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Bob has sworn he’ll never kill again. But some promises are hard to keep.

Bob Singleton used to be a top CIA assassin. Now, scarred by his terrible past, he lives in a refrigerator box behind a dumpster in downtown Chicago.

He just wants to be left alone. But his past is coming back to haunt him, in the shape of a nurse and a teenage boy who desperately need his help.

They are being pursued by trained killers because they stumbled on a long-buried conspiracy, a secret that is tied to a failed mission in Bob’s military past.

 Now they need Bob to protect them. The old Bob, the one who fearlessly put his enemies in the ground.

Bob sees a chance to discover the truth about what happened all those years ago. Can he redeem himself, and honor the sacrifice of the men who died?

To do so, he must use the same deadly skills that made him a legend in his day. Skills he had sworn he would never use again….

Code Red — the first in a stunning new action thriller series. Perfect for fans of Jason Kasper, Jack Carr, and Lee Child.

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Ian Loome writes thrillers and mysteries. His books have been downloaded more than a half-million times on Amazon.com and have regularly featured on the Kindle best-seller lists for more than a decade. For 24 years, Ian was a multi-award-winning newspaper reporter, editor and columnist in Canada. When he’s not figuring out innovative ways to snuff his characters, he plays blues guitar and occasionally fronts bands. He lives in Sherwood Park, Alberta, with his partner Lori, a pugnacious bulldog named Ferdinand, a confused mostly Great Dane puppy named Ollie, and some cats for good measure.

This is his first action thriller with Inkubator Books.

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My thoughts: although I found it hard at first to take a hero called Bob seriously (I don’t really know why) this was a cracking thriller. A reluctant hero, Bob is dragged back into action after members of his old team are killed and a teenage boy comes looking for him. When a nurse is also put in the firing line, Bob drags all his old skills and knowledge to the surface. Life on the streets hasn’t let him get soft and he won’t allow any more innocents to die on his watch.

A blend of various action heroes, and a good dose of his own unique character, Bob is the only one who can fix this mess and put a stop to the deaths. He needs to identify the mole in the team, get some info from an old boss and sort out a few old vendettas, all while keeping teenager Nathan and nurse Dawn safe.

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

He loves me. He trusts me. He shouldn’t.

Jay and I have only known each other a short while, but whenever I gaze into his deep green eyes I tell him he’s the one. His little house by the deep forest’s edge is perfect for the two of us – there’s no internet, no phone signal, and no neighbours. I’m about as far from my past as I could be. No one knows where we are, and I need to keep it that way.

He wants me to stay here where he can keep me safe from the outside world. I don’t question him, I won’t challenge him. I have him exactly where I want him. He has to think I’m the perfect girlfriend, far better than the one before. Because I know what he did.

All I have to do now is play my part and bide my time. So I tell myself Jay doesn’t have a clue who I really am. I’ve been so careful. Haven’t I?

A completely addictive psychological thriller packed with incredible twists you won’t see coming. Perfect for fans of The Housemaid, The Split, and The Serial Killer’s Wife.

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Hayley Smith is married with three children and lives in a north Derbyshire village. She has worked as a graphic designer, youth worker and musician, and has been involved for many years in organising music festivals and gigs. She studied English Language and Creative Writing with the Open University and is an avid reader of psychological fiction. Having a penchant for all things alternative, she often dips into the counter-culture scene for writing inspiration, producing quirky rough-edged characters and dark, unpredictable twists, turns and moral dilemmas.

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My thoughts: this was very clever, it took me a while to work out what was going on and which characters to be wary of. Lauren is an unreliable narrator, there are lost moments and she doesn’t explain everything, even to herself (and by extension, the reader) so it took me a little chunk of the book to trust her. And odd things would throw me, her relationship with her sister, her mentions of Martin, her parents. What had gone on there? Slowly it’s all revealed, why she happily moved in with Jay after only knowing him a few weeks, the strange interludes, the reason she’s so cautious around his friends.

This is a story with lots of layers, carefully peeled away as it goes on, as Lauren decorates the cottage and as she follows Jay around town, digging into his secrets.

It’s very well done, clever and compelling. There’s an air of menace, especially when Lauren provokes Jay and tries to get to the truth a bit too hard. The rustic cottage in the woods might not be a haven if she’s not careful.

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

Our loved ones protect us. 

So what if you woke up one day to find yours gone? 

Your mum, your friends, your freedom – all gone. 

And the one person you trust may be hiding a terrible secret.  

Welcome to Arrietty’s life.

Abby Davies was born in Macclesfield in 1984. She grew up in Bedfordshire in a seventeenth century cottage near Flitton Moor and started writing ‘thrillers’ when she was seven years old.

After reading English Literature at Sheffield University and training to be an English teacher, she wrote novels in her free time.

She was shortlisted for the Mslexia Novel Competition in 2018 and longlisted for the Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award in 2019. Her debut Mother Loves Me was published by HarperCollins in 2020. The Cult came out in 2021. Arrietty is her third novel. 

She lives in Wiltshire with her husband, daughter and two crazy cocker spaniels.

My thoughts: it takes a while to get into Arrietty’s world, things aren’t quite right. Her dad seems very angry, her mum’s missing and she doesn’t know why, she can’t remember things and her little brother is getting very upset.

As the story unfolds you won’t know who to trust, even Arrietty is questioning herself, can she be trusted when she can’t remember anything? What has happened to her family and why is her therapist Rose so friendly to her dad?

A strange and at times upsetting, disturbing story of mental health, reality, memory loss, grief and sadness. It becomes very hard to understand at times, like Arrietty we don’t know who to trust or what’s going on, I found myself as lost as she is, but it starts to come together before another shocking twist. Interesting and illustrated with Arrietty’s sketches.

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