blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Ales & Alibis – Tobi Doyle

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When the mayor turns up dead and a violent ghost haunts her basement, pub owner Wanda Atkins must solve a murder on one leg—literally. Spirits, secrets, and small-town scandal are all on tap in Ales and Alibis.

Wanda Atkins owns and works at her family pub, Pour Decisions, even after inheriting millions from the Prohibition Booze they discovered. Things should be easier now that sheʼs started her counseling practice, but money canʼt stop whatever malevolent entity is in her basement.

After the mayor is found dead in his own office, his wife, Wandaʼs first client, is the main suspect according to Wandaʼs boyfriend and deputy. Then, Wanda breaks her ankle after encountering the evil basement ghost.

Wanda must rely on her found family, her ghostly ancestors, and a little creative sleuthingto find a way to prove her clientʼs innocence and get rid of the whatever nonliving entity is in the basement.

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Tobi Doyle writes meet-cutes and mysteries. With a questionable internet search history, she writes to make mom-time more enjoyable. Margaritas are optional!

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My thoughts: This was a fun read, with a murder to solve, ghosts to wrangle and a puppy to walk, Guy is very cute and I loved the scene where he encounters snow and ice for the first time.

Wanda runs Pour Decisions with her mum and grandma, a bar that serves delicious food popular with the residents of Atkinsville, the town her ancestors founded. However, she and the other Atkins women aren’t exactly embraced by all because of their unusual talents  – Gran reads tarot, mum reads palms and Wanda sees and talks to ghosts. And the town is full of them.

When the mayor is found dead in his office, it’s foul play, and there are plenty of suspects – firstly his wife and daughter. He was well known as an adulterer, and the women in his life all had reason to kill him. But Wanda is pretty sure it wasn’t Alicia, his wife and her new therapy client.

Her boyfriend Jack, a sheriff’s deputy, won’t tell her how the investigation is going, but Wanda is running her own, with a little help from the not-so-recently deceased.

I liked the characters, the town seems very quirky, and the Atkins and their closest are very intriguing, the case was resolved very nicely and I am going to keep an eye out for the next book in the series.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

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Book Review: The Hiding Season – Ava Glass

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After a painful divorce, Maya Landry is in desperate need of a fresh start, which she finds deep in the Rocky Mountains of Montana. Maya’s relieved when she’s hired as a summer keeper of billionaire-owned ski lodges left empty after snow season ends, and her new life of peace and isolation is going exactly as hoped . . . until she stumbles across a dead body on the living room floor of one of the lodges. There’s no cell service on the resort, and by the time she’s able to find a signal and call the police, the body is gone. In fact, there’s no evidence a body was ever there at all.

The police think Maya is unstable, and she’s not convinced they are wrong. But later that night, a stranger walks up to her and tells her that someone knows she was up on the mountain that day, someone willing to kill to keep their secrets. She’s not sure whether to believe him . . . until the killers come for her in the dead of night. Maya narrowly escapes, only to find that same mysterious man waiting to rush her away. But can she trust him? Can she trust anyone?

Only one thing is certain: The people who committed the murder are coming for her. Maya is the only person alive who might reveal what happened up on the mountain. And they want her gone.

Dubbed ‘The new queen of spy fiction’ by The Guardian, ‘The real thing’ by the Washington Post and ‘A worthy heir to the James Bond mantle’ by James Patterson and shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger, Ava Glass is the UK’s leading female spy fiction writer and has sold over 2 million copies worldwide.

 The Hiding Season follows Ava Glass’ successful Emma Makepeace series, which included The Chase, The Trap, and her critically acclaimed 2023 thriller The Traitor, which wasa Grazia Book of the Month, a Washington Post Book of the Year, a Cosmopolitan Book of the Year and a Richard and Judy Book Club pick. Film rights to The Chase and The Traitor serieshave been acquired.

 Ava Glass’ spy novels are based on first-hand experience working with spies for the British government alongside several years working as an investigative journalist and crime reporter in America. One of vanishingly few female authors writing spy fiction, Ava Glass is breaking down the door to the most male-dominated genre in fiction.

 Ava Glass is an experienced broadcaster and a go-to talking head when something’s going on in the world of spies, and frequently appears on Sky News, BBC News and BBC Radio 4. She has also co-presented a true crime documentary TV series for Channel 4 and is a regular guest expert on current affairs podcasts.

My thoughts: This was a bit different from the other Ava Glass books which are about professional spies, instead the protagonist here is Maya Landry, whose job cleaning the holiday homes of very wealthy people in a private ski resort brings her into the orbit of a terrifying criminal mastermind who even the FBI can’t seem to bring down.

Maya sees something she very much shouldn’t have, and it means she has to run. FBI agent Riley appears at the local bar and tells her she needs to run, and he’ll help her.

A year later, having successfully laid low in Texas, some dangerous people turn up and she calls Riley for help. Now they’re on the run with both the FBI and the crime boss on their trail. Can things get any worse? Can Maya really trust Riley?

Gripping and full of moments of surprise, there are still questions Maya needs answers to, but first of all, she needs to stay alive and one step ahead of law enforcement and criminals.

I really liked Maya, she was genuinely in the wrong place at the wrong time – she doesn’t know who the victim was, or the killer. But that’s not enough it seems, and she has to go on the run, despite her innocence and ignorance. It’s only a mistake that puts her back into the sights of the people who want her dead. She has no choice but to trust Riley, and by extension his friend Amber, to help her, and they have their own agendas.

I enjoy Ava’s books, they’re fast paced and intelligent with interesting characters and compelling plots, and while this was very different from her Emma Makepeace books, it was very readable and I couldn’t put it down.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review but all opinions remain my own.

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Cover Reveal: Valaztein – Emilia Ramos

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We’re proud to present the cover for Valaztein, an upcoming dark fantasy release by Emilia Ramos!

Valaztein

Expected Release Date: August 23, 2026 (Paperback)

Genre: Dark Fantasy

What to Expect:
Enemies-to-Lovers
Dragons
World Travel
Sailboats
Slow Burn
Dark Magic
Found Family
Sirens
Royal Houses
Poetry & Music
Theaters, Grottos, & Enchanted Libraries



A kingdom whose deadliest secrets live only in its memories.

After two years, Naomi escapes the dungeons of the very castle where she was once a princess. Exiled and cursed with Dark magic, Naomi has one chance to retake her throne and save her kingdom from her tyrannous mother.

She crafts her crew—a curious array of thieves, assassins, and young royals. They sail to the edges of the known world in search of an army, from frozen fighting rings on the dark side of the moon to siren grottoes, dragon caverns, and camel races across upside-down deserts.

And then there’s Ez.

The man she loved… and the traitor whose choice lost her the last war.

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IG: @emiramsa @rrbooktours

Reveal organised by R&R Book Tours
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Blog Tour: The Secret Dressmaker – Jenny O’Brien

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Shelves of sequins in a kaleidoscope of colours. Bolts of silk and tulle against the back wall. The sewing room was the last place anyone had seen her daughter alive.

Northern Ireland, 1942. Flora Toussaint packs parachutes for the RAF, haunted by the twin daughters she was forced to give up eighteen years ago. When British intelligence shows her photographs of her girls – now young women in occupied Paris – her world shifts. One is safe. One
has vanished. And their father, the celebrated couturier Lucien Lumineau, is suspected of collaborating with the Nazis.

Flora agrees to a dangerous mission: parachute into France, pose as a seamstress at the Moulin Rouge, and uncover the truth. Lodging above a brothel where Edith Piaf sings after hours and where Pablo Picasso still holds court, she mends costumes between shows, searches for any trace of her missing daughter between curfews, and circles closer to Lucien.

But Lucien isn’t the man she remembers. Neither is their history. And what Flora discovers will unravel everything she thought she knew – about Lucien, about her daughters, and about the night
she gave them away.

A sweeping tale of wartime Paris, family secrets and impossible choices. Fans of Kate Quinn, Pam Jenoff and Kristin Hannah will be mesmerised by The Secret Dressmaker.

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Jenny O’Brien writes complex thrillers and heartbreaking historical fiction, as well as
intriguing romances. Silent Cry, initially self published, topped the Amazon kindle chart in both the UK and the USA. Most of her books have followed suit.

Jenny has over 40 years experience as a qualified nurse. She turned to creative writing as a hobby when her children were born. Now, 20 years later, she’s retired from the day job to focus on writing.
She’s currently working on the third book in the Threads Series.

Born in Ireland, she now lives in Guernsey with her husband and children.

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My thoughts: I really enjoyed this story of Flora, returning to her native France during the war, while Paris is under occupation in order to find out if her former lover, couturier Lucien Lumineau is a collaborator and what has happened to their daughters, the babies she handed over to him and his wife eighteen years ago.

Taking a job at the Moulin Rouge as a seamstress brings into the world one of her daughter’s Marguette inhabited as a performer, taking lodgings above a notorious brothel introduces her to Edith Piaf, living next door. Pablo Picasso is a close friend of Lucien’s and it is this glamorous, artistic world she once escaped.

But danger is always close, working undercover puts her in the path of the Nazi secret police, and one officer in particular seems keen to find her. Flora must be as careful as she possibly can to stay ahead of those who wish to stop her.

Intense and gripping, this feels more like a thriller than anything else, Flora’s life is in danger, as are her daughters the longer she remains in Paris, where dark secrets must come to light and she risks everything for the answers.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

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Cover Reveal: Black Ledger – Hazel St. Lewis

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Black Ledger (Furyverse: Volume 1)
Expected Release Date: September 24, 2026
Genre: Dark Romance/ Mafia

*Childhood Friends to Lovers to Enemies to Lovers
*Second-Chance Romance
*Female Serial Killer
*Ruthless Mafia Boss
*Cat & Mouse
*He’s Hunting Her—She’s Hunting Him
*She kidnaps him
*Obsessive MMC

They destroyed me, and they will die. 

Ten years ago, members of a powerful cult carved their sins into my body and called it holy. They thought I would disappear.

Instead, I learned how to break them.

I study my targets until I know how they breathe, whom they love, and what keeps them awake at night. Then I begin—quietly dismantling their lives until paranoia replaces sleep and fear replaces air. By the time I strike, they’re grateful to die. Every name goes into my black ledger. One name is saved for last.

Severin Volkov.

My ex. The heir to the Russian mafia and the man who betrayed me. When his turn comes, I won’t be merciful.

For years, powerful men in the Russian underworld have been disappearing without a trace. It looks random—until I inherit my father’s empire and uncover a pattern.

Someone is hunting us.

Whoever is behind it knows our secrets—and how to destroy us from the inside. I will find her. And when I do, she will learn exactly what kind of man I am. I expect resistance. I don’t expect obsession.

As the truth unravels about my father, my empire… and her, one thing becomes clear:

This war won’t end in surrender. It will end with one of us on our knees.

BLACK LEDGER is a dark romance featuring a female serial killer hunting the men who destroyed her life. This is an episodic series with five shorter books that combine to tell one larger story. Perfect for readers who loved the psychological intensity of the Mindfck Series* and the dark mafia power dynamics of the Dark Verse series.

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Content Warnings/Triggers:

Explicit sex, BDSM/dom-sub dynamics, rough sex, choking, toys, light stalking (the fun kind), sexy obsessive MMC, sexy obsessive FMC, hunter/prey, serial killer protagonist.


Kidnapping/captivity, confinement, restraint (not the fun kind), deprivation, rape/sexual assault (mentions, flashbacks and mostly fade to black, not by MMC), Torture (physical and psychological), severe trauma and PTSD, murder, embroidery (not the pretty kind), physical abuse, most of the sexual violence is backstory/flashback, not the main present-day plot.

Revenge Driven Triggers: murder/attempted murder, dismemberment, mutilation, gore, amateur surgery, actual surgery, multiple dick dismemberments, and gun, knife, and weapon violence.

IG: @hazelstlewis @rrbooktours 

Head to Instagram or TikTok to enter the giveaway.

TIKTOK: @hazelstlewis @rrbooktours

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Book Blitz: Rite of Unity – Caz Andra

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Rite of Unity
Release Date: August 6, 2026
Genre: Dystopian

The Bachelor meets The Handmaid’s Tale

• Dystopian
• Love Triangle
• Morally Grey Love Interest
• Deadly Trials
• Forbidden Romance
• Slow Burn
• Oppressive Patriarchal Society
• Arranged Matching
• Deadly Trials
• Not a traditional HEA
• Standalone

You have until twenty-eight to be chosen. Marry or die.

In the Covenant States, marriage isn’t a choice. It’s a countdown. Every woman is watched, ranked, and evaluated until a man selects her or her time runs out. 

Maryn Veil has always known the rules. She just never expected to be chosen by him.

When Elias Hale, the president’s son and the most powerful bachelor in the nation, selects her for his Rite of Unity, Maryn finds herself in a world of televised trials, formal balls, and twelve women competing for the same future. The prize is safety. The cost is everything she thought she was.

Elias is not what she expected. Thoughtful, genuine, and desperate to be better than his father, he’s the kind of man she could almost believe in. But someone else is watching from the shadows, and he sees Maryn far more clearly than she’s comfortable with.

As the trials tighten and the stakes become impossible to ignore, Maryn begins to understand that surviving the rite and surviving the Covenant are not the same thing. And that the most dangerous thing she can do, in a system built on compliance, is want something for herself.

Rite of Unity is a dystopian standalone with a slow-burn love triangle and a world where the wrong choice doesn’t just cost you everything. It erases you entirely.

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IG: @cassandra.aston.author @caz.andra.author @rrbooktours

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Blog Tour: Lost Souls – Paul A. Mendelson

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How could the scuzziest man in the world and the kindest woman alive ever fall in love?

Arnie Garth has it all. An LA porn empire, a gorgeous pornstar mistress and a legendary wife. Unfortunately, he has the morals of a sewer rat. And when he finds himself on his premature deathbed, he receives some unexpected news: he has no soul.

According to the Keeper of Souls, he was born without one. A heavenly clerical error. His was mistakenly given to the baby girl behind him in the queue – a sweet, selfless Englishwoman named Noreen Milburn, who now has two.

To avoid a fate worse than death, Arnie has just one week to find Noreen, fall genuinely in love with her, and make her fall for him too. No explanations. No shortcuts. Just real love.

The problem? Noreen is a sheep-loving Lake District shepherdess who prefers charity work to men, while Arnie’s world is full of porn stars, a furious wife and a hired hitman.

The route to true love runs from LA to Cumbria to Las Vegas. But will it find its way home?

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Paul A. Mendelson is a BAFTA-nominated screenwriter and novelist. He created
some of BBC’s most successful sit-coms, shown in the US and over 70 countries, and acclaimed British drama. He now writes screenplays and novels, for adults and middle-grade. Paul scripts his novels, three have been optioned for movies, including his latest ‘Seville’. His novel Must Have GSOH was the only UK Finalist in the 2023 Screencraft LA Cinematic Book Contest.

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My thoughts: LA porn producer Arnie has a stroke and a double heart attack, then an angel appears and tells him that he has no soul, but if he tracks down the woman who has it, and her own, Noreen Milburn, who lives in Cumbria, and gets her to fall in love with him, and he with her, he won’t go to Hell and might even live a long and happy life.

So he hops on the first flight to Heathrow to track down Noreen in the wet and windswept Lake District (which is stunning if you haven’t been there, when it’s not raining) without much of a clue as to how to win over the very unique woman.

In hot pursuit is his wife, Melisande, who wants either a divorce or him to drop dead, the dwarf hitman she’s hired and some Heavenly individuals who may or may not be helpful.

Very funny, silly and highly entertaining, this enjoyable read from a writer with a great track record is perfect for a good laugh as Arnie attempts to be a better person to win over Noreen (and her handbag ferret, and the sheep!)

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

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Blog Tour: Songbirds of the Veil – Steven McClellen

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We’re celebrating the release of Songbirds of the Veil by Steven McClellen – Available August 4th!

Songbirds of the Veil
Release Date: Aug 4, 2026
Genre: Edwardian Historical Fantasy/ Young Adult

• Portal Fantasy / Hidden World
• Labyrinthine Jungle Expedition
• Fierce / Scamp Heroine
• Grandfather-Granddaughter Bond
• Fountain of Youth Mystery
• Ticking Clock
• Survival Quest
• Missing Journal Pages
• Dystopian Resource Control (Tyrannical Authority)
• Enemies to Allies
• Magical Artifact / Talisman

To save her grandfather, she’ll have to survive the Amazon. To find the truth, she’ll have to cross the Veil.

In 1908, fifteen-year-old Ramona Grey lives a quiet, scamp-like existence in Key West, caring for her dying grandfather. As the legendary explorer who first discovered a miracle serum within the Amazon Rainforest, he now relies on that very medicine to live. But now, the world’s supply is gone.

The tyrannical Authority has hoarded the final drops, leaving cities in darkness and the sick in despair. When the U.S. Navy and the Authority launch a covert expedition to find the hidden source-a magical portal buried deep in the labyrinth of the Amazon-they coerce Ramona’s grandfather into leading the way. Used as leverage in their deadly bargain, Ramona is thrust headfirst into a perilous journey.

SONGBIRDS OF THE VEIL is an upmarket, lyrical YA crossover historical fantasy combining the rich, atmospheric worldbuilding of Alix E. Harrow’s ‘The Ten Thousand Doors of January’ with the high-stakes survival and dark adventure of G. Willow Wilson’s ‘The Bird King.’

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

 

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Book Blitz: House of Thieves – Rachel Walkley

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At Terrington Hall, objects are treasured while people are forgotten.

Chief conservator Amy is restoring the Hurly family’s guilt-stained hoard when a theft forces her to hire Harrison, a security adviser on a personal quest to uncover his own history.

Unknown to anyone, an invisible presence woven into the fabric of the house watches their every move.

When Harrison uncovers a room sealed for decades, the investigation shifts from simple theft to the  resurrection of murderous secrets. In a house where the past is too heavy to escape, the dead don’t
need bodies to tell their stories — they just need someone to listen.

One house. Two mysteries. Two centuries apart.

Trailer

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Rachel Walkley is a former librarian and scientist who lives in the North West of England, where she  spends her spare time making music and writing. Her debut novel, The Women of Heachley Hall, was
a bestseller in the UK and Australia.

Known for weaving together family secrets, magical mysteries, old houses and inspirational women, Rachel also writes gripping female-led crime novels under the pen name Rae Shaw.

Rachel Walkley’s author website
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My thoughts: This was a really engaging and interesting read set in one of those grand old houses looked after by the National Trust or English Heritage.

During a major restoration and audit, it becomes apparent that someone has been quietly pilfering small but valuable objects from the house, Amy is horrified, as chief conservator it is her job to make sure nothing is missing. Hoping the items will turn up elsewhere in the house, as things have been all jumbled up and no proper list of the house’s contents exists, she keeps quiet, but hires Harrison to draw up a security protocol and keep an eye on things as the work continues. 

Harrison has a personal connection to the house and its former occupants, he’s keen to dig through the papers stored in the old school room to look for traces of his ancestors. But what he and Amy find in the house is a hidden history more wretched than they could imagine. It brings them closer together as they determine to bring the secrets into the light and expose them.

This story feels quite timely as more institutions wrestle with the dark parts of their history – from the relationship between the wealth that built these grand houses and slavery, which even the Royal Family is tainted by. A really fascinating and thought provoking read.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

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Blog Tour: Lie in the Bay – Holly Danvers

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A neighborly smile hides a multitude of sins . . .

The residents of Bayshore Lane excel at three things: throwing unforgettable waterfront parties, spreading the juiciest gossip, and taking their darkest secrets straight to the grave.

Take Jenna, Gabrielle, and Dublin. Each harbor something they’d rather die than confess—a forbidden desire, a dangerous scheme, a hidden agenda. In their postcard-perfect neighborhood, these are truths that can never see the light.

But when whispering over cocktails turns sinister, long-buried secrets begin clawing their way to the surface. Jenna’s perfect life starts to fracture, Dublin’s world is reduced to ashes, and Gabrielle risks losing everything she loves.

Someone on Bayshore Lane knows more than they’re saying. And one of them is determined to make this carefully curated circle pay for the sins they thought were long forgotten.

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Holly Danvers pens multiple mysteries series under several pseudonyms. A New England native, she now resides in the Midwest with her husband, where she’s already plotting her next novel.

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My thoughts: The residents  of Bayshore Lane are a close knit group, or are they? It certainly seems like they are, but everyone has secrets, some they’d kill to protect.

Dublin has moved into her late mother’s cottage, one Alec, a local estate agent, feels needs to be pulled down as it’s bringing down the neighbourhood, but is he behind the fire in her shed? The evidence suggests something else is going on, but you never know.

Gabrielle finds out a shocking secret about Jenna and Colton while snooping in their house, she should have just grabbed the painkillers in their bathroom and not been nosey. Now she’s wondering if they had anything to do with the tragic drownings a few years ago.

As tensions grow and multiply, while people’s lives start to crack under the pressure, all the secrets start to rise to the top and then there’s gunshots in the night. Can this small community take much more? 

Cleverly put together, with an intriguing meta-narrative linked to the author’s previous book, this was an enjoyable thriller about secrets, lies and neighbours.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own