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Blog Tour: Storm – R.A. Raine

Storm (She Who Is Wild Book 1)

Release Date: Oct 1, 2026

Genre: Dystopian Romance

Enemies to hate to lovers
”Don’t touch me and I won’t touch you.”
Breeding to boost numbers
Elemental magic + a secret 5th
Angry hate spice
“Fae blood” rituals to extend life
Only soft for her = “Take your hands off my wife.”
Matriarchy vs. Patriarchy

The enemy commander has claimed her, an unworthy lightning farmer, as his wife.

In the land of Halo, Storm is just another poor slave to the chosen people, the hollows. Until they find themselves on the edge of extinction due to the war with the creatures in the neighbouring territory—a race filled with magic and possibilities Storm has always dreamed of running towards, away from the cruelty of her land.

In need of breeders, the keepers of Halo go in search of women who have enough solence to give them the offspring they desire. To Storm’s dismay, she has just enough to be brought before the devastatingly handsome commander, leaving her brother and mother for dead. Instead of giving her to one of his soldiers, he declares he’ll keep her for himself.

But there’s one catch: he promises to never touch her. Not unless she asks for it—or runs.

With grief crashing over her, all Storm has left is an uncontrollable rage and lust for the man she now calls her husband. The man she proclaims she will hate until her last breath… unless she can escape him first. 

Storm, book one in the She Who is Wild duet, is an epic dystopian fantasy romance. You will find a heaping of open door spice, corrupt governments, messy characters in their thirties and beyond, pregnancy (aka a mother who will do anything for her children) and a lot of angsty emotional turmoil within the pages of this story.

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TWs:
Family illness
Mentions of rape (past)
Death of family members
Character navigating grief
Suicide ideation
Oppressed and oppressor dynamics
Early-stage miscarriage (past)
Discussions of infertility through-out
Birthing complications related to blood loss (past and present)
Pregnancy (past and present)
Discussions of war
Blood rituals
Torture
Murder
Graphic sexual content
Graphic language

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Tour organised by R&R Book Tours
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Book Blitz: Feral – Cassandra Aston

Who’s ready for a dark, yearning-filled, fated-mates version of Little Red Riding Hood?

Feral by @cassandra.aston.author

Release Date: Oct 9th

Genre: Dark Fairytale Retelling
One sided enemies-to-lovers / captor-captive romance
Fated mate bond neither of them asked for
Possessive, unhinged reluctant alpha hero
Sharp-tongued fae princess with a secret bloodline
Forced proximity, one-bed tension, a blood oath he can’t break
Fairytale reimagining (Red Riding Hood)
Dark fantasy world of fae courts and shifter packs
Fully standalone HEA, with a door left open for more

Red was my prisoner.

Oh, I know. The irony isn’t lost on me.

It all began with an apple, a murdered queen, and a blood oath neither of us should have made.

Her grandmother is dead, and I got her out before whoever did it came back to finish the job. She doesn’t see it that way. She’s convinced I’m the killer, that I stole her the night I saved her life, and every proof I offer just makes her trust me less.

She thought I’d stolen her to claim her the way every man in her life eventually tries. I swore an oath to prove I hadn’t: I won’t touch her unless she asks.

I didn’t plan on the bond. I didn’t plan on falling for the one person in the kingdom who thinks I’m a murderer.

She was raised to be a crown, not a woman. I was raised to be a weapon, not a mate. She still thinks I’m the monster in this story. I’m not going anywhere until she stops believing it.

FERAL is a dark, fae-shifter romance: one-sided enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, one bed, one bargain, and a hero who doesn’t ask twice. Interconnected standalone with a HEA you won’t stop thinking about.

Intended for readers 18+. Dark themes, morally gray characters, and spice that earns every bit of the “vicious” in the series title.

Feral is part of The Vicious Villains Anthology, a shared-world series featuring interconnected stories by multiple authors.

Books in the Series:

Incarnate by Charlotte Mallory
Feral by Cassandra Aston
Darkling by Isabella Khalidi
Timeless by Amber Bunch
Delirium by Dawn Darling

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IG: @cassandra.aston.author @rrbooktours
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Blitz organised by R&R Book Tours
blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Murder with a Side of Red Velvet – Skylar Warren

It’s a blazin’ summer in Willow Bluff, Georgia, and chef Jessie Haynes has prepared the best darn wedding buffet the town has ever tasted. Love is in the air—peppered with the tantalizing aroma of fried chicken, and just a dash of… murder?

At the centre of Jessie’s pitch-perfect dinner table sits a tiered red velvet cake, decorated in pearly-white icing and delicate pink roses, just waiting for its moment to shine. But when groom Tommy Prescott takes a bite, he immediately slumps to the floor, dead. His wedding toast becomes his eulogy as his bride collapses in a sobbing heap of tulle and lace beside him.

Back at Honeybee’s Diner, Jessie dusts down her apron and rolls up her sleeves, fixin’ to find the killer—fast. But as folks around town start to spill the beans, she realizes this investigation won’t be a piece of cake. The happy couple were surrounded by bad apples—was it the one of groom’s grown children who feared they would lose their inheritance? Or the bride’s former foe, in an extreme case of sour grapes?

Honing-in on the bride’s years at Willow Bluff High, Jessie has success in her sights. But then the wedding planner goes missing, and the investigation looks to be well and truly cooked. Terrified the blushing bride could be next, the race is on for Jessie to follow the breadcrumbs and catch this killer before the whole case crumbles…

A deliciously gripping cozy mystery that will leave you hungry for more. If you like Ellery Adams, Deany Ray or Agatha Christie, you won’t be able to put this down.

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Skylar Warren is a Chicago native and a graduate of Chicago State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communications, Media Arts and Theatre. She now lives in New York City and works as a claims adjuster. In her spare time, she enjoys watching mysteries and solving puzzles.

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My thoughts: Jessie has been hired to cater a small event, which turns out to be a wedding, and then after taking a bite of wedding cake, the groom drops dead.

Jessie didn’t make the cake but unfortunately that doesn’t stop the gossip-mongers of Willow Bluff from claiming her diner is closing down.

So Jessie and co start another investigation, this time to find out who poisoned the cake – and why the groom sprung a surprise wedding on his bride, young enough to be his granddaughter, excluding his children from the event.

Carefully asking questions about the bride’s previous life in the town. Samantha left under something of a cloud and she might be the intended victim, if it wasn’t her ageing beau.

Funny, with great characters (I want Tee to be my friend) and not a book to read when hungry as the descriptions of the amazing food Jessie whips up will make you drool. It’s another highly enjoyable and clever mystery. Can’t wait for the next one!

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

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Blog Tour: The Winter Job – Antti Tuomainen, translated by David Hackston

To celebrate the paperback release of this funny book, i’m re-posting my review from the hardback blog tour. Grab yourself a copy!

Helsinki, 1982. Recently divorced postal worker Ilmari Nieminen has promised his daughter a piano for Christmas, but with six days to go – and no money – he’s desperate. A last-minute job offers a solution: transport a valuable antique sofa to Kilpisjärvi, the northernmost town in Finland.

With the sofa secured in the back of his van, Ilmari stops at a gas station, and an old friend turns up, offering to fix his faulty wipers, on the condition that he tags along. Soon after, a persistent Saab 96 appears in the rearview mirror. And then a bright-yellow Lada.

That’s when Ilmari realises that he is transporting something truly special. And that’s when Ilmari realises he might be in serious trouble…

Finnish Antti Tuomainen was an award-winning copywriter when he made his literary debut in 2007 as a suspense author. In 2011, Tuomainen’s third novel, The Healer, was awarded the Clue Award for Best Finnish Crime Novel and was shortlisted for the Glass Key Award.

In 2013, the Finnish press crowned Tuomainen the ‘King of Helsinki Noir’ when Dark as My Heart was published. Tuomainen was one of the first to challenge the Scandinavian crime-genre formula, and his poignant, dark and hilarious The Man Who Died became an international bestseller, shortlisting for the Petrona and Last Laugh Awards. Palm Beach, Finland (2018) was an immense success, with The Times calling Tuomainen ‘the funniest writer in Europe’, and Little Siberia (2019) was shortlisted for the Capital Crime/Amazon Publishing Readers Awards, the Last Laugh Award and the CWA International Dagger, and won the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel. It was released as a Netflix film in 2025.

The Rabbit Factor, the first book in a trilogy that includes The Moose Paradox and The Beaver Theory, is now in production for TV with Amazon Studios, starring Steve Carell. The Moose Paradox was a Literary Review and Guardian Book of the Year and shortlisted for CrimeFest’s Last Laugh Award. The trilogy was followed in 2024 by The Burning Stones.

Antti lives in Helsinki with his wife.

My thoughts:Taking a last minute delivery job that turns out to be a complete nightmare, Ilmari the postman is determined to buy a piano for his daughter for Christmas.

The dodgy van he’s given guzzles fuel and isn’t exactly designed for driving through the snow. He picks up an old friend, and some unwanted followers  – a Lada and a Saab, both want the sofa in the back of the van and are prepared to do almost anything to get it.

This blackly comic tale of a desperate drive across Finland to deliver a sofa and the unpleasant surprise they find inside it, made me laugh, it’s quite silly and weird, which is very Tuomainen, whose books I really enjoy. The stakes are pretty high and the ending is rewarding, definitely worth a re-read, maybe at Christmas!

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Blog Tour: Good Twin Bad Twin – Renita D’Silva

I’m shaking as I turn the postcard over. A picture of a pretty Cotswold village. And a message: Bitter Honey, here I come.

It’s in my twin sister’s handwriting. She’s the only person who ever called me that. Except that can’t be true. Because, if it is, then whose body is buried under the patio?

She was the golden one. I was the shy, bookish one. Living in her shadow. Now I have everything I ever wanted. A stunning home on the Dorset cliffs. A handsome husband. A beautiful teenage daughter.

But my husband disappears at night. Our dog is the only member of the family that really loves me. And if my twin sister is alive, then everything I believed about my life is a lie.

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Renita D’Silva loves stories both reading and creating them. Her books have been translated into several languages. Her short stories have been published in The View from Here, Bartleby Snopes, this zine, Platinum Page, Paragraph Planet, Verve among others, have been nominated for the Pushcart prize, the Best of the Net anthology, shortlisted for the LoveReading Very Short Story award and The Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize and longlisted for the BBC National Short Story award. Her first psychological thriller, The Neighbours, won the Joffe Books Prize 2023.

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My thoughts: This was a good twist filled read. Twin sisters Ash and Nish do everything together. Nish is the driving force, the golden girl, Ash is the quiet one, desperate to escape her sister’s shadow.

As adults they are no longer in contact, until a postcard appears. But if her sister is alive, who did she bury under the patio?

As the narrator moves through her life, we try to work out which twin she is, it seems like she’s Ash, but the diary entries and flashbacks suggest something far stranger is going on. When the final reveal takes place – you will gasp.

This is clever, filled with unreliable characters, with people who change their names, their whole lives. With sisters who should have been allowed to be themselves not half of a whole.

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

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Blog Tour: The Cold Shore – Rachel Amphlett

A chilling murder. A coastal town full of secrets. A detective with everything to prove.

When a man is found savagely murdered on an abandoned vessel off the north Kent coast, what begins as a routine inquiry turns deadly. Detective Gavin Piper had intended only a brief visit to assist his superior officer – but when circumstance forces him to take command, he finds himself leading his first homicide case in a place that feels both unfamiliar and unforgiving.

As the investigation deepens, a key witness is found dead and dark secrets begin to surface. With the body count rising and the pressure mounting, Gavin must race against the clock to find the only surviving link – before the killer strikes again. Will Gavin’s inexperience cost him more than just the case? Or can he uncover the truth before it’s too late?

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Before turning to writing, USA Today bestselling crime author Rachel Amphlett played guitar in bands, worked as a TV and film extra, dabbled in radio, and worked in publishing as an editorial assistant.

She now wields a pen instead of a plectrum and writes crime fiction with over 30 crime novels and short stories featuring spies, detectives, vigilantes, and assassins.

A keen traveller and accidental private investigator, Rachel has both Australian and British citizenship. You can find out more about Rachel and her books at http://www.rachelamphlett.com.

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My thoughts: I really enjoyed this, it has the signature Rachel Amphlett blend of really good writing, interesting characters and gripping plot.

Assigned temporarily to North Kent to lead the investigation DC Gavin Piper feels a bit out of his depth, his boss however knows he can do this. And he does. Gradually finding his feet as this far more complex than it first appears case proceeds.

A man on an abandoned boat, murdered with an axe. His ID is in his pocket, but his life is full of secrets. Then a key witness is drowned. Someone is cleaning house. A huge clue in the form of packaging on the boat connects to a break in, but it’s the awful discovery beneath a static caravan that will have you shocked and opens up the case.

Absolutely thrilling, shocking and full of gasp-out-loud moments, this is crime writing at its best.

*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: The Priest’s Wife – A.G. Rivett

When her husband the priest dies, Morag loses more than her life partner. With him goes her home and her place in the community. In addition to these misfortunes, in a society that sets great store by lineage, she is challenged about the mysterious identity of her mother, and it is this that sets her on a quest of discovery that comes, at first, upon a blank, but in time leads her to the circle of the island’s ‘Guardians’, who mediate her discovery of her mother’s identity, and, step by step, her own deeper self-knowing and self-acceptance. 

When Aidan, the new priest, undertakes a campaign to upturn the township’s spirituality, which has accommodated older druidical forms alongside the Christ story, both he and the community are set on a collision course. As tension builds the shareg (headman) of the town, must intervene. Finding no way through that conforms to the norms of his world, he must take a radical and unconventional step. 

The book explores mental breakdown (Aidan’s) and severe depression (Morag’s, at the mid-point of the story when she finds herself at an impasse). It reflects religious tensions that have existed historically. It celebrates the natural world and the resilience of the human spirit in resisting a coercive authority. In doing so, Morag steps into her full personhood.

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Ceredigion author A G Rivett claims to have lived several lives in the course of his one life. Born in London, raised in the Home Counties, he has been a doctor, a priest, and a crofter in the Scottish Highlands. He has lived in rural Northern Nigeria and knows what a simpler life looks like, less dependent on technology. He now lives in West Wales with his wife, Gillian Paschkes-Bell, who works with him as a writing team. There, he grows fruit and vegetables and has sewn a wildflower meadow. He has three daughters and two grandsons.

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My thoughts: I felt for Morag, with her husband’s death she loses not only her partner but her home and her standing in the village. With nowhere for her, she leaves to travel back to the place she grew up, hoping to find a home there. She has questions about her mother’s identity that she alone cannot answer and on her quest for a new home, she must also reckon with her past. Meeting the Guardians helps her, and gives her guidance, but the rest is up to her.

At a point in her life where she might have expected stability and the quiet comforts of home and family, she is thrust into a quest for answers about her past and her future.

Meanwhile the new priest must contend with the islanders unique belief system, his own ambitions and try to find a place in this community that is wary of outsiders. Aiden must attempt to master the challenges of his role and rise to the beliefs his church leaders have in him.

Morag and Aidan are a study in contrast, both are starting again at points in their lives they did not expect and must overcome others’ assumptions about them and their place in the world as well as contend with their own personal internal worries.

It’s another interesting study of change and belief, as with Morag’s adopted son in The Seaborne.

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

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Blog Tour: The Seaborne – A.G. Rivett

John Finlay is fleeing from failure. His engineering business has failed. His relationship has failed. His flight from debts leads him to disaster – and to the Island, where he must learn to live anew.

Dermot, pulling a boy barely alive from the water, has never seen anyone so strangely dressed. His Celtic island knows nothing of debt, nor engineering. Where has this man come from?

John struggles to accept that he has been carried across time and into another world – both like and unlike his own. How he got there is a mystery. But John, the foreigner, must turn slowly into Dhion, the Islander.

Still, he brings with him unfinished business that must be faced, and ideas that may not always be welcomed. Meanwhile Dermot, consumed with a growing jealousy, develops his own deadly agenda.

The whole community finds itself caught up in what becomes a matter of survival – or transformation. A tale of loss and change. A spiritual inquiry. And a love story.

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Ceredigion author A G Rivett claims to have lived several lives in the course of his one life. Born in London, raised in the Home Counties, he has been a doctor, a priest, and a crofter in the Scottish Highlands. He has lived in rural Northern Nigeria and knows what a simpler life looks like, less dependent on technology. He now lives in West Wales with his wife, Gillian Paschkes-Bell, who works with him as a writing team. There, he grows fruit and vegetables and has sewn a wildflower meadow. He has three daughters and two grandsons.

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My thoughts: John finds himself on an island that might be a bit like a lost Scottish/Irish one, where people speak  sort of Gaelic/Celtic language, where Christianity has mixed into their traditional beliefs, and where they still believe in the sidhe (the fae/faeries/fair folk) as well as God the Father and Gaia the Mother.

John is unable at first to communicate with his rescuers, they don’t understand his modern English, too far removed from its mish-mashed roots in Latin, French, Greek and Germanic languages. He slowly learns their language and tries to adapt to the very different way of living, something closer to the way people lived a thousand years ago or so when the Anglo-Saxons and Norse lived in England.

As he adjusts to the island life, he forms relationships with some of the villagers he lives among, attempts to find work he can do, as an engineer he’s keen to build things and introduce some technology to the place. One of the young women becomes interested in him, and this adds to the enmity Dermot, a young man there, begins to feel, seeing John as his rival. A rivalry John does not feel. 

Offered a chance to return to his own time and world, John must choose the life he has found on the island, or the one he was running from – his business, his family and Helen, the woman he left behind. Can he start again there or has the life he has begun to build amongst the islanders become his real life? 

An interesting and imaginative book, would we, if offered a similar chance to begin somewhere new, choose it or return to our technologically advanced but disconnected one? Thought-provoking and intriguing.  

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

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Blog Tour: All or None – Clive Fleury


Returning to Sydney, Detective Ramesh Ryan is promoted to the Homicide Squad. Zoe Yang joins him there. Now a detective herself, she is assigned as his junior partner.

Straight up, the cops are off and
running—investigating the discovery of a murdered company director. Following the clues, Detective Ryan finds that this and a second murder may be linked to past events.

As the pressure mounts for a quick solution to the case, the detective finds that he too, is in the killer’s crosshairs. But Ryan is distracted from the investigation by a romantic encounter with an old university friend.

He also worries about his mother, Mumta, and her new obsessive desire for grandchildren from her only son. Could this be linked to her recent medical tests? And there’s another pressing problem— the plague of rats in his apartment block.

Detective Ryan’s hands are well and truly full.

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Clive Fleury is an award-winning writer of novels and screenplays, including most recently the murder mystery Off Season, which was the first in the Detective Ryan Mystery series.

He is also a TV/Film writer, director, and producer who has worked for major broadcasters and studios on a wide variety of successful drama and documentary projects, in the US, the UK, Europe, Australia and the Middle East.

He has written and directed four feature films, one of which, “Big City Blues,” starred Giancarlo Esposito, the late Burt Reynolds, and Balthazar Getty. His most recent film, “Sons of Summer,” is a surfing movie set on the Gold Coast of Australia and stars Temuera Morrison and Isabel Lucas.

Clive currently spends his time between Miami, Florida and Sydney, Australia.

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My thoughts: Detective Ryan meets his new partner Detective Zoe Yang about two seconds before they’re sent off to investigate a murder. They’ve met before but their new partnership gets off to a rocky start as Ryan isn’t very good at sharing, his thoughts or the work.

But someone clearly has it in for the managing trio of the company, as first one, then two of its partners are killed. As the bodies mount up, their boss is running out of patience with his so-called dream team, and might have to send out the department’s dinosaurs if they don’t get some results soon.

But Ryan sends Zoe off to do paperwork, while getting side tracked by his mother’s health worries and the appearance of an old friend from his student days.

There’s also some rather nasty gangsters running around, and as a former organised crime detective, Ryan is aware that they’re operating in his city, and that they might be connected to his case.

Can he find the killer or killers, make his boss happy, look after his mother, find love and not drive his new partner away? As well as attend to the rat infestation in his apartment complex? Sure, why not.

A smart and enjoyable crime caper in the Sydney sunshine with an intriguing pair of detectives and entertaining cast of characters (I want more Tik and Tok!)

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

**Terms and Conditions –UK entries welcome. Please enter using the Gleam link above. The winner will be selected at random via Gleam from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or
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Blog Tour: The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black – Lisa Hall

You know she has been murdered. Can you stop it happening twice?

Two very different lives

It is 2019 and Lily Jones is living her dream in LA. Sort of. It hasn’t quite turned out as she planned and instead of working as a movie producer, she is cleaning at the prestigious Beverly Hills Hotel. At least she gets to work in the renowned Paul Williams suite, site of the brutal murder of Honey Black 70 years ago, shrouded in rumour and dark glamour.

It is 1949 and Honey Black is about to hit the big time. She may have started out a country girl from Hicksville but now she is a star. And Hollywood had better watch out nothing can stop her now!

One Hollywood murder

After an accidental bump to the head, Lily finds herself in Hollywood, 1949. Like a dream come true, she is rubbing shoulders with the great and good of Tinseltown. Including Honey Black…

Horrified, Lily realises that the actress has only two weeks left to live before she will be murdered. Could this be why she has found herself in 1949? To find the killer and stop them in their tracks?

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Lisa Hall is the bestselling author of six psychological thrillers and the Hotel Hollywood time-slip murder mystery series. Her debut novel Between You and Me was a Kindle UK number one bestseller, sitting in the top spot for over four weeks. Lisa has a First Class Honours degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. She lives in Kent with her husband and their three children.

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My thoughts: Lily suffers a very nasty bump on the head while cleaning a hotel bathroom and somehow she’s in 1949, but complete with her 2019 brain. She knows it’s two weeks until movie star Holly Black will be murdered, and she’s going to try to stop it, if she can.

Luckily being a fan of all things vintage, she manages to fit in pretty well and even gets a job that might bring her closer to Holly, close enough to save her?

But she also might need to find a way back to her own life somehow. Can she stop a murder and figure out time travel? Well, she’s got to try and she doesn’t have a lot of time left. The countdown is on to find a killer in this clever and funny time travelling crime caper, Lily is a fantastic sleuth in some regards, she knows details of Holly’s death but not who the killer was, so that’s a problem.

I really like this series so I’m glad to have a reason to re-read this book, I couldn’t remember whether Lily managed it or not, so it felt like reading it for the first time. It’s a fun read and Lily’s a great protagonist, 40s Hollywood is a really interesting time, largely cut off from the realities of post-war life, making glamorous films, and operating under the unpopular Hays Code.

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