Today I’m sharing the cover for book 2 in the Quicksilver trilogy – A Quick Study!
Art by Nel Kingman @moth.deity
A covenant in blood can never be broken.
In the aftermath of the Casting, Kulika and Quick are both irrevocably changed: Quick by Kulika’s blood, and Kulika by her love for Quick.
Under normal circumstances they might be celebrating, but not only is Quick struggling to control her powers, she’s also sworn to Bartholomew and his crew by a blood covenant she cannot break. With Kulika bound to Quick, and Quick bound to Bartholomew, they’re both detained at Bartholomew’s pleasure for the foreseeable future.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Kulika’s mission is an abject failure. The person she came to South Carolina to find has simply vanished, which means no cure for the fatal poison that’s killing her new master. Soon she’ll have no master at all, and no home to return to.
That’ll work out just fine for Bartholomew. With Quick’s life in his hands, he has all the leverage he needs to force Kulika back to his side.
Kulika is left with a terrible decision: surrender herself to Bartholomew’s covenant, or die trying to free Quick from his control. If Quick’s ever going to learn how to use her powers, then she’d better do it, well, quick.
A Quick Study is the second book in Josie Jaffrey’s QuickSilver series, a sapphic dark fantasy series set in Charleston, South Carolina.
Expert on body language and memory, and consultant to the Oslo BOOKS Police, psychologist Kari Voss sleepwalks through her days, and, by night, continues the devastating search for her young son, who disappeared on his birthday, seven years earlier.
Still grieving for her dead husband, and trying to pull together the pieces of her life, she is thrust into a shocking local investigation, when two teenage girls are violently murdered in a family summer home in the nearby village of Son. When a friend of the victims is charged with the barbaric killings, it seems the case is closed, but Kari is not convinced. Using her skills and working on instinct, she conducts her own enquiries, leading her to multiple suspects, including people who knew the dead girls well…
With the help of Chief Constable Ramona Norum, she discovers that no one – including the victims – are what they seem. And that there is a dark secret at the heart of Son village that could have implications not just for her own son’s disappearance, but Kari’s own life, too…
Known as the Queen of French Noir, Johana Gustawsson is one of France’s most highly regarded, award-winning authors, recipient of the prestigious Cultura Ligue de l`Imaginaire Award for her historical thriller Yule Island. Number-one bestselling books include Block 46, Keeper, Blood Song and The Bleeding. Johana lives in Sweden with her family.
A former journalist, Thomas Enger is the number-one bestselling author of the Henning Juul series and, with co-author Jørn Lier Horst, the international bestselling Blix & Ramm series. One of the biggest proponents of the Nordic Noir genre, his books have been translated into twenty-eight languages. He lives in Oslo.
My thoughts: I knew from the authors that this was going to be good, gripping and shocking. There are lots of different sons in this book, from Kari’s, missing for seven years, to the suspect, whose parents don’t seem remotely interested in him, as friends and other connected people.
The town where two teenage girls are brutally murdered is called Son, it’s quiet, not many full time residents, and they’re planning a Halloween party, but someone decides to stop them from ever having a good time. The police arrest an acquaintance of theirs, who admits to being in the house, having been invited to bring over some drugs, but says he’s innocent. The detectives don’t believe him. Kari does. She analyses his body language, those nonverbal clues that say a lot more than words.
So she starts digging. Digging into the lives of the two victims, into the lives of their families and friends. She learns a lot of secrets – affairs, money troubles, blackmail. But are any of them bad enough to kill over? Or is it something she can’t even yet guess at?
This is a real page turner – each revelation and twist kept me hooked. Kari is an interesting character, she goes against her police colleagues, determined that the science proves she’s right and that somewhere in all the evidence she uncovers, will be the answer, the reason why two young women were brutally killed. And in helping the suspect, her lost son’s best friend, maybe she can find some peace too.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
MEET DETECTIVE LOLA HARRIS. A TOUGH COP WITH ATTITUDE, BUT A GOOD HEART.
A secluded retreat. A storm closing in. A killer among them.
Detective Lola Harris is persuaded to take a much-needed break in the remote Scottish Highlands. She’s expecting peace and quiet. But Ardaig Castle, an exclusive wellness retreat for the rich and famous, has its own dark secrets. Lola soon discovers that someone is sending poison pen letters to the staff. They’re growing more malicious each week. The latest reads: Why have you employed a killer among your staff?
As a storm rages outside, paranoia spreads within. The castle’s wealthy guests are rattled, old wounds are reopened and then — a body is discovered sprawled on the stone-flagged floor of the castle hallway, limbs twisted at an impossible angle. Trapped by the weather, Lola must untangle a web of lies, grudges and hidden pasts before the killer strikes again. Because at Ardaig Castle, not everyone is who they claim to be — and someone will kill to keep their secrets buried.
Daniel Sellers is the author of the Kindle-bestselling Lola Harris Mysteries and is an obsessive fan of Agatha Christie. His crime thrillers are pacy and dark, with as much interest in whydunnit as who. He grew up in Yorkshire, and has lived and worked in Liverpool, Glasgow, Ireland and Finland. Sellers now lives in Argyll in Scotland.
My thoughts: I’ve previously read another book in this series, but you don’t have to have done in order to enjoy this.
Detective Inspector Lola Harris has been persuaded to take a little break by her sister Frankie. They’re going to stay in a cottage in the grounds of Ardaig Castle in the Scottish Highlands. Except Frankie has an ulterior motive. Her friend Catherine works at the castle, staff members have been receiving poison pen letters and Catherine is spooked. Frankie wants Lola to talk to her about them. The wellness retreat run at the castle’s management doesn’t want to officially involve the police, but Catherine needs help.
A storm closes the roads and now they’re basically stranded at the castle until things can be cleared and when someone is killed, that means everyone is trapped with a killer. Lola takes it upon herself to investigate and try to find both the letter writer and the murderer before help can reach them.
A clever, enjoyable read in the vein of Agatha Christie, with all the suspects in one place, no way out and a shrewd detective on the case.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Even more steamy slow burn romance than Book 1 (but still a subplot)
Only one tent
Plot twists that make you go😱
Feels like an action movie It’s 𝑹𝒆𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑬𝒗𝒊𝒍 with the found family & humor of 𝒁𝒐𝒎𝒃𝒊𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅, the ragtag team & heists of 𝑩𝒂𝒃𝒚 𝑫𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓, the mind-bending plot twists of 𝑺𝒉𝒖𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑰𝒔𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅, & the quirky, fast-paced action of 𝑲𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔𝒎𝒂𝒏: 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑮𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒆𝒏 𝑪𝒊𝒓𝒄𝒍𝒆.
Penny finally has the one thing she’s always wanted—her brother, back from the dead.
Problem is, he hates her guts—and he should, after the tragedy she brought upon him. Voted “most likely to stab someone in the face” in high school, making nice was never Penny’s strong suit. But for her little brother? She’d do anything.
Even team up with the ever-present thorn in her side and her brother’s favorite human being on f*cking planet Earth, Mal, the giant, hulking, infuriating general. And, unfortunately, her general.
I’d rather punch myself in the face than work with that thunderous oaf.
The Lies That Hide Within is perfect for fans who wonder what it would be like if Black Widow and Captain America ended up together…Book 2 of The Darkness Duology blends Resident Evil with the humor & found family of Zombieland, action/adventure like Kingsman: The Golden Circle, unlikely allies & heists like Baby Driver, and mind-bending twists like Shutter Island.
Today, I’m sharing the cover for the first book in Josie’s upcoming trilogy – Kill Me Quick.
Art by Nel Kingman @moth.deity
The pirates of Charleston’s Golden Age aren’t as dead as you might think.
In her centuries-long life, Kulika Yadav has chalked up more than her fair share of regrets. Deserting the crew of former pirate king Bartholomew Roberts is not one of them. She vowed she would never return to his Charleston mansion, knowing that doing so would mean captivity or death. Now, two hundred years after she left, she has no other option: her new master is dying, and the person who holds the key to his cure has disappeared on Bartholomew’s turf.
But Kulika isn’t the only woman on a mission in South Carolina. Patience Quick has been searching for her best friend for six months now, along with enough other missing people to fill a whole deck of cards. She’s willing to do just about anything to find her friend, even if it means following a midnight lead to a colonial-era mansion, where a never-ending pool party is about to turn sinister.
While Kulika knowingly confronts the man who gave her immortality, Quick is left scrambling to understand the nature of the creatures whose nest she has unwittingly disturbed. When the two women’s paths cross, blood will fly.
Kill Me Quick is the first book in Josie Jaffrey’s QuickSilver series, a sapphic dark fantasy series set in Charleston, South Carolina.
Alone in the desert and covered in blood, Josiah Dennis comes across an abandoned town, and two unlikely storytellers burdened with sharing its history—past, present, and future. Rogue gangs of vampires, young witches, flayed cadavers, giant lizards, and men with dark hearts dwell in these pages, looming over Buzzard’s Edge, a town full of people struggling to survive in an unforgiving Arizona frontier. So, sit down a spell, and settle where the daybreak ends.
Brennan LaFaro is a music teacher by day, horror writer by night, living in southeastern Massachusetts with his wife, two sons, and his hounds. He is the author of the Slattery Falls trilogy, the Buzzard’s Edge Saga, as well as Illusions of Isolation and Last Stay. You can read his short fiction in various anthologies and find him on Twitter at @brennanlafaro or at http://www.brennanlafaro.com
My thoughts: a series of short stories featuring the residents of the terrifying frontier town of Buzzard’s Edge, related to a lost traveller by Coyote and Vulture as they lead him across the desert.
Each story features horrifying creatures, some of them in human form. There are murders, creatures that literally appear out of the ground, vampires, and other nasties, all terrorising the brave (foolish?) inhabitants of this desert town.
I don’t know the other Buzzard’s Edge books, and it might be helpful to read them first, but not essential. I read this as a standalone collection and was quite happy with it as that. Although I now want to read the other stories, I especially want to know more about Alice.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Moscow, 1958. At the height of the Cold War, MI6 secretary Lois Vale is on a deep cover mission to identify a diplomatic traitor. She can trust only one man: Johann, a German journalist also working covertly for the British secret service. As the trail leads to Vienna and the Black Sea, Lois and Johann begin an affair but as love grows, so does the danger to Lois.
A tense Cold War spy story told from the perspective of a bright young working class woman recruited to MI6 at a time when men were in charge of making history and women were expendable.
Authentic and historical details are provided by the 1958 diary kept in Moscow by the author’s own mother, who worked for British intelligence.
Deborah Lawrenson spent her childhood moving around the world with diplomatic service parents, from Kuwait to China, Belgium, Luxembourg and Singapore. She read English at Cambridge University and worked as a journalist in London. She has written eight novels and her writing is praised for its vivid sense of place.
The Art of Falling was a WHSmith Fresh Talent pick in 2005. The Lantern was published to critical acclaim in the USA, chosen for the Channel4 TV Book Club in the UK and shortlisted for Romantic Novel of the Year 2012. Her novel 300 Days of Sun, set in Portugal, was selected as a Great Group Read for the WNBA National Reading Group Month in October 2016 in the USA. Her novels have been translated into twelve languages.
Giveaway to Win 2 x Paperbacks of The Secretary by Deborah Lawrenson (Open to UK Only)
My thoughts: This was utterly gripping and really, really good. I’ve had a bit of a love of Russian history since my A Levels and a very memorable trip to the country (the hotel we stayed in is mentioned in the book!) and it was interesting to read something set during an infamous period of time – when the Cambridge spy ring was being unmasked.
It was also really interesting to have the story from a female perspective, inspired by the author’s mother’s own role as a secretary at the British Embassy and as an MI6 operative. Most spy thrillers are full of gungho action and men who are either very dashing or the extreme opposite (like Jackson Lamb from Mick Herron’s Slough House series), they are very rarely female.
Lois is indeed a secretary, but she’s also under orders from MI6, and her job is a cover. She’s been sent to see if she can work out if anyone on the embassy staff might be passing information to the Russians. She’s been told not to trust anyone but German journalist (and fellow spy) Johann.
At times she feels completely out of her depth, and her very strange flatmate and colleague doesn’t help matters. There are important things to do, possible defectors to locate, Russian tails to shake off, and the very real possibility of romance.
Things do go somewhat awry, and far from anyone she can ask for advice, Lois has to essentially wing it. But can she do the job?
I really liked Lois, I liked her determination, the way she wanted to stay the course, even when things were going wrong all over the place. She’s level headed and practical, willing to improvise to get the job done. A really enjoyable, intelligent thriller.
*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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The gorgeous and spicy new romance from Emma Orchard, perfect for everyone waiting for their next Bridgerton fix!
June, 1817
Sir Dominic De Lacy – one of the season’s most eligible gentlemen – has recently proposed marriage… to a woman he scarcely knows. But his father’s choice for him, Miss Maria Nightingale, seems amiable, and at 29, Dominic cannot live the life of a bachelor forever. He hopes he can provide a happy future for her as they learn to care for each other.
Maria, however, has other ideas. Midway through their engagement celebrations, she confesses to Dominic that she is not Maria at all, but her identical twin sister, Margaret. Maria has disappeared, and Margaret’s been persuaded to take her place until she’s found – and for that she needs Dominic’s help. The pair quickly find they make a formidable team, but with just three weeks to avoid the biggest scandal of the season, time is against them.
But even if they find Maria, can they really hope the wedding will happen? Because, as they are starting to realise, chemistry can’t be arranged – and Sir Dominic might just be engaged to the wrong Miss Nightingale…
Emma Orchard grew up in Salford and was given tickets to the grown-up library at the age of 11 because she’d read all the children’s books and the librarians were sick of the sight of her. She became obsessed with Georgette Heyer and hasn’t stopped reading her novels since. She studied English Literature at university and went on to work at Mills & Boon and behind the scenes in television and in publishing.
My thoughts: This was lots of fun, and as Francis (the twins’ brother) pointed out, has something of Twelth Night about it, what with twins swapping places, as well as misunderstandings, blackmail, potential scandals, a doddering buffoon, a fortune gone awry, and love finding a way.
When Meg pretends to be her missing twins sister Maria, she finds that Sir Dominic de Lacy might just be rather the one for her, than for her sister. Who is fine, just didn’t quite get around to letting anyone know.
As Meg and Dominic untangle the web of lies, blackmail, misunderstandings and money their families are wrapped in, they discover that most of their relations are pretty good people and that they can resolve things so everyone gets what they need and want most. Including themselves.
Super enjoyable, funny, romantic and entertaining. What more could you want?
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Lucia loved her brother Dinu to the depths of her soul, but she also worried about him. He was intelligent yet ambitious, resilient yet hot-headed, and there was a dark side to him that could lead him into terrible trouble one day.
Sicily, 1943: Lucia and her twin brother Dinu have always been inseparable, but their bond is threatened when Gero, the son of close family friends in America, arrives in their village. Although she finds herself developing feelings for him, Lucia worries about Gero’s dangerous connections and their influence on her brother. As the chaos of World War II closes in, Lucia must navigate love and loyalty to make a difficult choice. Will she risk that the consequences of her decision could bring untold horrors and affect her family for decades to come?
2005: When Jess inherits a baglio, an ancient feudal farmhouse in Sicily, from the grandmother she never knew, she’s determined to uncover the truth about her family’s hidden past. Following the death of her parents and on the brink of divorce, Jess travels to the island alone. There, with the help of a charming Sicilian, she embarks on a quest to unearth a web of long-buried secrets.
But answers come at a price, and Jess must decide if she’s ready to confront a truth that could change everything…
Siobhan Daiko is a British historical fiction author. A lover of all things Italian, she lives in the Veneto region of northern Italy with her husband, a Havanese dog and a Siberian cat. Siobhan was born of English parents in Hong Kong, attended boarding school in Australia, and then moved to the UK — where she taught modern foreign languages in a Welsh high school. She now spends her time writing page-turners and living the dolce vita sweet life near Venice. Her novels are compelling, poignant, and deeply moving, with strong characters and evocative settings, but always with romance at their heart.
My thoughts: Sicily in the Second World War, at one point fighting alongside the Germans, then later, with the Allies. A Sicilian friend once told me Sicily is a bit like Italy, but better.
Lucia worries about her twin brother being drawn into the circle around the local Cosa Nostro don, but is powerless to stop it from happening, her family are poor and Dinu sees become one of the Mafia as an easy way to make money, not thinking of the violence and crime involved. As Lucia worries, she also falls for Gero, the son of old family friends.
Jess is getting to know the area of Sicily her grandmother came from, but she has so many questions. She knows nothing about her mother’s family, a rift before she was born means she is in the dark completely. Learning about Lucia and Gero, and about her great-uncle Dinu will draw her into a terrible tale of family division that lasted generations. She’s also distracted by a handsome Sicilian of her own, just as she’s ready to move on after her divorce.
As the two women’s stories slowly collide, bringing the past into the present, can Jess heal the wounds of the past and fulfil her grandmother’s wish that she find a home and happiness in Sicily?
Charming, romantic, and shocking too, this was a great read, and highly enjoyable.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Check out this amazing cover for upcoming Horrormance, Vessel by Poppy L. Roberts — Available June 6th!
Vessel
Expected Publication Date: June 6, 2025
Genre: Paranormal/Horrormance
Cults
Ritual Sacrifice
River Baths
Morally Gray FMCs
Hand Necklaces
Dark Secrets
Forced Proximity
Demons and Dark Magic
The hollow waits.
Harper is lost—drowning in a life that feels hollow, disconnected, and disenchanting. Technology, consumerism, and monotony have drained the world of meaning, leaving her restless and yearning for something real. Then one day in her search for feeling, she stumbles across an obscure online forum whispering about Saint’s Hollow, an off-grid commune hidden deep in the mountains. They promise her a detox from the bog of her overwhelming life and reconnection with herself. They promise belonging.
Desperate for escape, Harper sells everything, erases her old life, and follows the invitation that simply reads: We’ve been waiting for you.
Saint’s Hollow is beautiful, untouched by the decay of modern life. Its people are warm, and its leader, Naamah, is intoxicating. But the deeper Harper sinks into their world, the more her reality fractures. Strangeness seeps into every crevice of life in Saint’s Hollow. Shadowed figures haunt her movements and the darkness whispers back.
As Harper unravels, she faces an impossible choice: fight for her fading humanity or surrender to the darkness that has always been waiting.
Because Saint’s Hollow doesn’t just want her dreams.
It wants all of her.
COMING SOON!
CW: This book is intended for adults and may contain graphic or distressing content, including graphic on-page violence, death, gore, and explicit sexual content. A detailed list of content notes can be found at authorpoppyroberts.com.
