Month: Aug 2020

books, reviews

Book Review: The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman

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I was gifted a copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley with no requirement to review.

Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves
A female cop with her first big case
A brutal murder
Welcome to…
THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves The Thursday Murder Club.

When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case.

As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it’s too late?

My thoughts:

This book was brilliant. Funny, smart, intriguing (insert superlatives here). I thought it was just excellent basically.
The plotting was clever, the characters very enjoyable, all the little side narratives added and not subtracted from the main plot, building a more complete world.
My husband more than once looked at me like I’d gone nuts, that’s how much I was laughing.

I really hope this is the start of a series with the Thursday Murder Club solving as many crimes as possible.

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Blog Tour: A Ruined Girl – Kate Simants*

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TWO BOYS LOVED HER.
BUT WHICH ONE KILLED HER?

On a dark night two years ago, teenagers Rob and Paige broke into a house. They beat and traumatised the occupants, then left, taking only a bracelet. No one knows why, not even Luke, Rob’s younger brother and Paige’s confidant. Paige disappeared after that night. And having spent her life in children’s homes and the foster system, no one cared enough to look for her.
Now Rob is out of prison, and probation officer Wren Reynolds has been tasked with his rehabilitation. But Wren has her own reasons for taking on Rob as a client. Convinced that Rob knows what happened to Paige, and hiding a lifetime of secrets from her heavily pregnant wife, Wren’s obsession with finding a missing girl may tear her family apart…

My thoughts:

This was a tense thriller, full of secrets and twists. As Wren tries to unravel the mystery of what happened to Paige and keep everything from her wife, she might have bitten off more than she can chew.

The writing is concise and compelling, the mystery of what happened to Paige and why she and Rob conducted their burglary are revealed slowly and add to the mystery, leaving more questions than answers as the plot unrolls.

Clever, gripping and with an ending you won’t see coming, this is a smart, modern thriller.

*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 Queen’s Rival – Anne O’Brien*

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The forgotten story of Cecily Neville, Duchess of York. A strong woman who claimed the throne for her family in a time of war…

One family united by blood. Torn apart by war…

England, 1459: Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, is embroiled in a plot to topple the weak-minded King Henry VI from the throne. But when the Yorkists are defeated at the Battle of Ludford Bridge, Cecily’s family flee and abandon her to face a marauding Lancastrian army on her own.

Cecily can only watch as her lands are torn apart and divided up by the ruthless Queen Marguerite. From the towers of her prison in Tonbridge Castle, the Duchess begins to spin a web of deceit – one that will eventually lead to treason, to the fall of King Henry VI, and to her eldest son being crowned King Edward IV.

This is a story of heartbreak, ambition and treachery, of one woman’s quest to claim the throne during the violence and tragedy of the Wars of the Roses.

My thoughts:

This was really interesting, I’m fascinated by the Plantagenets and the Cousins’ War (aka the War of the Roses) and especially the women.

Historically women have often been the footnotes of battles and kings, but there are several writers of historical fiction determined to bring these forgotten figures to life.

I’ve read several of Anne O’Brien’s other books and found them really enjoyable. I struggled to get into this one with its mix of letters, diary style entries and gossip column chronicles.

However once I adjusted to the style and layout (why are netgalley arcs so badly formatted?) I began to really enjoy it.

I read all of Philippa Gregory’s Plantagenet books but Duchess Cecily of York wasn’t much of a character in that, so this was an excellent insight into what she might well have been like.

Mother of two of England’s kings; Edward IV and Richard III, neither of whom had peaceful and happy reigns, as well as the ill-fated George, Duke of Clarence, and several daughters, she was married to the Duke memoralised in the children’s rhyme ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’, based on his tragic final battle, outnumbered he and son Edmund were killed.

Cecily lived with a lot of tragedy, children who died young, then the loss of her husband, son, brother and nephew in that battle. More heartbreak came with the marriage of Edward to Elizabeth Woodville, and the endless battles to keep his throne.

From this version of her, there seems a lot to admire about the woman who never became queen. She was clever, warm, shrewd, determined and strong.

I think she would have made an excellent monarch, her granddaughter married Henry VII and gave us the Tudor dynasty, which produced the ever fascinating Elizabeth I, who I think took after her great-grandmother, if this book’s Cecily is anything to go by.

An excellent addition to the stories of the extraordinary women of history, a fascinating insight into the inner life of a royal woman connected to the most powerful people in Europe during a complicated and often troubled time.

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

books, reviews

Book Review: The Quickening – Rhiannon Ward

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I was sent a copy of this book by the publisher, originally for a blog tour but it didn’t arrive in time. Please see my unbiased review below.

Feminist gothic fiction set between the late 19th century and the early 20th century – an era of burgeoning spiritualism and the suffragette movement – that couldn’t be more relevant today.

England, 1925. Louisa Drew lost her husband in the First World War and her six-year-old twin sons in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. Newly re-married to a war-traumatised husband and seven months pregnant, Louisa is asked by her employer to travel to Clewer Hall in Sussex where she is to photograph the contents of the house for auction.

She learns Clewer Hall was host to an infamous séance in 1896, and that the lady of the house has asked those who gathered back then to come together once more to recreate the evening. When a mysterious child appears on

the grounds, Louisa finds herself compelled to investigate and becomes embroiled in the strange happenings of the house. Gradually, she unravels the long-held secrets of the inhabitants and what really happened thirty years before… and discovers her own fate is entwined with that of Clewer Hall’s.

An exquisitely crafted and compelling mystery that invites the reader in to the crumbling Clewer Hall to help unlock its secrets alongside the unforgettable Louisa Drew.

My thoughts:

This was a dark, twisted Gothic mystery, complete with crumbling house (quite literally), secrets, stoic servants and a woman at the centre who might just be in terrible danger.

Contracted to photograph Clewer House and its contents by the auction house handling the sale, with the family due to move to India, Louisa Drew is eight months pregnant and desperate for an escape from her dull second husband, who she doesn’t love.

Draw into the web of secrets, tragedy and spiritualism surrounding the Clewer family, she becomes slightly obsessed with the child she thinks she sees in the garden. A few strange things happen to her before an infamous seance is recreated with the original guests.

The inclusion of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his second wife is interesting. Probably one of the most famous spiritualists, Doyle was a man of science who nevertheless believed mediums could communicate with the other side, despite having met his share of charlatans.

Louisa is a modern woman, used to providing for herself, after losing her first husband, Bertie, in WWI. This contrasts with the very Victorian fascination with mediums, lending an element of travelling back in time to the proceedings.

The atmospheric, damp, mouldy, crumbling house provides the perfect backdrop to the unfolding tragedy. As Louisa is drawn into solving a murder and investigating the Clewer family’s tragedy, she starts to unravel herself.

In grand Gothic tradition the house and the secrets it holds start to affect everyone who enters it and I really enjoyed the fact that there was something sinister about the plaster falling off the walls as the family and their guests take tea in another room.

This is an excellent read, full of suspense and things that jar against the early 20th century setting, a time of huge social change, while Clewer House clings onto its past.

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Blog Tour: Talland House – Maggie Humm*

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Royal Academy, London 1919: Lily has put her student days in St. Ives, Cornwall, behind her―a time when her substitute mother, Mrs. Ramsay, seemingly disliked Lily’s portrait of her and Louis Grier, her tutor, never seduced her as she hoped he would. In the years since, she’s been a suffragette and a nurse in WWI, and now she’s a successful artist with a painting displayed at the Royal Academy. Then Louis appears at the exhibition with the news that Mrs. Ramsay has died under suspicious circumstances. Talking to Louis, Lily realizes two things: 1) she must find out more about her beloved Mrs. Ramsay’s death (and her sometimes-violent husband, Mr. Ramsay), and 2) She still loves Louis.
Set between 1900 and 1919 in picturesque Cornwall and war-blasted London, Talland House takes Lily Briscoe from the pages of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and tells her story outside the confines of Woolf’s novel―as a student in 1900, as a young woman becoming a professional artist, her loves and friendships, mourning her dead mother, and solving the mystery of her friend Mrs. Ramsay’s sudden death. Talland House is both a story for our present time, exploring the tensions women experience between their public careers and private loves, and a story of a specific moment in our past―a time when women first began to be truly independent.

My thoughts:

Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, and partly set at Talland House, which Woolf’s family rented when she was a child, this story fleshes out the details Woolf left out of her own narrative – primarily the death of Mrs Ramsey.

A beautifully written, lyrical meditation on art, the particular light of St Ives, families, women, war and love.

Following Lily Briscoe from her days as an art student, then as a Queen Alexandra’s nurse in WWI (as was my own great-grandmother), we encounter the seismic changes in society in the early years of the 20th century. Lily is present when a suffragette slashes a painting in protest of the government’s treatment of Emmeline Pankhurst.

Her fascination with Mrs Ramsey never really wains, she thinks of her often, even though years pass by without them meeting. I was reminded of the similar relationship in Howards End, where Margaret is fascinated by Mrs Wilcox.

The novel evolves in its final third into a investigation of Mrs Ramsey’s death. Lily suspects foul play, the suddenness of it seems suspicious, and she enlists her pharmacist friend after the cleaner and cook give her a small bottle found among Mrs Ramsey’s things. Shades of Agatha Christie, herself a pharmacist in the war.

I found this book deeply fascinating and strangely moving. St Ives is a place I’ve visited and I could picture it in my mind as Lily painted on the quayside and strode around the town with her friends.

Even if you’re not a fan of Woolf, this is very enjoyable and readable, Woolf isn’t present in the pages and the author really makes the characters her own.

*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: Deadline – Geoff Major*

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Adam Ferranti was drinking away his waking hours, getting by in a regional newspaper in the North of England. An award-winning journalist, he moved to England to escape the media glare that followed his spectacular fall from grace at The Washington Post; only to be thrust back in it when a mysterious serial killer decides to make him his confidante.

DS Stephanie Walker is a successful member of the West Yorkshire Police force. Whilst she is tough and results-driven at work, with a fearsome reputation on the streets, she hides the domestic abuse she suffers at home.
She finds Ferranti exceptionally difficult to deal with, but he’s her only chance to stay close to what the elusive killer is planning next. Ferranti reluctantly complies with the Police, even though he is fighting his own personal demons, but when his best friend is murdered by the killer, it suddenly gets personal. And suddenly, no-one is quite who they seemed to be.

A long time ago, Geoff Major had an idea for a story, whilst walking his girls to primary school. Two years ago, he decided he had the time and patience to try to write the story down. His wife was wholly supportive, so he turned from full-time to part-time for four months and now – 23 years after that idea first popped into his head – it has been published.

As a self-employed business consultant for 18 years and a fundraising adventurer for 10 years (including ski-trekking 50 miles, over 6 days and 6 nights, to the geographic North Pole), he now works for a debt charity whilst plotting his next three books

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My thoughts:

A series of grisly murders with links to MI5 and the American government, a reporter who seems to be getting info direct from the killer, a police team from three different forces trying to stop further murders.

There’s so much intrigue and suspense in this thrill ride of a novel. The plot is twisty, knotty and the final twists shocking and rewarding.

There were lots of “wait, what?” moments, bits I had to read back over because they threw massive spanners and red herrings into the plot and sent it off in another direction.


*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: Always Human – Ari North*

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First serialized on the popular app and website WebToon, Always Human ran from 2015-2017 and amassed over 76,000 unique subscribers during its run.

Now reformatted for a print edition in sponsorship with GLAAD, Always Human is a beautifully drawn graphic novel about a developing relationship between two young women in a near-future, soft sci-fi setting. Always Human is drawn in a manga-influenced style and with an incredible color palette that leaps off the page!

In the near-future, people use technology to give the illusion of all kinds of body modifications-but some people have “Egan’s Syndrome,” a highly sensitive immune system that rejects these “mods” and are unable to use them. Those who are affected maintain a “natural” appearance, reliant on cosmetics and hair dye at most to help them play with their looks.

Sunati is attracted to Austen the first time she sees her and is drawn to what she assumes is Austen’s bravery and confidence to live life unmodded. When Sunati learns the truth, she’s still attracted to Austen and asks her on a date.

Gradually, their relationship unfolds as they deal with friends, family, and the emotional conflicts that come with every romance. Together, they will learn and grow in a story that reminds us no matter how technology evolves, we will remain . . . always human.

Rendered in beautiful detail and an extraordinary color palette, Always Human is a sweet love story told in a gentle sci-fi setting by a queer woman cartoonist, Ari North.

Ari North is a queer cartoonist who believes an entertaining story should also be full of diversity and inclusion. As a writer, an artist, and a musician, she wrote, drew, and composed the music for Always Human, a complete romance/sci-fi webcomic about two queer girls navigating maturity and finding happiness. She’s currently working on a second webcomic, Aerial Magic, which is about the everyday lives of the witches who work at a broomstick repair shop. She lives in Australia with her husband.

My thoughts:

This was adorable, a sweet, pastel coloured love story about falling in love, making mistakes and finding a way back to each other and developing a deeper understanding.

Sunati and Austen are young women on the cusp of their adult lives, Sunati works as a programmer and Austen is a student, struggling with her course load and stressed about exams.

Set in a future where people use ‘mods’ to alter their appearances, Sunati uses technology with ease, while Austen’s allergy to these patches mean she retains her features and can’t alter them.

Both women try to do what they think the other wants, instead of actually speaking to one another. After a rocky start, their affection for each other grows and blossoms.

A gentle, sweet, old fashioned love story with a high tech twist. Simply charming.

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

Images reproduced by kind permission of the publisher.

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Blog Tour: Ritual Demise – Sally Rigby*

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Someone is watching…. No one is safe

The once tranquil woods in a picturesque part of Lenchester have become the bloody stage to a series of ritualistic murders. With no suspects, Detective Chief Inspector Whitney Walker is once again forced to call on the services of forensic psychologist Dr Georgina Cavendish.
But this murderer isn’t like any they’ve faced before. The murders are highly elaborate, but different in their own way, and with the clock ticking, they need to get inside the killer’s head before it’s too late.
For fans of Rachel Abbott, Angela Marsons and L J Ross, Ritual Demise is the seventh book in the Cavendish & Walker crime fiction series.

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Sally Rigby was born in Northampton, in the UK. She has always had the travel bug, and after living in both Manchester and London, eventually moved overseas. From 2001 she has lived with her family in New Zealand (apart from five years in Australia), which she considers to be the most beautiful place in the world. After writing young adult fiction for many years, under a pen name, Sally decided to move into crime fiction. Her Cavendish & Walker series brings together two headstrong, and very different, women – DCI Whitney Walker, and forensic psychologist Dr Georgina Cavendish. Sally has a background in education, and has always loved crime fiction books, films and TV programmes. She has a particular fascination with the psychology of serial killers.

Check out her website for a FREE prequel story.

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My thoughts:

I really enjoy the Cavendish & Walker books so it was a pleasure to read this, the seventh novel, which find DCI Walker and Dr Cavendish once again hunting for a serial killer in Lenchester.

I love the fact that at least one character always comments on how a small British city seems to have so many serial killers, something few crime series’ ever acknowledge.

The protagonists feel like old friends after so many cases solved together, and don’t grate on each other as they did way back in book one, having settled into a comfortable working style.

My favourite character however, remains the prickly pathologist, Claire, who doesn’t like to be rushed and doesn’t have time for the various theories the others proffer.

An enjoyable, well written and very clever thiller, I think this might be the best one yet.

*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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Book Review: Camp – L.C. Rosen

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I was gifted a copy by the publisher with no requirement to review.

Sixteen-year-old Randy Kapplehoff loves spending the summer at Camp Outland, a camp for queer teens. It’s where he met his best friends. It’s where he takes to the stage in the big musical. And it’s where he fell for Hudson Aaronson-Lim – who’s only into straight-acting guys and barely knows not-at-all-straight-acting Randy even exists.

This year, though, it’s going to be different. Randy has reinvented himself as ‘Del’ – buff, masculine and on the market. Even if it means giving up show tunes, nail polish and his unicorn bedsheets, he’s determined to get Hudson to fall for him.

But as he and Hudson grow closer, Randy has to ask himself how much is he willing to change for love. And is it really love anyway, if Hudson doesn’t know who he truly is?

My thoughts:

One of my favourite films is an indie called Camp, which is about an arts camp with a drag queen coming into their own and Anna Kendricks as a rather evil young woman, determined to be the star.

This book reminded me of that in more than just the title, because this book is also set at summer camp and is also full of joy.

There’s a love story, there’s learning to be yourself and embrace it, there’s so much hope for the future and there’s a group of wonderful, funny, talented friends at its core.

We dont really have summer camps in the UK in the same way as the US, so most of my knowledge comes from books and TV (Lumberjanes and Wet Hot American Summer are my favourites), but I worked at a summer playscheme (a sort of day camp) for 3 years and it was the best job I have ever had.

Anyway, I loved this book, it’s very upbeat and fun, and I think I would have loved this camp.

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Book Review: Titanborn – Brian Schutter

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I was gifted a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

“No more death.”

In Titanborn, Schutter weaves the vivid world of Shangri-La — a colony living in isolation on Saturn’s moon, Titan — and the genetically-engineered humans known as Titanborn, whose task is simply to prove they can survive.

Meera is just one cog in the wheel of Shangri-La. Assigned to fulfill a role, Meera struggles to find a place for herself and overcome the trauma of loss as Titan casually takes the lives of her fellow colonists.

When a friend goes missing, Meera must choose to face her fears to save not just him, but all of the Titanborn, as the colony begins to unravel.

Can Meera and her people overcome the dangers of the inhospitable moon, or will the Titanborn fall to an enemy closer to home?

My thoughts:

This was really interesting, an action packed thriller set on Saturn’s moon, Titan, where AIs are so commonly used that those without implants and augmentations are seen as backward and a bit weird.

After her friend goes missing, Meera joins a mission to rescue him and uncovers a rogue AI system that is slowly taking over all the robots the Titanborn use, including the ones in their implants.

The five rescue team members have to learn to work together, and without relying solely on technology to defeat this threat and find their missing friend. The motto is No More Death, and they’re running out of time.

Despite being set in space, this story is more about human relationships and determination than aliens or space ships. It is the very human desire to stay alive and help one another that enables the five Titanborn to survive the inhospitable environment and take the fight right to the heart of the destructive AI.

Gripping, engaging and fast paced, an excellent addition to the new sci-fi thrillers of recent years.