books – Page 234 – ramblingmads

Blog Tour: So Happy For You – Celia Laskey

Aug 4, 2022Aug 2, 2022 ramblingmads

A wedding weekend spirals out of control in this bold, electrifying, hilarious novel about the complexities of female friendship

Robin and Ellie have been best friends since childhood. When Robin came out, Ellie was there for her. When Ellie’s father died, Robin had her back. But when Ellie asks Robin to be her maid of honor, she is reluctant. A queer academic, Robin is dubious of the elaborate wedding rituals now sweeping the nation, which go far beyond champagne toasts and a bouquet toss. But loyalty wins out, and Robin accepts.

Yet, as the wedding weekend approaches, a series of ominous occurrences lead Robin to second-guess her decision. It seems that everyone in the bridal party is out to get her. Perhaps even Ellie herself.

Manically entertaining, viciously funny and eerily campy, So Happy for You is the ultimate send-up to our collective obsession with the wedding industrial complex and a riveting, unexpectedly poignant depiction of friendship in all its messy glory.

My thoughts: this is very funny and a bit silly but there’s a serious side to it as well. Set in a not-so-distant future where there’s an even more insane focus on marriage than there is now – the dating app telling women when they’re running out of time to reproduce was a particularly hellish detail, Robin and her best friend Ellie are on a collision course.

Robin hates weddings, is writing a sociology thesis on why the wedding industrial complex is so toxic and never wants to get married (thankfully her partner, Aimee, agrees) but Ellie cannot wait to be Mrs Ellie Ellison (gag).

Ellie wants Robin to be her Maid of Honour. Why on earth she asks her anti-wedding lesbian high school BFF and not one of her much more likely to agree other friends is beyond me. I didn’t have bridesmaids, and for my hen night I went out for dinner and cocktails with some friends (one of whom was a man) and my mum. I do not get the whole OTT wedding thing at all.

I don’t think Robin’s perfect though, she could just go along with some of Ellie’s requests (not the nuts ones though – the trust falls, the crazy wedding “charms”, some of the other stunts she pulls) but maybe being a little more enthusiastic for her friend might have meant it didn’t have to go quite so batshit over the wedding weekend.

Or not, I mean, some of it was hilarious, some just disturbing. Poor Ellie, I don’t actually think she’s crazy, but society has certainly made her act like she is. The huge pressure to get married, have the 2.4 children, dog and picket fence etc is huge and ugly and deeply unnecessary.

A really thought provoking and intelligent read with some really outrageous moments.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Quarter to Midnight – Karen Rose

Aug 4, 2022Jul 31, 2022 ramblingmads

Quarter to Midnight is the first thrilling novel in a brand new series by Sunday Times bestselling author Karen Rose, set in New Orleans.

Rocky Hebert walks into his death at quarter to midnight one New Orleans night.

His son Gabe cannot accept the official verdict of suicide and enlists the help of the Burke Broussard Private Investigation Agency to discover the real cause of death.

PI Molly Sutton knows what it’s like to lose a father in tragic circumstances and will go to any lengths to crack the investigation, as she tries to fight off her growing feelings for Gabe.

They soon realise Rocky was working on an investigation of his own; one that threatened to expose the deep corruption going all the way to the top of the police department. And that the key to the puzzle lies with a young witness to a murder that happened years earlier: Xavier Morrow.

Just what did Rocky know? And who might have shut him up?

As they get closer and closer to the truth, they realise that the killer is not going to stop at Rocky. And that Xavier is in very real danger. Someone will go to any lengths to protect what he witnessed that night coming out…

Karen Rose was introduced to suspense and horror at the tender age of eight when she accidentally read Poe’s The Pit and The Pendulum and was afraid to go to sleep for years. She now enjoys writing books that make other people afraid to go to sleep.

Karen lives in Florida with her family, their cat, Bella, and two dogs, Loki and Freya. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, and her new hobby -knitting.

My thoughts: I knew this was going to be good, it’s Karen Rose after all, but this was so good, so compelling. I couldn’t put it down and ended up reading the whole book in one go – and it’s not a small book.

There’s basically two investigations. The one into Rocky’s death and then into the murder case he was looking into when he was killed. They tie together nicely, as it becomes clear whoever is targeting Gabe and Xavier is responsible for the murder during Katrina.

The PI team headed by Burke, with Molly assigned to Gabe, are clever and know how to get answers, aided by Xavier and his family, I loved Willa Mae. As they dig deeper into the case, they uncover corruption in the NOPD and ADA’s office that has been hiding a killer in plain sight.

The case is so compelling, and Gabe and Molly’s romance is pretty hot too. As the start of a new series, set in New Orleans, this is a fantastic introduction to the team and to the city. I cannot wait for more.

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

books

Cover Reveal: The Sinister Booksellers of Bath – Garth Nix

Aug 3, 2022 ramblingmads

I am so excited for this book. I loved The Left-Handed Booksellers of London. So without further ado….

There is often trouble of a mythical sort in Bath. The booksellers who police the Old World keep a careful watch there, particularly on the entity who inhabits the ancient hot spring. Yet this time it is not from Sulis Minerva that trouble starts. It comes from the discovery of a sorcerous map, leading left-handed bookseller Merlin into great danger. A desperate rescue is attempted by his sister the right-handed bookseller Vivien and their friend, art student Susan Arkshaw, who is still struggling to deal with her own recently discovered magical heritage.

The map takes the trio to a place separated from this world, maintained by deadly sorcery performed by an Ancient Sovereign and guarded by monstrous living statues of Purbeck marble. But this is only the beginning, as the booksellers investigate centuries of disappearances and deaths and try to unravel the secrets of the murderous Lady of Stone, a serial killer of awesome powers.

If they do not stop her, she will soon kill again. And this time, her target is not an ordinary mortal.

A wintry return to the somewhat alternate 1980s England of The Left-Handed Booksellers of London.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Love & Other Human Errors – Bethany Clift

Aug 3, 2022Aug 1, 2022 ramblingmads

A book synopsis is fundamentally ridiculous. How can I possibly convey, in only 100 words, the events of the past year and their impact on my perfectly ordered existence?

It is insufficient space to accurately detail how I was blackmailed into demonstrating my flawless algorithm to find a soulmate, despite having no desire for one.

In my former life I avoided trivial human connections. I was alone, accomplished and brilliant.

Unfortunately, that solitary and driven woman no longer exists.

My name is Indiana Dylan and this is the extraordinary account of how I fell in love.

There: 100 words exactly.

My thoughts: I loved this funny, sweet book, I loved Indi and Jack and Lina and Connie and Bruce and Frank and Lina’s family and Peggy and Spider and of course Alan. I did not love Emily. She was a bitch.

Indiana is basically a genius, she’s designed an algorithm that can find anyone’s soulmate. And now she wants to sell it to JaneDoe, a tech company, so she can move on to her next project. Only people don’t do what you want. Cameron, the mean owner and CEO of JaneDoe forces Indi to be a human guinea pig and find her soulmate.

Her new friends Lina and Jack want to help her, Peggy, her brilliant assistant, wants to look after her, Frank and Alan who are basically her neighbours want to help her and look after her. She wants to be left alone.

I loved Indi’s determination, her resilience and her sadness, her life hasn’t been easy and she’s tried to bury it under her tech genius. But she’s lonely. And people need people. Once she starts to let people in, she changes and realises she doesn’t have to be alone anymore.

This was a lovely book, even the sad bits.

Also I’d like Mr & Mrs B to come and cook my Christmas Dinner this year 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.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Blitz Bullion Busters – Daryl Joyce

Aug 2, 2022Jul 30, 2022 ramblingmads

During the Blitz in World War II, £5 million pounds in gold bullion was loaded onto a secret, secure train in London.

When the train arrived at its destination the gold had vanished.

Eighty years later, three teenagers stumble across the mystery and set out to find the truth. What starts as an enjoyable search soon turns into a mysterious, dangerous and thrilling hunt under and through the streets of London, and a fight for their lives.

Daryl Joyce was born in Andover, Hampshire and brought up in Farnborough, also in Hampshire. He worked in IT for over twenty years, mostly in London, before deciding to do something more worthwhile than switching it off and on, and so become a primary school teacher.

Somewhere before being in school at 7am and after the end of a long day teaching hordes of young people, Blitz Bullion Busters was written. Daryl has long had a fascination with the London Underground and the myriad of stories surrounding it. Working with children has also given him valuable experience of what makes a story exciting and worthwhile.

When he is not writing, Daryl spends most of his time reading about hidden places underground and watching Star Trek. He now lives in Surrey, not far from Gatwick Airport with his wife and two pampered cats. This is his first book.

My thoughts: along with his best friend Jack and older stepsister Fazia, Wade is on the hunt for missing gold. Meant to be shipped to a secret location, it vanished in the tunnel somewhere between Bank and London Bridge during the Blitz. Can three smart teenagers manage to do what no one else has done and find the gold or will the sinister forces chasing them stop the search?

A short book but one that packs a lot in, this was a fun adventure story set in London’s Square Mile around Bank underground station. I knew all of the locations from when I worked just round the corner and that was fun, a different perspective on places thousands of people pass every day.

The characters are clever and work well together, resourceful and able to dodge the many people seemingly after them. Thank goodness for Ms Corner of the secret service though, helping them out so they don’t get grounded for their adventures.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Small Angels – Lauren Owen

Aug 1, 2022Jul 29, 2022 ramblingmads

When Chloe turns the key to Small Angels, the church nestled at the edge of Mockbeggar Woods where she is to be married, she is braced for cobwebs and dust.What she doesn’t expect are the villagers’ concerned faces, her fiancé’s remoteness, or the nagging voice in her head that whispers to her of fears she didn’t even know she had.

Something in the woods is beginning to stir, to creep closer to the sleeping houses. Something that should have been banished long ago.

Whatever it is, it’s getting stronger, and pretending it’s not there won’t keep the wedding, or the village – or Chloe – safe.

My thoughts: woods have always been full of stories, magic and monsters. They have a pull on us and our imaginations. Mockbegger is the same here. The church of Saint Michael and All Angels – Small Angels, stands on its edges, not used by the villagers but only by the Gonnes. When Chloe hires it for her wedding she stirs up one of the things living deep in the woods.

A story of brothers and a death and a vengeful spirit, a story of sisters and secrets and a terrible night, a story of love and fear and finally setting the past free.

Beautiful, Gothic fiction, weaving a fairytale like spell over the people of the village, over Chloe and over the reader.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Vicar Man – Amelia Crowley

Jul 30, 2022Jul 28, 2022 ramblingmads

Dora is a barmaid.
Usually her life is fairly simple: she gets up, cleans the inn, feeds the chickens, argues with the increasingly obstreperous cockerel, listens to the woes of her fellow barmaid, avoids doing the laundry, and serves drinks to the motley crew of islanders who lurk about the taproom every night.
The same old routine, day in, day out.Tonight, though, is different.

Tonight, just one week before the vernal equinox, after a catastrophically bad harvest the year before, a stranger has walked into the bar…

Amelia lives in Yorkshire with her family.

At least she definitely had a family around here somewhere, but to be honest she’s spent so much of the last year staring into a word processor she thinks they may have wandered off.

Her writing is fuelled by mugs of terrible, over-sugared coffee, much better chocolate, and the occasional macaron, and is punctuated by her soulless whimpers and the sound of her head hitting the keyboard.

Occasionally she remembers to get up and do something else, if the cats bite her hard enough.

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My thoughts: this was very funny, poor Dora, she just wants to find a way to rule the new vicar out of being sacrificed to the island’s god, and seducing the vicar or scaring him off seem like such good plans too.

But she hadn’t counted on Norman (the vicar) being completely immune to everything she tries and they’re running out of time.

Clever, funny and a bit silly too. Maybe human sacrifices are a bit passé but the island’s terrifying god needs appeasing somehow. Just not with roasted vicar.

Playing with tropes of horror and Gothic literature, as Dora attempts to save Norman from the flames and realises that perhaps, even though she’s read lots of books, she doesn’t know much at all.

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

books

Cover Reveal: Together Again – Milly Johnson

Jul 29, 2022 ramblingmads

I am so excited to share with you all today the cover of Milly Johnson’s 20th novel – Together Again. Available everywhere September 2022.

Together, Again is the story of truths uncovered and lies exposed, of secrets told – and kept. It is a novel about sister helping sister to heal from childhood scars, and of finding, in each other, the love they have all been deprived of.

Sisters, Jolene, Marsha and Annis have convened at their childhood home the huge and beautiful Fox House following the death of their mother, the cold and impenetrable Eleanor Vamplew, to arrange the funeral and sell up. Born seven years apart, the women have never bonded and are more strangers than sisters.

Jolene, the eldest, is a successful romantic novelist who writes templates of beautiful relationships even though her marriage to the handsome and charming Warren is a barren wasteland.

Marsha, the neglected middle child has put every bit of her energy into her work hoping money would plug up the massive gap in her life left by the man who broke her young heart, only to find it never has. And now he has been forced back into her life.

Annis is the renegade, who left home aged sixteen and never returned, not even for the death of their beloved father Julian, until now. It is therefore a surprise to all of them to discover that Eleanor recently changed her will to leave everything to the daughter she considered a wretched accident.

Together, Again is about vulnerability and strength, acceptance and family.

More info and pre-order details can be found here

books

Cover Reveal: Wedding Planned to Death – Ellie Fields

Jul 29, 2022 ramblingmads

I am so pleased to share this gorgeous cover of upcoming release, Wedding Planned to Death by Ellie Fields! Pre-order a copy today!

WEDDING PLANNED TO DEATH COVER

Wedding Planned to Death (Wedding Garden Cozy Mystery Series #1)

Expected Publication Date: August 9th, 2022

Genre: Cozy Mystery

Cricket Creek might be off the beaten track, but it’s an idyllic place to live—a quaint town where neighbors gather at the bakery, families go back generations, and where your friends always have your back.

It’s also where introverted gardener Cicely Rue is nervously about to start her new business hosting weddings in her picturesque garden. That is, until she discovers the wedding planner dead and buried in her compost heap! With this new business, she’d expected brides and bouquets, not murder and mayhem!

Small towns mean everybody knows your name and your secrets. Secrets some would die to know . . . and others would kill to keep.

PRE-ORDER HERE

About the Author

ELLIE FIELDS HEADSHOT

Author of The Wedding Garden Cozy Mystery Series, Ellie Fields grew up running around wild and barefoot in the foothills of northern California and hating every minute her mom made her spend in the kitchen and garden. She still runs around barefoot but now she absolutely loves spending time in her garden and has fallen hopelessly in love with baking. And with murdering people. Fictionally, of course.

Ellie weaves small town charm, baking recipes, and gardening tips into her cozy mysteries. Her fictional town of Cricket Creek is based on her hometown: a place where neighbors gather at the mailboxes to chat, families go back generations, and where the grocery store clerks know your name (and what your cousin just bought for the family bbq).

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