Edinburgh 1896 Amy Alardyce’s once-perfect life is in tatters. Her eldest son, Robert, has come of age, become the master of his own home, and married his childhood love Jane. But with maturity has come a terrible legacy, and the dark desires Robert inherited from his evil father Matthew, are fighting to get loose. Whilst Jane is working hard to get her and Robert accepted into fashionable society, poor women are being hunted on the streets of Edinburgh, and Amy fears her son is to blame. And once the infamous Inspector Murphy takes up the case, Amy has to face a stark choice – denounce her son as a monster or risk her own safety to protect him from the consequences of his lethal actions. Purchase
Heather Atkinson is the author of over fifty books – predominantly in the crime fiction genre. Although Lancashire born and bred she now lives with her family, including twin teenage daughters, on the beautiful west coast of Scotland. Her gangland series for Boldwood, set on the fictional Gallowburn estate in Glasgow begins with the title Blood Brothers.
My thoughts: Amy and Henry Alardyce are just too nice, they keep trying to save Robert from himself, from the darkness he’s inherited from his monstrous father, and in this installment of the Alardyces’ story, he’s actually trying as well. Married to the lovely Jane, father to a new baby daughter, he wants to change, to not bring the cruelty and violence within him home. But it keeps breaking out, and people are getting hurt.
I kept waiting for his Mr Hyde side to pop out and it did, learning to box leads him to almost kill a man, and his attacks on women continue. Now that the police, in the form of Inspector Murphy are on his tail, he’s running out of places to hide and his parents must decide what to do. Can Amy and Henry protect him anymore? And should they? I feel sorry for Jane, the Robert she knows isn’t all of him, and the part she doesn’t see is terrible. The village witch Magda (I love Magda) warns him that he will have to leave his family to protect it. Staying will have terrible consequences. More please!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
We’re celebrating the release of The Last Saxon King by Andrew Varga! Read on for more details!
The Last Saxon King (A Jump in Time #1)
Publication Date: March 7th, 2023
Genre: MG Fantasy/ Historical Fantasy
One jump to save all time.
When Dan Renfrew is accidentally transported to England in the year 1066, he also learns a startling fact. He’s a time jumper, descended from a long line of secret heroes who protect the present by traveling to the past to fix breaks and glitches in the time stream. To get home alive, Dan must try to restore history, but he soon discovers even bigger challenges than suspicious Anglo-Saxons, marauding Vikings, and invading Normans. A band of malicious time jumpers is threatening the very future of the universe.
Ever since his mother told him he was descended from Vikings, Andrew Varga has had a fascination for history. He’s read hundreds of history books, watched countless historical movies, and earned a BA from the University of Toronto with a specialist in history and a major in English.
Andrew has traveled extensively across Europe, where he toured some of the most famous castles, museums, and historical sites that Europe has to offer. During his travels he accumulated a collection of swords, shields, and other medieval weapons that now adorn his personal library. He is skilled in fencing and Kendo—the Japanese art of sword fighting. He has also used both longbows and crossbows, built a miniature working trebuchet, knit his own shirt of chain mail, and earned a black belt in karate.
Andrew currently lives in the greater Toronto area with his wife Pam, their three children, and their mini-zoo of two dogs, two cats, a turtle, and some fish. It was his children’s love of reading, particularly historical and fantasy stories, that inspired Andrew to write this series. In his spare time, when he isn’t writing or editing, Andrew reads history books, jams on guitar, or plays beach volleyball.
Celebrating the international world of fiction in all its forms including poetry, novels, short stories and drama, the annual Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize is one of the most important awards for young writers, aimed at encouraging raw creative talent worldwide. The prize is named after the Swansea-born writer, Dylan Thomas, one of the most influential, internationally renowned writers of the mid-twentieth century, and invokes his memory to support the writers of today and nurture the talents of tomorrow.
– Seven Steeples by Sara Baume (Tramp Press) – novel (Ireland)
– God’s Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu (Orion, Weidenfeld & Nicolson) – short story collection (Nigeria)
– Maps Of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer (Picador, Pan Macmillan) – novel (UK)
– Phantom Gang by Ciarán O’Rourke (The Irish Pages Press) – poetry collection (Ireland)
– Things They Lost by Okwiri Oduor (Oneworld) – novel (Kenya)
– Losing the Plot by Derek Owusu (Canongate Books) – novel (UK)
– I’m a Fan by Sheena Patel (Rough Trade Books) – novel (UK)
– Send Nudes by Saba Sams (Bloomsbury Publishing) – short story collection (UK)
– Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire (Chatto & Windus) – poetry collection (Somalia-UK)
– Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens (Picador, Pan Macmillan) – novel (UK)
– No Land to Light On by Yara Zgheib (Atlantic Books, Allen & Unwin) – novel (Lebanon)
Worth £20,000, the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prizeis one of the UK’s most prestigious literary prizes as well as the world’s largest literary prize for young writers. Awarded for the best published literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under, the Prize celebrates the international world of fiction in all its forms including poetry, novels, short stories and drama.
American poet, novelist and essayist Patricia Lockwood received the award in 2022 for her inventive debut novel, No One Is Talking About This (Bloomsbury Publishing).Chair of the 2022 Judges, Namita Gokhale, said: “No One Is Talking About This is a vital reflection on online culture today. A deeply timely winner, Patricia Lockwood is the voice of a generation of new writers who grew up under the constant pressures of real-time news and social media.”
The Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize shortlist will be announced on Thursday 23 March followed by the Winner’s Ceremony held in Swansea on Thursday 11 May, prior to International Dylan Thomas Day on Sunday 14 May.
In I’m A Fan a single speaker uses the story of their experience in a seemingly unequal, unfaithful relationship as a prism through which to examine the complicated hold we each have on one another. With a clear and unforgiving eye, the narrator unpicks the behaviour of all involved, herself included, and makes startling connections between the power struggles at the heart of human relationships and those of the wider world, in turn offering a devastating critique of access, social media, patriarchal heteronormative relationships, and our cultural obsession with status and how that status is conveyed. In this incredible debut, Sheena Patel announces herself as a vital new voice in literature, capable of rendering a range of emotions and visceral experiences on the page. Sex, violence, politics, tenderness, humour—Patel handles them all with both originality and dexterity of voice.
Sheena Patel is a writer and assistant director for film and TV who was born and raised in North West London. She is part of the 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE collective, has been published in 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE (Rough Trade Books) and a poetry collection of the same name (FEM Press). In 2022 she was chosen as one of the Observer’s Top 10 best debut novelists. I’m a Fan is her first book.Follow her on Twitter @Sheena_Patel_
My thoughts: I’m from the same part of North West London as the author and the narrator of this book, so every now and then as a place was mentioned I’d get a little surprise jolt of nostalgia. But otherwise the narrator and I are nothing alike. I couldn’t tell if this was purely fictional, autofiction or a mix of the two.
The obsession with “the man I want to be with” and his many girlfriends, especially the one she’s stalking on Instagram, the fact that he’s serially unfaithful to his wife, the way he toys with the narrator’s feelings and she never seems willing to just get away from him, the boyfriend she clearly doesn’t love anymore. All of it left me cold, we would not be friends.
The stream of consciousness style was interesting, the way it felt like the inner monologue of a young woman’s mind, her constant sense of being unbalanced, she knows none of this behaviour is healthy but yet can’t seem to break out of the cycle.
We all use social media to look at lives we want to live – the comparison, the shameless “where is that from?” and the copycatting of bits of other lives we can afford and hope will somehow make us more like them. This I could totally relate to. But her stalking of the other other woman, that I found a bit much.
As a story of obsession, emotional self harm this totally hits the mark. You’re not a fan, you’re obsessed and it needs to stop. Though I am now a fan of Sheena Patel, can’t wait to see what she writes next.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Acclaimed novelist Livi Michael returns with a tense novel about memory, guilt and reinvention, and the dangerous power games played by children and adults.
At the International Conference Centre in Geneva, Hannah Rossier, formerly Annie Price, comes face to face with Neville Weir, someone from her childhood whom she never expected, or wanted, to meet again. As Neville’s reasons for attending the conference become clear, the dark waters of Hannah’s past start to rise. Hannah is a psychotherapist, with a specialist interest in memory and how connections are made between past and present. She has reinvented herself successfully, moving from a small northern town in England to Lucerne, Switzerland, with her husband, Thibaut.
Nobody, not even Hannah, knows the full truth about herself. Her ‘memories’ consist of glimpses of the place where she played in childhood, known simply as ‘The Wild’. Over the three days of the conference, she has to decide whether she can avoid Neville, or whether she should submit to an encounter with him and with her past. And in her keynote lecture about the neuroscience of memory, how much to conceal or reveal. But can her specialism save her from drowning?
LIVI MICHAEL has published seven previous novels for adults: Rebellion; Succession; Accession; Under a Thin Moon which won the Arthur Welton award; Their Angel Reach which won the Faber Prize; All the Dark Air which was shortlisted for the Mind Award; and Inheritance, which won a Society of Authors Award.
She has also published several novels for young adults and children and her short stories have been published in several magazines and anthologies. Livi has two sons and lives in Greater Manchester. She teaches creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and has been a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University.
My thoughts: a terrible incident from her childhood haunts Professor Hannah Rossier but she has been able to bury it deep enough to work, marry, build a reputation, until now when an unfriendly face from the past tries to bring her world down.
Neville was a slightly strange little boy who followed Hannah (then known as Annie) and her friend Joanna around, spying on them in the way of lonely, socially awkward kids. He was caught up in the incident and blames Hannah for the shape his life took. Although she was also a child at the time.
This was incredibly fascinating, I used to play in the woods with my friend at about the same age, and we were forever coming home soaking wet or coated in mud, famously once without a shoe (left in the sinking mud that took it) but luckily nothing serious ever happened. Children’s memories are often terrible and since we know that the part of the brain that understands consequences doesn’t develop till later, they can’t always explain their actions.
To place so much blame, although Neville insists it’s not about blame, on another child, is very wrong. It was the adults (his parents, teachers, social workers, police) who let him down, who punished him wrongly, who didn’t see that he was innocent, not Hannah. Indeed they hadn’t seen each other for 40 years and she had no idea what had happened to him. Her own experience was difficult enough.
The events at the conference, the confrontation, when it comes, is shocking. Neville carries so much anger, despite overcoming it all, despite his career and life now. It would be like carrying resentment of our childhood slights or bullies all our lives – it’s not healthy.
Hannah is confused and hurt by his accusations, by his genuine anger. He can’t even really say what it is he wants from her. He insists it’s not an apology he wants, but can’t articulate it. Jopi, the conference host, attempts to resolve things, but I don’t know if it actually makes it worse. There’s still a lot unresolved at the end and I found it unsettling not knowing how any of the characters were going to move ahead.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Welcome to the book tour for Cursed Memory by River Ash. This beautiful novella is part one of a duet. Read on for more info!
Cursed Memory (Cursed Bloodlines #1)
Publication Date: January 17th, 2023
Genre: PNR/ Vampire Romance
Length: 65 pages
I remember the club. The pounding of the beat pulsing in my veins, the way my body moved with the music.
Then — nothing.
My memories are locked away in the dark corners of my mind, replaced by an insatiable hunger nothing can fill.
Until I found him.
I felt his presence before I saw him. My blood calls for this mysterious man whose darkness matches my own. Being near him sets my body on fire, making me ache for every touch… every taste. It’s as if my soul recognizes him, loosening my trapped memories. Each time a new one breaks free, I wonder if he holds the key to what I’ve lost, what I can’t remember. But everything comes with a price. I’m beginning to fear the cost of remembering all that I’ve done might be more than I can bear. What if the monster of this story… is me?
River Ash is a writer of paranormal romance novels. Her stories are filled with passion and fantasy and all have HEAs. Her latest book in the Cursed Bloodline world, “Cursed Memory” is out.
Her love for reading began when she was a young girl sneaking into the school library, and grow into adulthood.
When River’s not reading, she is writing passionate fantasy with romance twist. Or else, she can be found solving sudoku puzzles. River loves traveling, is obsessed with energy drinks, and has several relationships with fictional characters.
We’re celebrating the release of We Come with Vengeance by H.G. Muralee. Read on for details and enter to win a fantastic giveaway —A copy of the map’s book, a postcard of the Felix character art, and an enamel pin for House Leigh-Van, along with a paperback.
We Come with Vengeance (Kaier Chronicles)
Publication Date: March 14th, 2023
Genre: Speculative Fiction/ Steampunk Sci-Fi
The war has stretched on for twenty years, and the soldiers, civilians, and nobles are exhausted. Towns grow more desolate while war technology continues to advance, leaving the rest of Kaier behind.
Felix—heir to House Leigh-Van—harbors resentment for the war that has claimed his sister’s life and his father’s ethics. Regardless, he follows his orders and is content to remain equal among his fellow soldiers.
When a routine stop for repairs puts Felix at the epicenter of a brutal attack impacting civilians rather than soldiers, he struggles to continue separating his ethics from his duty. He’s privately ambivalent but publicly supportive of his uncle—the king—when whispers of an underground rebellion start to circulate. The rebellion is gaining traction and could soon make a serious play at ending the war.
But when even the tactics of the resistance begin claiming lives as quickly as the war itself, Felix starts to wonder who will survive to see the peace they’re fighting for.
H.G. Muralee was born and raised in North Carolina. She graduated from Western Carolina University with a degree in Criminal Justice and works as a paralegal. When she isn’t writing, she’s reading far too many books, watching The Great British Baking Show, learning her husband’s native language, and playing with her dog, Oliver.
Lennox is a troubled teenager with no family. Ava is eight months pregnant and fleeing her abusive husband. Heather is a grieving mother and cancer sufferer. They don’t know each other, but when a meteor streaks over Edinburgh, all three suffer instant, catastrophic strokes … …only to wake up the following day in hospital, miraculously recovered.
When news reaches them of an octopus-like creature washed up on the shore near where the meteor came to earth, Lennox senses that some extra-terrestrial force is at play. With the help of Ava, Heather and a journalist, Ewan, he rescues the creature they call ‘Sandy’ and goes on the run. But they aren’t the only ones with an interest in the alien … close behind are Ava’s husband, the police and a government unit who wants to capture the creature, at all costs. And Sandy’s arrival may have implications beyond anything anyone could imagine…
Doug Johnstone is the author of fourteen previous novels, most recently Black Hearts (2022). The Big Chill (2020) was longlisted for the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year and three of his books, A Dark Matter (2020), Breakers (2019) and The Jump (2015), have been shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year.
He’s taught creative writing and been writer in residence at various institutions over the last decade, and has been an arts journalist for over twenty years. Doug is a songwriter and musician with six albums and three EPs released, and he plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a band of writers. He’s also co-founder of the Scotland Writers Football Club, and has a PhD in nuclear physics.
My thoughts: at first I was disappointed it wasn’t a new Skelfs book but then I read it and now I want more Sandy & the Gang (as I am calling them). I loved Sandy the cephalopod from space. There’s several incredibly touching moments between them and the humans they’ve bonded with, Lennox, Ava and Heather, especially when Sandy can help check on Ava’s unborn baby for her. That was so lovely. All Sandy wants is to be reunited with the rest of their kind, fleeing from an invasion of their home. They’ve picked Earth even though it might not be super friendly because presumably the waters here are suitable and have the right environment for them.
Unfortunately a government organisation, possibly MI7, also wants Sandy and not for friendly reasons. Why are we so hostile to the idea of other people? It feels very timely with the current carry on in Westminster about refugees. Sandy and their kind are fleeing danger too, and they just want to be safe here on Earth in the sea loch off Ullapool. Which I’m sure the fish have no issues with, just the humans.
Funny, warm, with a huge heart and lots of brains (octopus have mini brains in each of their tentacles, so maybe Sandy does too!) and a real sense of the ridiculous (the ancient camper van, Sandy in a rucksack, waving), this is lovely and I hope there’s more. As Lennox says “now what, Sandy?”
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Happy publication day to author V.P. Evans! To celebrate the release, The Rebirth will be ONLY $0.99 for a limited time!
The Rebirth
Publication Date: March 16th, 2023
Genre: Suspense/ Thriller
A night where everything begins . . . and everything ends.
For the past decade, police homicide consultant Mark Gilliam has been wasting his life with corpses, drugs, and alcohol. Things weren’t always like this. Ten years ago, he was a soldier, a husband, a . . . father. But it’s what he deserves. He couldn’t protect his son from the monsters that took him away.
For the past decade, Jason Roneros has been living a reclusive life, forced to spend the rest of his days in isolation. Things weren’t always like this. Ten years ago, he was a well-respected author, a fighter, a . . . dreamer. But it’s what he deserves. He trusted these monsters.
For the past decade, Mark and Jason haven’t seen each other.
But everything is about to change . . .
A murder brings them together one night, trapping them in the streets of Chicago in search of redemption down a cryptic path that could unlock the darkest scandal in history. As the path unrolls secrets buried in great works of art and philosophical writings, the shadiest aspects of the human soul come to the surface. Soon, the two men realize that those hunting them, closing in with each passing minute, are equally dangerous as the ghosts of the past . . .
Jason seemed so changed from the last time they’d met: his skin was yellow, as if forgotten by the coltish tickle of life. His face appeared exhausted, as if feckless to carry the striking features of the past. Two brusque lines around his mouth resembled deep snicks. Fitful creases whipped his forehead. His white, medium-length hair was combed back, just as it had been ten years ago, though a receding hairline now marked his forehead. His skeletal hands seemed incapable of keeping the watch fastened on his wrist, while his legs were so bony they seemed likely to break. Although Jason, like Oscar, was in his mid-sixties, he looked at least a decade older.
“There’s no time left.”
His voice remained rich, though. It still carried the slight British accent from his days in Oxford.
A mild shaking started traversing Oscar’s body. He put his glasses on the newspaper and stood, using the desk for support. “You need to leave.” He struggled to sound calm. “They were clear, Jason. We cannot be together. The deal—”
“The deal doesn’t exist anymore.” Jason scratched at his neck, above the collar of his white shirt, where an already reddened patch of eczema had become even more inflamed. “Dermot Walsh is dead.”
“What? How do you know—?”
“He told me himself. A few minutes ago. Texted me, pointing out his killers.”
“Murdered?” Oscar soughed, terrified by the ensuing sentence.
“By them,” Jason added, confirming Oscar’s dread. “The Imperatores are already after me.”
“Jesus.” The Imperatores. That name. Saliva filled Oscar’s mouth, choking him. “After all these years … now? Why? We had a damned agreement!” He slammed his hands on the desk, trying in vain to expel the fear inside him. His palms burned from the hit.
“To stop me,” Jason said, his words faint yet filling the huge office.
V.P. Evans is the pen name of an average (and perhaps boring) guy who seems desperate to disappear into lands far away. You would probably find him lost in a secluded village in Estonia, wandering among the wild islands of the Azores, or backpacking across vague paths in Asia. And sometimes, as the fading lights and the thick darkness of this mysterious cosmos unfold before him, he has an idea and writes it down.
Something a little different today, I have two reviews of books on the shortlist for The Wingate Prize – The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.
The Wingate Literary Prize was established in 1977 by the late Harold Hyam Wingate. It is now run in association with JW3, the Jewish Community Centre.
Now in its 46th year, the annual prize is awarded to the best book, fiction or non-fiction, to translate the idea of Jewishness to the general reader. The winner receives £4,000. The winner will be announced on the 12th of March.
Previous winners include David Grossman, Anne Michaels, WG Sebald, Zadie Smith, and Nicole Krauss.
This year’s shortlisted books are; Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, In The Midst of a Civilised Europe by Jeffrey Vehdlinger, The Memory Monster by Yishai Sarid, The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, Come to This Court and Cry by Linda Kinstler, The Island of Extraordinary Captives by Simon Parkin and The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land by Omer Friedlander. More information about the prize and the shortlisted books, which range from memoir to poetry to fiction, can be found here.
Reviews
In the mid-eighteenth century, as new ideas begin to sweep the continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following.
In the decade to come, Frank will traverse the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires, throngs of disciples in his thrall as he reinvents himself again and again, converts to Islam and then Catholicism, is pilloried as a heretic and revered as the Messiah, and wreaks havoc on the conventional order, Jewish and Christian alike, with scandalous rumours of his sect’s secret rituals and the spread of his increasingly iconoclastic beliefs.
In The Books of Jacob, her masterpiece, 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Olga Tokarczuk writes the story of Frank through the perspectives of his contemporaries, capturing Enlightenment Europe on the cusp of precipitous change, searching for certainty and longing for transcendence.
My thoughts: I chose to read this book from the shortlist as I had read the author’s previous book Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, which was a strange but compelling book and I wanted to see if this had the same odd magic.
First off, this is a big book, I was reading on an e-reader but it’s still a lot. And it ambles through the interconnected lives of a huge number of people, before Jacob even enters it.
It is however fascinating and reminded me of the huge tomes of the period in which its set – big, epic books like War & Peace, or something by Dostoevsky or even by the later Charles Dickens. The story roams across Europe of the 18th Century, as Jacob does, threading his way through the lives of Christians, Jews and Muslims, leaving mysteries in his wake. It’s an incredible undertaking and the translator, Jennifer Croft, has done an incredible job of bringing it from the original Polish to an English reading audience.
The 18th Century was a time of great change, when new ideas were sweeping the world. Which makes it ripe for Jacob and his thoughts to sow discord, confusion and a certain fanaticism among the people he encounters.
A fascinating and deeply layered book, one that requires probably more than one reading to truly understand what it is that Tokarczuk has done here.
Sam and Sadie meet in a hospital in 1987. Sadie is visiting her sister, Sam is recovering from a car crash. The days and months are long there, but playing together brings joy, escape, fierce competition — and a special friendship. Then all too soon that time is over, and they must return to their normal lives.
When the pair spot each other eight years later in a crowded train station, they are catapulted back to that moment. The spark is immediate, and together they get to work on what they love – creating virtual worlds to delight, challenge and immerse, finding an intimacy in the digital realm that eludes them in their real lives. Their collaborations make them superstars.
This is the story of the perfect worlds Sadie and Sam build, the imperfect world they live in, and of everything that comes after success: Money. Fame. Duplicity. Tragedy.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow takes us on a dazzling imaginative quest, examining identity, creativity and our need to connect.
My thoughts: this book has already become a word of mouth (or should that be social media) sensation and I had already bought but not read a copy before hearing about this tour so I am just as susceptible to peer pressure as anyone else.
I am not a gamer, so I was a bit dubious about a book set in the world of video game design, I worried I’d be bored. But while the characters do indeed make video games, it’s really about their relationships. The long friendship between Sadie and Sam and their connections to Marx and what happens when tragedy strikes the trio. It’s also about family, the found family they build and the complicated families they come from.
Meeting as kids and then again as students at Harvard and MIT, Sam and Sadie have one of those friendships that’s both very intense but can also go years without speaking and then click back into place like they’ve never been apart. Video gaming brought them together and when they reconnect it does again. With Sam’s roommate Marx on board, as well as Sadie’s creepy tutor/boyfriend Dov, they set out to create a brilliant new game.
And they do, the game brings them joy and success, but needing to replicate that drives a wedge between the two. And over the next few years as they ride the wave if success and failure, their friendship suffers. When Sadie and Marx become a couple, it changes the dynamic completely.
In terms of Jewish representation, as per the prize, it isn’t overt. Sam is more Korean than Jewish, having been raised by his maternal grandparents, who aren’t Jewish, so he doesn’t really understand that part of himself. Sadie is more Jewish, indeed she wins a prize for the amount of volunteering she does for her bat mitzvah. But as an adult it doesn’t really seem to be something she’s hugely aware of. Neither of them are practising Jews and it seems more of just a cultural thing if anything. Which is interesting.
The book as a whole was an enjoyable, at times funny and then really sad read. The tragedy that rips through their lives leaves a trail of pain and misery in its wake, and something both Sam and Sadie struggle to move on from. Their friendship shifts again and perhaps will never really be the same.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
An Edwardian-era story of superstition, scandal, faith, and family, inspired by the real lives of the remarkable Mackenzie sisters of Castle Leod
We are pleased to share the book trailer for Sisters of Castle Leod by Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard. If you enjoyed the Outlander series, you would love this!
Sisters of Castle Leod: A Novel
Publication Date: January 19th, 2023
Genre: Historical Fiction
A family tragedy, a forgotten legend, and two sisters locked in a bitter feud…
“Heartbreaking and redemptive…a thoroughly engrossing story that will have readers quickly turning the pages.” –Megan Chance, bestselling author of A Splendid Ruin
Millions are fans of Diana Gabaldon’s popular Outlander books and television series, but few know that Gabaldon’s fictional Castle Leoch was inspired by a real Scottish castle, Castle Leod. The two sisters who lived there at the turn of the twentieth century were among the most fascinating and talked-about women of their era.
Lady Sibell Mackenzie is a spiritualist, a believer in reincarnation, and a popular author of mystical romances. Petite and proper, she values tradition and duty. Her younger sister Lady Constance, swimming champion and big game hunter, is a statuesque beauty who scandalizes British society with her public displays of Greek-style barefoot dancing. The differences between the sisters escalate into conflict after Sibell inherits their late father’s vast estates and the title 3rd Countess of Cromartie. But it is the birth of Sibell’s daughter that sets in motion a series of bizarre and tragic events, pitting sister against sister and propelling Sibell on a desperate mission to challenge the power of fate.
Sisters of Castle Leod, by award-winning author Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard, is the emotionally charged story of two sisters torn apart by jealousy and superstition, and the impossible leap of faith that could finally bring them together.
Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard is an award-winning author of historical fiction. Her books have been finalists for the prestigious Eric Hoffer Book Award, American Writing Awards, National Indie Excellence Awards, and Arizona Literary Contest; they have earned many 5-star ratings, including from Readers’ Favorite, Discovering Diamonds, and Book Readers Appreciation Group.
ramblingmads 