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Blog Tour: The Blood Promise – Liz Mistry

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A deadly gift

Imogen Clark wakes up on her 16th birthday to find her parents dead at the breakfast table, along with a message from their killer.

A twist of fate

Detectives Jazzy Solanki and Annie McQueen join the investigation, but the more they discover, the more Jazzy suspects that the killing is a twisted message for her. Jazzy shares the same birthday as Imogen, and believes that this is more than a coincidence.

A race to catch a killer

When Jazzy discovers the connection between the killer and the stalker who has been following her for years, she is forced to confront the dark past she was desperate to keep hidden. She must stop at
nothing to solve the case before she becomes the next victim…


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Liz Mistry moved to West Yorkshire in the late 1980s. Her gritty crime fiction police procedural novels set in Bradford embrace the city she describes as ‘Warm, Rich and Fearless’ whilst exploring the darkness that lurks beneath. Yet, her heart remains in Scotland, where childhood tales of bogey men, Bible John and grey lady ghosts fed her imagination.
Her latest work, The Solanki and McQueen crime series is set around West Lothian, where she uses the distinctive landscape, historic heritage and Scottish culture as a backdrop to her gritty yet often humorous stories.
Struggling with clinical depression and anxiety for many years, Liz often includes mental health themes in her writing. She credits her MA in Creative Writing from Leeds Trinity University with helping her find a way of using her writing to navigate her ongoing mental health struggles. The
synergy between creative and academic writing led Liz to complete a doctorate in creative writing researching the importance of representation of marginalised groups within the genre she loves.
Her husband, three children and huge extended British Indian family are a constant support to her.
In her spare time, Liz loves visiting the varied Scottish and Yorkshire landscape, travelling, listening to music, reading and blogging about all things crime fiction on her website blog, The Crime Warp.

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My thoughts: Liz’s books are a must read for me, I really like how she writes and the characters and stories she creates. This newest book is no exception.

I love Jazzy and the hilarious Queenie aka the Jazz Queens (the name does need work!) as they and their colleagues attempt to solve this grisly case. Jazzy is pretty sure the killer is leaving messages just for her, and that her past is vital in solving the case and putting a killer behind bars. But facing up to her sad start in life is hard and admitting that she’d far rather pretend it didn’t happen is never easy. Thankfully she’s got support from those around her, who won’t let her get too bound up in it.

The twists are pretty shocking and I didn’t see them coming, it’s all revealed so carefully. Hopefully this is the start of another great series of stories from a writer I really enjoy reading.

*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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Blog Tour: Non Serviam – Sfarda L. Gül

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NonServiam copy

A blood-soaked clashing of V FOR VENDETTA and BLOODBORNE, NON SERVIAM is written in the spirit of poetry and art cinema—suffused with visceral symbolism, lush purple prose, and philosophical pondering—its vividly complex worldbuilding inspired by Venice, Sardinia, and Etruscan Civilisation among much more. A dark and deadly web of intrigue.

Cover Front

Non Serviam: The Hypostasis of Dissent Book 1

Publication Date: May 7, 2024

Genre: Gridmark Political Mystery/ Gaslamp/ Gothic Fantasy

❤️‍🔥Revolution & revenge
🫀Female hysteria, dark femininity, complex womanhood
🦷Found family
🥀Slow burn yearning enemies to lovers
🕯️“Whimsical grimdark”
🏛️Philosophy
🩸Bløød & gûts
🧠Mad scïence
💐Fully LGBT cast~
🎭Baroque/Venetian setting
❤️‍🩹Tragedy & navigating tråuma

Expressing emotion is prohibited by law in the city state of Vencenza.

Beneath its tyrannical shadow, Giorgianna, a deranged former playwright turned political fugitive, flees a brothel to seek justice for the murder of a beloved friend.

When the last remnants of her bloodline are reaped by the incorrigible Minister of Dominion, Giorgianna’s crooked path to retribution crosses with Vencenza’s Machiavellian revolutionary hellbent on regime overturn.

All the while, the weight of unending tragedy erodes Giorgianna’s psyche into a vengeful bloodlust plagued by cabbalistic visions hinting at an ever-darker face of the violent Powers That Be.

The first in a grimdark political mystery duology with gothic fantasy undertones, NON SERVIAM is written with a unique, experimental style in the spirit of poetry, art cinema, and classics—suffused with visceral symbolism, lush, archaic-esque purple prose, and philosophical ponderings aimed at interrogating totalitarianism, colonial legacy, and state violence. Venice, Sardinia, and the Etruscan Civilisation inspire its vividly intricate, queer-normative setting.

The paperback edition features 25 illustrations by the author, Sfarda L. Gül, as well as one illustration each by Ayşe-Mira Yaşın, Nadia Sampellegrini, and Sophia Arnaout.

Take note that this book is very heavy on worldbuilding and conlang (including footnotes and several POV types (1st person limited; 3rd person limited; 2nd person limited every other chapter for the first ~10% of the book; all past tense)), and features very dense, metaphorical poetic prose, something which some readers may find detracts from immersion for them.

Content Warnings: government oppression, death, graphic gore, self-injury, mental illness, sex trafficking, sexual harassment, police brutality, violence against women and trans-identifying peoples, birth-related trauma, gun violence, religion, classism, discussions of sexual violence (humans, minors, corpses), child abuse, workplace violence, divorce, smoking (tobacco and opium), alcohol, mention of intravenous drug abuse, surgical procedures and needles (singular instance), fires and burns, strong language.

ALL ROYALTIES earned from the title are donated to Doctors Without Borders, the Kurdish Red Crescent, and All For Armenia.

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Blog Blitz: Far From Home – T.A. Williams

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The secrets of the past will unlock her future…

Working in the fast-paced foreign exchange market in Canary Wharf, Amy never expected her job to drive her to collapse. With her doctor advising she take a month off work, when Amy receives a
solicitor’s letter informing her of a surprise inheritance in Italy, the timing couldn’t be more perfect.
But who on earth has left her a house in the sleepy Tuscan hills?

As she gets to know the town and its inhabitants, Amy discovers more about the mysterious man who named her in his will. Shocking family secrets come to light, leaving Amy questioning the life she knew.

The town of Sant’Antonio holds more than just secrets. Here, Amy meets Adam, a renowned TV journalist whose documentaries take him to dangerous places. But as their attraction grows, so do
Amy’s worries. Her life is in England, while Adam’s is untethered and under constant threat…

An emotional, heartwarming love story full of family drama and quirky locals.

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I’m a man. And a pretty old man as well. I did languages at university a long time ago
and then lived and worked in France and Switzerland before going to Italy for seven years as a teacher of English. My Italian wife and I then came back to the UK with our little daughter (now long-since grown up) where I ran a big English language school for many years. We now live in a sleepy little village in Devonshire.

I’ve been writing almost all my life but it was only ten years ago that I finally managed to find a publisher who liked my work enough to offer me my first contract.
The fact that I am now writing escapist romance is something I still find hard to explain. My early books were thrillers and historical novels and I now also write cozy crime, but my first love has always been romance. Maybe it’s because there are so many horrible things happening in the world today that I feel I need to do my best to provide something to cheer my readers up. My books provide escapism to some gorgeous locations and descriptions of food to make you drool.

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My thoughts: I always enjoy this author’s books, and they always make me a) hungry and b) want a Labrador.

This book is no exception, there’s two delightful Labs in this book, Max and Coco, and lots of delicious Italian food. As Amy looks into who left her a beautiful, if somewhat dilapidated house in the Tuscan town of Sant’Antonio, near Pisa.

As she learns more about this mysterious legacy and gets the house remodelled, with a very useful plumber, builder and electrician. It helps she speaks fluent Italian as her mother and grandparents came from the country.

While there, she makes lots of friends, including the delightful Labrador, Max, and his sister Coco, and meets some ex pats, including handsome Canadian filmmaker Adam. Unfortunately just as things are beginning, he has to travel to Brazil to make a documentary. Then he goes missing.

Amy is torn between staying in Italy, in the house she’s had renovated, surrounded by her new friends, or returning to her life, and job, in London. Now I know what I would choose, if I was in Amy’s shoes.

This was a really enjoyable story and I loved how Amy found friendship, family and happiness in beautiful Italy, how all sorts of secrets came out and how sweet her relationship with Adam (and more importantly Max) developed. Truly delightful read, enjoy with your favourite tipple or a mug of tea! And snacks, you will need snacks.

*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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Blog Tour: Elusive – Genevieve Cogman

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Revolutionary France is full of blood and bite . . .

1793. Eleanor, once a lowly English maid, is now a member of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel: renowned for their daring deeds, and for rescuing aristocrats and vampires from the guillotine. When the notorious French diplomat Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand goes missing, Eleanor and the League leap into action. But they uncover two vampire factions feuding for control over humanity’s fate. Talleyrand’s disappearance is part of a larger, more dangerous scheme – one that threatens to throw France into bloody chaos . . .

As the mutiny continues, a once-dead queen stalks the streets of Paris and the Scarlet Pimpernel is nowhere to be found. Eleanor must take control of her own fate. If she doesn’t, she may find herself the victim of the very people she came to save.

The thrilling follow-up to Scarlet, Elusive by Genevieve Cogman is a witty, inventive retelling of the Scarlet Pimpernel, perfect for fans of The Invisible Library series, Kim Newman and Gail Carriger.

My thoughts: the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel are back, and planning on rescuing more French aristocrats from Madame Guillotine. This time it’s Marguerite’s brother that the team are heading to Paris to retrieve.

But first they need a distraction – freeing the prisoners, including friend Fleurette, from Mont Saint-Michel and stealing a hot air balloon should do the trick.

Eleanor is discovering that she and Anima can do even more with the unusual mage powers, even free people from the influence of vampires, which could come in very handy if they run into the mysterious Prince of Paris, or even the undead Marie Anoinette.

This is another fantastic, rip roaring adventure, the second in this trilogy and protagonist Eleanor has grown in so many ways, this story has her really coming into her own. Separated from the others, she has to take charge and make decisions herself, often asking “what would the Chief do?” and thinking like the Pimpernel. She’s really brave and uses the fact that people in power don’t pay attention to servants to access the inner sanctum of the Committee on Public Safety, coming face to face with Robespierre.

She might be the best asset the League has, and they don’t really seem to realise it yet. I really enjoyed this book, as I did Scarlet, but I think this is definitely the best one yet. Can’t wait for book three!

*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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Blog Tour: Dressing the Countess – Rachel Brimble

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Fans of Kristy Cambron, Stephanie Dray, and Julia Quinn will adore this Victorian romance from historical fiction dynamo, Rachel Brimble.

Seamstress Rose Watson cannot believe her good fortune when she’s plucked from obscurity to work for Lady Christina, the Countess of Bath. Despite her parents’ distrust that the position will come with conditions, Rose accepts the unexpected offer.
When she arrives at the royal residence of Henlow House, a strange sense of destiny whispers through her, and Rose cannot wait for this new adventure to begin. Although, she has Henry Ward to
deal with, the handsome, risk-taking and—though she is loath to admit it—exciting royal saddler and horse trainer, who both fascinates and frustrates her in equal measure.

They could not be more different…with the exception of their hunger for more.
But as they begin to trust one another, and their bond flourishes, Rose’s connection with Henry could cause her to lose her position at Henlow House, which would destroy her. Will she be forced to choose between love and ambition? Either choice will change her life irrevocably.
A captivating escape that will touch your heart and keep you turning pages with impatient hope for Rose…

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Rachel lives with her husband, two adult daughters and beloved Labrador in a small town near Bath, England. She is the author of 30 novels and has been published by Harlequin Mills & Boon, Kensington Books and others. Her latest series includes the Ladies of Carson Street trilogy and the
Shop Girl series, both published with Aria Fiction. She also has several single titles with The Wild Rose Press. Her debut novel with Harpeth Road Press, Dressing The Countess, was released in May 2024.
Rachel is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association and the Female Entrepreneur Association and has thousands of social media followers all over the world. She is also studying for a history degree with the Open University in her spare time…

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My thoughts: I really liked this Victorian set story about a young seamstress and her exciting new role as couturier for Lady Christina, Countess of Bath. Invited to design a dress for a mystery client at her parents’ dress shop, she later discovers that the client is the Countess, who hires Rose to design and create outfits just for her. 

There she meets Henry who works with his uncle as the Earl’s saddler and assistant horse trainer. There’s an instant spark between the two, and while Henry frustrates Rose at first, with his gambling and restlessness, they soon become close.

As Rose’s career flourishes and the Countess trusts her more and more, not just with her clothes but also with her secrets, Henry risks it all to find the future he thinks he wants. But will love thrive below stairs and bring Rose and Henry back together?

Rose is a delightful protagonist, clever and talented, she shines when given the Countess as a muse for her designs and as she helps Henry rid himself of his vices and evaluate what he really wants from life. Henry too is charming, the opposite of their employer, the Earl.

This is a charming and enjoyable story of two young people making their way in the world, following their dreams and falling in love as they do.

*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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Blog Tour: The Unbroken Queen – Terina Adams

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TheUnbrokenQueen copy

We’re touring The Unbroken Queen this week, which is the first book in a new enemies-to-lovers fantasy romance series called The Bone Throne!

aaaacover-for-website-

The Unbroken Queen (The Bone Throne Series Book 1)

Publication Date: April 21, 2024

Genre: Fantasy Romance

  • Forbidden Love
  • Burn the World Down Romance
  • Enemies-to-Lovers
  • Vengeance
  • Found Friendships

Born illegitimate. Trained an assassin. Crowned a queen.

As an illegitimate princess, I’m bound by duty and betrothed to the crown prince of the House of Tannard, rulers of the nearby realms. However, beneath the royal façade, I serve as a loyal disciple of the formidable Sistern of Silence, the masters of soul voice. The sacred legacy of the death arts, a rare gift, courses through my veins, a heritage from my father’s line.

Upon reaching the distant shores of Tarragona to meet my betrothed, I discover I’ve been manipulated by the Mother of the Sistern. I was chosen to be the future queen for a reason I can’t yet fathom—a reason that could bring catastrophic consequences upon the realms.

As the northern realm’s thirst for power intensifies and its enigmatic Razohan leader aims to reclaim the southern throne and the prized Etherweave, my disdain for my fiancé seems inconsequential, overshadowed by the imminent specter of war.

To protect the House of Tannard and maintain the delicate equilibrium of power, I must delve deeper into the clandestine pillars of the Sistern and awaken the lethal power of the death arts, lying dormant within me.

In a world where treachery and concealed truths dominate, I must remember that in war, love and mercy are luxuries none can afford. I’ve pledged my allegiance to the House of Tannard, but the allure of the Razohan leader, my constant shadow and adversary, tests my loyalty—and threatens to unravel my very soul.

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Blog Tour: The Village Detectives & The Art of Murder – Fiona Walker

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Welcome to the beautiful English village of Inkbury. Tucked deep in the North Wessex Downs, its only claim to fame is the picturesque riverside that once appeared in a Richard Curtis movie. That is, until the murder…

Former stand-up comic Juno Mulligan has been suffering a serious sense-of-humour failure. Not only has she lost the love of her life, but she’s having to relocate to the (admittedly idyllic) village of Inkbury to watch out for her elderly mother, who she’s genuinely worried might be marrying a wife-killer.

She hopes that her old friend, disgraced-journalist-turned-novelist Phoebe Fredericks can help her crack the case of whether her mother’s perma-tanned, iceberg-smiled, three-times-a-widower fiancé is hiding a murderous past.

But before they have a chance, the local art dealer washes up distinctly dead in the village’s famous river. His lover is in the frame, but Juno and Phoebe suspect that there is a deeper secret… One that relates to Phoebe’s own past and Juno’s present.

Will the unofficial Village Detective Agency solve the mystery before the killer strikes again? In sleepy Inkbury, as they soon discover, living one’s best midlife can be murder.

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Fiona Walker is the million copy bestselling author of joyously funny romantic comedies. Most recently published by Head of Zeus, she will be turning to cosy crime for Boldwood. The first in her new Village Detectives series, The Art of Murder, will be published in May 2024.

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My thoughts: this was a really fun read, I loved Phoebe and Juno, and obviously Mil the waiter with his motorbike and crazy fake deaths.

When local art dealer Si drops dead and falls into the river outside Mil’s pub, Juno decides the friends should investigate his death, having the local insight and being the ones who found the body.

Is it his partner in business and life, Oliver? His mother, as suggested by one of his sisters, a professional rival or is it someone from his past?

As they investigate, asking questions and looking into who Si was, Phoebe is trying  to finish her next book, and Juno is convinced her mother’s boyfriend is a serial killer – all three of his previous wives died in strange circumstances and he might be after her mum’s money as she’s suddenly selling the family home and moving into a retirement community.

They’re all a little eccentric and I just really enjoyed reading the book, which hopefully bodes well for the rest of this series – murder in an English village is a subgenre I particularly like reading (although I can’t stand the phrase “cosy crime”) and with these characters, it will be lots of fun.

*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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Blog Tour: The Goldilocks Genome – Elizabeth Reed Aden, PhD

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GoldilockGenomes copy

Welcome to the book release tour for The Goldilocks Genome by Elizabeth Reed Aden, PhD. Read on for more info!

TheGoldilocksGenome

The Goldilocks Genome: A Medical Thriller

Publication Date: May 21, 2024

Genre: Medical Thriller

When San Francisco–based FDA epidemiologist Dr. Carrie Hediger uncovers a rash of unexplained deaths while investigating the suspiciously convenient death of her best friend, she becomes determined to find answers—even if it leads her to a murderer, and even if confronting authority, using her wiles, and bending the rules to get justice risks her future in the FDA.

To unravel the puzzle, Carrie assembles a team: some talented post-doctoral fellows, a quirky pharmacologist, an unctuous chemist, and a skeptical FBI agent that she can’t help her attraction for. Together, they follow the data through the twists and turns, eventually uncovering that the Goldilocks effect in prescription drugs—the premise that people are inclined to seek “just the right amount” of something—is central to understanding these mysterious deaths. Through the twists and turns, Carrie and her team enter a race to uncover the truth . . . and catch a killer.

Grounded in real data analysis techniques, real science and pharmacology, and actual current psychiatric practices, The Goldilocks Genome is simultaneously a taut, race-against-time thriller and a condemnation of the psychiatric industry’s failure to implement genetic-based “personalized medicine”—a problem that persists to this day.

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About the Author

Elizabeth, “Betsy” lives in Berkeley, California and successfully leveraged her doctorate in biomedical anthropology into a career in pharmaceuticals and biotech. She is the author of the forthcoming medical thriller The Goldilocks Genome and is working on a book examining the impact of her fieldwork in Melanesia on her life and career. Eunice Mays Boyd was her godmother. She recently discovered Eunice’s unpublished novels and is publishing her new and republishing the out-of-print mysteries.

Betsy is also bi-continental and lives part of the year in lovely, historic Valencia, Spain where she enjoys exploring the history and prehistory of the country. She love exploring the different beaches and swimming.

ELIZABETH REED ADEN

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Blog Tour: The Secret Daughter of Venice – Juliet Greenwood

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The paper is stiff and brittle with age as Kate unfolds it with trembling hands. She gasps at the pencil sketch of a rippling waterway, lined by tall buildings, curving towards the dome of a cathedral. She feels a connection deep in her heart. Venice.

England, 1941. When Kate Arden discovers a secret stash of drawings hidden in the pages of an old volume of poetry given to her as a baby, her breath catches. All her life, she has felt like an outsider in her aristocratic adoptive family, who refuse to answer any questions about her past. But the drawings spark a forgotten memory: a long journey by boat… warm arms that held her tight, and then let go.
Could these pictures unlock the secret of who she is? Why her mother left her?

With war raging around the continent, she will brave everything to find out…

A gripping, emotional historical novel of love and art that will captivate fans of The Venice Sketchbook, The Woman on the Bridge and The Nightingale.

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Juliet Greenwood is a historical novelist published by Storm Publishing. Her previous novel, The Last Train from Paris, was published to rave reviews and reached the top 100 kindle chart in the USA. She has long been inspired by the histories of the women in her family, and in particular with how strong-minded and independent women have overcome the limitations imposed on them by the
constraints of their time, and the way generations of women hold families and communities together in times of crisis, including during WW2.

After graduating in English from Lancaster University and Kings College, London, Juliet worked on a variety of jobs to support her ambition to be a full-time writer. These ranged from running a craft
stall at Covent Garden to running a small charity working with disadvantaged children, and collecting oral histories of traditional villages before they are lost forever. She finally achieved her dream of
becoming a published author following a debilitating viral illness, with her first novel being a finalist for The People’s Book Prize and her first two novels reaching #4 and #5 in the UK Kindle store.

Juliet now lives in a traditional quarryman’s cottage in Snowdonia, North Wales, set between the mountains and the sea, with an overgrown garden (good for insects!) and a surprisingly successful
grapevine. She can be found dog walking in all weathers working on the plot for her next novel, camera to hand.

Storm (publisher)

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My thoughts: I’m not a huge fan of WW2 set fiction but this is more about Kate Arden’s family secrets and her attempts to pair her memories and the images she finds hidden in a copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets with her reality. She’s always felt like a bit of an outsider in her family – the people she calls Mama and Papa aren’t actually her biological parents.

As war rages across Europe, Kate is sent to Cornwall with a group of refugees. They’re housed in a big house outside of St Ives, formerly an artists retreat. It’s there she finds another link to her own past. The path will lead her to Italy, to Sorrento and Venice, and to the truth about her parents.

In Venice, Sofia is regretting returning to her home city, Italy is under the sway of Il Duce – Mussolini, and then the Nazis, but it is her personal history that’s taking a toll on her. In amongst her mother’s papers she finds documents that cast a new light on what happened to her and to her daughter years before.

As the two women’s stories weave together, a terrible wrong is about to be righted, a family will be reunited and old wounds will be healed. Moving and fascinating, this was a good and interesting read. 

*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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Blog Tour: The Small Museum – Jody Cooksley

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A chilling historical mystery set against the gothic backdrop of Victorian London, The Small Museum won the Caledonia Novel Award in 2023 and is inspired by the extraordinary treasure trove of curiosities that is the Hunterian Museum in London.

London, 1873. Madeleine Brewster’s marriage to Dr Lucius Everley was meant to be the solution to her family’s sullied reputation. After all, Lucius is a well-respected collector of natural curiosities, his ‘Small Museum’ of bones and things in jars is his pride and joy,
although kept under lock and key. His sister Grace’s philanthropic work with fallen women is also highly laudable. However, Maddie is confused by and excluded from what happens in
what is meant to be her new home.

Maddie’s skill at drawing promises a role for her though when Lucius agrees to let her help him in making a breakthrough in evolutionary science, a discovery of the first ‘fish with feet’.
But the more Maddie learns about both Lucius and Grace, the more she suspects that unimaginable horrors lie behind their polished reputations. Framed for a crime that would take her to the gallows and leave the Everleys unencumbered, Maddie’s only hope is her friend Caroline Fairly. But will she be able to put the pieces together before the trial reaches its fatal conclusion?

JODY COOKSLEY studied literature at Oxford Brookes University and has a Masters in Victorian Poetry. Her debut
novel The Glass House was a fictional account of the life of nineteenth-century photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron.
The Small Museum, Jody’s third novel, won the 2023 Caledonia Novel Award.
Jody is originally from Norwich and now lives in Cranleigh, Surrey.

My thoughts: I felt for Madeleine (and not just because we share a first name), she meets her husband just once before marrying him – all arranged by her parents to improve their reputation. Unfortunately for them, what unfolds will obliterate the reputations of everyone it touches.

Lucius Everley is a strange, cold man, he offers nothing to his new wife, his house is still run as though his father is still alive – Maddie is given no power, she can’t even ask the scary cook/housekeeper Mrs Barker to add tea to the shopping list. Lucius’ overbearing and unpleasant sister Grace is always there, dominating things despite having her own home and three children.

After the housemaid Annie sees something that scares her in Lucius’ study and is hustled off to an asylum, things get darker. Lucius is a surgeon but he is also obsessed with finding the link between fish and mammals – a primordial ancestor with fins and limbs. The fossil hunting craze is at its height and the Jurassic Coast of Dorset is where Lucius claims he will find his proof.

In a second timeline Maddie is on trial for murdering her child. She won’t speak and the evidence seems stacked against her, there seems to be no one prepared to speak in her defence. Except her only friend Caroline Fairly, who knows Maddie couldn’t have done this.

The Everlys preside over a house of fallen women – claiming it is a charitable endeavour, but there’s a lot of darkness there too, which Maddie investigates as she tries to piece together whatever her horrible husband and his vicious sister are up to.

This is a creepy, sinister read, Maddie is sympathetic and smart – smarter than people think she is. Trauma means she doesn’t want to speak in court, she can’t believe it’s come to this. Caro is a loyal and kind friend, her husband is a psychiatrist, but not allowed to speak to Maddie – who will either hang or end up in an asylum.

I really enjoyed reading this, I love a dose of Gothic and the Victorian obsessions with evolution, fossil collecting and oddities – things that people collected or that were displayed in sideshows – even chimeras (completely man made) are all things I find fascinating.

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