Category: blog tour

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Second Marriage – Jess Ryder

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‘They’re lying,’ my little stepson whispers, his blue eyes shining with tears as I tuck him into bed for the first time. ‘They think I’ve forgotten, but I remember everything. I know my mummy is still alive.’

My best friend warned me that it was too soon to marry Edward, a widower with an adorable but troubled little boy. She said we were moving too fast. But all I could see was a kind, loving man, struggling with grief, who needed my help.

Yet as storm clouds gather above our small wedding ceremony, my hopes and dreams fall apart. None of my husband’s family turn up to support us. Instead of a honeymoon, we have a quiet night in. My wedding bouquet is placed on his first wife’s grave. And then my new stepson tells me he’s sure his mother is still alive.

What does Noah remember and why is his father trying to make him forget? Have I been completely wrong about my husband? What happened to the woman who came before me, and how far will he go to stop me finding out the truth?

An utterly unputdownable, gripping, twisty psychological thriller, perfect for fans of Before I Go To Sleep, The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl.

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Jess Ryder is the pseudonym of Jan Page, author, screenwriter, playwright and award-winning television producer. After many years working in children’s media, she has recently embarked on a life of crime. Writing, that is. So she’s very excited about the publication of her debut thriller Lie to Me. Her other big love is making pots.

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My thoughts: this was a gripping, complex thriller, it isn’t Edward’s first marriage Lily should be worried about, it’s the sheer volume of secrets and lies he’s got going on. Little Noah knows more than he’s willing to say, being terrified of his father, the ghastly duo of Georgia and Tara definitely have secrets too. I felt sorry for Lily, so naively trusting of a man who doesn’t deserve it. But when someone’s built such a convincing web of total misdirection and obfuscation what else can she do? Thankfully her best friend sees through him and together with Noah, she’s going to get the truth.

More proof, if it’s needed, that you shouldn’t marry someone you don’t really know.

*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 Quiet People – Paul Cleave

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Cameron and Lisa Murdoch are successful New Zealand crime writers, happily married and topping bestseller lists worldwide. They have been on the promotional circuit for years, joking that no one knows how to get away with crime like they do. After all, they write about it for a living. So when their challenging seven-year-old son Zach disappears, the police and the public naturally wonder if they have finally decided to prove what they have been saying all this time… Are they trying to show how they can commit the perfect crime?

Multi-award winning bestseller Paul Cleave returns with an electrifying and chilling thriller about family, public outrage and what a person might be capable of under pressure, that will keep you guessing until the final page…

Paul is an award-winning author who divides his time between his home city of Christchurch, New Zealand, where most of his novels are set, and Europe. He has won the New Zealand Ngaio Marsh Award three times, the Saint-Maur book festival’s crime novel of the year award in France, and has been shortlisted for the Edgar and the Barry in the US and the Ned Kelly in Australia. His books have been translated into over twenty languages. He’s thrown his frisbee in over forty countries, plays tennis badly, golf even worse, and has two cats – which is often two too many. Follow Paul on Twitter @PaulCleave, and his website: paulcleave.com.

My thoughts: this was so, so, so good. Cleverly done and there were red herrings, police getting sidetracked, a kidnap plot that went horribly wrong, crimes a plenty and at the heart a man who just really loves his son.

Cameron knows he hasn’t done anything to Zach, and he’s determined to prove that and find his boy. But so many things seem set against him as he attempts to convince the police that, yes he writes crime novels, but no, he’s not trying to live in one (except that he is, it’s very The Truman Show in that regard, wait, are we all living inside a book?)

The detective assigned to his case does empathise with him, but she has a job to do, and yes, mistakes are made. But finding Zach is everyone’s priority. I actually really liked DI Rebecca Kent, she seemed like a decent person and not as incompetent as all that at all, it’s just that she was severely misled.

I found the whole book super compelling and couldn’t put it down, totally hooked. I was actually disappointed when it ended. I want Cameron and DI Kent to team up and solve crimes together.

*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 Date – Wendy Clarke

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When Mel is set up on a blind date by her best friends Chris and Simon, she’s as anxious as any woman would be. Her divorce came as such a shock and she’d been feeling lost and lonely, but that didn’t mean she was desperate to date again. It was a terrible day at work that made her say yes: it could be a bit of fun, a distraction at least. What did she have to lose?

When Mel meets Malik, she knows instantly that they could have more than just a fling. She tells him her deepest, darkest secrets and it doesn’t make him run away. He makes her feel wanted for the first time in years, and when she wakes up in his bed in the early hours she feels completely content.

Until she notices that he’s no longer lying beside her.

She’s tangled up in his sheets alone in his bedroom and she can’t remember how she got there.

And then she hears the metallic scrape of a key in the door and realises that Malik has locked her in. Is her dream man going to turn into her worst nightmare?

Thrilling and gripping until the final page, Blind Date is a dark and unsettling story about deception and how much we can trust the people we love. For fans of Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train and anything by Lisa Jewell.

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Wendy Clarke was a teacher until the small primary school where she worked closed down. Now she is a writer of psychological suspense but is also well known for her short stories and serials which regularly appear in national women’s magazines.

Wendy has two children and three step-children and lives with her husband, cat and step-dog in Sussex. When not writing, she is usually indulging in her passion for dancing, singing or watching any programme that involves food!

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My thoughts: this was a clever, twisting thriller where you can’t be sure who it is who’s stalking Mel. Is the same person sending her texts? Or is that Malik? What about Chris, there’s definitely something off about him, the new flatmate, Simon the best friend? Maybe her ex-husband is the creep? It’s all very confusing, as is Mel, she can’t work out what’s going on either. Keeping you guessing right until the very end, and then chucking in a few more twists for good measure.

*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: It Calls From the Doors – edited by Lyndsey Smith

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Open the door to your nightmares.

They are the silent guardians of our inner spaces. We throw them open to welcome friends and family. We shut them tight against the darkness and trust them to keep us safe. But they also hide our true natures, ward off intruders, and seal away what can never be allowed to escape.

But, what happens when the thing that we rely on the most, welcomes the bad things in? What happens when our protector becomes the thing we fear?

Turn the key, pull back the bolt, unfasten the latch and let the darkness through. Discover 19 tales of terror and despair that lurk on the other side of the Doors in the fourth instalment of Eerie River Publishing’s horror series.

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My thoughts: Eerie River gather excellent short stories for this creepy collection. Doors that lead to realms full of monsters, doors that keep the scary things out, doors that lead into your nightmares. This collection has them all. I found a couple very creepy, especially the one set in Bank Station – I used to commute through there and I already hate escalators! There’s something for everyone here, although maybe read them with the lights on!

*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: Far from the Light of Heaven – Tade Thompson

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The colony ship Ragtime docks in the Lagos system, having travelled light years from home to bring one thousand sleeping souls to safety among the stars.

Some of the sleepers, however, will never wake – and a profound and sinister mystery unfolds aboard the gigantic vessel. Its skeleton crew are forced to make decisions that will have repercussions for all of humanity’s settlements – from the scheming politicians of Lagos station, to the colony planet of Bloodroot, to other far flung systems and indeed Earth itself.

Arthur C. Clarke Award winner Tade Thompson makes a triumphant return to science fiction with this unforgettable vision of humanity’s future in the chilling emptiness of space.

My thoughts: this was very good. Inspired by Poe’s The Murder in the Rue Morgue, doctor and author Tade Thompson set out to write a locked room mystery in space. And he definitely succeeded. Trapped on the Ragtime, with passengers in suspended animation, Captain Michelle ‘Shell’ Campion and investigations Fin and Salvo attempt to find out who or what murdered a number of those sleeping travellers. Aided by the arrival of space governor Lawrence, Shell’s Uncle Larry, and his daughter Jokè, they’re in a race against time (and oxygen running out). A blend of traditional science fiction and afrofuturism, this is a clever and innovative novel from an author who is fast becoming a favourite, he’s also great to follow on Twitter.

*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: Under the Whispering Door – TJ Klune

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When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead.

And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead.

But even in death he’s not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days.

Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.

My thoughts: TJ Klune writes books that make me cry, The House in the Cerulean Sea had me in tears and now Under the Whispering Door. Beautiful, moving queer love stories set against odds that seem to be insurmountable. Here Wallace is a ghost, he and Hugo can’t even touch. But they fall in love slowly and surely anyway.

The teashop is something rather magical, something special, and not just because there’s a door to the afterlife in it. The people that live there, even the dead ones, have a wonderful bond and kindness abounds, which helps break Wallace’s walla down. He never really had a family or friends and here at the end of his life he finds both and doesn’t want to leave them. Simply beautiful. Have some tissues handy.

*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: A Ghost in the Throat – Doireann Ní Ghríofa

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‘When we first met, I was a child, and she had been dead for centuries’
In the 1700s an Irish noblewoman, on discovering that her husband has been murdered, drinks handfuls of his blood and composes an extraordinary poem. Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill’s Caoineadh
Airt Uí Laoghaire was famously referred to by Peter Levi, then Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, as the ‘greatest poem written in these islands in the whole eighteenth century.’
In the present day, a young mother narrowly avoids tragedy. On encountering the poem, she becomes obsessed with its echoes in her own life and sets out to track down the rest of the poet’s
story.
Culminating in Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s own translation of the poem, A Ghost in the Throat is a devastating and timeless tale about one woman freeing her voice by reaching into the past to hear
another’s.

DOIREANN NÍ GHRÍOFA is a bilingual writer whose books explore birth, death, desire, and domesticity. Doireann’s awards include a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Seamus Heaney Fellowship, the Ostana Prize and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. She is a member of Aosdána. A Ghost in the Throat is her prose debut.

My thoughts: this was a really interesting book, part essay, part memoir, part poetry. The author explores the poem and the life of Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, an 18th century woman whose husband is murdered. As well as exploring the extraordinary text, she puts it into context with the life and times of its creator, all while raising her own children and moving house over and over.

It’s a thoughtful and fascinating work, I enjoyed learning all these things – Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire is not a work I was familiar with, probably because being a Gaelic poem, it never made it onto any syllabus here in the UK. Which is a shame, it’s an incredible and powerful piece, full of grief and rage and intense love. The translation at the end of the book, with the English alongside the original Irish is gripping and haunting, despite its age, the words still move the reader. A really impressive book.

*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 Christmas Escape – Sarah Morgan

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It was supposed to be Christy Sullivan’s perfect Christmas getaway — a trip to Lapland with her family and best friend, Alix. But facing a make-or-break marriage crisis, Christy desperately needs time alone with her husband. Her solution? Alix can take Christy’s little daughter to Lapland, and they will reunite there for Christmas Day. It’s a big ask, but what else are friends for?

There’s nothing Alix won’t do for Christy. But Christy’s request to save Christmas is giving Alix sleepless nights. She knows something is wrong, but for the first time ever, Christy isn’t talking. And even the Arctic temperatures in Lapland aren’t enough to dampen the seriously inconvenient sizzle Alix is developing for Zac, a fellow guest and nemesis from her past.

As secrets unravel and unexpected romance shines under the northern lights, can Christy and Alix’s Christmas escape give them the courage to fight for the relationships they really want, and save the precious gift of each other’s friendship?

My thoughts: this was a lovely festive tale of love and friendship, family and speaking the truth. Christy and Alix have been friends since they were small but somewhere along the way they stopped talking properly, a trip to Lapland to meet Christy’s estranged aunt, celebrate Christmas and see Santa, means the chance to straighten a few things out and fix their friendship.

Plus love is in the air, as Christy and husband Seb reconnect and Alix and Zac finally confess their feelings. Little Holly causes chaos as only a 4 year old tornado can, there are beautiful huskys and snow too.

Sarah Morgan once again wraps some big issues in a soft festive blanket, time to get cosy and open a book.

*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: Smugglers in the Underground Hug Trade – William Wall

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Surprised by how few literary references exist for the Spanish ‘Flu pandemic of 1918/19, Man Booker Prize-nominated Irish poet William Wall decided to turn his remarkable talents to creating a poetry anthology inspired by ‘the strangest year we have lived’.
Published by Doire Press, Wall’s hauntingly beautiful poetry will be
available from Thursday 28 October.
In Smugglers in the Underground Hug Trade: A Journal of the Plague Year, Wall captures the roller-coaster of emotions from the first terrible days in Italy to the highs and lows of the lockdown in Ireland, culminating in the frightening increase in numbers at Christmas 2020.
But this is not just a book about the plague: Wall turns to nature, to love, to his beloved Cork coast and sea-swimming for solace.
There are many tender memories, moments of personal inspiration, humour and hopefulness—the whole suffused with an acute awareness of the historical context. There have been other plagues and pandemics, the poems say, and we have survived: we will survive this too.

A sample from Smugglers in the Underground Hug Trade: A Journal of the Plague Year.

The Silent Road
the road that passes our gate
has fallen silent
all our days in this house
thirty years and more
we have wished for this moment
and now we are bereft

WILLIAM WALL is the author of four novels, including This is the Country
(Sceptre), longlisted for the Man Booker Prize; three collections of poetry; and one volume of short stories. He is the first Poet Laureate of Cork, his home city (2020/2021) and was the first European to win the Drue Heinz Literature Prize in the USA (2017). He has also won the Virginia Faulkner Award, The Sean O’Faoláin Prize, several Writer’s Week prizes and The Patrick Kavanagh Award. He was shortlisted for the Young Minds Book Award, the Irish Book Awards, the Raymond Carver Award, the Hennessy Award and numerous others. His work has been translated into many languages, including Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Latvian, Serbian and Catalan. In 2014 William was part of the Italo-Irish Literature Exchange, organised through The Irish Writers’ Centre, which toured Italy with readings in Italian and English. In March 2010 he was Writer in Residence at The Princess Grace Irish Library, Monaco.
He was a 2009 Fellow of The Liguria Centre for the Arts & Humanities. He lives in Cork. You can see more readings from William through his YouTube page here.

My thoughts: this is not an easy, comforting collection of poems, 2020 was a terrible year for many, but it is strikingly honest and powerful. From the deeply personal to poems inspired by the news and politicians. The use of quotes from plague literature (e.g Samuel Pepys’ diaries, The Decameron) reminds us that this has happened before – many times, and will most likely happen again.

Charting the long lockdowned year, from its early moments to Christmas, the strangest festival in our homes, the poems explore the feelings and concerns of each troubled season, putting context into a frightening time. The use of images brings the eye to the accompanying text, a flash of life, startling against the stillness of the words.

There is probably much more to come as writers gather their thoughts and put pen to paper over the next few years but this collection feels of the moment and explains how so many felt faced with a year unlike any other in a century.

*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 Rabbit Factor – Antti Toumainen, translated by David Hackston

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What makes life perfect? Insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen knows the answer because he calculates everything down to the very last decimal. Until he is faced with the incalculable, after a series of unforeseeable events. After suddenly losing his job, Henri inherits an adventure park from his brother – its peculiar employees and troubling financial problems included. The worst of the financial issues appear to originate from big loans taken from some dangerous men who are very keen to get their money back. All improbable and complicated problems. But what Henri really can’t compute is love. In the adventure park, Henri crosses paths with Laura, a happy-go-lucky artist with a chequered past, whose erratic lifestyle bewilders him. As the criminals go to increasingly extreme lengths to collect their debts and as Henri’s relationship with Laura deepens, he finds himself faced with situations and emotions that simply cannot be pinned down on his spreadsheets…

ABOUT ANTTI TUOMAINEN Antti Tuomainen was an award-winning copywriter when he made his literary debut in 2007 as a suspense author in 2013, the Finnish press crowned Tuomainen the ‘King of Helsinki Noir’ when Dark as My Heart was published. With a piercing and evocative style, Tuomainen was one of the first to challenge the Scandinavian crime genre formula, and his poignant, dark and hilarious The Man Who Died became an international bestseller, shortlisting for the Petrona and Last Laugh Awards. A TV adaptation is in the works, and Jussi Vatanen (Man In Room 301) has just been announced as a leading role. Palm Beach Finland was an immense success, with Marcel Berlins (The Times) calling Tuomainen ‘the funniest writer in Europe’. His latest thriller, Little Siberia, was shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger, the Amazon Publishing/Capital Crime Awards and the CrimeFest Last Laugh Award, and won the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. In total, Antti Tuomainen has been short- and longlisted for 12 UK awards.

My thoughts: this is a very funny book, I giggled all the way through. My sense of humour is a bit weird. I think Henri would be confused as to why I found his misadventures so funny.

Henri is part of what makes it so entertaining, he has a very precise way of seeing the world, he is an actuary after all. Everything he does he weighs up and runs the numbers.

Having worked at an indoor soft play centre (known as Hell to staff) I could picture the adventure park Henri inherits from his financially disastrous brother very well. The hordes of screaming children, the deeply obnoxious parents, the dead eyed staff. I doubt our bosses ever had the bright idea of turning it into a bank though. Or getting involved with criminals who like to bake. Mostly because I’m pretty sure they were the criminals.

But Henri decides to save the park, his oddball employees, and the giant rabbit by the entrance with his rather crazy idea, and that means getting involved with loan sharks, avoiding the police inspector who’s showing a keen interest in the park, and generally trying not to panic.

It’s all utterly hilarious and charming, especially as his only ally is Schopenhauer the cat, who can’t exactly help out. And maybe Laura, who he’s rather charmed by. But Henri is determined to prevail and win the day. It’s that or a rather ugly death at the hands of the baking loan shark. I loved this book, it was over far too quickly and I need to know what became of Henri and Laura.

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