WWW Wednesday – June 18

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading Two New Books

I am listening to Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister (2025), which starts with a bang. It’s Camilla’s first day back at work after her maternity leave (do women usually get nine months in Britain or is her employer very generous?) but, before she’s even had time for coffee, she learns her husband has taken three people hostage in a London warehouse. She is a sympathetic character in a horrific situation.

Emily Henry is getting a lot of attention (a big NYT article and another from People) for her new book, Great Big Beautiful Life (2025). Alice Scott is an eternal optimist, dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on Little Crescent Island for the same reason: to write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. With which of them will she choose to share her secrets?

Just finished

Late last night I finished To Die For by David Baldacci (2025), third in a series about Travis Devine. Travis is a former Army Ranger-turned investment banker-turned Homeland Security operative and, in this book, he is sent to the Pacific Northwest to help guard a girl whose parents have just been murdered.

I also recently finished Out of Bounds by Val McDermid (2016), which reveals Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie at her most persistent, trying to connect a seeming suicide with a cold case from nearly 20 years ago and, as usual, outsmarting the boss who dislikes her. Karen is also suffering from a terrible loss and work is the only thing that distracts her from her grief.  I don't like all her books but I am enjoying this series.

Up Next

I’ve been meaning to read The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson since it came out last year so suggested it for my July book group. I loved The Splendid and the Vile and Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania. This book focuses on five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War—a slow-burning crisis that finally tore a deeply divided nation in two. Larson’s editor was the commencement speaker at my nephew’s high school graduation last month and spoke eloquently about the importance of reading.

I also intend to read Old Baggage by Lissa Evans (2018). I really enjoyed Small Bomb at Dimperley and was intrigued by the description of this book – the heroine is a former Suffragette still giving lectures about the movement, although it is now 1928. It was not until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 that British women over 21 were able to vote and women finally achieved the same voting rights as men. This act increased the number of women eligible to vote to 15 million.

This is sort of a bestseller week.  What are you reading this week?