We’re getting ready for the release of Demons For Breakfast on March 13th, and can’t wait to hear what early readers are saying! Pre-order now!
Demons For Breakfast (Nightshade Hearts)
Expected Release Date: March 13, 2026
Genre: Witchy Urban Fantasy
*Urban Fantasy
*Reluctant Partnership
*Cursed Hero
*She Saves Him
*Witch Romance
*Slow burn
*Herb Based Magic
San Francisco is cracked open by demon portals, but Sorrel Redwood has always known the dead don’t stay quiet. A commune-raised herb witch with a silver mane and lavender-tinted shades, Sorrel makes her living banishing spirits and brewing intention oils. What she really wants, though, is revenge—the kind that only comes when she finds the demons who tore her mother from the world.
But when a botched banishment binds her to Ranth, a centuries-old wizard with more scars than secrets, Sorrel’s witch-for-hire gig turns into a war. Demon hounds are hunting. An ancient cult is watching. And thanks to the curse laced through Ranth’s golden bracelet—now mirrored on Sorrel’s own wrist—if he dies, she dies.
With her Scooby-gang of experts, a grumpy cat named Antimony, and every herb in her belt, Sorrel will have to decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice. Because in San Francisco, even the city of fog can’t hide the truth: not all demons wear horns, and not all hearts stay human.
In Wilhelmsburg, Hamburg’s so-called ‘problem area’, an American couple is found brutally murdered in a derelict house. Prosecutor Chastity Riley is assigned the case and quickly finds herself waist-deep in a murky tangle of city planners, shady investors and vanishing officials.
The gentrification machine is rolling on, and someone is sending a very clear message. As November fog settles over the city, Chastity is coughing up blood, her personal life is a slow-motion disaster, and her former colleague, Faller, won’t stop interfering.
But nothing’s going to stop her from cutting through the lies – not even the sharks circling ever closer…
Simone Buchholz was born in Hanau. At university, she studied Philosophy and Literature, worked as a waitress and a columnist, and trained to be a journalist at the prestigious HenriNannen-School.
In 2016, Simone Buchholz was awarded the Crime Cologne Award as well as runner-up in the German Crime Fiction Prize for Blue Night, which was number one on the KrimiZEIT Best of Crime List for months. The critically acclaimed Beton Rouge, Mexico Street, Hotel Cartagena (winner of the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger) and River Clyde all followed suit, with 2023’s The Acapulco and 2024’s The Kitchen reloading the series.
She is on the board of PEN Berlin, and is at the forefront of the lobbying movement for fair pay for authors. She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her son.
My thoughts: Chastity Riley has a nasty virus she can’t shake, and a nasty case too. Two elderly Americans who have lived in Hamburg for decades, have been murdered in their homes.
As the team investigate, they discover a mess of planning applications, permits, foreign investment and no one wants to answer her questions. There’s a niece who has hired a retired Faller, who has started working as a PI, but her story seems a bit off.
Faller’s replacement has started, and causes more than a ripple in Chastity’s personal life too. She needs to get some rest, but she can’t shake this case.
Another clever and twisty turny story of Hamburg’s seedy underbelly and opaque bureaucracy. Chastity gets more complicated, and the changes to her team of detectives throws up complications. I’m really glad this series is back, the writing is always excellent and compelling, really enjoyable.
*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 13th adrenaline-packed Robert Hunter thriller and Top Ten Sunday Times bestseller.
When a routine autopsy on what looked like a straightforward hit-and-run leads the LA Chief Medical Examiner, Dr Carolyn Hove, to discover some puzzling inconsistencies, she calls in Detective Robert Hunter of the LAPD Ultra Violent Crimes Unit. Not only did Dr Hove discover that the death wasn’t caused by a hit-and-run, but she also found indications that the victim had been severely tortured prior to death.
What no one realises is that what Dr Hove has stumbled upon is just the tip of the iceberg and it will lead Hunter and his partner, Carlos Garcia, on the trail of a twisted and clever killer who hides in plain sight. A serial killer no one even knew existed – a killer who has always operated under the radar, expertly disguising every gruesome murder as an accidental death.
But with no leads as to why the victim was targeted, the investigation comes to a standstill, until another body is discovered with an alternative cause of death.
What becomes clear is that this serial killer isn’t going to stop – unless Hunter and Garcia can get to him.
But how do you investigate a murder when you have no victims? How do you catch a killer who leaves behind no crime scene? How do you stop a ghost who no one can prove even exists?
My thoughts: Thirteen books into this dark but compelling series, I am still completely hooked. This case might be Hunter and Garcia’s strangest yet.
Because their medical examiner is brilliant, she spots a few things that prove their hit and run victim is nothing of the sort – he died from hypothermia. In Southern California, in summer. Now I have actually spent summer in Orange County, south of LA and it is hot. So, so hot. There’s just no way you could get that cold unless you were locked in a freezer. And nobody does that voluntarily.
While Hunter and Garcia are trying to figure out whodunnit and why. There’s another body that appears, again the supposed cause of death doesn’t match the evidence on the body. A body that was donated to the students at a medical school, training to be medical examiners.
Slowly, the brilliant detective duo, veterans of dozens of baffling cases, put together what links the victims and what might the killer be thinking.
Chris Carter is a brilliant writer, and was a criminal psychologist, and really knows how to build suspense and a sense of real danger, which once again Garcia and Hunter find themselves in.
This blogathon has been just tremendous to be part of and I cannot wait to see what Carter writes next.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Callum Murphy thought he was happily married to a corporate consultant… But when police show up at Callum’s work site, informing him of his wife Lea’s death – his world starts to crumble. And it turns out, her death was just the beginning…
Within a few hours, Callum is told that Lea was, in fact, an MI6 agent who was killed because of intelligence only she had, strangers with guns break into his home and he’s forced to run for his life.
Thrust into a terrifying chase across Europe, Callum has to dodge British police and shadowy MI6 operatives who believe he knows more than he’s letting on. All the while trying to piece together the truth about his wife’s final mission.
But the deeper he digs, the more dangerous his situation becomes, forcing him to ask the ultimate question: Who did he marry, and can he trust anything she ever said to him?
Rob Sinclair is the million copy bestseller of over twenty thrillers, including the James Ryker series. Rob previously studied Biochemistry at Nottingham University. He also worked for a global accounting firm for 13 years, specialising in global fraud investigations.
My thoughts: When his wife dies in a motorbike accident in Bucharest, Callum Murphy is thrown into a world of spies and high stakes. The woman he married is not who he thought she was. Instead she was an MI6 agent, involved in dangerous work that took her around the globe.
He is interrogated by the police and MI6, Lea was in possession of important secret information but no one knows where it is. They suspect Callum knows but he hasn’t got a clue. Lea kept him completely in the dark.
But he does find a trail of clues, put together especially for him that take him on a journey into his wife’s world of danger and espionage. All he wants is to understand who Lea was and why she had to die, all they want is the secrets she took with her. But the truth might cost Callum everything.
High stakes, high octane drama, a man who doesn’t know who to trust, spies with secrets and answers hidden that only one person can find.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
An ancient symbol. A deadly killer. Two strangers must decode the past to survive the future
Book Two of the Egyptian Stones Trilogy – Coming Spring 2026
FBI Special Agent Charlie Reed thought the Surgeon — a notorious serial killer — was a ghost from the past. But when a new series of murders erupts, each marked with strange, arcane symbols, the trail leads Reed across continents to Egypt… and to a chilling revelation: the Surgeon has returned, and this time, his killings follow a pattern—one tied to a purpose more terrifying than anyone imagined.
Meanwhile, in Egypt, Alex MacLure has uncovered more encoded messages in ancient tablets. An ancient Egyptian was searching for a forgotten symbol. His name appears in a programme written by a brilliant AI student. The student reaches out with a wild theory — but before MacLure discovers the truth, he’s arrested for a murder he didn’t commit.
Thrown together by fate and hunted by forces beyond their understanding, Reed and MacLure must unlock an ancient secret. They must stop the Surgeon before he unleashes a plan, millennia in the making.
My thoughts: A serial killer who has hidden dozens of bodies across America and now has apparently headed to Egypt, an AI program that is spewing out word maps about Alex MacLure and secrets hidden in the desert, a race against time to save his journalist girlfriend Rebecca from fanatics that believe they can bring about a new Christ by re-enacting the crucifixtion using ancient Egyptian symbols.
Alex’s job deciphering clay tablets telling the life story of an important clerk in the ancient world and his links to pharaohs and prophecy might help him find the mysterious symbol the killer seeks.
I was absolutely hooked by this next installment in Alex’s adventures, I read a lot of crime fiction so the serial killer angle was interesting too, bringing in another dimension and the FBI in the form of Agent Charlie Reed.
It’s a fast paced story, with lots of action and the puzzles Alex must translate and solve in order to save the day.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
A mysterious summons. A fatal hot chocolate. And a duchess who never expected mourning to be this dreadfully dull.
Hampshire, 1891. Six months into widowhood, Alice, Duchess of Stortford, is restless. Black gowns and seclusion in the country have their limits, so when Clarissa, Dowager Countess of Romley, sends a personal summons asking for her discreet assistance with a troubling matter at Lawrence House, Alice seizes the excuse for a change of scene.
But what begins as a family gathering to welcome home the Dowager’s once-disgraced son ends in shock. Clarissa is discovered dead, her passing swiftly dismissed as a heart attack. Alice knows better.
The Dowager had been afraid — and had trusted her to uncover the truth. Someone silenced her, but why? Was it to do with the announcement she made over dinner, or something even more dangerous?
Now everyone in the house is a suspect: the resentful heir, the returning prodigal, the mysterious guest with a too-familiar face. With her sharp-witted maid Maud, steadfast footman George, and her reluctant ally Lord Rushton at her side, Alice must act quickly. If the Dowager was murdered to keep her secrets buried, the killer will not hesitate to strike again.
The Dowager is dead. The clock is ticking. And the duchess is about to discover that country house parties can be murder.
Full of clever twists and a heroine who won’t give up until she finds out the truth, A Dowager is Done-in is the perfect escape for fans of historical mysteries wrapped in wit and warmth.
Helen Golden spins mysteries that are charmingly British, delightfully deadly, and served with a twist of humour. With quirky characters, clever red herrings, and plots that keep the pages turning, she’s the author of the much-loved A Right Royal Cozy Investigation series, following Lady Beatrice and her friends— including one clever little dog—as they uncover secrets hidden in country houses and royal palaces.
Her new historical mystery series, The Duchess of Stortford Mysteries, is set in Victorian England and introduces an equally curious sleuth from Lady Beatrice’s own family tree—where murders are solved over cups of tea, whispered gossip, and overheard conversations in drawing rooms and grand estates.
Helen lives in a quintessential English village in Lincolnshire with her husband, stepdaughter, and a menagerie of pets—including a dog, several cats, a tortoise, and far too many fish.
If you love clever puzzles, charming settings, and sleuths with spark, her books are waiting for you.
My thoughts: Alice, Duchess of Stortford has been invited to the home of the Dowager Countess of Romley by the lady herself, she needs Alice’s help, but before she can explain why, she is murdered.
And so, Alice and her band of assistants, maid Maud, footman George and friends Fee and Baxter (and her reluctant brother Duncan) must find out who killed the Dowager and why. Was it her recently returned prodigal son? But if it is over the will of the Countess or something else? Alice must get to the bottom of the family’s troubles and find a murderer before it is too late.
I really like this series, Alice is clever and quick, her servants are excellent sidekicks and even chatty, scatty Fee comes in very useful in getting information on their suspects.
It’s another clever and satisfying read from Helen Golden.
*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 thrilled to share another amazing new release from the Starlit Desires Saga! This dark fantasy romance is called The Frost that Burns by Carliann Jean!
The Frost that Burns
Part of: Starlit Desires (6 books)
Release Date: February 10, 2026
Genre: Fantasy Romance/ Why Choose
🥀Gothic underworld vibes
🩸Vampire x demons
🫦MMF romance (queer awakening)
❤️🩹Mental health and disability rep
💃🏼Soulmate festival
🗡️Hate to love you
😏Friends to lovers
✨Dancing under the stars
🔥Spicy spice
🤌🏻So much banter
Misery might be able to dance with love after all.
Finding a soulmate at the Starlit Festival is a dream for most souls. But for Keres, a lethal ruby vampire chained to the demands of a ruthless queen, a week of starry skies and fated love is simply another broken dream. Not all clipped wings can heal in the darkness of the Underworld.
But when her best friend arranges a week off from serving their cruel queen, Keres is content to enjoy feasting on decadent sweets and blood wine while dancing under the stars.
Until she finds her demons.
As the general of Wrath’s army, Ares has spent centuries hiding behind charming smiles and brutality. But when a mission to poison the queen’s prized weapon is thwarted, Ares finds he may be willing to remove his careful mask if it means having more of her.
Tristan, the grumpy royal adviser, knows love isn’t destined for damaged souls like him. Preferring to keep his scowling face buried in his books, Tristan is hesitant to let Ares drag him to the Starlit Festival. Rattled by a shared history of trauma and tragedy, the demons had given up on finding their soulmates.
Until they find their vampire.
As Keres and her demons embrace vulnerability and surrender to their carnal desires under the glittering stars of the festival, Keres begins to hope for an impossible future. With freedom and healing on the line, Keres, Ares, and Tristan must find the courage to love one another, and more importantly, themselves.
The Frost That Burns is an adult dark fantasy romance, where sinful desires and love can heal the darkest of trauma.
Sasha Denning doesn’t ask for anything—ever. Feeling unappreciated and stuck in a crumbling marriage with her husband, Mark, she’s suddenly given a dramatic escape: a near-death experience. Returning to life with a mission to help others, Sasha is thrust into a series of challenges that range from comical to heart-wrenching.
Zinnia, her determined but rule-bound trainee spirit guide, wants to help Sasha mend her life and marriage. But with The Spirit Guidance Rule Book restricting her every move, Zinnia faces her own struggles to prove she’s ready to qualify. When disaster looms, Zinnia must decide what matters most—her mission, her career, or Sasha and Mark’s future.
Jay Jacobs, a writer and mother of two, was inspired to write after her sister shared the account of a little boy’s near-death experience. Exploring a wealth of similar stories, uncovering a fascinating and life-affirming perspective, this journey ignited her creativity, resulting in an uplifting novel intended to inspire and resonate with readers seeking hope and transformation.
My thoughts: This was a bit different from my usual fare, narrated by trainee spirit guide Zinnia, who is watching over Sasha, a mother of three who is rather fed up with her husband Mark, who never helps out at home. After a horrible car accident, Sasha has a near death experience, and the spirit of her Gran takes her on a quick tour of her life and some people who need her help.
Recuperating in hospital, Sasha discovers she’s a bit psychic now and keeps reliving her strange experience. Recovering in record time, she’s determined to at least try to help the people she saw in her vision.
But her marriage is still in decline and her refusal to ask for help is stopping her from putting anything right in her own life. How can she help others but not herself? Zinnia is getting frustrated as she’s not supposed to directly intervene but when something threatens to completely destroy Sasha’s marriage, she can’t help herself. But has she made things or worse?
A quirky and at times very funny book about trying to do the right thing, even when it makes you seem crazy and learning that it’s ok to ask for help and not always put everyone else first.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
On a summer’s day, a baby vanishes. The mystery is never solved, leaving a young mother lost in grief.
Twenty-one years later, ex-police detective Dan Hennessy is struggling with his own tragic loss, and when a neighbour disappears and a body turns up at the solar farm, he is desperate for answers. The haunted landscape is keeping secrets, and there are dangers lurking in the Brecks.
Dan must find the truth.
Can he offer hope to the grieving mother, and also save himself?
Elspeth Latimer is an associate tutor on the prestigious University of East Anglia MA in Creative Writing Crime Fiction, and also the author of Writing the Detectives, an academic study of the protagonist in the contemporary crime fiction series, published by Cambridge University Press.
My thoughts: Dan is a former police detective who quit after his fiancée was killed in a horrible accident, he’s still struggling. Having moved to a caravan park where he’s supposedly in charge of security in exchange for a place to live, he becomes involved in the murder of a man on the solar farm next door. His landlady also asks him to look into the cold case of her missing son, who vanished as an infant over twenty years ago.
His former colleagues aren’t happy with his involvement with the murder case, and he keeps his PI activities a secret from them, knowing it won’t go well if anyone finds out he’s digging in a case the police never closed.
His grief is causing him to do strange things, and he’s losing time. But by focusing on the cases he’s able to give his days a little more meaning. He still needs to sell the house he and Beth bought before she died, and decide what to do with her ashes. But it all seems too much, instead he’d rather hunt for a missing caravan renter and the long lost baby Felix, wading into a past some would prefer to forget.
Clever and intriguing, the cases that are helping Dan somehow, weave around each other in his head and in the story, there’s some strange things that he sees and his friend Cassie, now in his old job, gets frustrated with him a fair bit. He hasn’t lost his instincts as a detective, and digs away at things, even when officially told not to. He’s an interesting character, the reluctant detective, who wants to shut out the world but can’t resist a mystery.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Your best mate just fell off a cliff in mysterious circumstances. You were the last person to see him alive. What do you do? If you’re David Lindsay from Arbroath, you leg it – and don’t go back.
Not for fifteen years. Then Nicola Cruickshank – yes, that Nicola, the girl you always fancied but never had the guts to speak to – gets in touch. She wants you back for a school reunion. At the very place it happened. Of course you say yes. Not to lay ghosts to rest, but because you still fancy Nicola.
The thing is, if you are David Lindsay, then returning to Arbroath isn’t going to bring closure. Because when someone else tumbles off the cliffs – an act the locals now call tombstoning – David has a choice: run away again, or finally find out why people around him keep dying…
Doug Johnstone is the author of nineteen novels, many of which have been bestsellers. The Space Between Us was chosen for BBC Two’s Between the Covers, while six of his books have been shortlisted or longlisted for the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year or the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year.
Doug has taught creative writing or been writer in residence at universities, schools, writing retreats, festivals, prisons and a funeral directors. He’s also been an arts journalist for twenty-five years. He is a songwriter and musician with ten albums released, and drummer for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers. He’s also co-founder of the Scotland Writers Football Club.
My thoughts: I love Doug’s books (#skelfaholic) so I was excited to read this, the re-issue of his very first book. And I wasn’t disappointed. It doesn’t read like a debut, it’s as assured and clever as his most recent, this is an author who knows what he’s doing.
The story is full of twists and gets pretty dark at one point, but had me completely gripped. I could not put it down.
David and Nicola are very ordinary people, but when things get nasty, they’re also brave and resourceful. Tracing the last steps of David’s old friends before their shocking deaths, he comes to the conclusion that it doesn’t add up. It never has.
The police are looking at him, but they haven’t thought of the last member of their foursome – Neil. If David can track him down, maybe he might get some answers, or at least an idea for why two of his old pals, fifteen years apart, appear to have chucked themselves off the cliffs. When they had plenty to live for.
So begins David and Nicola’s quest. Find Neil, get some answers, hopefully lay this to rest. But of course, it’s not straightforward. And chaos ensues.
Absolutely brilliant stuff, you should get a copy and enjoy.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 