Category: reviews

We are but dust and shadows is the motto on the sundial in the garden at Blackthorn Manor. The past haunts the family living there.

When Robert Landimor, a famous painter, dies suddenly, he leaves his estate, including Blackthorn Manor, to his housekeeper, Mary, disinheriting his three daughters, Lucia, Izzy, and Sara in the process. No one understands why.

Sara attempts to find answers, but only uncovers buried secrets about their father and his family instead. Then, the body of a woman is discovered in the lake on the Manor’s grounds, leaving Sara and her sisters to face terrible danger.

Ghosts and the past may not be the only things haunting their family.

Tabitha Potts won several awards for her work including an Honorable Mention in the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize. She runs a literary podcast, Story Radio Podcast, and lives in London with her family and one very large Tamaskan dog. She is a lover of the Gothic, folk horror, and ghost stories, and enjoys kickboxing and cooking (not at the same time). “The House of Dust and Shadows” is her first novel.

My thoughts: After the sudden death of their father, the three Landimor sisters are  shocked to find themselves disinherited. Going back through their lives, they attempt to understand their father’s decisions. But as they attempt to unravel the secrets of their father’s house and their family, it becomes clear they never really knew him or each other.

Clever and full of twists, this explores the bonds and secrets, past and present, that families are built on.

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

Alyssa wants to be seen. Less wants to be someone. She takes two buses to class, posts pictures of her lunch, and pretends it’s all effortless. He hides his privilege beneath thrifted clothes and a sketchbook full of impossible designs. Together, they are inseparable – two outsiders constructing a version of themselves the world might finally applaud.

Then Alyssa stumbles upon the hidden world of phrogging – living unnoticed inside other people’s homes. She and Less slip through Los Angeles’ glossy veneer: influencers, producers, pop stars, all so busy performing their perfect lives they don’t notice the shadows in their attics, the scratching in their walls. An act of rebellion. A harmless thrill. A social experiment.

Until they choose the wrong house. Until the influencer they idolise catches them in the act. Until the cameras, already rolling, capture everything. What begins as a reckless adventure becomes a nightmare of lies, power … and murder…

Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series and the cri cally acclaimed, mind-blowingly original Detective Pace series, which includes Good Samaritans (2018), Nothing Important Happened Today (2019) and Hinton Hollow Death Trip (2020), all of which were ebook bestsellers and selected as books of the year in the mainstream international press.

Nothing Important Happened Today was longlisted for both the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2020 and the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Hinton Hollow Death Trip was longlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize, and was followed by the literary thrillers, The Beresford, Psychopaths Anonymous, The Daves Next Door, Suicide Thursday and Upstairs at the Beresford, and his highly regarded speculative thriller debut, Kill Them with Kindness.

Will spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He and his partner run their own fitness and nutrition company, and live in Reading with five children and a tortoise.

My thoughts: Will Carver is back, and now giving us his take on influencer culture and celebrity, and it is very good.

Alyssa and Less are trying to find their places in the world, addicted to social media, fascinated by the influencers they follow, famous only for the content they produce.

When they start breaking into people’s homes and pawing through their things, they don’t see it as harmful or dangerous, until they break into the wrong house and things go horribly wrong….or do they?

Keeping the reader guessing is a Carver speciality, is everything as you think or is something else going on? Who are the people who really make the influencers go viral and can you trust everything you see online?

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

SOME THINGS RUN IN THE BLOOD…

A darkly twisted and wonderfully original debut thriller for fans of Riley Sager and Jessica Knoll. 

At an annual weekend getaway for the adult children of serial killers, the participants begin to wonder if somebody’s continuing the family tradition when one of their number turns up dead.

Plenty of people have lousy parents, but Nicola Fischer’s father has just been convicted of murdering five young women, including her best friend. Fired from her job and hounded by reporters, Nicola passes the time by doomscrolling and drunk-dialling Greer Woods, the alluring host of the hit show To Catch a Killer, who cracked the case and turned Nicola’s life upside down before disappearing along with her so-called ‘best intentions’.

When an email from Greer finally shows up in Nicola’s inbox, there’s no apology or explanation, just a cryptic invitation. The Death Row Club is an annual weekend getaway for the adult children of serial killers – and Nicola is the newest reluctant member. Desperate to escape her small town, she accepts the offer with barely a second thought, forging tentative bonds with her fellow club members, most of whom seem intriguing, and only slightly unhinged.

But when an uninvited guest shows up at their remote wilderness retreat, everyone is put on high alert, and the next morning paranoia turns to outright fear. Because one of their own is dead, and the rest of them are left with only one question.

V. A. Vazquez was born and raised in Buffalo, NY where she currently teaches English. She received her B. A. in English from Barnard College and used to live in Scotland in a town inhabited by more sheep than people.

My thoughts: This was so good, I was hooked from the first page. It’s so readable and compelling, darkly funny in an odd way. Nicola has just lost her job as a teacher because a true crime series about her father’s crimes has been aired.

She’s in free fall, not only is she now unemployed, she’s about to lose her house, the press are hounding her and she’s furious with the woman she thought was her friend – Greer Woods – who produced the series that has wrecked her life.

Then she’s invited to a secret gathering of the children of murderers. It’s a strange group, all of them with their own baggage and paranoia.

Then an uninvited guest arrives and things take a turn for the worst. Someone at their secretive retreat is a killer, and the secrets that they’ve all fought so hard to keep might be exposed.

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

Discover an absolutely gripping locked-room murder mystery set in sunny
Thailand, featuring a British detective abroad — armchair travel at its finest!

Perfect for fans of Death in Paradise.
Meet Vijay Mistry. He used to work a desk job at Bristol City Council. But adventure
called! Now he lives in the bustling city of Bangkok, doing translations . . . and solving mysteries.

He loves a good puzzle. But his latest case will test his skills to the limit.

When respected English antiques dealer Arthur Cavendish falls from the balcony
of his luxury apartment, the police quickly conclude he took his own life. A locked
room. No forced entry. No sign of a struggle.

Case closed — right?

Vijay agrees, when he’s asked to investigate as a personal favour. But as he follows the trail from high society parties and upscale antique shops to the city’s darker corners, his instincts begin to prickle.

Then a second, shocking death stops Vijay in his tracks.

And the part-time detective realises that the truth he’s chasing is far more complex — and far more dangerous — than he ever imagined.

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Mithran was born in Colombo and grew up in London. After completing his studies he
went to Thailand to work in an electrochemistry lab and, other than a 3-year spell in Japan, has been there ever since.

His short stories have appeared in The Sun, Inkwell, Natural Bridge, The Minnesota Review, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and The Best Asian Short Stories 2017, among others. One of his stories was shortlisted for the Bridport 2017 Short Story Prize and another was longlisted for the Commonwealth 2025 Short Story Prize.

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My thoughts: This was a really good crime novel, with private detective Vijay asked by his ex-girlfriend to look into the death of an antiques dealer from the UK who falls off the balcony of his home – or did he? 

While attempting to understand the deceased better, Vijay becomes embroiled in something darker and connected to the terrible Khmer Rouge regime in neighbouring Cambodia, when one of his witnesses is shot dead in front of him. 

There were so many twists and turns in this, as Vijay peels back the layers and begins to understand the high society world of antique dealers and the world of fakes artificially aged to pass for the real thing. 

*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 YOUR NEW FAVOURITE DETECTIVE.

Detective Norman is out of retirement and back on the beat in a rainy Welsh seaside town.

Llangwelli might be short on sunshine, but it’s certainly not short on murders . . .

Norman may seem a bit old-fashioned, but he’s always willing to learn from his band of misfit recruits.

It’s DC Judy Lane who takes the call. ‘We’ve got a body. It’s at a house called Forge Cottage, on the Old Llangwelli Road.’
The elderly victim is found propped up in his own back garden, a chain wrapped tightly around his chest.

The only clues to what happened are a glass of red wine, a Chinese takeaway receipt – and a missing delivery driver.

Before Detective Norman can pull the pieces together, the wife of a prominent local businessman disappears.
And a second body is discovered in a seafront hotel.

Two dead bodies and a missing person: there’s something very nasty going on in this quiet little seaside town. It’s up to Detective Norman to uncover the truth before events turn even darker.

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Peter Ford always dreamed of becoming a writer, but a dream is easily stifled without
support from those around you. It was only when his old, unhappy life fell apart and he met his new partner (now wife) Mary, who believed dreamers should be
encouraged, that he finally got the chance to live that dream. Fast forward a few years and you find a man transformed.
Now, blissfully happy, settled in a quiet corner of Wales with wife Mary and their
rescue dogs, P.F. Ford is living proof that it’s never too late to achieve your dreams.

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My thoughts: The poorly buried body of an anonymous young woman found in the woods is never far from Norman and his colleagues’ thoughts and this new case might finally help them get some answers after a man’s body is found in his own back garden, and the only witness, a delivery driver, has disappeared.

All is not what it seems as the team unravel the true identity and history of the victim, and then another body is found in a local hotel. Is this death connected to the first one?

It’s a clever and fiendish case with lots of twists and secrets that come to light and threaten to destroy a family forever.

It’s also something of a time for change for Norman and his team, as changes from on high mean they all have to make decisions.

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

Summertime in London. Alfresco drinks, park picnics, and a killer getting away
with murder.

Detective Chief Inspector Parker is hunting a ghost. A violent murderer who leaves no
DNA at the crime scenes and evades CCTV. How is that possible in one of the most
surveilled cities in the world?

There’s nothing to connect the victims either, other than a card with the female symbol on it left in each one’s mouth.

With few clues, the investigation is floundering. Can DCI Parker stay focused even when everything connected to the case starts to feel too close, too familiar, bringing up dark memories he’d rather forget?

To prevent another gruesome crime, he’s going to have to set aside his emotions. But that’s assuming the killer will let him…

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TA Müller-King was born in Cape Town, did a post-graduate degree at the London
School of Journalism, and worked in magazines for many years.

But an obsession with crime novels was a lifelong thing. As was the desire to merge fiction with real issues, to create stories that entertain but also make you think.

In her first series, that happens with the help of DCI Spider Parker and DS Grace Regan, who stepped out of her head and came to life on the page.

She writes in London and Spain, where she lives with her family – her husband and
their two cats.

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My thoughts: In a world where violence against women and girls seems never-ending, it’s not really a surprise that someone (even fictionally) decides to take revenge on the sort of people who add to the misery, like a judge who let’s a rapist walk.

Unfortunately taking the law into your own hands is a crime and DCI Peter Parker, known as Spider (for obvious reasons) and his team are assigned the case, which is tricky as there’s not a lot to go on. The killer seems to be forensically aware and leaves no trace, just a sort-of calling card.

As Spider works on the case, he’s distracted by other things, often disappearing on his team, and being unfocused when he is there.

This was a really interesting read and there’s a huge twist that made me gasp. I don’t know where the author intends this series to go next but I’m intrigued to find out.

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