se noue progressivement m’a énormément fait penser aux tragédies de Shakespeare, comme Hamlet et Roméo et Juliette que j’ai relu récemment. Sistersong est un drame familial où la notion de destin est cruciale. La tension se construit progressivement jusqu’à l’élément déclencheur. Il est surprenant et je ne pensais pas que l’auteur irait jusque-là. En y réfléchissant, après avoir terminé le roman, c’était presque logique. La précipitation de la tragédie ne pouvait que commencer ainsi. La fin a été à la hauteur de mes attentes, avec beaucoup d’émotions et de tristesse. La première partie peut souffrir de quelques longueurs, mais rien de bien méchant. L’intrigue se tourne beaucoup plus vers les personnages, leurs caractères et la réalisation de leurs rêves qu’à l’action. Il y aussi quelques révélations finales qui se devinent aisément, notamment autour d’un des personnages principaux. Je n’en ai pas pour autant bouder mon plaisir durant cette lecture.
Le destin de ses trois soeurs. Keyne, Riva et Sinne m’a passionné d’un bout à l’autre. Il m’est impossible de dire laquelle j’ai préféré. Elles sont toutes les trois extrêmement différentes du point de vue du caractère, et de leurs rêves que le lecteur ne peut les confondre. Elles ont une chose en commun : une volonté farouche de liberté, et de ne pas être entravées par les diktats, les convenances de leurs positions en tant que filles du roi. Le personnage de Keyne apporte une certaine représentation de la communauté LGBQ+. Quant aux deux autres soeurs, leur histoire s’inspire notamment d’une balade, The Twat Sisters.
Sistersong a presque été un coup de coeur. L’univers est riche, amplement détaillé et avec des personnages attachants. J’ai adoré le mélange mythique et historique. J’espère voir d’autres livres dans cette veine de la part de l’auteur.
Top 5 Wednesday • Halfway there!
Je reviens avec le Top 5 Wednesday (et un article en retard). Les thèmes de Juillet ne m’ont guère inspiré, contrairement à ceux d’août. Le premier est Halway there! Il consiste à présenter les cinq meilleurs livres publiés depuis le début d’année. Je ne les ai pas forcément rangés dans un ordre d’appréciation.
Don’t tell a soul – Kristen Miller
J’ai adoré ce roman d’un bout à l’autre. L’ambiance est parfaite, bien dosée avec le suspens. Ce dernier est présent et parfaitement maîtrisé. Impossible de mettre le livre de côté pendant quelques secondes.
Sistersong • Lucy Holland
Un très bon roman sur trois soeurs très différentes. Des jalousies, des drames, le tout sous fond de Bretagne historique et mythique… J’ai vraiment beaucoup aimé et j’ai vraiment envie de lire d’autres ouvrages dans cette veine.
The lost village • Camilla Sten
Un thriller psychologique avec énormément de suspens et de tension. Il est haletant et un vrai page-turner. Il est juste dommage que la fin ne soit pas à la hauteur de mes espérances.
Near the bone • Christina Henry
Christina Henry est une de mes auteurs préférés et chacune de ses nouvelle publications finies entre mes mains. J’avais très envie de découvrir celui-ci et je ne suis pas déçue. Encore un livre avec une ambiance sombre, des passages pas toujours facile. Un autre mythe est exploré.
The Lights of Prague • Nicole Jarvis
Je découvre une nouvelle auteur avec ce roman. Prague est une ville que je rêve de pouvoir visiter, et encore plus après cette lecture. J’ai adoré l’univers, l’ambiance et les personnages. Je serai bien partante pour un deuxième tome.
Bilan des sorties VO lues • Janvier à Juin 2021
Depuis un peu plus d’un an, je propose un tour d’horizon des sorties VO (en anglais) qui me tentent énormément. J’en lis un certain nombre, mais sans toujours les chroniquer sur le blog. Le mois de Juin vient de toucher à sa fin et, avec lui, la moitié de l’année. L’occasion parfaite pour un petit bilan mi-parcours des parutions déjà lues et celles que j’aimerai encore découvrir.
En cliquant sur les mois, vous accédez à l’article sur les sorties VO correspondant.
Janvier
Livres lus
The House on Vesper Sands – Padraic O’Donnell
On the case is Inspector Cutter, a detective as sharp and committed to his work as he is wryly hilarious. Gideon Bliss, a Cambridge dropout in love with one of the missing girls, stumbles into a role as Cutter’s sidekick. And clever young journalist Octavia Hillingdon sees the case as a chance to tell a story that matters—despite her employer’s preference that she stick to a women’s society column. As Inspector Cutter peels back the mystery layer by layer, he leads them all, at last, to the secrets that lie hidden at the house on Vesper Sands.
J’avais hâte de pouvoir le lire, car il avait de bons arguments : un policier historique, la période victorienne, un meurtre qui semble mettre en oeuvre des forces occultes… Mais au bout d’un gros tiers, l’intrigue n’a toujours pas démarré et le livre commence à devenir trop lent et mon attention descendait en flèche. Même en dépassant la centaine de pages, je n’avais pas le sentiment que l’intrigue avait réellement commencé alors que quasiment un tiers était lu.
The Heiress, The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh – Molly Greeley
As a fussy baby, Anne de Bourgh’s doctor prescribed laudanum to quiet her, and now the young woman must take the opium-heavy tincture every day. Growing up sheltered and confined, removed from sunshine and fresh air, the pale and overly slender Anne grew up with few companions except her cousins, including Fitzwilliam Darcy. Throughout their childhoods, it was understood that Darcy and Anne would marry and combine their vast estates of Pemberley and Rosings. But Darcy does not love Anne or want her.
After her father dies unexpectedly, leaving her his vast fortune, Anne has a moment of clarity: what if her life of fragility and illness isn’t truly real? What if she could free herself from the medicine that clouds her sharp mind and leaves her body weak and lethargic? Might there be a better life without the medicine she has been told she cannot live without?
In a frenzy of desperation, Anne discards her laudanum and flees to the London home of her cousin, Colonel John Fitzwilliam, who helps her through her painful recovery. Yet once she returns to health, new challenges await. Shy and utterly inexperienced, the wealthy heiress must forge a new identity for herself, learning to navigate a “season” in society and the complexities of love and passion. The once wan, passive Anne gives way to a braver woman with a keen edge—leading to a powerful reckoning with the domineering mother determined to control Anne’s fortune . . . and her life.
Le livre prend place dans l’univers de Jane Austen et notamment Pride & Prejudice, en s’intéressant à la cousine de Fitzwilliam Darcy, Anne de Bourgh. Pas un coup de coeur car, malheureusement, le roman souffre de trop nombreuses longueurs. Cependant, Anne est un personnage attachant à suivre, surtout quand elle sort de son cocon. L’aspect historique est également bien développé.
Lore – Alexandra Bracken
Every seven years, the Agon begins. As punishment for a past rebellion, nine Greek gods are forced to walk the earth as mortals, hunted by the descendants of ancient bloodlines, all eager to kill a god and seize their divine power and immortality.
Long ago, Lore Perseous fled that brutal world in the wake of her family’s sadistic murder by a rival line, turning her back on the hunt’s promises of eternal glory. For years she’s pushed away any thought of revenge against the man–now a god–responsible for their deaths.
Yet as the next hunt dawns over New York City, two participants seek out her help: Castor, a childhood friend of Lore believed long dead, and a gravely wounded Athena, among the last of the original gods.
The goddess offers an alliance against their mutual enemy and, at last, a way for Lore to leave the Agon behind forever. But Lore’s decision to bind her fate to Athena’s and rejoin the hunt will come at a deadly cost–and still may not be enough to stop the rise of a new god with the power to bring humanity to its knees.
Lore est un roman d’action qui s’inspire de la mythologie grecque. Ce n’est pas totalement un coup de coeur, mais j’ai vraiment passé un bon moment. Il y a une bonne dose d’actions, de rebondissements… L’idée de départ est originale et bien développée.
Don’t tell a soul – Kirsten Miller
All Bram wanted was to disappear—from her old life, her family’s past, and from the scandal that continues to haunt her. The only place left to go is Louth, the tiny town on the Hudson River where her uncle, James, has been renovating an old mansion. But James is haunted by his own ghosts. Months earlier, his beloved wife died in a fire that people say was set by her daughter. The tragedy left James a shell of the man Bram knew—and destroyed half the house he’d so lovingly restored.
The manor is creepy, and so are the locals. The people of Louth don’t want outsiders like Bram in their town, and with each passing day she’s discovering that the rumors they spread are just as disturbing as the secrets they hide. Most frightening of all are the legends they tell about the Dead Girls. Girls whose lives were cut short in the very house Bram now calls home. The terrifying reality is that the Dead Girls may have never left the manor. And if Bram looks too hard into the town’s haunted past, she might not either.
En un seul mot… Creepy. L’histoire est dérangeante à souhaite et il y a quelques moments qui font bien frissonner. Il m’est arrivé à plusieurs reprises de devoir le mettre de côté, quand j’étais toute seule en soirée. L’auteur maîtrise parfaitement le suspens et à chaque page tournée, je voulais connaître la vérité, car il y avait quelques bizarreries qui interviennent durant la lecture… J’ai adoré l’évolution de l’intrigue et le livre est un coup de coeur.
Ceux que j’aimerais lire
Our darkest night de Jennifer Robson ; The Divines d’Ellie Eaton ; The last garden in England de Julia Kelly ; Faye, faraway d’Helen Fisher ; The Historians de Cecilia Eckbäck ; In the garden of spite de Camilla Bruce ; The Children’s train de Viola Ardone.
Février
Livres lus
The Paris Dressmaker – Kristy Cambron
Paris, 1939. Maison Chanel has closed, thrusting haute couture dressmaker Lila de Laurent out of the world of high fashion as Nazi soldiers invade the streets and the City of Lights slips into darkness. Lila’s life is now a series of rations, brutal restrictions, and carefully controlled propaganda while Paris is cut off from the rest of the world. Yet in hidden corners of the city, the faithful pledge to resist. Lila is drawn to La Resistance and is soon using her skills as a dressmaker to infiltrate the Nazi elite. She takes their measurements and designs masterpieces, all while collecting secrets in the glamorous Hôtel Ritz—the heart of the Nazis’ Parisian headquarters. But when dashing René Touliard suddenly reenters her world, Lila finds her heart tangled between determination to help save his Jewish family and bolstering the fight for liberation.
Paris, 1943. Sandrine Paquet’s job is to catalog the priceless works of art bound for the Führer’s Berlin, masterpieces stolen from prominent Jewish families. But behind closed doors, she secretly forages for information from the underground resistance. Beneath her compliant façade lies a woman bent on uncovering the fate of her missing husband . . . but at what cost? As Hitler’s regime crumbles, Sandrine is drawn in deeper when she uncrates an exquisite blush Chanel gown concealing a cryptic message that may reveal the fate of a dressmaker who vanished from within the fashion elite.
Je ressors extrêmement déçue par ce roman. En soi, il avait de quoi me plaire : la mode et plus particulièrement la Maison Chanel, Paris sous l’Occupation, la Résistance et le destin de deux femmes… Malheureusement, l’auteur alterne non seulement les deux points de vue, et deux époques différentes : le début de la guerre et 1944. Cela fait quatre trames différentes, et elles ne sont pas d’égal intérêt. J’ai eu du mal à m’attacher à Simone et Lila.
The Shadow War – Lindsay Smith
World War II is raging, and five teens are looking to make a mark. Daniel and Rebeka seek revenge against the Nazis who slaughtered their family; Simone is determined to fight back against the oppressors who ruined her life and corrupted her girlfriend; Phillip aims to prove that he’s better than his worst mistakes; and Liam is searching for a way to control the portal to the shadow world he’s uncovered, and the monsters that live within it–before the Nazi regime can do the same. When the five meet, and begrudgingly team up, in the forests of Germany, none of them knows what their future might hold.
As they race against time, war, and enemies from both this world and another, Liam, Daniel, Rebeka, Phillip, and Simone know that all they can count on is their own determination and will to survive. With their world turned upside down, and the shadow realm looming ominously large–and threateningly close–the course of history and the very fate of humanity rest in their hands. Still, the most important question remains: Will they be able to save it?
Il y a de bonnes idées : la Seconde Guerre mondiale, des forces occultes et un monde parallèle, une mission impossible… L’intrigue possède beaucoup trop de personnages et de points de vues différents pour que la lecture soit agréable. Je m’y perdais. Par ailleurs, les personnages sont plus des archétypes que réellement travaillés et nuancés. L’histoire traine en longueur alors que je m’attendais à plus d’action.
The Witch’s Heart – Genevieve Gornichec
Angrboda’s story begins where most witches’ tales end: with a burning. A punishment from Odin for refusing to provide him with knowledge of the future, the fire leaves Angrboda injured and powerless, and she flees into the farthest reaches of a remote forest. There she is found by a man who reveals himself to be Loki, and her initial distrust of him transforms into a deep and abiding love.
Their union produces three unusual children, each with a secret destiny, who Angrboda is keen to raise at the edge of the world, safely hidden from Odin’s all-seeing eye. But as Angrboda slowly recovers her prophetic powers, she learns that her blissful life—and possibly all of existence—is in danger.
With help from the fierce huntress Skadi, with whom she shares a growing bond, Angrboda must choose whether she’ll accept the fate that she’s foreseen for her beloved family…or rise to remake their future. From the most ancient of tales this novel forges a story of love, loss, and hope for the modern age.
J’adore les réécritures, que ce soit de contes ou de la mythologique. Genevieve Gornichec s’inspire d’une des épouses de Loki, Angrboda la sorcière. Ce type d’ouvrages se veut dans une lignée féministe, mais il rate quelque peu son effet. J’en ai lu la moitié avant d’abandonner. Le livre a été d’un tel ennui que je suis même étonnée d’avoir eu la patience de tenir jusque là.
Ceux que j’aimerais lire
While Paris slept de Ruth Druart ; The house upstairs de Julia Fine ; The invisible woman d’Erika Robuck ; A history of what come next de Sylvain Neuvel ; All Girls d’Emily Layden ; The kitchen front de Jennifer Ryan.
Mars
Livres lus
After Alice felll – Kim Taylor Blakemore
New Hampshire, 1865. Marion Abbott is summoned to Brawders House asylum to collect the body of her sister, Alice. She’d been found dead after falling four stories from a steep-pitched roof. Officially: an accident. Confidentially: suicide. But Marion believes a third option: murder.
Returning to her family home to stay with her brother and his second wife, the recently widowed Marion is expected to quiet her feelings of guilt and grief—to let go of the dead and embrace the living. But that’s not easy in this house full of haunting memories. Just when the search for the truth seems hopeless, a stranger approaches Marion with chilling words: I saw her fall.
Now Marion is more determined than ever to find out what happened that night at Brawders, and why. With no one she can trust, Marion may risk her own life to uncover the secrets buried with Alice in the family plot.
Un roman rempli de secrets de famille avec une atmosphère loure. Malgré quelques lenteurs qui peuvent parfois ponctuer le livre, les pages se tournent facilement, car l’envie de savoir ce qui est arrivé à Alice est plus forte, tout comme celle de découvrir le ou les secrets du frère de Marion et de son épouse. Pas un coup de coeur, mais une bonne lecture.
The Women of Château Lafayette – Stephanie Dray
A founding mother…
1774. Gently-bred noblewoman Adrienne Lafayette becomes her husband’s political partner in the fight for American independence. But when their idealism sparks revolution in France and the guillotine threatens everything she holds dear, Adrienne must choose to renounce the complicated man she loves, or risk her life for a legacy that will inspire generations to come.
A daring visionary…
1914. Glittering New York socialite Beatrice Astor Chanler is a force of nature, daunted by nothing–not her humble beginnings, her crumbling marriage, or the outbreak of war. But after witnessing the devastation in France and delivering war-relief over dangerous seas, Beatrice takes on the challenge of a lifetime: convincing America to fight for what’s right.
A reluctant resistor…
1940. French school-teacher and aspiring artist Marthe Simone has an orphan’s self-reliance and wants nothing to do with war. But as the realities of Nazi occupation transform her life in the isolated castle where she came of age, she makes a discovery that calls into question who she is, and more importantly, who she is willing to become.
Lafayette revient à la mode après la sortie de la comédie musicale Hamilton. Stephanie Dray en fait l’élément central de son nouveau roman en explorant le destin de trois femmes durant la Révolution française, la Première et la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. Même si les époques sont totalement différentes pour ne pas être confondues, certaines sont plus intéressantes que d’autres. Néanmoins, cela reste un livre que j’ai abandonné.
Ceux que j’aimerais lire
Under the light of the Italian moon de Jennifer Anton ; Vera de Carol Edgarian ; The lost village de Camilla Sten ; The Rose Code de Kate Quinn ; The lost apothecary de Sarah Penner.
Avril
Livres lus
Sistersong – Lucy Holland
535 AD. In the ancient kingdom of Dumnonia, King Cador’s children inherit a fragmented land abandoned by the Romans.
Riva, scarred in a terrible fire, fears she will never heal.
Keyne battles to be seen as the king’s son, when born a daughter.
And Sinne, the spoiled youngest girl, yearns for romance.
All three fear a life of confinement within the walls of the hold – a last bastion of strength against the invading Saxons. But change comes on the day ash falls from the sky, bringing Myrddhin, meddler and magician, and Tristan, a warrior whose secrets will tear the siblings apart. Riva, Keyne and Sinne must take fate into their own hands, or risk being tangled in a story they could never have imagined; one of treachery, love and ultimately, murder. It’s a story that will shape the destiny of Britain.
Le résumé me faisait penser à une pièce de Shakespeare : trois soeurs aux destins différentes et dramatiques. J’ai adoré suivre l’histoire de ces soeurs, d’apprendre à les connaître, leurs secrets, leurs rêves et leurs espoirs. Elles sont différentes et je ne saurai dire laquelle a été ma préférée. Elles m’ont plu pour des raisons diverses. J’ai adoré à la fois le contexte historique (la Grande-Bretagne après la chute de l’Empire romain) et fantastique (la présence de magie et de Merlin). Le coup de coeur n’était pas loin, mais c’est un très bon roman que je ne regrette pas d’avoir découvert.
Ceux que j’aimerais lire
Ariadne de Jennifer Saint ; Near the bone de Christina Henry ; Ophelia de Norman Bacal ; The Mary Shelley Club de Goldy Moldavsky ; The last bookshop of London de Madeline Martin ; The Dictionnary of lost words de Pip Williams.
Mai
Ceux que j’aimerais lire
The Radio Operator d’Ulla Lenze ; Madam de Phoebe Wynne ; The lights of Prague de Nicole Jarvis.
Juin
Ceux que j’aimerais lire
The Wolf and the Woodsman d’Ava Reid ; Daughter of Sparta de Claire M. Andrews ; The nature of the witches de Rachel Griffin ; The Maidens d’Alex Michaelides ; For the Wolf d’Hannah F. Whitten.
Top 5 Wednesday • Recent purchases
Thème : Recent purchases
Voilà un autre thème qui m’inspire pour ce mois-ci. La question posée est quels sont les cinq livres que j’ai récemment acheté et que je suis excitée à l’idée de lire ou que j’ai aimé. Ça tombe bien, car j’ai refait mon stock le mois dernier en allant dans mes librairies strasbourgeoises préférées et en passant dans plusieurs Emmaüs. Certains ont déjà été lus, mais j’ai surtout envie de parler de ceux qui ne le sont pas encore, mais qui me tentent énormément.
La famille Karnovski – Israel Joshua Singer
La famille Karnovski retrace le destin de trois générations d’une famille juive qui décide de quitter la Pologne pour s’installer en Allemagne à l’aube de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Comment Jegor, fils d’un père juif et d’une mère aryenne, trouvera-t-il sa place dans un monde où la montée du nazisme est imminente?
Publié en 1943 alors que les nazis massacrent les communautés juives en Europe, le roman d’Israël Joshua Singer est hanté par ces tragiques circonstances et par la volonté de démêler le destin complexe de son peuple.
En 2021, j’avais très envie de découvrir la littérature israélienne que je ne connais absolument pas. J’ouvre le bal avec cette saga familiale, adorant ce genre de récits en temps normal. Il me tarde de le lire et il ne restera pas très longtemps dans ma PAL.
Sistersong – Lucy Holland
535 AD. In the ancient kingdom of Dumnonia, King Cador’s children inherit a fragmented land abandoned by the Romans.
Riva, scarred in a terrible fire, fears she will never heal.
Keyne battles to be seen as the king’s son, when born a daughter.
And Sinne, the spoiled youngest girl, yearns for romance.
All three fear a life of confinement within the walls of the hold – a last bastion of strength against the invading Saxons. But change comes on the day ash falls from the sky, bringing Myrddhin, meddler and magician, and Tristan, a warrior whose secrets will tear the siblings apart. Riva, Keyne and Sinne must take fate into their own hands, or risk being tangled in a story they could never have imagined; one of treachery, love and ultimately, murder. It’s a story that will shape the destiny of Britain.
Je l’avais déjà remarqué et il était présent dans un de mes articles sur les sorties VO. Cette histoire m’intrigue énormément et je suis totalement fan de cette couverture, de cette Bretagne magique et mythique. Je triche un peu, mais je suis déjà plongée dedans et j’en ai lu la moitié. Intriguant et, pour le moment, j’aime beaucoup.
Sumerki – Dmitry Glukhovsky
Quand Dmitry Alexeïevitch, traducteur désargenté, insiste auprès de son agence pour obtenir un nouveau contrat, il ne se doute pas que sa vie en sera bouleversée. Le traducteur en charge du premier chapitre ne donnant plus de nouvelles, c’est un étrange texte qui lui échoit : le récit d’une expédition dans les forêts inexplorées du Yucatán au XVIe siècle, armée par le prêtre franciscain Diego de Landa. Et les chapitres lui en sont remis au compte-gouttes par un mystérieux commanditaire.
Aussi, quand l’employé de l’agence est sauvagement assassiné et que les périls relatés dans le document s’immiscent dans son quotidien, Dmitry Alexeïevitch prend peur. Dans les ombres du passé, les dieux et les démons mayas se sont-ils acharnés à protéger un savoir interdit ? A moins, bien entendu, que le manuscrit espagnol ne lui ait fait perdre la raison. Alors que le monde autour de lui est ravagé par des ouragans, des séismes et des tsunamis, le temps est compté pour découvrir la vérité.
Un auteur qui m’a largement été recommandé, surtout pour sa série Métro. Cependant, n’ayant pas envie de me lancer dans une nouvelle série alors que j’essaie d’en terminer un maximum, j’ai préféré choisir ce titre qui semble plus être un thriller ésotérique, ma marotte du moment.
Richard Oppenheimer, La vengeance des cendres – Harald Gilbers
Berlin, hiver 1946, le plus froid que la capitale ait connu au XXe siècle. La guerre est certes finie mais l’Allemagne commence à peine à panser ses plaies, et les Berlinois manquent de tout, surtout de nourriture. Dans cette atmosphère très tendue, des corps mutilés font mystérieusement surface aux quatre coins de la ville. Chacun a la peau couverte de mots écrits à l’encre, et une liste de noms inconnus fourrée dans la bouche. Le commissaire Oppenheimer est alors mobilisé pour mener l’enquête et découvre vite un point commun entre ces morts : ils avaient tous collaboré avec le régime nazi. À Oppenheimer de parvenir à retracer le passé du tueur, et à anticiper ses prochains meurtres.
Déjà le quatrième tome de cette série que j’aime beaucoup. Il me tardait de connaître la suite des aventures de Richard Oppenheimer. Le cinquième est sorti récemment en grand format.
La Sorcière – Jules Michelet
Michelet sait prêter sa voix aux parias du passé, à ceux qui n’ont pas eu d’histoire. À travers les siècles la femme tient-elle donc toujours le même rôle, celui de la mal aimée ? En embrassant d’un seul regard toute l’étendue du Moyen Âge, de la Renaissance et du Grand Siècle, Michelet discerne pour la première fois la suite rigoureuse d’une tragédie dont l’héroïne serait une femme à la fois révérée et persécutée : la sorcière.
La figure de la sorcière me fascine. J’avais adoré l’essai de Mona Chollet, Sorcières ! La puissance invaincue des femmes, que je recommande chaudement. J’avais très envie de découvrir celui de Michelet, qui date certes un peu, car il est publié pour la première fois en 1862, mais qui a fait autorité pendant longtemps. La recherche a depuis évolué sur le sujet.
Sorties VO • Avril 2021
Le mois d’avril est rempli de nouvelles parutions plus prometteuses les unes que les autres avec des réécritures de la mythologie grecque, la publication d’un nouveau roman pour une auteur que j’adore, Christina Henry, des ouvrages autour de la Seconde Guerre mondiale qui ont l’air passionnant (dont une réécriture d’Hamlet qui est une de mes pièces de théâtre préférée)… Laquelle de ces nouvelles sorties VO vous fait le plus envie ?
Eva & Eve: A Search for My Mother’s Lost Childhood and What a War Left Behind • Julie Metz • Atria Books • 6 avril • 320 pages
To Julie Metz, her mother, Eve, was the quintessential New Yorker. Eve rarely spoke about her childhood and it was difficult to imagine her living anywhere else except Manhattan, where she could be found attending Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera or inspecting a round of French triple crème at Zabar’s.
In truth, Eve had endured a harrowing childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna. After her mother passed, Julie discovered a keepsake book filled with farewell notes from friends and relatives addressed to a ten-year-old girl named Eva. This long-hidden memento was the first clue to the secret pain that Julie’s mother had carried as a refugee and immigrant, shining a light on a family that had to persevere at every turn to escape the antisemitism and xenophobia that threatened their survival.
Interweaving personal memoir and family history, Eva and Evevividly traces one woman’s search for her mother’s lost childhood while revealing the resilience of our forebears and the sacrifices that ordinary people are called to make during history’s darkest hours.
Ariadne • Jennifer Saint • Wildfire • 29 avril • 400 pages
As Princesses of Crete and daughters of the fearsome King Minos, Ariadne and her sister Phaedra grow up hearing the hoofbeats and bellows of the Minotaur echo from the Labyrinth beneath the palace. The Minotaur – Minos’s greatest shame and Ariadne’s brother – demands blood every year.
When Theseus, Prince of Athens, arrives in Crete as a sacrifice to the beast, Ariadne falls in love with him. But helping Theseus kill the monster means betraying her family and country, and Ariadne knows only too well that in a world ruled by mercurial gods – drawing their attention can cost you everything.
In a world where women are nothing more than the pawns of powerful men, will Ariadne’s decision to betray Crete for Theseus ensure her happy ending? Or will she find herself sacrificed for her lover’s ambition?
Near the bones • Christina Henry • Berkley Books • 13 avril • 331 pages
Mattie can’t remember a time before she and William lived alone on a mountain together. She must never make him upset. But when Mattie discovers the mutilated body of a fox in the woods, she realizes that they’re not alone after all.
There’s something in the woods that wasn’t there before, something that makes strange cries in the night, something with sharp teeth and claws.
When three strangers appear on the mountaintop looking for the creature in the woods, Mattie knows their presence will anger William. Terrible things happen when William is angry.
Sistersong • Lucy Holland • MacMillan • 15 avril • 400 pages
535 AD. In the ancient kingdom of Dumnonia, King Cador’s children inherit a fragmented land abandoned by the Romans.
Riva, scarred in a terrible fire, fears she will never heal.
Keyne battles to be seen as the king’s son, when born a daughter.
And Sinne, the spoiled youngest girl, yearns for romance.
All three fear a life of confinement within the walls of the hold – a last bastion of strength against the invading Saxons. But change comes on the day ash falls from the sky, bringing Myrddhin, meddler and magician, and Tristan, a warrior whose secrets will tear the siblings apart. Riva, Keyne and Sinne must take fate into their own hands, or risk being tangled in a story they could never have imagined; one of treachery, love and ultimately, murder. It’s a story that will shape the destiny of Britain.
Ophelia • Norman Bacal • Barlow Books • 15 avril • 312 pages
To be or not to be, that is the question Ophelia faces in this Hamlet modernization.
The story opens in Nazi-occupied Denmark: a fisherman and his son risk their lives on dark, stormy seas to transport the family of a Jewish merchant to safety. When the fisherman refuses any reward, the merchant makes a vow that will transcend generations.
Sixty years later the fisherman’s son, Geri Neilson has built an international pharmaceutical company. When Geri dies in mysterious circumstances, his son Tal is convinced that Geri’s business partner, Red King, orchestrated murder as part of a scheme to take control of the company. Geri’s voice in Tal’s head, urges him to fight for the legacy and seek vengeance.
Enter Ophelia, the granddaughter of the merchant Geri and his father saved. She is sworn to protect Tal without his knowledge, in accordance with the vow that has become a secret family obsession.
And she’s been trained to risk her life to do it.
The battles between good and evil, addiction and independence, ambition and love, play out in an international epic. Twists and turns abound in this study of obsession, secrecy, romance, and duty to family.
The Venice sketchbook • Rhys Bowen • Lake Union Publishing • 13 avril • 412 pages
Caroline Grant is struggling to accept the end of her marriage when she receives an unexpected bequest. Her beloved great-aunt Lettie leaves her a sketchbook, three keys, and a final whisper…Venice. Caroline’s quest: to scatter Juliet “Lettie” Browning’s ashes in the city she loved and to unlock the mysteries stored away for more than sixty years.
It’s 1938 when art teacher Juliet Browning arrives in romantic Venice. For her students, it’s a wealth of history, art, and beauty. For Juliet, it’s poignant memories and a chance to reconnect with Leonardo Da Rossi, the man she loves whose future is already determined by his noble family. However star-crossed, nothing can come between them. Until the threat of war closes in on Venice and they’re forced to fight, survive, and protect a secret that will bind them forever.
Key by key, Lettie’s life of impossible love, loss, and courage unfolds. It’s one that Caroline can now make right again as her own journey of self-discovery begins.
Courage, my love ! • Kristin Beck • Berkley Books • 13 avril • 336 pages
Rome, 1943
Lucia Colombo has had her doubts about fascism for years, but as a single mother in an increasingly unstable country, politics are for other people–she needs to focus on keeping herself and her son alive. Then the Italian government falls and the German occupation begins, and suddenly, Lucia finds that complacency is no longer an option.
Francesca Gallo has always been aware of injustice and suffering. A polio survivor who lost her father when he was arrested for his anti-fascist politics, she came to Rome with her fiancé to start a new life. But when the Germans invade and her fiancé is taken by the Nazis, Francesca decides she has only one option: to fight back.
As Lucia and Francesca are pulled deeper into the struggle against the Nazi occupation, both women learn to resist alongside the partisans to drive the Germans from Rome. But as winter sets in, the occupation tightens its grip on the city, and the resistance is in constant danger.
The Passenger • Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz • Metropolitan Books • 13 avril (réédition d’un livre de 1939) • 288 pages
Berlin, November 1938. Jewish shops have been ransacked and looted, synagogues destroyed. As storm troopers pound on his door, Otto Silbermann, a respected businessman who fought for Germany in the Great War, is forced to sneak out the back of his own home. Turned away from establishments he had long patronized, and fearful of being exposed as a Jew despite his Aryan looks, he boards a train.
And then another. And another . . . until his flight becomes a frantic odyssey across Germany, as he searches first for information, then for help, and finally for escape. His travels bring him face-to-face with waiters and conductors, officials and fellow outcasts, seductive women and vicious thieves, a few of whom disapprove of the regime while the rest embrace it wholeheartedly.
Clinging to his existence as it was just days before, Silbermann refuses to believe what is happening even as he is beset by opportunists, betrayed by associates, and bereft of family, friends, and fortune. As his world collapses around him, he is forced to concede that his nightmare is all too real.
The Mary Shelley Club • Goldy Moldavsky • Henry Holt & Company • 13 avril • 480 pages
New girl Rachel Chavez is eager to make a fresh start at Manchester Prep. But as one of the few scholarship kids, Rachel struggles to fit in, and when she gets caught up in a prank gone awry, she ends up with more enemies than friends.
To her surprise, however, the prank attracts the attention of the Mary Shelley Club, a secret club of students with one objective: come up with the scariest prank to orchestrate real fear. But as the pranks escalate, the competition turns cutthroat and takes on a life of its own.
When the tables are turned and someone targets the club itself, Rachel must track down the real-life monster in their midst . . . even if it means finally confronting the dark secrets from her past.
The last night in London • Karen White • Berkley Books • 20 avril • 480 pages
London, 1939. Beautiful and ambitious Eva Harlow and her American best friend, Precious Dubose, are trying to make their way as fashion models. When Eva falls in love with Graham St. John, an aristocrat and Royal Air Force pilot, she can’t believe her luck – she’s getting everything she ever wanted. Then the Blitz devastates her world, and Eva finds herself slipping into a web of intrigue, spies and secrets. As Eva struggles to protect everything she holds dear, all it takes is one unwary moment to change their lives forever.
London, 2019. American journalist Maddie Warner travels to London to interview Precious about her life in pre-WWII London. Maddie, healing from past trauma and careful to close herself off to others, finds herself drawn to both Precious and to Colin, Precious’ enigmatic surrogate nephew. As Maddie gets closer to her, she begins to unravel Precious’ haunting past – and the secrets she swore she’d never reveal…
Lost in Paris • Elizabeth Thompson • Gallery Books • 13 avril • 352 pages
Hannah Bond has always been a bookworm, which is why she fled Florida—and her unstable, alcoholic mother—for a quiet life leading Jane Austen-themed tours through the British countryside. But on New Year’s Eve, everything comes crashing down when she arrives back at her London flat to find her mother, Marla, waiting for her.
Marla’s brought two things with her: a black eye from her ex-boyfriend and an envelope. Its contents? The deed to an apartment in Paris, an old key, and newspaper clippings about the death of a famous writer named Andres Armand. Hannah, wary of her mother’s motives, reluctantly agrees to accompany her to Paris, where against all odds, they discover great-grandma Ivy’s apartment frozen in 1940 and covered in dust.
Inside the apartment, Hannah and Marla discover mysterious clues about Ivy’s life—including a diary detailing evenings of drinking and dancing with Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, and other iconic expats. Outside, they retrace her steps through the city in an attempt to understand why she went to such great lengths to hide her Paris identity from future generations.
The Divide, The last watch • J.S. Dewes • Tor Books • 20 avril • 480 pages
The Divide.
It’s the edge of the universe.
Now it’s collapsing—and taking everyone and everything with it.
The only ones who can stop it are the Sentinels—the recruits, exiles, and court-martialed dregs of the military.
At the Divide, Adequin Rake, commanding the Argus, has no resources, no comms—nothing, except for the soldiers that no one wanted.
They’re humanity’s only chance.
Churchill’s secret messenger • Alan Hlad • John Scognamiglio Book • 27 avril • 304 pages
London, 1941: In a cramped bunker in Winston Churchill’s Cabinet War Rooms, underneath Westminster’s Treasury building, civilian women huddle at desks, typing up confidential documents and reports. Since her parents were killed in a bombing raid, Rose Teasdale has spent more hours than usual in Room 60, working double shifts, growing accustomed to the burnt scent of the Prime Minister’s cigars permeating the stale air. Winning the war is the only thing that matters, and she will gladly do her part. And when Rose’s fluency in French comes to the attention of Churchill himself, it brings a rare yet dangerous opportunity.
Rose is recruited for the Special Operations Executive, a secret British organization that conducts espionage in Nazi-occupied Europe. After weeks of grueling training, Rose parachutes into France with a new codename: Dragonfly. Posing as a cosmetics saleswoman in Paris, she ferries messages to and from the Resistance, knowing that the slightest misstep means capture or death.
Soon Rose is assigned to a new mission with Lazare Aron, a French Resistance fighter who has watched his beloved Paris become a shell of itself, with desolate streets and buildings draped in Swastikas. Since his parents were sent to a German work camp, Lazare has dedicated himself to the cause with the same fervor as Rose. Yet Rose’s very loyalty brings risks as she undertakes a high-stakes prison raid, and discovers how much she may have to sacrifice to justify Churchill’s faith in her…
The End of Men • Christina Sweeney-Baird • Double Day Canada • 27 avril • 416 pages
The year is 2025, and a mysterious virus has broken out in Scotland–a lethal illness that seems to affect only men. When Dr. Amanda MacLean reports this phenomenon, she is dismissed as hysterical. By the time her warning is heeded, it is too late. The virus becomes a global pandemic–and a political one. The victims are all men. The world becomes alien–a women’s world.
What follows is the immersive account of the women who have been left to deal with the virus’s consequences, told through first-person narratives. Dr. MacLean; Catherine, a social historian determined to document the human stories behind the male plague; intelligence analyst Dawn, tasked with helping the government forge a new society; and Elizabeth, one of many scientists desperately working to develop a vaccine. Through these women and others, we see the uncountable ways the absence of men has changed society, from the personal–the loss of husbands and sons–to the political–the changes in the workforce, fertility and the meaning of family.
The last bookshop in London • Madeline Martin • Hanover Square Press • 6 avril • 320 pages
August 1939: London prepares for war as Hitler’s forces sweep across Europe. Grace Bennett has always dreamed of moving to the city, but the bunkers and blackout curtains that she finds on her arrival were not what she expected. And she certainly never imagined she’d wind up working at Primrose Hill, a dusty old bookshop nestled in the heart of London.
Through blackouts and air raids as the Blitz intensifies, Grace discovers the power of storytelling to unite her community in ways she never dreamed—a force that triumphs over even the darkest nights of the war.
The Dictionary of lost words • Pip Williams • Ballantine Books • 6 avril • 400 pages
Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the « Scriptorium, » a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word « bondmaid » flutters to the floor. She rescues the slip, and when she learns that the word means slave-girl, she withholds it from the OED and begins to collect words that show women in a more positive light.
As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and common folks’ experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.
The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos • Judy Batalion • William Morrow • 6 avril • 560 pages
Witnesses to the brutal murder of their families and neighbors and the violent destruction of their communities, a cadre of Jewish women in Poland—some still in their teens—helped transform the Jewish youth groups into resistance cells to fight the Nazis. With courage, guile, and nerves of steel, these “ghetto girls” paid off Gestapo guards, hid revolvers in loaves of bread and jars of marmalade, and helped build systems of underground bunkers. They flirted with German soldiers, bribed them with wine, whiskey, and home cooking, used their Aryan looks to seduce them, and shot and killed them. They bombed German train lines and blew up a town’s water supply. They also nursed the sick and taught children.
Yet the exploits of these courageous resistance fighters have remained virtually unknown.
Autumn & Latte 