Author: ramblingmads

I am a thirtysomething from London, with a cat, a husband, bookshelves which keep threatening to crush me under their load and chronic health conditions. Basically your average over stressed millennial. Welcome.
blog tour, books

BBNYA Semi-finalists: The Stars Within – Alex Arch

ramblingmads

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Thomas fights to beat cancer. Colette fights to save the human race.

A colonial miner crippled with debt, Thomas must flee his home to cure his recurring cancer. With his health declining at an alarming rate, his options are limited. Spend his last days surrounded by his loved ones or leave them behind for a slim chance to live. The choice is impossible, the prospect grim, and not for him alone.

A pragmatic military hero, Colette enrolls in a mission to thwart an alien invasion. She always gets the job done… unless Mia’s involved. She must then put her feelings aside as always or risk jeopardizing her assignment for the woman she once loved.

Two battles. Two realities. For one to succeed, the other must fail.

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I grew up in Canada, as most would expect, playing hockey. Always willing to give the best of myself, I added mountain biking, firefighting, and now, unexpectedly, writing to the list.

Loving all things science-fiction and fantasy, I decided to create worlds where I could make people think outside the usual boundaries. Fast-paced, crisp, and intense stories with meaningful parallels to our own realities await readers who can only be certain of one thing: world-shattering twists are inevitable.

blog tour, books

BBNYA Semi-finalists: The Soul’s Aspect – Mark Holloway

ramblingmads

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

A healer forced to become a killer for an empire that would grind his country to dust.

Kehlem, the sickly son of a widowed physician, has devoted his life to learning his father’s craft. Wanting to finally step out of his father’s shadow, he embarks on a project of his own, seeking out the help of Themia, the town’s newly arrived Alchemist and a rare wielder of magic.

But Themia has secrets of her own, secrets carried from the heart of the empire itself, secrets that would steal Kehlem away from his home and into the empire’s Academy for magic users.

The Isale Academy beckons, but can Kehlem survive the academy and its brutal regime? And if so, what would he have to become?

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Mark Holloway is an indie fantasy author from the UK. With a keen interest in the weird and esoteric, and a day job in medical science, these interests filter into the epic fantasy series, The Aspect. You can find Mark on most social media platforms IG:@markholloway.author/Twitter:@markholloway_1

books, reviews

Book Review: The French Affair – Theresa Howes

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A country at war. A dangerous secret.

After a failed honey-trap mission for British Intelligence leads to the breakdown of her marriage, French journalist Iris escapes to Dijon, seeking refuge in the cottage of her beloved aunt, Eva. But Eva is gone, the streets are full of distrust, and Iris is soon followed by the very last man she wants to see – the British civil servant and traitor she was tasked with catching, now keen to rekindle their affair.

Eva’s home used to be a comforting place, where the locals sought out Eva’s homemade tinctures and cures and gifted jars of fresh honey from the garden. Now it is a place of danger, where threats loom in every corner. And as Iris spends more time there, she discovers a secret that will change the way she sees her aunt forever – and the course of her own life too…

Don’t miss this utterly sweeping WW2 historical novel, perfect for fans of Suzanne Goldring, Mandy Robotham and Kristin Hannah.

My thoughts: thank you to HQ for gifting me a Netgalley copy of this book to review.

I don’t usually like war stories – for some reason they annoy me – I prefer autobiographical accounts of that time instead for the most part.

This I did enjoy, however, partly because I think it could have been set at other periods of history where there was conflict. And also because it felt slightly removed from the usual stories.

Set in Dijon, France, it follows Iris a French operative for British Intelligence. She heads to her aunt Eva’s house, only to find her aunt has died suddenly, after an op ends and she needs to distance herself from the fallout in order to carry out her next mission.

She must convince the German spy turned soldier, that she wasn’t involved in him being exposed as an enemy agent, and then kill him. All while reckoning with Eva’s killing and convincing the locals she’s not a collaborator, oh and winning back her husband Jack, currently hiding out with the maquis (French Resistance).

It is a lot to deal with, and as she grew up in her aunt’s house, there are memories and people from her past also drawing on her time and energy. She’s got to come up with a plan all by herself, or so she thinks. When Eva’s friend Clemence gradually reveals what happened before Eva was killed, Iris realises she’s not alone, and Eva’s house might hold some answers to her predicament.

The book is packed full of plot and interesting characters, I would have liked to stick around and learn their stories, but Iris needs to keep moving, keep suspicion falling on her as she carries out her plans.

blog tour, books

BBNYA Semi-finalists: The Shareholders – H.S. Down

ramblingmads

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

In the late 21st century, Earth is ravaged by climate change. The billionaires have bioengineered immortality, fled to Mars, and rule Earth’s last biospheres as their personal shares. Those left on Earth struggle as the planet tumbles into its terminal years of habitabilty.

Ian Gateman, a bureaucrat, is tasked with finding a buyer for fledgling colony of ecological refugees. As Ian travels to the estates of several visitng shareholders, it becomes clear the shareholders have other plans for humanity’s future.

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Author Bio

An earnest scribe born at 348.65 ppm of atmospheric CO2. An unreliable narrator, feral but mostly harmless. The Shareholders is my debut novel and it is attempt to wrestle with the human drive to live forever, both figuratively and literally, amidst widespread ecological extinction. I swear, I’m a little less of a kill-joy in person. Keep an eye out for my next novel, Children of the Fall. Coming Fall 2023.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Let Them Float – Katy Wimhurst

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In these short stories, Katy Wimhurst creates off-kilter worlds that illuminate our own. 

Apocalyptic rabbits invade a town. 

People overwhelmed by their lives float above an urban park. 

A woman turns transparent after a virus. 

The playful lens of magical realism is used to explore physical and mental illness and our fragile environment. Thought-provoking fiction with a good dose of whimsy.

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Katy Wimhurst’s first collection of short stories was Snapshots of the Apocalypse (Fly on the Wall Press, 2022) and her second collection Let Them Float will be published in December 2023 (Alien Buddha Press). 

Her fiction has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, including The Guardian, Writers’ Forum, Cafe Irreal, Kaleidotrope, To Hull and Back, and ShooterLit. Her first book of visual poems, Fifty-One Trillion Bits, was published by Trickhouse Press (2023). She sometimes interviews writers for 3AM Magazine. 

She is housebound with the illness M.E.

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My thoughts: as someone who lives with chronic illness I did recognise some of the kinds of feelings present in these short stories. Most of them are gentle and moving, although the giant rabbits were a bit sinister. The longest story, the title one, was deeply intriguing. It certainly spoke to me about mental illness and the desire sometimes to just disconnect from life around you for a while.

It’s an interesting collection and full of light and darkness, some are very tiny snippets of people’s lives and others a bit more detailed. Easy to read but should be savoured as each has layers to it.

*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: Mr Gearhart – Emily Owen

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1863

Six years have passed at Ravenfeld Hall. The Abernathy siblings’ fortunes continue to improve as George and Douglas’s android-building business thrives. But change looms on the horizon. Douglas’s engagement to the sweet, charming Clara Marsden threatens to take him from his family, while sister Molly contemplates whether a future with the man she loves means sacrificing her independence and academic pursuits.

Then the family face more pressing concerns…

One night, George’s latest invention escapes the Hall. Four months later, a charismatic inventor by the name of Gearhart appears in London, with an intellect to rival that of the Abernathys’. George senses there’s something sinister about the mysterious Mr Gearhart, who’s planning to unveil an invention that could change the world. But does he have far grander ambitions? And can George uncover the truth about him in time?

Emily Owen studied English Language and Literature at the University of Leeds, and completed her Masters by Research in 2018. She works as a Digital Executive and lives in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. She self-published her debut novel The Mechanical Maestro in 2020, which is the first book in her series following the adventures of the Abernathy family and their clockwork creations. The second book in the series, The Copper Chevalier was released in March 2022.

My thoughts: I really enjoyed this third outing for the Abernathy siblings. Their successes mean that they are relatively settled now and able to enjoy life a bit more. Until the arrival of the sinister Mr Gearhart, who targets George.

He seems to have some pretty interesting ideas, ideas that feel familiar and something is a bit off about him. So George investigates, keeping Douglas at arms length to protect him.

Molly has her own misadventures in the greenhouse, when she accidentally creates a superhero/villain origin story type potion. But she keeps it a secret and almost ruins everything with Arthur in the process.

With appearances from Maestro and Colonel Copperton, this ties in nicely with the previous books in the series.

*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

BBNYA Semi-finalists: The Rise of Riverstone – Mandy Schimelpfenig

ramblingmads

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

She was forced to watch her world burn.

They should have killed her when they had the chance.

Praed is a country of vast prairies and looming mountains where the elite make their homes along a mighty river. For hundreds of years, to wear the crown is to tempt fate, for in Praed, any man may become king if he’s strong enough.

Laria Audrey lives in privilege as the daughter of a famous knight, until one night she’s ripped from her bed to find that her entire life has gone up in flames. Forced to serve those responsible, Laria pretends to be deaf and mute to survive. But when days turn to weeks, Laria loses hope of awakening from the nightmare and must admit she’s truly alone.

When her sworn enemy approaches her with a shocking proposition, Laria must decide if she’ll resign herself to misery or become the hero she never believed she could be.

CW: This book contains references to sexual assault.

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Mandy received her B.S. in Zoology from Washington State University and an A.S. in Veterinary Technology from St. Petersburg College. Clearly her life goals were not geared toward a career as an author. She is a Certified Veterinary Technician specializing in small animals. When she’s not saving lives, she’s weaving tales of strong women using their intelligence to pursue incandescent happy endings. The Rise of Riverstone is the debut novel in her medieval historical fantasy series, Daughters of Riverstone. She lives on the Washington Coast with her husband and their four children. Besides leaning uncomfortably over a computer screen, Mandy enjoys camping and hiking with her family, reading, and wearing out her dogs on the beach.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Scotsman – Rob McClure

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The Scotsman is the story of a Glasgow detective investigating his own daughter’s death in Washington, D.C. Six months after the murder of Catriona Cowan, a Scottish exchange student, her father arrives in D.C. skeptical of the findings of an earlier police investigation. Chic Cowan’s own inquiries lead him from the deprived neighborhoods of Southeast D.C. to the townhouses of Capitol Hill and to the suspicion that his daughter’s death is connected to an upcoming Senate election. But the obsessed and grieving father, wrestling with sobriety, comes to question his own sanity as he closes in on the truth.

Rob McClure was born in Scotland. 

He currently lives in Galesburg, Illinois, and teaches film at Knox College where he is John and Elaine Fellowes Professor of English. 

His fiction has appeared in Gettysburg Review, Manchester Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Barcelona Review and many other magazines. 

My thoughts: the DC police have written off Catriona Cowan’s murder as a mugging gone wrong, but her father, Scottish detective Chic Cowan is far from convinced. Flying into the US capital, he starts his own investigation, taking him deep into the heart of Washington politics and covert organisations. Catriona was a student, but her girlfriend was a journalist. Did the two women dig up something they shouldn’t?

Chic teams up with Catriona’s friend Dayon, and interviews her professors, room mate, and a US senator and his staff. Somewhere in amongst the lies is the truth of what happened to his precious daughter and he will go to any length to find out.

He gets slightly side tracked when he meets Rita, an alluring woman with a tenuous connection to his investigation, but even as she becomes a victim of the people he’s hunting, he never fully loses focus and now has two reasons to keep searching – Rita might even still be alive.

Clever, gripping and full of the darkness hidden underneath a politician’s smile, this is a tense and engaging 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

BBNYA Semi-finalists: The Raven Tower – Emma Miles

ramblingmads

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

How much would you sacrifice to save your people? Your freedom, your home … power … love … your life?’

Four lands beneath the sky. A haven of peace, a kingdom of plenty, ravaged islands, and a nation of cruel, dark magic. One will try to devour them all.

Spring brings the ruthless Borrow raiders much earlier in the year, their attacks more ferocious, more desperate. When Kesta uses her magic to see in the flames who is really behind the raids the Independent islands of the Fulmers seem doomed to fall. Their only hope is to cross the sea to seek the help of the King of Elden and his dangerous sorcerer, the Dark Man; but what price will the king demand for his aid?

Wild Kesta has been raised to be a leader, trusted, loved, with the freedom of her cherished Islands. Can Kesta subdue her fiery nature and work with a man she hates, a man she fears, to stop the evil that will consume their lands and enslave them all?

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I often get asked when I knew I was a writer; the answer is always. A writer is what I am, it’s in my soul. There have been times in my life when I couldn’t write, and times when my writing has been the only thing that kept me going. I think I always longed for something deeper from life, something more meaningful, and I found it in my imagination and in the music of words.

It was poetry which first caught my attention, and whilst my younger cousins called for ghost stories it was animals I first wrote of. I think I gravitated toward fantasy because of the freedom it gives, I could create my own worlds and decide my own rules. My Wind’s Children trilogy was born from an image that came to me whilst daydreaming, of a young man sitting alone below a bridge. I didn’t know who he was; it turns out neither did he, but we found out together. 

I’m now working on my seventh book and love writing more than ever, it’s an addiction, an obsession, but one I now share with my wonderful writing family. My beta readers, my editor, and you, my readers, having you with me on my journey means the world to me. 

I write as much as I can around work, but I also try to squeeze in a ridiculous amount of hobbies! I’m a wildlife photographer and do a little archery. I paint, sculpt with clay, withies and driftwood, preferring to be outdoors if I can. I still have a love for the theatre, having started out in life studying backstage crafts, and a great love for language. I speak a little French, Romanian and Italian, ma non molto bene!

books

Book Release Blitz: Mistletoe Bluff – Emily Schneider

ramblingmads

Happy publication day and congratulations to Emily Schneider on the release of Mistletoe Bluff!

ebook

Mistletoe Bluff

Publication Date: December 5, 2023

Genre: Holiday Romance/ Fake Romance/ Romantic Comedy

🎄 Enemies-to-lovers
🎄 Fake Dating
🎄 Forced Proximity
🎄 Sharing Body Heat to Stay Warm
🎄 One Car
🎄 Anxiety Rep
🎄 No Third Act Breakup

Fake dating my arch-nemesis during Christmas…what’s the worst that could happen?

One year ago, Oliver Lewis ruined my life by winning the community college photography contest—now he’s ruined it again by scratching my car.

Did I mention it’s Christmastime? Now, while my car is being repaired, I’m forced to let Oliver chauffeur me around Meridel.

But I’ve found a silver lining! If I win England’s most prestigious photo competition, I can finally pay off my debt and move forward with my life. The only problem is, one of the judges is Oliver’s father, and to better my chances, I have to get cozy with my arch-nemesis.

AKA: pretend to be his girlfriend for Christmas.

I thought it would be simple, but I did not expect that underneath that smug, arrogant exterior there’d be a sweet, thoughtful man who would find every excuse to be near me.

But it doesn’t matter. I, Maya Beck, will not fall for Oliver Lewis.

My future rests on winning this contest and nothing—and no one—will get in the

The Mistletoe Bluff is a sweet, closed-door romantic comedy with laugh-out-loud moments, sizzling chemistry, and swoony kisses.

This is the second standalone in the Sweet Meridel Romance series.

Get it Here!

About the Author

author+photo

2021 Best Indie Book Award® Fantasy Winner, 2022 Minnesota Author Project YA Fiction Winner, and 2022 Best Indie Book Award® Dragon Fantasy Winner!

Emily Schneider grew up in Minnesota where she spent most of her life studying music and singing, which ironically has nothing to do with writing fantasy or romantic comedy novels. While music had always been a passion, Emily could never get away from her love of reading and writing books full of dragons, Fae, monsters, magic, and romance. When she isn’t writing, you can find Emily chasing around her two dogs, Pixel and Frodo, playing Mario Kart with her husband, or watching The Lord of the Rings for the one-hundred-and-eleventh time.

Emily Schneider

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