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Cover Reveal: The Perfect Girl – Kelly Golden

He always said she was just a friend… What if she’d kill for more?

Sophie is perfect. She has blonde hair and blue eyes and when she smiles her teeth sparkle. And she cares; she’s passionate. Everybody loves her. So would I, except she’s my husband Mike’s best friend, and sometimes they seem a little too close for comfort.

This summer, Sophie is renting the grand house next door, bringing over fancy wine, offering to babysit our beautiful three-year-old daughter. It’s nice, actually. She’s smart and funny. Maybe the way she is with Mike – squeezing his arm, tilting her head when she laughs at his jokes – is just how she is with everybody.

But then she says something that sends a shiver down my spine – does she know something about me she shouldn’t? 

And when her new husband arrives, looking slightly too familiar, I realise my time is running out. My baby girl and I are in terrible danger.

Sophie really is perfect. She has me perfectly trapped. And as my world begins to crumble, I start to wonder: does Sophie just want to steal my husband, or has she planned the perfect murder?

A completely unputdownable psychological thriller that will keep you flicking through your Kindle late into the night. Perfect for fans of The Housemaid, The Guest List and anything by Louise Candlish, Erin Kelly or TM Logan.

Pre-order Links Amazon UK Amazon US Publication Date: 3rd February

Author Bio –  I’m the working mum of a bossy little girl and a bossier cat called Pesto. We live in the southwest of England and escape to the beach whenever we can. I’ve never stopped writing my whole life but this is the first time I’ve published a book!  

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Blog Tour: So Pretty – Ronnie Turner

Fear blisters through this town like a fever…

When Teddy Colne arrives in the small town of Rye, he believes he will be able to settle down and leave his past behind him. Little does he know that fear blisters through the streets like a fever. The locals tell him to stay away from an establishment known only as Berry & Vincent, that those who rub too closely to its proprietor risk a bad end.

Despite their warnings, Teddy is desperate to understand why Rye has come to fear this one man, and to see what really hides behind the doors of his shop.

Ada moved to Rye with her young son to escape a damaged childhood and years of never fitting in, but she’s lonely, and ostracised by the community. Ada is ripe for affection and friendship, and everyone knows it.

As old secrets bleed out into this town, so too will a mystery about a family who vanished fifty years earlier, and a community living on a knife-edge.

Teddy looks for answers, thinking he is safe, but some truths are better left undisturbed, and his past will find him here, just as it always has. And before long, it will find Ada too.

Ronnie Turner grew up in Cornwall, the youngest in a large family. At an early age, she discovered a love of literature and dreamed of being a published author. Ronnie now lives in the South West with her family and three dogs. In her spare time, she reviews books on her blog and enjoys long walks on the coast. Ronnie is a Waterstones Senior Bookseller and a barista, and her youth belies her exceptional, highly unusual talent.

My thoughts: this was really good, it got creepy very quickly and I really felt for Ada and Albie, terrified and trapped in Rye. With Teddy and the really disturbing Mr Vincent (he never speaks and collects really odd things). Teddy claims to want to escape the shadow of his father but proves to be more like him as the book goes on.

There is something a bit creepy about seaside towns, especially out of season, something sad and haunted about them. I don’t know Rye itself but it serves as the perfect setting for this tale of obsession and loneliness.

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

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Books of the Year 2022

Last year was a weird old year and a pretty rubbish one for me personally. Thankfully books continue to be reliable. Most of these were published last year. All should be available from various bookshops and online.

In no particular order, here’s my 2022 books of the year, let me know what you loved in the comments or tag me on Twitter or even Instagram (which I will remember to post on one day…)

I read the Illumicrate edition which is so beautiful in black and silver. This was really interesting and current discourse shows that a lot of people really didn’t understand any of it. It’s definitely helpful to have some context – historically everything that happened in the book happened, minus the magic stuff. Britain really was the worst. Colonialism is never a good thing and honestly, Oxford (as a city and a university) benefited hugely from the evils of the British Empire.

Coming at the end of 2022, this was a delicious live story between a mindship with a beautiful avatar and her hostage turned wife bot builder. Dealing with the politics of pirates, the wholesale risk of invasion, a resentful son and the death of Rice Fish’s previous wife – the Red Scholar. The two women (is a ship a woman since they’re always female even when, as with some of the others in this book, they’re not?) must navigate all these complications and risks to survive.

I loved it, I thought I might as I really enjoyed Aliette’s alternate Paris set stories of dragons and angels. Drawing on the author’s Vietnamese heritage, it’s a space opera that just blew my mind.

The sequel to A Marvellous Light, this is an ocean set murder mystery with magic and sex and love and I adored it. I think I even liked it more than AML which was one of my favourites last year. I don’t know how the author does it but it works.

In a year when I seem to have read a lot of queer books, here’s another one! The science side of things or magic or whatever it is, is really interesting. A reader can read your mind and an architect can write your actions into you. Combine them with a sync and you have essentially one mind in 2 bodies. And then they fall in love and there’s a coup and the whole universe goes mad and they’re the ones who have to fix it! Just brilliant.

And now for something a bit different, but still LGBTQ+. This was a gut punch of a book, concerning the death of a teenage girl, her boyfriend, his mother and her bees. Absolutely beautiful in a stark, shocking and moving way. Jodi Picoult is the queen of the courtroom drama and this is just incredible. Have tissues on standby, you’ll need them. The two writers alternate protagonists and honestly it’s so well done.

I loved the trilogy before this, I love this series, the ending of this book made me cry. I don’t know how Brandon Sanderson manages to write multiple series but he somehow keeps track of it all, and the plan for the Mistborn universe is inspired. Even if it means saying goodbye to these characters.

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Blog Tour: A Deal With Darkness – Alexis L. Menard

We are thrilled to share A Deal with Darkness by Alexis L, Menard with all of you! This romantic fantasy will keep you warm during the long dark months of winter!

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A Deal with Darkness (Eternal Night #2)

Publication Date: November 10, 2022

Genre: Dark Romance/ Dark Fantasy
Before the Eternal Night or the Huntress, there was a deal with darkness.

Isoldra Maan is drowning in debt, specifically over 250 souls deep. As a Hound for the diabolical yet irresistible Lord of Lost Souls, she’s been stuck serving the fallen god and hunting his contracts in order to be free of her own. But when Haalarcus strikes a bargain with a divine, he places her freedom finally within reach.

A dark power threatens the integrity of the realm, splitting open the world and starting a series of plagues that force humanity to point fingers at the heavens. Isoldra reluctantly agrees to work with the divine who turns out to be the self-righteous watcher, Evander, in order to track down the heretic causing all this, but the simplicity of this bargain complicates when the stakes become much bigger than her freedom.

An evil has awakened. A darkness unleashed. When death is not the end, how far will she go for a love crossing realms, lifetimes, and the very concept of mortality?

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Available on Amazon at Barnes & Noble

Don’t miss out on A Night of Wings and Starlight, the first book in the Eternal Night series

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A Night of Wings and Starlight (Eternal Night #1)
Breaking the curse will risk her heart, her life, and the future she never thought possible.

Before Arya was Chosen, she knew nothing of what lay waiting in the eternal night—certainly not alluring yet arrogant winged Watchers, a cursed queen, nor the possibility that she could be more than a runner, carrying messages through the vampyre-infested wastelands of Valdihr.

But the biggest surprise waiting in the dark is the brazen Watcher who sparks her heart and calls her a Huntress.

A hundred years shrouded in darkness and Arya is the only one who can finally bring back the dawn. With a blessing that marks her for death and an infuriatingly tantalizing man at her side, Arya must embrace her calling and her courage in order to face the danger lurking in the shadows. Because the night holds more than just secrets, and the monsters are closer than she realizes.

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About the Author

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Alexis is a registered nurse based out of Louisiana where she lives with her husband, toddler, and two oversized dogs. She enjoys long walks through the Renaissance Fair, reading smutty romance into the dark hours of the night, and wine nights with her “Finer Things Club.” She hopes to enrich the lives of her readers with worlds they can both escape in and take with them long after the final chapter.

Alexis L. Menard | Instagram | TikTok | Twitter

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Blog Tour: The Concierge – Miranda Rijks

They hired an assistant to help them. But she has other plans.

High-flying duo Goldie and Braun Delucci run a major film production company. But recently their gilded lives were touched by tragedy when one of their leading actors, Ally, died in a car crash.

What the Deluccis don’t realise is that their newly hired private assistant is actually Ally’s sister. Simone is convinced Ally’s death was suspicious and she is determined to find out what happened on that terrible night.

Simone’s new job puts her at the heart of a rich, dysfunctional family. As she digs for the truth about Ally’s death, she realises someone is watching her. And they want her gone.

That just makes Simone more determined to discover whatever terrible secret the Deluccis are hiding. But she doesn’t understand she is about to uncover something so dark, so shocking that her own life may never be the same again.

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Miranda Rijks is a writer of psychological thrillers and suspense novels. She has an eclectic background ranging from law to running a garden centre. She’s been writing all of her life and has a Masters in writing. A couple of years ago she decided to ditch the business plans and press releases and now she’s living the dream, writing suspense novels full time. She lives in Sussex, England with her Dutch husband, musician daughter and black Labrador.

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My thoughts: this was a clever premise and paid off nicely. Simone goes undercover with her sister’s former employers to find out what really happened to her and gets caught up in a messed up family and a terrible situation.

No one is particularly honest about things, apart from maybe the children, though not teenager Rose, who’s hiding all sorts of nasty little secrets. But her dad isn’t very truthful either and his secrets put people in harm’s way.

Simone finds that her sister, far from the drug addicted car thief the media are spinning her as, was, as expected, an innocent caught up in something bigger than her and with someone who can’t be trusted.

I felt for Simone but she took things incredibly far, pretending to be someone else and her niece almost paid the price. Honesty tends to be the better policy. Luckily Goldie was a really nice person and not to blame and able to forgive the deception, of Simone at least.

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

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Book Blitz: I Sang That: A Memoir From Hollywood – Sally Stevens

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We don’t share memoirs often but sometimes we make an exception for someone as accomplished as Sally Stevens.

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I Sang That: A Memoir from Hollywood

Publication Date: October 25, 2022

Genre: Memoir/ Autobiography/ Entertainment

Publisher: Atmosphere Press

I Sang That is a personal journey behind the scenes into the world of music-makers who created the film scores, television music, sound recordings, commercials and concert evenings over the last sixty years. It’s about a long singing career that began in 1960 with concert tours – Ray Conniff, Nat King Cole, and later, solo work in concert with Burt Bacharach – to thirty years of vocals and main titles for The Simpsons, vocals for Family Guy…vocals on hundreds of film & television scores & sound recordings, plus twenty-two years as Choral Director for the Oscars. It’s also the personal story of growing up in a “his, hers and theirs” family in the forties and fifties, and how a shy little girl became a second generation singer in the ever-evolving music business of Hollywood.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.org

About the Author

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Sally Stevens is a singer/lyricist/choral director who has worked in film, television, concert, commercials and sound recording in Hollywood since 1960. She sings the main titles for The Simpsons and Family Guy and her voice can be heard on hundreds of film and television scores.  She has put together choirs for John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, and many others for film scores, and was choral director for The Oscars for 22 years. In the earlier years she toured with Ray Conniff, Nat King Cole and Burt Bachrach, and she has also written lyrics for Burt Bacharach, Don Ellis, Dominic Frontiere, Dave Grusin, and others.

Her short fiction, poetry and essays have been included in Mockingheart ReviewThe OffBeatRaven’s PerchHermeneutic Chaos Literary JournalLos Angeles PressThe Voices Project, and Between the Lines Anthology: Fairy Tales & Folklore Re-imagined.

Along with singing and writing, her other passion is photography, and her black & white photographs of film composers have been included in exhibitions at the Association of Motion Picture & Television Producers headquarters in Los Angeles, and at Cite de la Musique in Paris, France.

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Blog Tour: Where David Threw Stones – Elyse Hoffman

Welcome to the tour for Where David Threw Stones by Elyse Hoffman. Perfect for fans of The Book Thief.

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Where David Threw Stones

Publication Date: September 27th, 2022

Genre: Historical Fantasy/ Historical Fiction/ WW2

“Welcome to the Brennenbach of Midnight! The Curse Hours have begun.”

West Germany, 1968

When ten-year-old David Saidel’s parents are murdered, he is sent to live with his grandfather in the anti-Semitic village of Brennenbach. Miserable and lonely, David finds solace in his kindly Grandpa Ernst, who has one strict rule: never go out after midnight.

When David breaks curfew to search for his missing dog, he discovers why Ernst is so serious about his curfew: Brennenbach is cursed. When midnight strikes, the town is thrown back to 1943, the height of Hitler’s reign.

The Nazi ghosts that infest Brennenbach are just as dangerous as they were in life. They’re hunting for David, thinking he is the last member of a family they’ve been ordered to destroy.

Through the help of a little girl named Maria Rahm, David sets out to end the Curse before it claims more victims.

Award-winning author Elyse Hoffman has crafted an expertly woven tale of World War II’s horrors – perfect for readers of Marcus Zusak’s “The Book Thief,” or Michael Reit’s “Beyond the Tracks.”

Check out the wonderful reviews on Goodreads and grab a copy today!

Available on Amazon

About the Author

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Elyse Hoffman is an award-winning author who strives to tell historical tales with new twists. She loves to meld WWII and Jewish history with fantasy, folklore, and the paranormal. She has written six works of Holocaust historical fiction: The Barracks of the Holocaust five-book series and The Book of Uriel. Elyse’s books are the way to go if you love history and want to read some unique stories.

Elyse Hoffman

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Cover Reveal: The Captain’s Revenge – Jessica S. Taylor

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We are thrilled to present the GORGEOUS cover for the next highly anticipated novel in Jessica S. Taylor’s dark fantasy series, The Captain’s Revenge! Read on for more details and pre-order a copy today!

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The Captain’s Revenge

Expected Publication Date: April 18, 2023

Genre: Dark Fantasy/ Sirens/ Pirates

“Not all treasure is silver and gold.”

Caelum stopped his father, but at what cost? Brigid was gone, taken by the very woman she once owed her life to, and Caelum was now wanted for his father’s murder. Now, he has to deal with the aftermath of his decisions, and with the other syrens who only seem determined to make his life more difficult. 

Brigid, torn from the new life she had begun to make for herself, must now endure the wrath of the goddess who had saved her. To survive, she shuts herself down, silently hoping that Caelum will rescue her and silently resigning herself to the fact that he won’t make it in time before her body succumbs to Cliodhna’s torture. 

When whisperings of a mysterious witch in the South reach Caelum, he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get Brigid back, including giving up that which he holds most dear. But will he be able to save her in time? And will what remains of his father’s crew really give up that easily? 

CW:

This book contains dark and adult themes. Possible trigger warnings include: violence, descriptive torture, blood, death, dismemberment, non-explicit flashbacks of physical abuse, brief and non-explicit references to child kidnapping and deaths, mentions of past domestic violence, moderate sexual content, depictions of anxiety and depression, and mentions of past arranged marriages. 

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Cover

The Syren’s Mutiny

Publication Date: November 9th, 2022

Genre: Dark Fantasy/ Pirates/ Mythology

It’s frightful bad luck to have a woman aboard.”

Brigid knew the superstition, but when her father tried to marry her off, she had no choice but to stowaway on a ship bound for Bhodheas. When she’s discovered and discarded, her fate seems sealed…until she’s saved by the ocean and its queen.

Transformed into a syren and given new life, Brigid now has the power to seek revenge on those who wronged her.

Caelum has spent his entire life trying to help those who couldn’t help themselves. After years suffering the cruelty of his pirate father, saving others from a similar fate was ingrained in him. But when he’s unable to save a young girl from being thrown overboard for hiding away, he’s devastated.

Until one day, when he’s thrown into the water by unforeseen forces, he comes face to face with the past, and maybe, with his future.

But there’s a darkness lurking on the seas they both call home. And Caelum and Brigid have no idea just how intertwined their stories really are.

Content Warning:

This book contains dark and adult themes. Possible trigger warnings include: violence, drowning, death, dismemberment, torture, brief/non-explicit references to child kidnapping and deaths, mentions of past domestic violence, mild sexual content, and mentions of arranged marriages

PURCHASE HERE

About the Author

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Jessica was born and raised in Kentucky, but has been moving with the waves and is currently residing in southern Maine with her husband and cat, Nebula. Jessica’s love of reading and writing began at a young age with the help of her grandmother and her local library, and she hasn’t looked back since. Similarly, her love for pirates, mermaids, and all things fantasy have only grown more intense with time.

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Blog Tour: Case Files – Rachel Amphlett

Discover twelve dark and twisted mysteries from USA Today bestselling author Rachel Amphlett.

This page-turning collection features The Man Cave in which Darren regains consciousness in a dank basement where escape turns out to be the least of his worries; in All Night Long Zoe soon wishes she wasn’t working the late shift; and in Nowhere to Run a rookie detective encounters her first serial killer… but will she survive?

My thoughts: this was a really enjoyable collection of short crime stories. Some were very brief and others felt like the beginning of a novel. All were clever and a couple made me laugh out loud. If you like crime fiction and short stories, you could do a lot worse than starting with these.

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

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Blog Tour: Local Girl Missing – J.A. Baker

Missing without trace…
When local woman Deborah goes missing, her colleagues Adrian, Yvonne and Merriel are all left in shock. Gossip around the office begins to swirl – what could have happened to Deborah? Is she dead or alive? And who could be responsible for her disappearance?
Everyone is terrified that they could be next…except the one person who has all the answers. The last person people expect.
Because Deborah is being held captive by a monster, a psychopath. But not a stranger… it’s someone she knows all too well…
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J. A. Baker is a successful psychological thriller writer of numerous books, previously published by Bloodhound. Born and brought up in Middlesbrough, she still lives in the North East, which inspires
the settings for her books. Her first title for Boldwood will be published in December 2022.

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My thoughts: I enjoyed this, I liked the switching between different characters so you see what they think about each other and recent events. You don’t know who to trust because they all seem to be hiding something. Even Deborah, who ask the kidnapped victim, you’d think would be the most honest.

I had no idea who the kidnapper was. There were too many suspects, too many messed up families. So it was a huge surprise and yet there were definitely questions at the end that still needed answers.

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