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.
Her lists are life or death. “If it’s on the list, I have to do it.”
Milli Morgan lives by her lists. Groceries, goals, organising her boss – nothing escapes being ticked off her ever-growing to-do lists. Order brings her comfort; control keeps the chaos at bay. Everyone can rely on Milli.
Until the day new items start appearing on her list in red ink.
At first, she blames stress. A prank. Someone playing mind-games. But one instruction on the list refuses to be erased and demands to be completed.
A command so terrible she would have to be crazy to tick it off.
Don’t Forget the Crazy is a dark psychological suspense short story about obsession, perfection, and the dangerous pressure of always being “the good girl.” Fans of Gillian Flynn, Lisa Jewell, Patricia Highsmith, and Shirley Jackson will devour this chilling portrait of order unravelling into darkness.
Giveaway
Subscribe to Lucy Kaufman’s newsletter at www.sepiaink.co.uk by 24th December 2025 to win an Audrey’s solid milk chocolate Scaredy Cat (UK entrants only).
Lucy Kaufman is an award-winning author, playwright, audio dramatist and poet. 40 of her plays have been performed professionally around the UK and Australia, to critical acclaim. She has lectured in Playwriting and Screenwriting for Pen to Print and Canterbury Christ Church University and is a mentor at The Writing Coach. Originally from London, she now lives by the sea with her husband, sons, dogs and cats.
My thoughts: This short story depicts a descent into madness and mayhem for a tightly wound writer of lists. I like lists too, but not as much as Milli, who has so many, they’ve taken over her life. Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, she’s completely reliant on them to get things done and now they want her to do something terrible.
The work Christmas Secret Santa is always riddled with risk – what if you don’t like your Santee, what if you get it totally wrong? But when someone gets Milli a “Crazy Cat Lady Starter Kit”, she starts to spiral. She doesn’t even have a cat.
And after that…well… you’ll have to read it to find out!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
The lost city of Atlantis was cursed to the sky, and it falls upon one girl, with the help of an Atlantian refugee and a ragtag band of space pirates, to return the magical city to the ground.
Welcome to the tour for Atlantis by Amy Cip!
Atlantis Rising
Release Date: May 6, 2025
Genre: Sci-Fi Fantasy
The lost city of Atlantis was cursed to the sky, and it falls upon one girl, with the help of an Atlantian refugee and a ragtag band of space pirates, to return the magical city to the ground.
When an accident on the mainland leaves her parents dead and her sister in long term care, Ember Weathers is forced to drop out of school to run her parents’ bookstore in Devil’s Fork, Maine. Her only excitement is her pet dragon, who no one else can see. At least not until an attractive stranger named Shepherd walks in seeking her mother’s art. Before she can get any answers from him, hellhounds chase them to the relative safety of a woman named Maryse, who turns out to be no friend at all, but another seeker of Atlantis who will do anything to see the island returned.
They’re rescued by a band of space pirates led by Captain Hawkins who are ancestors of Atlantis that seek and protect survivors from the curse of the Atlantian King’s brother. Ember has a choice to stay with this band of survivors or pursue the return of Atlantis. In her quest, she’ll be forced to seek out Maryse, who holds her sister hostage, as well as discover the secrets of Shepherd’s past, including the dark magic allowing him to live hundreds of years. In the end, it’s Ember who must go alone if she’s to free her sister and return the island of magic and love to the world.
Fans of Holly Black, Rebecca Ross, Sarah J. Maas, Lauren Roberts, Kiera Cass, Tracy Wolff, and Jennifer L. Armentrout will enjoy Amy Cip.
London, Christmas 1999. The world is on edge. With the new millennium just days away, fears of the Millennium Bug are spiralling– warnings of computer failures, market crashes, even global catastrophe.
But fifty miles east, on the frozen Blackwater Island, a different kind of mystery unfolds. A child’s body is discovered on the bracken, untouched by footprints, with no sign of how he died. And no one has come forward to claim him. At the International Tribune, reporter Jonny Murphy senses something is off. Police are appealing for relatives, not suspects. An anonymous call led officers to the scene, but no one knows who made it.
While the world fixates on a digital apocalypse, Jonny sees the real disaster unfolding closer to home. With just twenty-hour hours before the century turns, he heads to Blackwater– driven by curiosity, desperation, and the sting of rejection from his colleague Paloma. But Blackwater has secrets buried deep in the frozen ground. More victims– some dead, others still paying for past sins. And when Paloma catches up to him, they stumble onto something far bigger than either of them imagined. Something that could change everything.
The millennium is coming. The clock is ticking.
Can Jonny stop it? Should he?
And what if Y2K wasn’t a hoax, but a warning…?
Sarah Sultoon is an award-winning journalist and writer, whose work as an international news executive with CNN and for Channel 4 News has taken her all over the world, from the seats of power in both Westminster and Washington to the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan. Her debut thriller, The Source, was a Capital Crime Book Club pick, won the Crime Fiction Lover Best Debut Award, was nominated for the CWA’s New Blood Dagger, was a number one bestseller on Kindle and is currently in production with Lime Pictures. It was followed by the critically acclaimed The Shot, Dirt and Death Flight.
My thoughts: a new book by Sarah Sultoon is pretty much a guaranteed stay-up-all-night-totally-gripped read. And so this one is.
Set in 1999, when I was 13, the eve of the Millennium, when Y2K was a paranoid fear, when computers weren’t as prevalent as they are today but still heavily relied on, people genuinely thought aeroplanes might fall out of the sky. But everyone was also geared up for a massive party with fireworks and the Millennium Dome (now the O2 Arena) was a huge tourist draw.
However, in a quiet Essex backwater, on an island designated a Special Scientific area of Study and therefore off limits, things are happening of a different nature. A young boy’s body is found on the island, he’s dressed in strange clothes and seems to have come from nowhere. No one is that bothered, and the only police officer in the area can’t do much.
Reporter Johnny has been sent to find out more, his editor desperate for something other than the Millennium to fill the pages of the newspaper. Finding the tiny village with its pub and not much else is one thing, getting anyone to talk about the island is another.
But out there in the marshes is a story bigger than anything Johnny has covered before, if he survives long enough to file it.
Intelligent, engaging and utterly brilliant, this is a book that will not only keep you up all night but leave you gasping and utterly hooked. Clear your calendar.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own
We’re proud to present the gorgeous cover for Oath Betrayal, the next Oathborn installment by Ann C. Orlandi!
Oath Betrayal (Oathborn #2)
Expected Release Date: April 12, 2026
Genre: Gaslamp Romantasy/ Adventure
-Found Family
-Slow Burn Heats Up
-Sword Fighting lessons
-Unique Magic System
-Complex Characters
-Fantasy Ball
Zari Ankmetta traveled to the fae islands to save her father, but destiny had other plans. Now, she’s bound to a magical sword, tangled in court politics, and in incredible danger. If the fae Queen learns her secrets, she’ll be executed. But if she abandons Hazelle and her other friends, there will be no hope for peace between humans and fae.
Across the sea, the human military is preparing a massive offensive maneuver against the fae. To protect those she loves, Zari must decide who she trusts, what she believes, and who she wants to become.
However, the sword has its own agenda. And if Zari waits too long, it may decide for her.
Some destinies are given.
Others are stolen.
Hers will change the world.
Rejected by her family and plagued by insomnia, Rose Shaw is unravelling day by day.
Her life is a blur of exhaustion, until one evening a man running through the streets collides with her before quickly vanishing, dropping a journal at her feet.
Inside are Finn Matthews’ frantic, desperate words. He was convinced he was being hunted. Now he’s missing, and nobody is looking for him.
Rose decides to dedicate her sleepless nights to obsessively search for answers about what happened to Finn. Why did he think someone wanted to kill him? And why, in the midst of a string of murders, won’t the police investigate his disappearance?
The deeper Rose digs, the more determined she becomes to uncover the truth. But she has no idea what it will cost her…
My thoughts: What happened to Rose and her family is a truly awful tragedy, and she’s been vilified for it ever since, both by her family and by the wider community, although it was an accident and many would say she’s paid for it.
Her insomnia is utterly consuming, she just can’t sleep. I have it too, but nowhere near as badly and I felt for her. It affects your whole life, not getting proper sleep, and it can be really hard to find the right means and methods to stop it.
Finding the notebook with Finn’s desperate story gives her a focus and a project, but also leads her into danger, not least from the local police force. Finding herself more isolated than ever, she’s determined to get justice for Finn, even if she can never get it for herself.
A gripping and haunting tale of injustice, abuse, loneliness and one woman’s single minded determination to help a complete stranger.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
They met for the first time in college. Two of the brightest minds ever to graduate from the prestigious Stanford University. They met again in Quantico, Virginia. Robert Hunter has become the head of the LAPD’s Ultra Violent Crimes Unit. Lucien Folter has become the most prolific and dangerous serial killer in FBI history.
The FBI caught Lucien. He’s been in prison for years. But Lucien has just escaped. And he’s angry. He’s going to make the person who put him away suffer.
That person . . . is Robert Hunter.
And every story must come to an end . . .
My thoughts: If you’ve been reading this series too, you will maybe remember Lucian Folter from An Evil Mind, formerly Hunter’s college roommate, now the most dangerous and prolific serial killer the FBI has ever encountered.
If not, you’re about to meet possibly the most evil man around. He’s deadly and completely devoid of care, he kills to study death and the only person who might be able to get inside his mind and stop him is Hunter. Lucian currently hates Hunter and wants him dead for his part in catching him last time, so this is very personal.
As the two men circle one another, each trying to out think the other, the body count rises. Can Hunter recapture this monster or has he finally met his match?
Assisted as always by his partner, Garcia, as well as the FBI and a federal marshal, Hunter needs to stop Lucian before he kills anyone else, or Hunter himself.
Totally gripping and horribly shocking, this really ups the ante by making it incredibly personal to Hunter, not just because this is his city, but because people close to him are in danger and Lucian Folter won’t just stop and go away.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
‘There’s a package on the porch,’ my husband calls as he leaves for work. I rip open the brown paper and find three books inside. I didn’t order them.
A week ago, my new neighbor was murdered in exactly the way described in the first book. Her name was Naomi Sheller. I’ll never forget the first time I saw her — frozen in the middle of the grocery store, eyes wide with terror. Days later, she’s found dead in the woods. Her husband, Eric, is led away in handcuffs.
The second book has another murder in it. And the victim sounds exactly like me. We moved here from New York City to raise our daughters somewhere safe. But now I think I made a terrible mistake. The police don’t believe me. My husband thinks I’m paranoid.
But I’m not.
Because whoever sent these books . . . knows exactly where I live.
T.J. Brearton is a bestselling novelist and screenwriter. He is the author of the novels Gone and Dead Gone, both of which have ranked among Amazon Kindle’s top 100. His Titan trilogy has been an international best-seller. With Ted Magee, Brearton wrote Bare Knuckle, a martial arts film, and wrote and directed Breathe, about amateur MMA fighter Lane Buzzell on an undefeated streak. He has written more than a dozen novels, mostly crime thrillers, including one paranormal mystery, and published short fiction in numerous literary journals. He lives in the Adirondack Mountains of New York with his wife and three children where he writes full time, takes out the trash, and competes with his kids for his wife’s attention.
We’re celebrating the release of Leah & Jake Ruin their Friendship Amanda Braun-Boe, available December 9th!
Leah & Jake Ruin their Friendship
Release Date: December 9, 2025
Genre: Small Town/ Friends-to-Lovers Romcom
-Friends to lovers -Small town romance -FMC and MMC over 30 -Mutual pining -Secret crush -FMC Afraid to commit -Golden retriever MMC -Divorced dad -Single mom -Meddling families -Unleash the banter -The spice is spicing!
Are best friends, mutual pining, and meddling families the ingredients for true love, or are Leah and Jake a recipe for certain disaster?
Millennial and bad movie junkie Leah Roth didn’t think her life would still be so directionless in her thirties. Not everything’s bad. She’s living in a small town straight out of Gilmore Girls with her eleven-year-old son and her friends and family. But her dating life is another story.
There was the guy who insisted that his pet snake sleep next to them, the cheating ex who was more interested in admiring his muscles than changing diapers, and the amateur magician who tried to see how big he could grow his handlebar mustache. The one person who is always able to listen to her relationship woes is her best friend, Jake Bradley. Between telling him about her love life and taking trips down memory lane, she hopes the one thing they don’t talk about is the crush she’s had on him for years.
Jake Bradley was ten when his family relocated from Ireland to Minnesota. His world was rocked on day one by his new next-door neighbor, Leah Roth. They became best friends immediately, bonding over Game Boy, terrible films, and his love of baking. But underneath his jokes and self-deprecating personality, Jake has a secret—he’s been in love with Leah for a long time. After letting the chance to be with her slip by years ago, Jake has convinced himself that there is no way that Leah has feelings for him…
When Jake suddenly finds himself single, both friends realize that the timing might be right to
admit their feelings. Will Leah and Jake be brave enough to take a chance on love and each other?
TWs: Cheating, divorce, parental death, an uninvolved parent, strong language, and explicit sexual content.
My thoughts: This was a really enjoyable rom com about two friends who realise (very slowly) that they’ve been in love with each other for years and that now they’re both single at the same time – it might be the right time. Or not. Because everyone loves an experiment that might ruin your friendship, distress your kids, your parents, the business your families run might suffer.
Leah and Jake are pretty adorable, and so stupid at times, everyone around them knows they’re meant to be, even Leah’s weird brother can see it, even their kids can see it. But they just keep making a mess, mistakes happen, you don’t need to run for the hills!
Anyway, I liked this, I think you might too, so read it and thank me later.
A respectable septuagenarian steals a valuable painting and later tries to return it, with a little help from her friends.
Bored National Trust volunteer, Maureen, steals an obscure still life as a giant up-yours to all those who’ve discounted her. The novice fine art thief is rumbled by some fellow room guides, but snitches get stitches, camaraderie wins out and instead of grassing her up, they decide to help.
Often written off as an insipid old fart, Maureen has a darker side, challenging ingrained ideas of how senior citizens should behave. Her new set of friends make her feel alive again. No longer quite so invisible, can this unlikely pensioner gang return the now infamous painting without being caught by the Feds?
I wrote this after hearing a radio interview in which an art detective revealed how a stolen Titian was dumped at a bus stop outside Richmond station. In a red, white and blue plastic bag! I just couldn’t shake such a compelling image. I volunteered at Ham House for many years, and my passion for this Jacobean gem, together with the volunteers’ indomitable spirit, gave birth to my unlikely anti-hero.
With over five million members, the National Trust is a huge British institution. Yet, next to nothing has been written about it in terms of contemporary fiction. Until now.
While No Oil Painting explores themes of insignificance and loneliness in older age, particularly for women, it is mainly intended to entertain and offer a small haven in dark, uncertain times.
With a BA in English and Philosophy, Genevieve worked for eleven years at the Weekend FT, where she helped create and launch How To Spend It magazine.
She volunteered for years as a National Trust guide at Ham House. This became the setting for her debut art heist novel, No Oil Painting, which was listed for the inaugural Women’s Prize Trust and Curtis Brown Discoveries, and was published by Burton Mayers Books on 10th October 2025.
Her writing uses dark humour to probe the difference between our perception of people and their true selves. The gulf between what is said and what is meant. She considers people watching an essential skill for any writer; overheard snippets of conversation or a bonkers exchange at a bus stop are like gold nuggets. She’s been known to follow people to catch the end of a juicy conversation or argument. Women aged over fifty are essentially invisible anyhow and she views this as a kind of superpower.
Unlike her protagonist Maureen, she hasn’t used this to commit art theft. Yet.
Giveaway to Win National Trust chocolate, and a Ham House towel and fridge magnet (Open to UK Only)
My thoughts: This was a very funny and entertaining read, I loved Maureen and her careful planning of an art heist. She’s fed up of being invisible and overlooked. People seem to assume she’s not very clever, and that she’s not capable of anything as complex as stealing a painting in a busy and popular National Trust house, which it turns out, she absolutely is.
Some years ago I volunteered in a charity shop, most of the other volunteers were older women and they were fascinating, they’d all done interesting jobs and had lots of stories (my favourite was Carol – who used to work for a law firm which had celebrity clients, she met Julie Andrews and said she was very grand and a bit rude! I was shocked, she had great stories)
Maureen is very like those volunteers, she doesn’t want to just sit around at home and still has plenty to contribute. Her volunteering gives her something to do, and the National Trust, like many charitable organisations, relies on its volunteers. But even her fellow retired volunteers don’t think she’s quite as clever and cunning as she turns out to be.
I hope Maureen and her friends get up to more hijinks, maybe not too many crimes, but they certainly deserve adventures, and all sorts of things can happen at an old, possibly haunted, house!
*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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ramblingmads 