Category: reviews

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Secrets Taken to the Grave – Isobel Blackthorn

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The Scottish Highlands, 1893.

Ingrid Barker arrives back at Strathbairn to attend the funeral of her old employer, Charles McCleod.

Every bone in Ingrid’s body screams for her to leave, and as she walks from the graveside, she can’t shake the suspicion that Charles was murdered. As she hurries to uncover the truth and get away from Strathbairn, another murder takes place – one that traps her in the very place she is desperate to escape from.

Running out of time and clues, can Ingrid evade the truth of that terrible night up at the abbey the last time she was here, and can she solve the mystery of Charles’ death before his ghost does away with her?

An unputdownable gothic mystery laced with dark family secrets, SECRETS TAKEN TO THE GRAVE is the second book in the Strathbrain Trilogy series of historical mystery novels by Isobel Blackthorn.

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Isobel Blackthorn is an award-winning author of immersive and inspiring fiction. She has penned over twenty-five books including a number of bestsellers.

Among her credits, Isobel’s biographical short story ‘Nothing to Declare’, which forms the first chapter of her biographical novel Emma’s Tapestry, was shortlisted for the Ada Cambridge Prose Prize 2019. One of her Canary Islands novels, A Prison in the Sun, was shortlisted in the LGBTQ
category of the Readers’ Favorite Book Awards 2020 and the International Book Awards 2021. The Cabin Sessions was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award 2018 and the Ditmar Awards 2018.
And The Unlikely Occultist: A biographical novel of Alice A. Bailey received an Honorable Mention in the 2021 Reader’s Favorite Book Awards.

Blackthorn is the author of the world’s only biography of Theosophist and mother of the New Age movement Alice Bailey – Alice A. Bailey: Life & Legacy. Isobel’s writing has appeared in journals and
websites around the world, including Esoteric Quarterly, New Dawn Magazine, Paranoia, Mused Literary Review, Trip Fiction, Backhand Stories, Fictive Dream and On Line Opinion. Isobel was a judge
for the Australasian Shadow Awards 2020 long fiction category. Her book reviews have appeared inNew Dawn Magazine, Esoteric Quarterly, Shiny New Books, Sisters in Crime, Australian Women Writers, Trip Fiction and Newtown Review of Books.

Isobel’s interests are many and varied. She has a long-standing association with the Canary Islands, having lived in Lanzarote in the late 1980s. A humanitarian and campaigner for social justice, in 1999
Isobel founded the internationally acclaimed Ghana Link, uniting two high schools, one a relatively  privileged state school located in the heart of England, the other a materially impoverished school in
a remote part of the Upper Volta region of Ghana, West Africa. After working as a teacher, market  trader and PA to a literary agent, she arrived at writing in her forties, and her stories are as diverse and intriguing as her life has been.

Isobel has performed her literary works at events in a range of settings and given workshops in  creative writing.

British by birth, Isobel entered this world in Farnborough, Kent, UK. She has lived in England, Australia, Spain and the Canary Islands. She now lives and writes in Spain. She is currently at work on two novels composed in Spanish.

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My thoughts: Ingrid returns to Strathbrain for the funeral of her former employer, despite misgivings. What she learns there is that his supposed natural death wasn’t.

And there’s more – she finds a history of the McCleod family that details the bloody history of the members. Generations of them with murder on their minds. It makes her even more concerned about staying there as Miles is behaving strangely. Is he the one Charles’ ghost wants her to identify as his killer?

Her daughter, Susan, is happily settled in with the house’s staff, baking with the cook, helping the maid clean the fireplaces. It makes it harder for Ingrid to insist on returning to Winchester soon. She also learns some things about her own family, but these are happier. Until bones are found in the old Abbey and bring up more recent history and could change everything. 

Haunted and sinister, Strathbrain is not a friendly house, but by putting its ghosts to bed, things might finally change. And as Christmas approaches, putting the past behind them and starting the new year fresh is something Ingrid really wants.

The plot zigs and zags, every time Ingrid thinks she might escape, something happens to keep her there. All the twists kept me wondering what might happen next, were Ingrid and Susan at risk? Hopefully the darkness is behind them and when Ingrid next returns to Scotland it’s for happier reasons. But probably not!

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Shrine – Lesley Thomson

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A decades-old murder. A haunting legacy. A plot for revenge.

Stella Darnell knows her partner Jack is hiding something. After following him one evening, she discovers he’s been consulting a psychic in a desperate attempt to reach his dead mother. A sceptic by nature, and feeling betrayed by his lies, Stella fears what this means for their relationship.

Seeking distraction, she accepts DI Toni Kemp’s invitation to join her for a holiday in a small village in Gloucestershire. But the visit is derailed when a body is discovered at a shrine where a woman died decades earlier.

Drawn into the investigation, Stella must confront the legacy of a once-famous psychic whose shadow still hangs over Prestbury – while in the darkness, someone bent on revenge waits patiently
for the perfect moment to strike…

Perfect for fans of LJ Ross and Kate Rhodes, this is the tenth gripping mystery in this must-read series that can be enjoyed in any order.

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Lesley Thomson is the bestselling author of The Detective’s Daughter series, which has sold over 850,000 copies worldwide. The tenth instalment, The Shrine, marks a major milestone in the acclaimed series. Renowned for her atmospheric, character-driven mysteries, Thomson’s writing has been likened to Barbara Pym for its keen psychological insight and wit. Her debut, A Kind of Vanishing, won the People’s Book Prize, cementing her reputation as a distinctive voice in crime
fiction. She lives in Sussex with her partner and their dog. Visit her website at
http://www.lesleythomson.co.uk

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My thoughts: I don’t believe mediums can contact the dead, so I’m definitely team sceptic, like Stella here. She’s worried about her partner Jack, who wants to find a way to communicate with the mother he lost as a child.

While worrying about that, she goes on a little break to Gloucestershire and gets caught up in a murder case while out delivering fish (you have to read it, it will make sense) and coming across a body left at the roadside shrine for a woman killed years before in a hit and run.

Alongside Stella’s misadventures, there’s also Jane’s story. Jane is visiting an old friend in the same village Stella’s staying in. She’s got a rather different agenda however, her friend’s mother (now deceased) once sent her away with a threat. She’s determined to free her friend from the shadow of her awful mother, who was once a famous medium.

Obviously Stella’s and Jane’s paths will cross, as Stella investigates the murder of the man left at the shrine. But there’s a lot more going on too. From stalkers to dodgy builders, secrets and murder. It’s all here in this supposedly quiet village.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Murder in a Cornish Teashop – Fliss Chester

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A Cornish clifftop, a sunny afternoon, a quaint little teashop… but wait a minute. Is that jam, or blood? Maddie Penrose is determined to find out!

Maddie Penrose is staying with her beloved grandmother, Nor, at her gorgeously idyllic Cornish farm. She’s looking forward to days helping out in Nor’s little teashop and evenings wandering down the cliff path to watch the sunset. But before Maddie has even finished serving up scones on her first morning, a man bursts through the door: Nor’s neighbour Clive has found a body in the field behind the teashop…

Maddie is straight to the scene, fancying herself as a bit of an Agatha Christie. But solving this mystery is far from a piece of cake. Her list of suspects is jam-packed with locals, with some a little too close to home: the newcomer renting out one of Nor’s barns is acting suspiciously, the victim’s boyfriend has disappeared without trace, and Clive isn’t really Maddie’s cup of tea either…

But the proof is in the pudding when there’s another murder – her prime suspect is dead. And when Maddie finds a backpack belonging to the first murder victim, her diligent notetaking and quick thinking leads her to discover that the killer will act again, and soon. Maddie is horrified to discover that it looks like she is their next target…

Can Maddie and Nor work as a team to piece together the puzzle? Or will murdering Maddie be the icing on the cake for the killer?

A totally addictive, witty and warm cozy mystery that will keep you reading late into the night, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, T.E. Kinsey and Verity Bright.

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Fliss Chester lives in Surrey with her husband and writes historical cozy crime. When she is not killing people off in her 1940s whodunnits, she helps her husband, who is a wine merchant, run their business. Never far from a decent glass of something, Fliss also loves cooking (and writing up her favourite recipes on her blog), enjoying the beautiful Surrey and West Sussex countryside and having a good natter.

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My thoughts: I really enjoyed this mystery set in my beloved Cornwall and investigated by someone who has a very similar name to mine!

Maddie is staying with her nan, Nor, who runs a tea shop on the family farm, and as a chef, she’s helping out with the baking. When the neighbouring farmer appears in the cafe covered in blood, she knows exactly what to do, call 999 and put the kettle on.

Maddie’s intrigued by the murder, and starts doing a bit of investigating of her own, plus the police detective in charge is rather dishy.

The case has plenty of twists and turns, and Maddie is learning a lot about the village and its residents. She’s writing a rather unusual recipe too – one that might end up in solving a murder. With help from two of the best named cats around – Crumpet and Toast.

I loved Fliss Chester’s other books and this was very good, and I’m looking forward to seeing what Maddie and Nor cook up next.

*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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Blog Tour: Reaper – Vanda Symon

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A killer is hunting Auckland’s homeless. No one cares. No one but Max. These are his people…

Max Grimes is homeless, living on the streets of Auckland – among the forgotten, the invisible. But now someone is hunting the homeless, killing them one by one. No one cares. Except Max.

Trying to put his shattered life back together, Max is pulled into a deadly game when a face from his past reappears, reopening wounds he thought were long buried. As whispers of a Grim Reaper spread terror through the city, Max must race against time – not only to find the killer, but to outrun the ghosts chasing him. Because if he fails, he’ll be next.

Vanda Symon is a crime writer from Dunedin, New Zealand, and the President of the New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa.

The Sam Shephard series, which includes Overkill, The Ringmaster, Containment, Bound, Expectant and Prey, hit number one on the New Zealand bestseller list, and has also been shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award, as has her then standalone thriller, Faceless. Overkill was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and Bound and Expectant have been nominated for USA Barry Awards. All six books have been digital bestsellers, and are in produc on for the screen.

Vanda lives in Dunedin.

My thoughts: the homeless community is vulnerable in so many ways, something this killer exploits. His methods are fiendish, if Max hadn’t asked his detective friend Meredith to dig a little deeper and order autopsies, the deaths would go unremarked, just more statistics.

Max has also been approached by perhaps the last person on earth he would want to help. But he doesn’t want to be distracted, someone has to stop the killer from taking the lives of any more homeless people – people he counts as friends, people who deserve better than being moved along and forgotten.

But Max is now on the killer’s radar and his life is in serious danger, and while his past has left him with some skills, his present situation makes him as vulnerable as any of the other victims.

Totally gripping, intelligent crime writing, with a protagonist who might have stopped being a detective, but still wants to help people.

*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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Blog Tour: Sycorax – Nydia Hetherington

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A captivating reimagining of the life lived by the powerful witch Sycorax before her banishment to the island in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest

Born of the sun and moon, shaped by fire and malady, comes a young woman whose story has never been told…

They call her Sycorax. Seer. Sage. Sorceress.

Outcast by society and all alone in the world, Sycorax must find a way to understand her true nature. But as her powers begin to grow, so too do the suspicions of the local townspeople. For knowledge can be dangerous, and a woman’s knowledge is the most dangerous of all…

With a great storm brewing on the horizon, Sycorax finds herself in increasing peril – but will her powers save her, or will they spell the end for them all? Find out in this gripping and vivid narrative exploration of one of literature’s most mysterious figures.

Originally from Leeds, Nydia Hetherington moved to London in her twenties to embark on an acting career. Later she moved to Paris where she studied at the Jacques Lecoq Theatre School before creating her own theatre company. When she returned to London, she completed a creative writing degree at Birkbeck and is the author of A Girl Made of Air.

My thoughts: Sycorax is only briefly mentioned in The Tempest, mother to Caliban, she could predict storms. From these tiny threads Nadia Hetherington has spun a magical, tragic tale of a woman outcast and alone, who only wants to help others, to belong.

Born to a mother who is of the Moon and a father who is of the Sun, the girl who would become Sycorax is afflicted with chronic pain, an illness she has inherited from her healer mother. She battles with her own body and with the scorn of the local townsfolk, who will buy her potions and curse her at the same time.

The pirate Barbarossa saves her, she warns him of a storm that lays waste to an approaching enemy army, but not his men, who he chooses not to send out following her words.

But before he can ensure her safety, she is preyed upon by a man beloved by the people but secretly cruel and manipulative.  She’s alone except for one elderly woman who tries to help her.

It’s a sad, lyrical and mystical story. The story of a young woman pushed away for being different, ill treated by the people who should have welcomed her, who should have been kinder. She could have helped them, been a useful member of their community. I really felt for her.

As someone who lives with chronic pain, it resonated with me, fighting your own body is horrible, it leaves you exhausted and frustrated, add that to being alone and rejected by your community, and it’s no wonder that she finds an isolated island a sanctuary. Long before Prospero arrives and enslaves her son.

*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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Blog Tour: Ordinary Saints – Diamond Ni Mhaoileoin

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Can you imagine it? Can you imagine me there in the front row in Saint Peter’s Square? The lesbian sister of a literal saint.

Brought up in a devout household in Ireland, Jay is now living in London with her girlfriend, determined to live day to day and not think too much about either the future or the past. But when she learns that her beloved older brother, who died in a terrible accident, may be made into a Catholic saint, she realises she must at last confront her family, her childhood and herself . . .

Inspired by the author’s own devout upbringing, Ordinary Saints is a brilliant debut novel from a fresh, exciting new voice which asks – who gets to decide how we are remembered – and who we will become?

Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin was the winner of the inaugural PFD Queer Fiction Prize and was also shortlisted for the Women’s Prize Trust Discoveries Prize in 2022. Her début literary novel Ordinary Saints was shortlisted for the 2025 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize.

‘Inspired by my own upbringing in a devout family, Ordinary Saints asks how we, particularly as queer people, can reconcile ourselves with the beliefs, communities and selves we’ve had to leave behind. The premise is also based on real events. In October 2020, I read about the beatification of Carlo Acutis, an Italian teenager who is expected to become the first millennial saint. I couldn’t stop thinking about his family and how the cause for canonisation, on top of the grief of losing a son or brother, would affect them. This became the instigating question of my novel and my protagonist ‘the emigrant lesbian sister of a literal saint’ appeared soon afterwards.’ Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin, 2024

My thoughts: This book has an excellent opening line, and is really interesting and a bit funny. Or maybe that’s just me. Jay’s older brother died young in a terrible accident, he was training to be a priest. Jay was a teenager.

Now, thirteen years later, her dad calls and says he might be beatified as a saint. Unbeknownst to her, her parents have been helping to compile proof that he has been responsible for miracles after his death.

Jay is at a loss as to how to deal with this utterly bizarre thing. She’s not much of a Catholic these days, and she cannot get behind the campaign to turn her brother into a saint. She is forced to revisit and examine her relationship with him, and with her parents.

It’s a really interesting premise and while I was raised going to church, the Church of England doesn’t make saints, so this whole concept is mind boggling. The idea that in the 21st century anyone can imagine that there are new saints to be made is just, well, bewildering.

I really enjoyed this book, I empathised with Jay, struggling to reconcile the brother she remembers with the version being presented by the church, worthy of sainthood. The complicated nature of grief, memory and family relationships are all laid bare and Jay has to try to work out whether she can really believe that her brother, someone she isn’t sure she really knew, could really be perfect.

*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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Blog Tour: Book of Forbidden Words – Louise Fein

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“What power lay there in words on a page. And with that thought, Charlotte knew she would not rest until she had seen what was in the manuscript that Lysbette so desperately wanted to preserve in print.”

1552, Paris: Against a backdrop of turmoil, suspicion, and paranoia, the printing press is quickly spreading new ideas across Europe, threatening the power of church and state and unleashing a wave of book burning and heretic hunting. When frightened ex-nun Lysbette Angiers arrives one day at Charlotte Guillard’s famous printing shop with her manuscript, neither woman knows just how far the powerful elite will go to prevent the spread of Lysbette’s audacious ideas.

1952, New York: Milly Bennett, lonely and unmoored, is a seemingly ordinary housewife with a secretive past. Balancing the day-to-day boredom of keeping house and struggling to find her way with the mothers at her children’s school, she finds her life taking an unexpected turn as conspiracies spread amidst the paranoid clamors of McCarthy’s America. When a relic from her past presents her with a 400-year-old manuscript to decipher, she is reluctantly pulled into a vortex of danger that threatens to shatter her world.

From the risky backstreets of sixteenth-century Paris to the unpredictable suburbs of midtwentieth century New York, the stakes couldn’t be higher when, 400 years apart, Milly, Lysbette, and Charlotte each face a reality where the spread of ideas are feared and every effort is made to suppress them.

Dramatic and affecting, and inspired by the real-life encrypted Voynich manuscript, Book of Forbidden Words is both an engrossing story about a timeless struggle that echoes through the ages and a testament to the indomitable spirit of those who dare to let their words be heard.

Louise Fein is the author of Daughter of the Reich, which has been published in thirteen territories, the international bestseller The Hidden Child, and The London Bookshop Affair. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from St Mary’s University. She lives in Surrey, UK, with her family.

My thoughts: I really enjoyed this book, it wove a fascinating story through the lives of three women whose lives are affected by the manuscript.

Lysbette was a ward of Thomas More, who inspired by his Utopia she creates her incredible document, offering a proto-feminist idyll, a world where women are not at the whims of men.

Charlotte, based on a real life historical figure, is the person Lysbette entrusts her manuscript to, asking for it to be printed shortly before she is tragically murdered.

Finally the manuscript resurfaces 400 years later and is given to Milly, who once worked at Bletchley Park, with the request that she attempt to decode it and find out what is contained within. She was once a bit of an expert in Ancient Greek and Latin, before the war and her marriage. Her language skills come back to her as she attempts to interpret the secrets hidden in Lysbette’s work. 

All three women face adversity and are overlooked and poorly treated by the men around them. Each is ahead of her time in so many ways.

Lysbette’s incredible writing was too much for her own time, but could have been seen as incendiary in the tense religious and political environment she lives in. As a practicing Catholic and former nun in newly Protestant England, she runs a terrible risk. Forced into an unwanted marriage with a violent man, she takes a risk in taking the manuscript to Charlotte.

Charlotte in her turn is already on the list of subversives for publishing books that the church disapproves of. Her printers is raided following a supposed tip off that she’s once again printing illegal works. But her decision to produce a singular copy of Lysbette’s text, encoded in the hope that one day the world will be ready for it, is still incredibly brave and surprising.

Milly was probably my favourite character. Having worked at Bletchley Park decoding the messages of the Nazi war machine, and with an unfinished degree in Classics, she’s a bored and frustrated 50s housewife, trapped in America’s new suburbia.

Being given the mysterious manuscript by her former boss changes everything. It’s the height of McCarthyism and the world is filled with conspiracies and neighbours watching each other. Milly already doesn’t fit in, and her preoccupation with the manuscript looks suspicious to the paranoid residents of the town.

Her only real friends, librarian Susan and editor Myra, are also under investigation as ‘subversives’. Because anyone, especially women, who don’t fit into the mould, can’t be trusted.

There is plenty to make me angry, because it doesn’t feel like much has changed sometimes, and it’s so frustrating that even today, something like Lysbette’s incredible manuscript would still be considered questionable. All the progress we’ve made so far, and a women led Utopia would still be seen as too much.

It’s a really, really good book, and I am fascinated by the inspiration for it, the as yet unencrypted Voynich manuscript, which might also be written by a woman or women, and might even contain something as incredible as the one in this book.

*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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Blog Tour: A Wedding at the Little Bookshop by the Sea – Eliza J Scott

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Booksellers Florrie Appleton and her fiancé Ed are just three weeks away from their dream wedding.

Between hand-selling beloved classics, unveiling Ed’s enchanting window displays and hosting lively book readings with local authors, they’ve managed to plan an intimate ceremony that promises to be everything they’ve ever hoped for – filled with literary delights, lots of laughter and the love of those closest to them.

But when Ed’s mother Dawn arrives unannounced on their doorstep, Florrie’s world is thrown into chaos like confetti. Dawn claims she’s come to help with the wedding preparations, yet she’s never
shown the slightest interest in her son before. As she starts dismissing their carefully curated shelves and snooping around their cosy cottage, Florrie can’t shake the feeling that Dawn’s plans stretch far beyond simply choosing flowers and cake.

With her close-knit group of friends rallying around her and the bookshop’s loyal customers offering support, can Florrie protect her relationship and the bookshop that means everything to them both?

Or will their happily ever after slip through their fingers like pages torn from one of her treasured books?

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Eliza J Scott lives in North Yorkshire with her family and has wanted to be a writer as far back as she can remember. She is inspired by her beautiful surroundings and loves to write heartwarming stories
based on romance and friendship with a generous dollop of community spirit and a hint of humour.

When she’s not writing, Eliza can usually be found with her nose in a book or working in her garden doing a spot of plot wrangling (of the writing variety), and battling against the weeds. The weeds,
unfortunately, are currently winning but Eliza is undeterred. Roses are amongst her favourite flowers and she doesn’t need much of an excuse to visit a plant centre, where a new rose always seems to
mysteriously find its way onto her trolley much to her husband’s astonishment.

Eliza also enjoys having a catch-up with friends over tea and cake, as well as bracing walks in the countryside, rounded off by a visit to a teashop – for yet more tea and cake!

Amazon author page: Eliza J Scott – UK or Eliza J Scott – US
Website: Eliza J Scott
Twitter/X: @ElizaJScott1
Facebook: @elizajscottauthor
Instagram: @elizajscott

Bookbub: @elizajscott
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My thoughts: Florrie and Ed are counting down the days to their wedding, when Ed’s ghastly mother shows up, looking to cause havoc and derail their plans.

She’s still mad that Ed’s grandparents left their bookshop to him and Florrie, and wants to drive a wedge between the couple. Unfortunately for her, they’re strong and can see what she’s up to.

Florrie’s friends have planned a week’s worth of pre-wedding fun, a long and entertaining hen week, with no pig wrangling involved (promise!) It should keep her distracted and hopefully stop any panic about what Ed’s mad mother is up to. 

And then, before they realise, it’s time to say “I do”. 

This is a lovely, funny, fun read, light and entertaining, perfect for unwinding and letting your own worries go for a while.

*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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Blog Tour: The Silent Boy – Michelle Kidd

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A brutal double murder. A traumatised little boy.

Detective Jack MacIntosh tackles his most impossible case yet.

Detective Jack is standing at the graveside of his old friend and mentor, DCI Frank
Tyler, when the call comes in. ‘Boss – we need you NOW!’

He arrives at a smart Richmond townhouse to a scene of unspeakable horror. There’s blood everywhere – soaking through the thick-pile rug, slashed across the curtains, sprayed across the ceiling. Two bodies lie side-by-side, next to the king-sized bed.
They’re not fresh. They’ve been there at least two weeks.

Nothing adds up. A frenzied attack, yet meticulously executed. Carefully planned. No forced entry.

Then the most chilling discovery of all.
A six-year-old boy, hiding in the study. Clothes stiff with dried blood. Eyes blank.
Silent.

Joshua is the only witness. And whatever he saw has trapped him deep inside himself.

Now Jack is in a race against time to unlock the little boy’s memories and coax out the truth – before the killer returns to silence Joshua for good.

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Michelle Kidd is a crime fiction author best known for the DI Jack MacIntosh and DI
Nicki Hardcastle series. Michelle qualified as a legal executive in the early 1990s,
spending ten years practising civil and criminal litigation.

But the dream to write was never far from her mind and in 2008 she began writing the first book in what would later become the DI Jack MacIntosh series.

Michelle now works full time for the NHS and lives in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
She enjoys reading, wine and cats — not necessarily in that order.

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My thoughts: Michelle writes smart, cleverly plotted crime fiction. Her Detective Jack MacIntosh is a complicated character, he’s a good investigator and leader, but he has secrets and complications that could endanger his career. He’s working on an investigation of his own alongside his official cases.

This one is shocking, two people brutally murdered, and their six year old son has been alone in the house with his parents’ bodies for some time. Did he see what happened? He’s not talking and it will take a skilled psychologist to get him to open up.

The couple’s family are in Jack’s sights, the dead man’s brothers are evasive and quick to complain but not to help. Joshua seems afraid of them too.

As the team dig into the family’s secrets and hope for Joshua to start talking, Jack’s distracted by his secret case, and worried about the implications of dealing with a dangerous gangster.

The case is full of twists and the killer is a surprise, I certainly didn’t guess it right up until the last second. Excellent stuff.

*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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Blog Tour: Saoirse – Charleen Hurtubise

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Can a great love survive a great deception?

In the wilds of Donegal, Ireland, 1999, Saoirse is an artist living an outwardly idyllic life. Her tender husband Daithí and two beloved daughters are regular subjects for her work, and in them she has found the safe home that she has always longed for. She tends not to talk about her past, and those that love her have learned to accept that the full story is too painful for her to disclose.

When her Dublin exhibition unexpectedly wins a prestigious award that invites a swarm of publicity, Saoirse is left panic stricken. The unanticipated recognition threatens to expose a decade’s worth of buried memories and past crimes. Because what her family and friends don’t know is that Saoirse has been on the run since she was seventeen, she has stolen an identity to survive, and whilst Ireland might now be her home, it wasn’t her first – and now her past life is poised to reclaim her.

Charleen Hurtubise has lived in Dublin, Ireland for over 25 years, having moved from Michigan, USA. She is a teacher and artist as well as a writer, and her short fiction, essays and poetry have appeared in various publications. She holds an MFA Creative Writing from University College Dublin (UCD) where she has also facilitated creative writing modules.

My thoughts: Saoirse has been running from something her whole life, but now she’s found a home, she’s finally safe, but it all might be lost in an instant.

I was utterly hooked by Saoirse’s story, her awful childhood, her attempts to start over, her love for Daithí and her children, her passion for her art. She’s a fascinating character, she’s had to fight for so long, struggle for survival.

It might not be the happiest of stories, but Saoirse is a survivor, a chameleon, changing herself to fit in, to keep going, always living on her nerves. It’s intense but gripping, moving and full of beauty.

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