Month: Nov 2020

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Running Wolf – Helen Steadman*

ramblingmads

When a Prussian smuggler is imprisoned in Morpeth Gaol in the winter of 1703, why does Queen Anne’s powerful right-hand man, The Earl of Nottingham, take such a keen interest?

At the end of the turbulent 17th century, the ties that bind men are fraying, turning neighbour against neighbour, friend against friend and brother against brother. Beneath a seething layer of religious intolerance, community suspicion and political intrigue, The Running Wolf takes us deep into the heart of rebel country in the run-up to the 1715 Jacobite uprising.
Hermann Mohll is a master sword maker from Solingen in Prussia who risks his life by breaking his guild oaths and settling in England. While trying to save his family and neighbours from poverty, he is caught smuggling swords and finds himself in Morpeth Gaol facing charges of High Treason.

Determined to hold his tongue and his nerve, Mohll finds himself at the mercy of the corrupt keeper, Robert Tipstaff. The keeper fancies he can persuade the truth out of Mohll and make him face the ultimate justice: hanging, drawing and quartering. But in this tangled web of secrets and lies, just who is telling the truth?

Amazon

About the Author

Helen Steadman lives in the foothills of the North Pennines, and she particularly enjoys researching and writing about the history of the north east of England. Following her MA in creative writing at Manchester Met, Helen is now completing a PhD in English at the University of Aberdeen to determine whether a writer can use psycho-physical techniques to create authentic fictional characters.

Website Twitter

My thoughts:

This was really interesting, I don’t know a huge amount about this period of history and this book, based on real people and events, was enjoyable and engaging.

The characters are well rounded and skillfully brought to life, Hermann in particular is vivid and realistic. His family felt like people you might know and their struggles are familiar to anyone who knows someone who has moved countries for work.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Phoenix Project – Michelle Kidd*

ramblingmads


How long can the past remain buried?
A simple message in a local newspaper. A set of highly sensitive documents left in the back of a London black cab. Both events collide to cause Isabel Faraday’s life to be turned upside down.

Growing up believing her parents died in a car crash when she was five, Isabel learns the shocking truth; a truth that places her own life in danger by simply being a Faraday.

Detective Inspector Jack MacIntosh of the Metropolitan Police races against time to save her, and at the same time unravels long forgotten secrets involving MI5, MI6, the KGB and NASA.

Secrets that have lain dormant for twenty years. Secrets worth killing for. With kidnap, murder and suicides stretching across four continents, just what is the Phoenix Project?
The Phoenix Project is the first Detective Inspector Jack MacIntosh novel.If you like a gripping page turner, with plenty of surprising twists, buy The Phoenix Project today to discover its secrets.

Amazon UK Amazon US

Michelle Kidd is a self-published author known for the Detective Inspector Jack MacIntosh series of novels.

Michelle qualified as a lawyer in the early 1990s and spent the best part of ten years practising civil and criminal litigation.

But the dream to write books was never far from her mind and in 2008 she began writing the manuscript that would become the first DI Jack MacIntosh novel – The Phoenix Project. The book took eighteen months to write, but spent the next eight years gathering dust underneath the bed.

In 2018 Michelle self-published The Phoenix Project and had not looked back since. There are currently three DI Jack MacIntosh novels, with a fourth in progress.

Michelle works full time for the NHS and lives in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. She enjoys reading, wine and cats – not necessarily in that order.

Bibliography:

The Phoenix Project (DI Jack MacIntosh book 1)

Seven Days (DI Jack MacIntosh book 2)

The Fifteen (DI Jack MacIntosh book 3)

Twitter Facebook Website Instagram

My thoughts:

This is a fast paced thriller, racing back and forth across the Channel to Paris from London and Cambridge, with implications stretching to the US and Russia as the mysterious villain attempts to destroy all traces of the Phoenix Project and net himself a tidy sum in the process.

DI MacIntosh is tasked with protecting a very bewildered Isabel Faraday, who isn’t sure who to believe or trust, from these unknown criminals, who will stop at nothing to complete their aims, and would happily kill to get what they want.

As he races against time to unravel the truth and the body count rises, can he prevent more tragedy?

A clever, twisting and involving story, with great characters and a cracking plot. Oh, and it involves space!

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Silent Stars Go By – Sally Nicholls*

ramblingmads

Seventeen-year-old Margot Allan was a respectable vicar’s daughter and madly in love with her fiancé Harry. But when Harry was reported Missing in Action from the Western Front, and Margot realised she was expecting his child, there was only one solution she and her family could think of in order to keep that respectability. She gave up James, her baby son, to be adopted by her parents and brought up as her younger brother.
Now two years later the whole family is gathering at the vicarage for Christmas. It’s heartbreaking for Margot being so close to James but unable to tell him who he really is. But on top of that, Harry is also back in the village. Released from captivity in Germany and recuperated from illness, he’s come home and wants answers. Why has Margot seemingly broken off their engagement and not replied to his letters? Margot knows she owes him an explanation. But can she really tell him the truth about James?My thoughts:This is a lovely, bittersweet story of young love, war, family, hope and redemption. Having given her son James to be raised by her parents as theirs, Margot’s heart is breaking. Her fiancé Harry has somehow survived the war, despite being reported as missing, and now she must decide whether to tell him the truth about James.Margot returns home for Christmas, seeing James happily ensconced as the baby of the family and coming face to face with Harry for the first time.She wrestles with her decision, spends time with her siblings, parents and friends, trying to decide what the right thing to do is.This was a truly lovely book, the story was moving and a little heartbreaking, it was also educational – I didn’t know adoption was legal until the 1926 Adoption Act – and the thought of all those young women forced into giving away their babies before then were wronged.Although James is one of the lucky ones, his grandparents love him and treat him as they do the rest of their children, which makes Margot worry even more – will this destroy his happiness, if she and Harry married and took him with them?I was gifted a copy of this book by the publisher and if you’d like to see the special edition I received, I’ve shared it over on Instagram.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The City That Barks & Roars – J.T. Bird*

ramblingmads

Animals rule the world. They hit cafes for breakfast then nine to five at the office, and fritter away evenings at jazz clubs. But paradise is still a distant dream, for there are devils amongst the angels.

Lucas Panda is missing; clues on the riverbank suggest he was probably kidnapped.
Enter Frank. Who else you gonna call? Hard-boiled penguin and the finest detective in town.
And meet his new partner, Detective Chico Monkey – yeah, the wisecrackin’ kid with all the snappy suits.

But the stakes have been raised; three more creatures are missing and the citizens of Noah’s Kingdom are faced with possible extinction. Can the grouchy bird and plucky young ape save the city from doom? Or, will evil prevail and escape the claws of justice?

Amazon UK Amazon US

Waterstones Barnes and Noble

J T Bird is an award-winning stand-up comedian from North London, where he lives with his wife and child. His humble abode sits neatly between the former homes of HG Wells and Robert Louis Stevenson…so there’s no pressure to write something utterly successful and wonderful. He runs a comedy show for fresh new acts but has taken a break from performing to focus on writing novels – because it’s much more relaxing, and there’s far less chance of being heckled or struck by a bar stool.

Twitter Facebook Website BookBub:

My thoughts:

This was a hardboiled detective noir style story with a twist – all the characters are animals. Walking on two legs and talking animals.

After Detective Lucas Panda goes missing, Chico Monkey is transferred to the city of Noah’s Kingdom to assist Panda’s partner, Frank Penguin, in searching for the missing cop. The unlikely duo, and their colleagues, uncover a conspiracy that goes right to the heart of the Kingdom.

This was a lot of fun and once I moved past the fact of everyone being animals, it’s a great crime caper, the characters pop off the page and the plot is clever and engaging.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Into the Void – Christina O’Reilly*

ramblingmads

How easy is it for a man to simply disappear?

When rural banker Richard Harper is reported missing, DSS John (Archie) Baldrick and DC Ben Travers are drawn into the tangled details of the man’s life. Would Harper really have chosen to leave his seriously ill wife, and abandon his pregnant girlfriend?

Or is there a real threat behind the
abusive emails he’d been receiving from desperate clients in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis?

On the home front, Archie’s marriage is rocky and his two teenage daughters are giving him all sorts
of trouble. The frail but beautiful Helena Harper and her magnificent house offer an oasis of calm as Archie struggles to discover who is responsible for her husband’s disappearance. Has he really been
abducted, tortured or killed? Or is Richard Harper himself behind everything that has happened?

Archie and Travers ultimately face a race against time as the case descends into a bewildering morass of obsession, violence and murder.
Longlisted for the 2019 Michael Gifkins Memorial Prize for an Unpublished Novel Finalist in the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards for Best First Novel.

Amazon US
Amazon UK
Or readers can email Christina via her website or her Facebook page Christina O’Reilly – Author for a paperback copy.

Christina is an author and proofreader living in the Waikato region of New Zealand. Several of her short stories have been published in anthologies, most recently in Fresh Ink: A Collection of Voices from Aotearoa New Zealand 2019.

Into the Void is her first crime novel and was longlisted for the Michael Gifkins Memorial Prize in 2019. It is also a finalist in the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards for Best First Novel.

Facebook

My thoughts:

Considering this is a first crime novel, it is very accomplished, with its cast of possible suspects, red herrings and dead ends, as Archie and his team try to solve a missing person case that has more to it than it first appears.

Clever, gripping and with a chilling psychopath at its core, this is an excellent read.


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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Fifteen Coffins – Tony J. Forder*

ramblingmads

From the bestselling author of the DI Bliss series comes an enthralling mystery thriller.

The truth can set you free – or bury you.

When FBI Agent Sydney Merlot returns to her home town in northern California to wind down her late father’s PI business, she soon finds herself on the wrong side of the aftermath of a high school shooting.

Sydney’s childhood friend – who is now county sheriff – plus the local PD, the mayor’s office, and most of the town’s inhabitants, are convinced the horror ended when the gunman was killed. Now they just want to be left alone to mourn. But Sydney has other ideas – and she is not alone.

While having to work through her own personal grief, Sydney is openly intimidated and receives anonymous threats. After discovering she is under surveillance, she begins to fear for her life. During her investigation she gains several allies, but as the days pass, Sydney doesn’t know who to trust, and which new friends might actually turn out to be foes…

Tony J Forder is the author of the bestselling DI Bliss crime thriller series. The first seven books, Bad to the Bone, The Scent of Guilt, If Fear Wins, The Reach of Shadows, The Death of Justice, Endless Silent Scream, and Slow Slicing, were joined in December 2020 by a prequel novella, Bliss Uncovered.
Tony’s other series – two action-adventure novels featuring Mike Lynch – comprises both Scream Blue Murder, and Cold Winter Sun.
In addition, Tony has written two standalone novels: a dark, psychological crime thriller, Degrees of Darkness, and a suspense thriller set in California, called Fifteen Coffins which was released just last November.
Tony lives with his wife in Peterborough, UK, and is now a full-time author. He is currently working on Bliss #8, The Autumn Tree.
Website Facebook
Twitter Amazon
Goodreads Fantastic Fiction
Tony can also be found on Instagram.

My thoughts:

This was a really clever thriller, with lots of distractions, possible suspects and dodgy dealings, events being manipulated from the very top.

As FBI agent Sydney Merlot attempts to pack up her late father’s life, she becomes embroiled in the possibility that the supposed school shooter was in fact not the real killer at all – but a harmless boy tricked into playing a role that made him the fifteenth coffin.

The plot races along, with dangers around every corner, people trying to throw Sydney off track and a vicious cabal who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets protected.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Blind Pool – Vicki Goldie*

ramblingmads

Read my review of Blind Witness here.

In 1923 flushed with the success of their last sluething escapade Major Alasdair Charters, a blind WW1 veteran and former intelligence officer and his aristocratic wife The Honourable Melissa, accept an invitation to a country house party on Somerset Levels in Winter.

There they find a dysfuctional family all living in a huge old house on a hill. Overnight the storm brings with it the flood waters and the house becomes surrounded and cut off from the rescue just as a murderer begins to stalk the residents.

An exciting murder mystery in the Golden Age tradition.Will our sleuths discover hidden secrets and unamsk the murderer before anymore else is killed?

This series follows amateur sleuths Major Alasdair Charters and the Honourable Melissa Charters as they inadvertently muddle their way through many investigations but always arrive at the truth. Alasdair was blinded in the First World War and uses his special skills to gain ‘insight’ into the crimes. The Honourable Melissa, who likes to think she is a socialist, has a large family and set of friends who always seem to run into problems. The books are set both in England and abroad.

Having a husband who is blind, author Vicki Goldie likes to explore perceptions about this disability and push the boundaries.

Vicki lives in Poole Dorset with her blind physiotherapist husband. She has a lifelong fascination with the Art Deco period and with books of the Golden Age of Crime. This led her to envision a series featuring a blind detective set in the 1920s. Blind Pool is the second in the series.

She is a co-pioneer for a reading charity Read Easy Bournemouth and volunteers at The Russell Cotes Museum in Bournemouth.

She is currently writing book three in the series Blind Haven set in Bournemouth.

My thoughts:

Another cracking case for the Charters’ to investigate in deepest Somerset.

Invited to a friend’s family home (even though neither is keen on staying at any more country houses, and who can blame them!), to investigate the possibility her grandmother was murdered, there’s soon bodies stacking up as the house becomes cut off by flooding and heavy rain.

I’m rather fond of Melissa and Alasdair, and this, their second outing, is full of the best Golden Age tropes and knowing winks to the crime loving reader, not least the odd mention of the excellent Poirot.

Despite being blind, Alastair sees a lot more clearly than most, and uses his brilliant mind, in conjunction with Melissa’s knowledge of psychology to work through the series of deaths and their causes.

Thoroughly enjoyable and great fun, I think Vicki Goldie may actually be from the Golden Age of Crime and have a handy time machine – these give even the marvellous Mrs Christie a run for her money. Bring on book three!

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

blog tour, books

Book Blitz: Clipped Wings – Molly Merryman

ramblingmads

banner

To celebrate the release of an upcoming documentary, Clipped Wings has received a timely re-release!

I am thrilled to share this extraordinary book with all of you today! Please read on for an excerpt from Clipped Wings by Molly Merryman!

ClippedWings (2)Clipped Wings: The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS) of World War II

Publication Date: September 15, 2020

Genre: History/ WWII/ Avation/ Female Pilots

In her exhilerating book Clipped Wings: The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII, author Molly Merryman shines light on the critical and dangerous work of the daring female aviators who changed history. New York University Press classics series has just updated the book with Merryman’s reflections on the changes in women’s aviation in the past twenty years. A documentary based on Merryman’s work, Coming Home: Fight For A Legacy, is currently in production.

The WASP directly challenged the assumptions of male supremacy in wartime culture. They flew the fastest fighter planes and heaviest bombers; they test-piloted experimental models and worked in the development of weapons systems. Yet the WASP were the only women’s auxiliary within the armed services of World War II that was not militarized.

In Clipped Wings, Merryman draws upon finally-declassified military documents, congressional records, and interviews with the women who served as WASP during World War II to trace the history of the over one thousand pilots who served their country as the first women to fly military planes. She examines the social pressures that culminated in their disbandment in 1944—even though a wartime need for their services still existed—and documents their struggles and eventual success, in 1977, to gain military status and receive veterans’ benefits.

Add to Goodreads

Excerpt

WASP Missions

Airplane ferrying was the initial mission for which WASPs were created, and it would occupy nearly half of all active WASP graduates when the program ended in December 1944. Planes produced in the United States needed to be flown from the factories to air bases at home, in Canada, and overseas. To handle this transportation demand, the ATC hired thousands of male civilian pilots to ferry planes. These male pilots were later commissioned directly into the AAF if they met the requirement and desired commissioning. The WASPs were brought on as ferrying pilots, and by the time they were disbanded in December 1944, they had delivered 12,652 planes on domestic missions. By that time, 141 WASPs were assigned to the ATC. Although they comprised a small percentage of the total Ferrying Division pilots, WASPs had a significant impact. By 1944, WASPs were ferrying the majority of all pursuit planes and were so integrated into the Ferrying Division that their disbandment caused delays in pursuit deliveries.

The days of ferrying pilots were long and unpredictable. At bases that handled a range of planes, pilots did not know from one day to the next what planes they would be flying or how long of a flight to expect. In Minton’s words, “We usually reported to the flight line at seven o’clock in the morning and looked at the board to see what had been assigned us in the way of an airplane, where it went and what we would need in the way of equipment to take along, and then we would go out to find our airplane and sign it out at operations and check it over to be sure everything was okay with the airplane. And then we would take off to wherever the plane was supposed to go.”

Ferrying military aircraft during World War II was not an easy task. The majority of these planes were not equipped with radios, so pilots navigated by comparing air maps with physical cues (highways, mountains, rivers, etc.) or by flying the beam. (The “beam” was a radio transmission of Morse code signals. A grid of such beams was established across the United States. To follow the beam, a pilot would listen on her headphone for aural “blips” or tones to direct her. This required a great deal of concentration and was not always accurate.) Both navigational techniques were difficult, and this was compounded by the facts that many air bases and factories were camouflaged, blackouts were maintained in coastal areas, and the navigational beams were prone to breaking down. Problems sometimes arose with the planes themselves, which ha d been tested at the factories but never flown. Cross-continental flights often took several days, depending on the planes being flown and weather conditions.

In addition, planes equipped with top secret munitions or accessories had to be guarded while on the ground, and WASPs received orders to protect these planes at all cost. WASPs flying these planes were issued .45 caliber pistols and were trained to fire machine guns.

Available on Amazon

About the Author

Merryman, Molly

Molly Merryman, Ph.D. is the founding director of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality and an Associate Professor at Kent State University. She is the Historical Research Producer on the upcoming Red Door Films documentary about the WASP, Coming Home: Fight For A Legacy. She has directed and produced nine documentaries that have been broadcast and screened in the United States and United Kingdom. She is the research director for the Queer Britain national LGBT+ museum and is a visiting professor and advisory board member for the Queer History Centre at Goldsmiths, University of London. Merryman is the vice president of the International Visual Sociology Association.

Deborah Brosseau Communications

Book Blitz Organized By:

R&R Button

R&R Book Tours

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Freedom is a Land I Cannot See – Peter Cunningham*

ramblingmads

1924. In the dangerous first years of the Irish Free State, beautiful Rose Raven, having lost her sight and her first love, is living quietly with her brother. But Ultan is involved in anti-government propaganda. As the net tightens, Rose is the only person who knows where the shameful truth is hidden – a truth so incendiary, it threatens the new Ireland itself.

Peter Cunningham is from Waterford in the south east of Ireland. He is the author of the Monument series, widely acclaimed novels set in a fictional version of his home town. His novel, The Taoiseach was a controversial best seller; The Sea and the Silence won the prestigious Prix de l’Europe.

He is a member of Aosdána, the Irish academy of arts and letters, and lives with his wife, not far from Dublin.His novel, The Taoiseach was a controversial best seller; The Sea and the Silence won the prestigious Prix de l’Europe.He is a member of Aosdána, the Irish academy of arts and letters, and lives with his wife, not far from Dublin.

My thoughts:

One of the many things that frustrates me about the UK’s education system is the erasure of the cruel and terrible things the British Empire did. Ireland is our closest neighbour, but I have to rely on stories from my friend’s Granny and brilliantly written books like this to even scratch the surface of its rich and complicated history.

Powerful, moving and haunting, this book is a body blow, especially in the second act as Rose reveals what happened to her and her father, the terrible love story and tragic ending of her sight.

I didn’t like the epilogue as it seemed a little heavy handed but the two sections before it, Rose’s ‘now’ and ‘then’ were intense and absorbing, leaving me reeling.

This book needs to be on your to-be-read piles, its power and characters lingering on long after the last page, for such a slim volume it packs an emotive punch.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Coyote Fork – James Wilson*

ramblingmads

British journalist Robert Lovelace travels to California to report on the social media giant Global Village. He’s horrified by what he finds: a company—guided by the ruthless vision of its founder, Evan Bone—that seems to be making journalism itself redundant. Appalled, he decides to abandon the project and return home.

But as he leaves he has a disconcerting encounter that sends him off in a totally different direction. Soon he finds himself embarking on an increasingly fraught and dangerous mission. The aim: to uncover the murky truth about Evan Bone’s past and his pathological disregard for the human cost of the behemoth he has created.

Robert’s quest takes him from San Francisco to a small college town in the Midwest, to the site of a former hippie commune in northern California, introducing us to a range of vivid characters and confronting us with the price we pay—online trolling, the loss of privacy, professional ruin—for living in an “interconnected” world. Finally, he makes a startling discovery—and is thrown into a completely unforeseen existential dilemma.

A timely, stylishly written, and brilliantly conceived metaphysical thriller, Coyote Fork carries us on an unforgettable journey, before bringing us face to face with the darkness at the heart of Silicon Valley itself.

James Wilson is a London-based writer. His previous novels include The Dark Clue, The Bastard Boy, The Woman in the Picture, Consolation, and The Summer of Broken Stories. He has written BBC TV and radio documentaries, and is the author of a work of narrative nonfiction, The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America, which won a Myers Outstanding Book Award.

My thoughts:

A clever, convoluted thriller that is a lot more complex that at first glance and with an ending that left me going “and then what happened?” as I really wanted to know the fallout from the investigation.

Robert is a smart reporter, for all that he’s a travel writer, he has the instincts of an investigator – he keeps on tugging on the thread of the story to see what comes along next – even after being warned off. He makes a fascinating protagonist.

He’s determined and nothing will stop him as he collects ghosts whose deaths need resolving and laying to rest. They follow him up and down California, urging him to keep seeking answers.

He’s both helped and hindered by the people he meets, some seek to lead him astray and others drop crumbs he follows till the bitter end – keeping the reader guessing.

An involving and interesting look at how tech companies can change and ruin lives, cancel culture and how very rich people manipulate and bury the origins of their power.

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