Category: blog tour

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Love Songs for Sceptics – Christina Pishiris*

ramblingmads

My brother’s getting married in a few weeks and asked for help picking a song for his first dance. I suggested Kiss’s ‘Love’s a Slap in the Face’. It didn’t go down well.

When she was a teenager, Zoë Frixos fell in love with Simon Baxter, her best friend and the boy next door. But his family moved to America before she could tell him how she felt and, like a scratched record, she’s never quite moved on.

Now, almost twenty years later, Simon is heading back to London, newly single and as charming as ever . . .

But as obstacles continue to get in her way – Simon’s perfect ex-girlfriend, her brother’s big(ish) fat(ish) Greek wedding, and an obnoxious publicist determined to run Zoë – Zoë begins to wonder whether, after all these years, she and Simon just aren’t meant to be.

What if, despite what all the songs and movies say, your first love isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be? What if, instead Zoë and Simon are forever destined to shuffle around their feelings for each other, never quite getting the steps right . . .

Love Songs for Sceptics is perfect for fans of Mhairi McFarlane, Lucy Vine and Lindsey Kelk.

Christina Pishiris was born in London to Greek Cypriot parents, who used to bribe her to go to family weddings by promising that George Michael might be there.

To deal with the inevitable disappointment, she began scribbling stories on napkins and has been writing ever since. She started her career as a journalist, specialising in the TV industry, before going freelance.

Since meeting her film-maker husband she’s also moved into production, working on music documentaries.

Her hobbies include compiling cheesy 80s playlists, coveting the neighbour’s cat and writing protest letters to Guerlain after they discontinued her favourite perfume.

My thoughts:

This was lovely, I’ve been feeling a bit rubbish lately and this book was a balm. A funny, wry tale of first loves, friendship, musicians and Greek food.

The food had me licking my lips at the thought (I love Greek food), the characters and plot had me laughing and nodding my head in sympathy as Zoë tries to find love, first with her childhood pal, then with her nemesis, PR to the difficult pop stars, Nick.

Meanwhile her brother and his lovely fiancée are planning their Greek wedding, and Zoë is needed to teach the bride and her pals Greek dancing, and play the ukulele!

This is such a fun book and could easily be a great TV show or film, it’s got everything you need! Definitely one for to curl up on the sofa under a blanket and enjoy.


*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 Accidental Medium Series – Tracy Whitwell*

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Tanz is a wine soaked, potty mouthed, once successful TV actress from Gateshead, whose career has shriveled like an antique walnut. She is still grieving her friend Frank, who died in a car crash three years ago, and she has to find a normal job in London to fund her cocktail habit.
When she starts work in a new age shop, Tanz suddenly discovers that the voices she’s hearing in her head are real, not the first signs of schizophrenia, and she can give people ‘messages’ from beyond the grave. Alarmed, she confronts her little mam and discovers she is from a long line of psychic mediums.
Despite a whole exciting new avenue of life opening up to Tanz, darkness isn’t far away and all too soon there’s murder in the air.

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After a fast paced introduction to the world of clairvoyance, ghost busting, mystery and murder, Tanz is currently hiding in bed, having nightmares about a suicidal psychopath, drinking red wine, irritating her cat and waiting to be evicted. Life as she knew it seven months ago has turned on its head and only the prospect of a new TV job in Newcastle and a month with her best friend Milo can help pick her up off the floor.
But when she gets home, the Newcastle of more than a century before decides to haunt her bringing all kinds of spooks and horrors with it. She also finds that her new job involves more than it’s own share of intrigue and humiliation. Then it’s a case of six of one and half a dozen of the other, as Tanz, along with her dead friend Frank, attempts to expose a brutal murder that nobody even knows about. Join Tanz and her friends on another crazy, supernatural ride in GIN PALACE, the second in The Accidental Medium series.

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Tracy Whitwell was born, brought up and educated in Gateshead in the north east of England. She wrote plays and short stories from an early age, then had her head turned and ran off to London to be an actress. By 1993 she was wearing a wig and an old fashioned dress and pretending to be impoverished on telly in a Catherine Cookson mini-series, whilst going to see every indie/rock band she could afford.

After an interesting number of years messing about in front of the camera and traveling the world though, Tracy discovered she still loved writing and completed her first full length play. A son, many stage-plays, screenplays and two music videos followed until one day she realised she was finally ready to do the thing she’d longed to do since she was six. She wrote her first novel. A crime/horror/comedy tale about an alcohol-soaked, gobby, thrill-seeking actress who talks to ghosts. (Who knows where the inspiration came from, it’s almost like she based it on her own ridiculous life.) Then she wrote a follow up and realised she couldn’t stop writing books.
Now Tracy lives in north London with her son, still travels whenever possible and has written novel number four. Now being edited.
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My thoughts:

Both of these books were tremendous fun, I wish Tanz was my pal, she’s so full of life and determined to help people, she solves murders modern and historic, frees people from terrible, cruel ghosts.

Discovering she can hear the voices of the unsettled dead, she teams up with two older woman (one in each story) to help the dead and the living.

The writing is funny, moving and the plots kept me entertained and intrigued all the way through. I look forward to more tales of Tanz and her pals.

*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: Attack Surface – Cory Doctorow*

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Returning to the world of Little Brother and Homeland, Attack Surface takes us five minutes into the future, to a world where everything is connected and everyone is vulnerable.

Masha Maximow has made some bad choices in life – choices that hurt people. But she’s also made some pretty decent ones. In the log file of life, however, she can’t quite work out
which side of the ledger she currently stands.

Masha works for Xoth Intelligence, an InfoSec company upgrading the Slovstakian Interior Ministry’s ability to spy on its citizens’ telecommunications with state-of-the-art software (at least, as state-of-the-art as Xoth is prepared to offer in its middle-upper pricing tier).

Can you offset a day-job helping repressive regimes spy on their citizens with a nighttime hobby where you help those same citizens evade detection? Masha is about to find out.
Pacy, passionate, and as current as next week, Attack Surface is a paean to activism, to courage, to the drive to make the world a better place.

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and
blogger – the co-editor of Boing Boing and the author of many
books: In Real Life, a graphic novel; Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free, a book about earning a living in the Internet age; and Homeland, the award winning, best selling sequel to the 2008 YA novel Little Brother. Cory has been on the frontline of international debates on privacy, copyright and freedom of information for over a decade.

My thoughts:

This feels like a very prescient novel, with its protests and dodgy tech companies and complicit governments. It feels very 2020 minus the virus that’s killing people and the fact that governments are no longer pretending to care about people more than money.

Masha has been building spyware and surveillance for tech companies to sell to dangerous and unstable governments, to watch their own citizens and turn righteous anger at injustice into terrorism charges and making people just disappear.

She becomes steadily disillusioned by this and realises she’s on the wrong side of history and what’s right.

I don’t even pretend to understand how some very clever people can do all these things with computers, but I can see that there needs to be more checks and balances in place. Things need to be more transparent and honest, governments should remember they work for the people, not against them.

While this is taken to extremes in the book, some of the scenes of police brutality we’ve all witnessed in the last few years, and especially the last few months, aren’t far off the grim future Masha and her friends are living through and trying to fight against.

Incredibly powerful, insightful, and actually quite funny, this is very much a book that speaks to our times and reminds us all to pay attention.

*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: Tudor Christmas Tidings – Blythe Gifford, Jenni Fletcher & Amanda McCabe*

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Make Merry at Court… with three Tudor Christmas stories!

In Christmas at Court Sir John Talbot and Lady Alice’s secret betrothal must wait until Henry Tudor
claims the throne.

Next in Secrets of the Queen’s Lady the lady-in-waiting to Anne of Cleves isunexpectedly reunited with a handsome—younger—diplomat at the palace’s festivities!

And in His Mistletoe Lady Catherine seeks help from a mysterious Spaniard to free her father in time for
Christmas!

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Jenni Fletcher is from the north coast of Scotland and now lives in Yorkshire where she writes historical romance novels. She studied English at Cambridge University before doing a PhD on Edwardian literature & psychology at Hull. She has been nominated for 4 RoNA awards and won for Short Romantic Fiction in 2020. In her spare time she loves baking and, of course, reading.

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After many years in public relations, advertising, and marketing, Blythe Gifford started writing seriously after a corporate layoff. Ten years and one layoff later, she became an overnight success when she sold to the Harlequin Historical line. Her books, set in the 14th to 17th centuries, typically incorporate real historical events and characters. The Chicago Tribune has called her work “the
perfect balance between history and romance.” Blythe lives and works along Chicago’s lakefront.

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Amanda wrote her first romance at the age of sixteen–a vast historical epic starring all her friends as
the characters, written secretly during algebra class (and her parents wondered why math was not
her strongest subject…)

She’s never since used algebra, but her books have been nominated for many awards, including the RITA Award, the Romantic Times BOOKReviews Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Booksellers Best, the
National Readers Choice Award, and the Holt Medallion. She lives in Santa Fe with a Poodle, a cat, a wonderful husband, and a very and far too many books and royal memorabilia collections.

When not writing or reading, she loves taking dance classes, collecting cheesy travel souvenirs, and watching the Food Network–even though she doesn’t cook.
Amanda also writes as Laurel McKee for Grand Central Publishing, the Elizabethan Mystery Series as Amanda Carmack, and the Manor Cat Mystery Series as Eliza Casey.

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My thoughts:

These three novellas in one are set at different points during the Tudor period, skipping from the very beginning of Henry Tudor’s reign, to his son’s fourth marriage (Katherine Howard, beheaded) and finally to Mary I’s court at its height.

The one thing that never changes is love, monarchs (and religions) might but the desire to find someone to kiss under the mistletoe (a much more recent tradition though that is) remains.

Each story centres on a couple revolving round the court, and there’s plenty of intrigue, politics, family loyalty and other machinations to keep it interesting. In an age where few could marry for love, can you ever fall and be able to make your own choice?

Perfect for curling up and dipping into in the warmth of your centrally heated home, a far cry from the Yule logs of Tudor England.


*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: Small Sacrifices – L.E. Luttrell*

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Be careful what you wish for.

She wanted to be famous. But not like this.

Ellen Gibson always dreamed of being a star. At a young age those dreams were shattered.

Discovering she holds the winning ticket in a 55-million Powerball jackpot, Ellen sees it as her
opportunity to be in the limelight. But at what cost?

Detective India Hargreaves and her small team are called in to investigate the disappearance of five-year-old Joshua Gibson, but the investigation is taken over by the big guns from Police Headquarters when it turns out to be a kidnapping.

When the media and the lead investigator suspect Ellen of being behind the kidnapping, her fame
disintegrates into a nightmare and she seems powerless to stop events spiralling out of control …

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About the Author

L.E. Luttrell was born in Sydney, Australia and spent the first 21 years of her life there before moving
to the UK.

After working in publishing for a few years she trained as a teacher and from the 90s spent many years working in secondary education, although she’s had numerous other part time jobs. A frustrated architect, L.E. Luttrell has spent much of her adult life moving house and renovating properties. Although she has written many more ‘books’, Small Sacrifices, is only the third of her books to be published. More will follow.

She currently lives in Liverpool, Merseyside – although if it hadn’t been for Covid 19 she would have
been with family in Brisbane, Queensland.

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My thoughts:

This is a shocking and gripping thriller set in Australia where one family’s immense good luck leads to tragedy and heartbreak.

Winning the lottery changes lives, but in this case for the worst as five year old Josh is kidnapped from the back garden and held for ransom.

DI India Hargreaves is determined to get him back safely but circumstances aren’t always in her control and what really happened won’t come out for years.

I couldn’t put this down, it was so compellingly written, I wanted the same answers as India, and it isn’t until the very end that this terrible tale is unravelled.


*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: Queen of Volts – Amanda Foody*

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Return to the City of Sin, where the final game is about to begin… and winning will demand the ultimate sacrifice.

Only days after a corrupt election and brutal street war, one last bloodthirsty game has begun. The players? The twenty-two most powerful, notorious people in New Reynes.

After realizing they have no choice but to play, Enne Scordata and Levi Glaisyer are desperate to forge new alliances and bargain for their safety. But while Levi offers false smiles and an even falser peace to the city’s politicians, Enne must face a world where her true Mizer identity has been revealed… and any misstep could turn deadly.

Meanwhile, a far more dangerous opponent has appeared on the board, one plucked right from the most gruesome legends of New Reynes. As the game takes its final, vicious turn, Levi and Enne must decide once and for all whether to be partners or enemies.

Because in a game for survival, there are only losers…

And monsters.

My thoughts:

I had to go back and read the first two books before I read this because it has been a while and I couldn’t remember who all the players were. I’m glad I did as it reminded me what a great story this trilogy weaves.

Set in a Las Vegas/New York/New Orleans mash up city (New Raynes) replete with gangsters, gamblers, ruthless street gangs and eerie buildings, there are mysteries, conspiracies and deadly secrets around every corner and someone invariably wants you dead.

Enne and Levi have been through a lot and the newest deadly game they’ve been thrust into might just be the one that finishes them off.

With high speed cars, undrinkable cocktails, sky high heels, and death stalking their every move, the stakes have never been higher and even Levi can’t cheat his way out of this one.

Tremendous fun, fast paced, clever, funny and very enjoyable.

*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: Dead Moon – Keith Crawford*

ramblingmads

Humanity will be extinguished in less than seven days.

Wing Commander Jude Styles is a Starfighter Pilot trying to get pregnant before the world ends. Her wingman, Hamid Ashkami, just wants to block the spam messages he is receiving from someone claiming to be his dead ex-husband.

Instead, they are locked in a media tour, shown off as the heroes that stopped the alien invasion by destroying the massive mothership known as the “Dead Moon”, persuading the masses that all will be fine if they keep calm and carry on.

Trapped telling the same lies, driven over the edge by post-traumatic stress and the constant flow of alcohol, it is only a matter of time before Jude and Hamid break down – and the fragments of the Dead Moon have already begun to fall from the sky.

Dr Keith Crawford is a retired naval officer, disabled veteran and qualified barrister with a PhD in Law and Economics. After years of crazy adventures, from speedboats and aircraft to theatre and lecturing at Sciences Po, my French wife and I decided it was time to properly settle in Paris and have babies. Being the good feminist I try to be, I quit my job to look after the kids, support my wife’s career and write books. Each time I get offered a job my wife says “stop looking at jobs and get back to writing books.” Which shows, with marriage as with everything else, it is better to be lucky than good!

Dead Moon is my second novel. The first, Vile, a science-fantasy about toxic-patriarchy, the evils of aristocracy and swordfights, is available on Amazon.

After years of crazy adventures, from speedboats and aircraft to theatre and lecturing at Sciences Po, my French wife and I decided it was time to properly settle in Paris and have babies. Being the good feminist I try to be, I quit my job to look after the kids, support my wife’s career and write books. Each time I get offered a job my wife says “stop looking at jobs and get back to writing books.” Which shows, with marriage as with everything else, it is better to be lucky than good!

Dead Moon is my second novel. The first, Vile, a science-fantasy about toxic-patriarchy, the evils of aristocracy and swordfights, is available on Amazon.

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My thoughts:

This was completely bonkers, but in the very best way. Hamid and Jude ricochet around the country trying to solve various mysteries, being pursued by different dangerous people and slowly utterly destroying the luxury vehicle they’ve accidentally stolen, all before the world ends on Monday.

Both of them are dealing with the aftermath of the space battle that killed the rest of their squad and left them being hailed as heroes, while feeling anything but.

Their Survivors Guilt and PTSD lead them to do some very questionable things, including head off on their crazy adventure, technically going AWOL from their TV appearances reassuring the public that all is well.

The plot races along with the protagonists as they flee Manchester via Yorkshire, Milton Keynes and London on their way to Bexhill in Kent to find the person sending Hamid messages claiming to be from his dead husband.

Along the way they discuss gender, sexuality and how to get Jude pregnant, they team up with some scientists attempting to get humanity off the planet, engage in several gunfights and drive a tank.

It’s all completely crazy, and trememdously enjoyable and great fun.


*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

Bookstagram Tour: Fire Burn, Cauldron Bubble – edited by Paul Cookson, illustrated by Eilidh Muldoon*

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Today i’m over on Instagram sharing my thoughts on a new book, so head on over to follow the tour.Can you hear the distant dragon’s rumble of thunder? And smell the sweet swampy aroma of the ogre? Can you taste the tangy tarantula tarts? And see the girl who’s really a wizard? From magic carpets and wands to unicorns, potions, creams and lotions, Paul Cookson’s brewing a spell of fantastically magic poems.
On this tattered magic carpet You can choose your destination For nothing’s quite as magical as your imagination. Beautifully illustrated, this enchanting anthology brings together work from a range of classic, established and rising poets including Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Benjamin Zephaniah, John Agard, Valerie Bloom, Matt Goodfellow, Joshua Seigal and A.F. Harrold.Whether you’re in the mood for a haunting or a spell gone wrong, this collection of mesmerising poems will have you bewitched from beginning to end!

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Paul Cookson lives in Retford with his wife, two children, a dog and several ukuleles. He has worked as a poet since 1989 and has visited thousands of schools and performed to hundreds of thousands of pupils and staff. Paul is the official Poet in Residence for the National Football Museum, the Poetry Ambassador for United Learning and Poet Laureate for Slade. He worked as the Poet for Everton Collection at Liverpool Library, was Poet in Residence for Literacy Times Plus and, as part of the National Year of Reading, was nominated a National Reading Hero and received his award at 10 Downing Street.

Paul has 60 titles to his name and poems that appear in over 200 other books. His work has taken him all over the world from Argentina, Uganda and Malaysia to France, Germany and Switzerland.
Paul is the official Poet in Residence for the National Football Museum, the Poetry Ambassador for United Learning and Poet Laureate for Slade. He worked as the Poet for Everton Collection at Liverpool Library, was Poet in Residence for Literacy Times Plus and, as part of the National Year of Reading, was nominated a National Reading Hero and received his award at 10 Downing Street.Paul has 60 titles to his name and poems that appear in over 200 other books. His work has taken him all over the world from Argentina, Uganda and Malaysia to France, Germany and Switzerland.My thoughts:This is a really fun collection of poems old and new, from Shakespeare’s weird sisters in Macbeth, to spells to make your teacher turn purple, in praise of unicorns and make your sister combust!Poetry is tremendous fun and should ideally be read aloud so you can hear the rhythm and flow of the words.There’s also poems for every reader, and while this collection is aimed at younger readers, with its fun illustrations, it can certainly be enjoyed by anyone.*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: Vultures – Luke Tarzian*

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An enemy slain is not a conflict won…

After decades of war the demon Te Mirkvahíl is dead. But its progeny endure, spilling from the Heart of Mirkúr, sowing death across the land of Ariath. If the people are to finally know peace, the Heart must be destroyed. Theailys An believes he can do just that with The Keepers’ Wrath, an infamous power focus wrought in Ariath’s yesteryears–but the weapon first must be reforged.

War spares no one…

Serece never intended to get involved in Ariath’s war. But history and demons have a way of pulling strings. When she learns Theailys An, a man whom she abhors, bears striking similarity to the first creator of The Keepers’ Wrath, Serece departs her mountain world for Ariath to ascertain the truth.

From patience, hope…

For millennia Behtréal has walked the world alone. Rewriting history to resurrect his people is easier said than done. But Ariath holds the key–soon The Keepers’ Wrath will be remade.

Truth from madness…

As paths converge and a shadow falls across Ariath, one thing becomes increasingly and horrifyingly clear–these events have played out many times before.

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My thoughts:

There is a lot happening in Vultures and it took me a little while to work out all the plotlines and players, but I could see how it all starts to come together and things fell into place as it went along.

The various characters all have things they want and goals they’re working for, often unknowingly against each other, there’s strange dreams, alliances that perhaps are terrible ideas and monsters lurking round assorted corners.

There’s a strong sense that all of this has happened before and that not everyone has all the details. Some of the characters are unwitting pawns in a conflict that started a long time ago.

I imagine that the story will flesh out more in books two and three, as the murky plot underpinning the events starts to come further into the light.

*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 Choice – Alex Lake*

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A kidnap…

Matt Westbrook only turned his back for a moment. But when he looks around, his car – with his three young children inside – has vanished.

A ransom…

Panicked, Matt assumes a car thief has got more than he bargained for, but then he starts to receive text messages: This is a kidnap. If you want to see your children again, you will exchange them for your wife.

A choice…

Matt and his wife Annabelle are horrified. They can’t involve the police, or their children will be killed. Which means they have to choose: Annabelle, or their children. Either option is unthinkable. But one is inevitable. And they have only hours to make their decision…

My thoughts:

This was an ingenious take on the kidnap plot, a mother must exchange herself for her children or risk losing them.

As the tension builds, the plot flashes back over Matt and Annabelle’s relationship, from meeting at uni, their wedding and the birth of their first child. Cleverly suggesting other people who might be behind the terrible scheme to take Annabelle away from her family.

When the kidnapper is revealed and the delusional reasonings behind it, I genuinely was stunned. Talk about completely twisted.

Sidenote: I also really liked the way the author handled the covid-19 situation, setting the story in early March when not a lot was known by the public and before lockdown. It added some realism but without turning the novel into a coronavirus focused one or pretending it wasn’t happening, I thought it was very nicely done.

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