Category: reviews

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: All That’s Left Unsaid – Tracey Lien

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They claim they saw nothing. She knows they’re lying.

1996 – Cabramatta, Sydney

‘Just let him go.’

Those are words Ky Tran will forever regret. The words she spoke when her parents called to ask if they should let her younger brother Denny out to celebrate his high school graduation with friends. That night, Denny – optimistic, guileless Denny – is brutally murdered inside a busy restaurant in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta, a refugee enclave facing violent crime, and an indifferent police force.

Returning home for the funeral, Ky learns that the police are stumped by her brother’s case. Even though several people were present at Denny’s murder, each bystander claims to have seen nothing, and they are all staying silent.

Determined to uncover the truth, Ky tracks down and questions the witnesses herself. But what she learns goes beyond what happened that fateful night. The silence has always been there, threaded through the generations, and Ky begins to expose the complex traumas weighing on those present the night Denny died. As she peels back the layers of the place that shaped her, she must confront more than the reasons her brother is dead. And once those truths have finally been spoken, how can any of them move on?

My thoughts: this is a powerful book, as Ky (pronounced Key) tries to solve the mystery of her brother’s horrific murder, she reflects on growing up the children of immigrants, her parents are from Korea, and the legacy that leaves her and her generation with. The microaggressions, the overt or not racism, the way none of the white Australians will admit it must have been hard.

There’s also poverty, parental expectations and fears, violence, gangs and grief in the mix. Why won’t her brother’s friends or even his teacher speak up? And what does her long lost best friend Minnie have to do with it?

Ky doesn’t just advocate for her brother with the indifferent, all white, police force, she investigates, using her skills as a journalist to interview and question witnesses, hunt down potential leads and unravel the silence around the crime. Even her own parents seem reluctant to dig deeper, lost in their grief.

Powerful, compelling and moving. This is a book I won’t be forgetting soon.

*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: A Chance in a Million – T.A. Williams

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Fate brought them together, now it’s up to them to make it work…
Having left the army to recover from a traumatic experience, Captain Jane Reed is on her way to Venice to assist Lady Veronica Cooper, a world-famous writer who has lost her mojo. Plagued by
grief and sleepless nights, Jane soon finds a kindred spirit in Veronica, coping with her own loss after the death of her husband.
When the two relocate to Veronica’s villa in the countryside to escape the summer tourists, Jane meets the rest of the Cooper family – including Veronica’s brooding son, David. With his own tragic past, David has resigned himself to a life of solitude. Jane finds herself determined to bring joy back
into his life, even if it means finally spilling her secrets.
Can Jane and David help each other heal, and find love in the process, or are some scars too deep to treat?
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I’m a man. And a pretty old man as well. I did languages at university a long time ago

and then lived and worked in France and Switzerland before going to Italy for seven years as a teacher of English. My Italian wife and I then came back to the UK with our little daughter (now long-since grown up) where I ran a big English language school for many years. We now live in a sleepy little village in Devonshire. I’ve been writing almost all my life but it was only seven years ago that I finally managed to find a publisher who liked my work enough to offer me my first contract.
The fact that I am now writing escapist romance is something I still find hard to explain. My early books were thrillers and historical novels. Maybe it’s because there are so many horrible things happening in the world today that I feel I need to do my best to provide something to cheer my
readers up. My books provide escapism to some gorgeous locations, even if travel to them is currently difficult.

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My thoughts: Jane has my dream job, in one of my favourite countries, in the beautiful city of Venice (I’ve been once and I would love to go back). Assisting a writer and writing my own books would be heaven. Lucky Jane.

The Cooper family are all super lovely and Jane fits in well with them. She’s really landed on her feet. The slow burn romance between her and David – still recovering from a terrible incident and a broken heart – is lovely and his past is sensitively handled. This is just a really nice, sun soaked, book.

*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 Ultimate Village Game – Beth Merwood plus Giveaway!

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Riddled with guilt and tormented by desire, Lucy Short keeps notes about newcomers to the village, but why?

The misfit with the rescue dog has a mysterious past. She’s been biding her time, plotting and scheming, and now she’s determined to get what she deserves. It won’t be straight forward.
Someone is sure to be watching her every move, and there seems to be something more sinister going on.
Mr. Lester Senior is dead. The family is in turmoil. The future of the famous village treasure hunt is in doubt, but for Lucy a new world beckons. She must stick to her task. The rewards could be huge, but will there also be a price to pay?

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Beth Merwood is a writer from the south of England. Her debut novel, The Five Things, was published in 2021.

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Giveaway to Win 1 x Paperback and 1 x e-copy of The Ultimate Village Game (Open to UK Only)
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My thoughts: I found Lucy very intriguing, her mysterious note keeping, the fact she kept herself apart from the other villagers despite how friendly they were, thankfully that didn’t last. She seemed a bit removed from reality at the beginning, just her and Morsel the dog. But working at the local retirement home and walking Morsel draws her into the lives of others and opens her world up.

The mystery of her past and her interest in the Lester family is slowly revealed, and the endless gossip never really tells anyone anything – I think that might be the real village game, not the treasure hunt that we never get to see but hear a lot about.

I really liked a lot of the villagers and the residents of the home seemed like lovely people. As odd as Lucy seemed, she was surrounded by friendly souls and comes out of her shell. I was a bit shocked when her secrets came out, it suggested a whole other dimension to her character. Clever and enjoyable stuff.

*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, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Reason – Catherine Bennetto

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How much is the smile from the person you love worth to you?
 
Brooke’s life has derailed. Her social life and career have evaporated, her daughter is desperately unhappy and being bullied at school, and, for a 43-year-old, she probably spends way too many weekends at her parent’s. But the reason for all this is no mystery. A year and a half ago, Brooke’s husband died.
 
But Brooke does have one secret. Her husband’s death, the worst thing that has ever happened to her, has made her unbelievably rich.
 
Despite her despair, Brooke suddenly realises she has the power to make her daughter’s life, and the world a little brighter.

My thoughts: this was genuinely very, very lovely. A hug of a book, something to cheer up the gloomiest Gus. Brooke is mourning her husband and worried about her daughter, Hannah. She’s turned from a smiley, rainbow of a girl into someone sad and lonely because of a bully at school. Who needed a good shake. Honestly. And the head teacher, my goodness.

Thankfully Brooke has a lovely family and great friends. She comes up with a plan to cheer Hannah up, and a whole lot of other people too. Enter #NoReason, a rainbow of joy, from free ice cream to flash mobs, surprises hidden inside books and handed out in Tube carriages.

It turns their lives upside down but it brings such utter glee and happiness to so many. If only Brooke can keep anyone from finding out she’s behind it. And there’s a possible romance in store for her too. But will it be the drum teacher or the orthodontist? I hate going to the dentists and I really want to learn to play the drums so I know who I’d pick!

If you’re feeling a bit deflated and sad, this is a lovely, fuzzy warm book and I really recommend it. Only you can’t borrow my copy – my mum already has!

*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: Dogs of the Deadlands – Anthony McGowan

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Chernobyl, 1986. The world is coming to an end. Dragged from her bed in the middle of the night and forced to leave her beloved puppy behind, Natasha has no idea if she’ll ever return home. Growing up in the shadow of the ruined nuclear power plant, pups Misha and Bratan need to learn how to live wild – and fast. Creatures with sharp teeth, scythe-like claws and yellow eyes lurk in the overgrown woods. And they’re watching the brothers… But will the dogs survive without humans? And can humans live without them?

Anthony McGowan is one of the most widely acclaimed young adult and children’s authors in the UK. His books have won numerous major awards. In 2020, he was awarded the CILIP Carnegie Medal for Lark. He was also shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal with Rook and won the Booktrust Teenage Prize and the Catalyst Award for Henry Tumour. His YA novel The Knife that Killed Me was made into a critically-lauded film in 2014. Anthony lives in London, with his wife, two children and dog.

My thoughts: this had so many White Fang and Call of the Wild (both by Jack London) vibes. I loved it. We all know I’m a sucker for any story with an animal in it and in this the animals were the stars. The Chrrnobyl disaster and I are the same age (a few months apart) so I don’t remember it, but my parents do and I watched that incredible drama about it during lockdown.

It was really interesting to read a story set in the evacuated area, where only animals and a few tricky people (like Katerina in this book) remained behind. It must have been a real shock to the domesticated animals when their people left. I liked the idea of some of them bonding with their wild cousins, as Zoya does, and joining wolf packs or like Shepherd, staying and guarding their homes. I imagine cats going completely feral. I grew up reading Colin Dann’s City Cats and Animals of Farthing Wood (sob), Watership Down, K.M. Peyton’s horse books, Dick King-Smith (The Sheep Pig among others) and Brian Jacques’ Redwall series. This certainly would sit nicely alongside all of those. Bits are sad and bits are frightening – “nature, red in tooth and claw” in action but the ending is lovely. I liked the Natasha sections less – the wolf-dogs were more interesting but I did enjoy the way the two stories wove together. Definitely one for any young (or not so young) animal lovers.

*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: Folly Ditch – Anna Sayburn Lane

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A Dickensian murder mystery. A brutal modern-day gang. Can Helen Oddfellow outwit an old enemy – or will she be his next victim?

When literary researcher Helen Oddfellow finds an old newspaper cutting in an antiquarian bookshop, she uncovers a mystery dating back 200 years. Her quest to find the real woman behind one of Charles Dickens’ best-loved characters takes an unexpected turn, when the bookshop owner goes missing. 

Helen befriends his distraught teenage daughter as they try to find the missing man. But the marshes of north Kent are home to a criminal gang more brutal than anything Dickens imagined. Murky money, royal connections and desperate people link the past with the present. But it’s the unexpected return of an old enemy that puts Helen herself in mortal peril. 

FOLLY DITCH is latest in the series of mysteries featuring literary sleuth and London tour guide Helen Oddfellow.

Long-listed for the Stockholm Writers’ Festival 2022 First 5 Pages prize.

Anna Sayburn Lane is a writer, editor and journalist. She lives on the Kent coast, at Deal. 

Anna has published award-winning short stories and was picked as a Crime in the Spotlight new author at the 2019 Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival. Her 2018 debut novel Unlawful Things was shortlisted for the Virago New Crime Writer award.

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My thoughts: while I continue to have mixed feelings about Charles Dickens (DM me on Twitter if you’d like to hear the rant), I did enjoy this book, which revolves around a mysterious reference to a Nancy Love – could she be the inspiration for Oliver Twist‘s doomed character and if so, what could so many people want with a letter she might have written and given to a child Dickens to deliver? As Helen Oddfellow, a literature scholar, delves into the life of Nancy, she’s caught up in a terrible dark conspiracy that costs the lives of innocents and links her to a gang of people traffickers.

Aided by her journalist friend Nick, and a young woman called Wiz, she fights back and they might just bring down a right wing group while they’re at it.

Set mostly in Kent, where Dickens lived at various periods in his life, and referencing at least two of his books at various points, you don’t have to know much about him to enjoy this, or the secrets Helen unwittingly discovers.

Lots of fun and I do love a literary conspiracy, so I’m off to check out the rest of this series, apparently my old fave Kit Marlowe pops up in at least one. And if you subscribe to the author’s newsletter (link to website above) you get a free book.

*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 Tin Man – Brian W. Caves

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A private investigator is asked by a famous model, to discover if the death of her father was really accidental as she feels the police have hit a brick wall and have no further leads to follow. Simeon Cain decides to look into it. The results are both surprising and horrifying…

Tin Man is the first of a new series, which you will not want to miss. The novel is full of action and intrigue and the series is set to grow. Brian Caves is a great storyteller and this book is pure action all the way through, with twists and turns aplenty. The plotting is genius…Buy

I started out as an engineer, then an estate agent, followed by senior management roles in cable TV and telecoms. Spent a few years as a management consultant and now work in the language translation industry.

I have played music all my life. Classically trained on the clarinet from the age of eight until fourteen when my world took a quantum leap forward after hearing Jimi Hendrix and Voodoo Child on the radio. I thought, wow, I gotta do that. I dumped the clarinet and I picked up the guitar and have never put it down. I have played alongside topflight musicians, both live and in studios.

From a young age I read books like Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Black Beauty, Swallows and Amazons, then The Famous Five, Billy Bunter, Jennings and Derbyshire, Biggles, and Tarzan. Agatha Christie had a major impact as did Georges Simenon. I penned short stories at school – mostly adventure, but it wasn’t until I became hooked on American Crime Noir that my urge to write came crashing to the forefront of my mind. Reading Hammett, Chandler, Jim Thompson, Macdonald, and the master, James M. Cain had the same effect on my potential writing career as Hendrix had for my music.

Currently, having been further influenced by the greats of Southern literature, I write crime stories based in the Deep South as well as UK based dark noir crime set in the county of Northamptonshire where I reside. Throw into the pot crime and horror short stories and novellas and you’ll have some idea of what goes on in my head. Facebook Instagram Twitter

My thoughts: this was a clever crime novel, twists and turns a plenty. A murdered man, supposedly a mugging gone wrong, who worked as an interpreter and translator, did he hear something he shouldn’t have?

His glamorous daughter requests PI Simeon Cain look into it as the police aren’t interested. As he does his own life is put into danger, it seems the deceased stumbled onto something someone will kill to keep quiet. But what did the Tin Man, a local with a strange habit, see? And how far will Sim go to solve the case? Gripping, intelligent and at times funny, this is the start of what I think will be a really good series.

*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: Island of Dreams – Harry Duffin

ramblingmads

In May 1939, when Professor Carl Mueller, his wife, Esther, and their three children flee Nazi Germany, and find refuge on the paradise island of Cuba, they are all full of hopes and dreams for a safe and happy future.

But those dreams are shattered when Carl and Esther are confronted by a ghost from their past, and old betrayals return to haunt them.

The turbulent years of political corruption leading to Batista’s dictatorship, forces the older children to take very different paths to pursue their own dangerous dreams.

And – among the chaos and the conflict that finally leads to Castro’s revolution and victory in 1959, an unlikely love begins to grow – a love that threatens the whole family.

Having escaped a war-torn Europe, their Island of Dreams is to tear them apart forever.

I am an award-winning British screenwriter, who was on the first writing team of the BBC’s EASTENDERS, and won the Writers’ Guild Award for Best TV serial for CORONATION STREET. I was Head of Development at Cloud 9 Screen Entertainment Group, producing seven major television series, including ‘Swiss Family Robinson’ starring Richard ‘John Boy’ Thomas, and ‘Twist in the Tale’, featuring William Shatner. I was co-creator of the UK Channel Five teen-cult drama series ‘THE TRIBE’, which ran for five series.

I have written two novels, CHICAGO MAY and BIRTH OF THE MALL RATS [an intro to the TV series THE TRIBE].

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My thoughts: this was an interesting read, relating the story of a family – the Muellers – during a period of history I didn’t know a lot about – the Cuban Revolution.

Fleeing Nazi persecution in Germany, Dr Mueller and his family travel to Cuba, but have to ask an old acquaintance, Freddie Sanchez, to help them enter the country after the president refuses to allow the ship to dock. Freddie, despite the way they parted years before, agrees and so begins his long relationship with the family.

As the children grow up, they each find their place – Hans as a drug dealer and gun runner, Anna in the struggle against Batista’s regime and Klaus in his art. The complex relationship between their parents remains strained and sad, but they are ably cared for by their Nanny, Mrs Price and housekeeper Carlotta.

A lot happens in their lives, both personally, and politically. Freddie is a constant presence, reassuring in many ways as they grow up. His friendship with Carl is lovely, the two men bond professionally as doctors but also come to depend on each other emotionally.

Esther however is a menace, full of pills and self-delusion, she refuses to engage with reality and is the cause of a lot of misery in the family home. Her rejection of her husband and children, her bitterness and self pity poison the air around her. It’s tragic but self-inflicted. I didn’t take to her at all.

I enjoyed this book, I liked Freddie, he was so kind and gentle and I loved his bond with sweet Klaus. I also liked Carl, a man who tried to help people and fix the mistakes he’d made. I wasn’t overly keen on Hans or Anna, both selfish in different ways, they didn’t really seem too bothered about anyone else. But considering their childhoods, not really surprising.

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*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 Last Girl to Die – Helen Fields

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In search of a new life, seventeen-year-old Adriana Clark’s family moves to the ancient, ocean-battered Isle of Mull, far off the coast of Scotland. Then she goes missing. Faced with hostile locals and indifferent police, her desperate parents turn to private investigator Sadie Levesque.

Sadie is the best at what she does. But when she finds Adriana’s body in a cliffside cave, a seaweed crown carefully arranged on her head, she knows she’s dealing with something she’s never encountered before.

The deeper she digs into the island’s secrets, the closer danger creeps – and the more urgent her quest to find the killer grows. Because what if Adriana is not the last girl to die?

My thoughts: you know when you read some books and you finish them and you think, I wish I hadn’t read this book, I want to begin again as though I had no idea what was on its pages because it was just that good? Yep, this book is one of those. As soon as I finished it I wanted it to be brand new all over again.

Mull is having a moment, I’ve read several books set on the island, but none like this. Combining ancient beliefs with modern violence and science, manipulating the story for their own ends, a killer, or possibly killers, haunts the island. First one dead teenage girl, but then more terrible events take place and as Sadie (who I really liked) tries to solve Adriana’s awful death, her own life is put in danger.

The answers, when they come, are sad, shocking and tragic. There is no happy ending to be found here, for these people. Running away from your problems doesn’t solve them, lashing out in pain and fear fixes nothing. No one escapes this unscathed. But it’s so incredibly well done, that as dark as it gets, I just wanted to start it all over again afresh.

*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: Murder in the Library – Katie Gayle

ramblingmads

Julia Bird’s picturesque Cotswolds life is everything she’d dreamed of. Until, that is, she discovers a dead body in the library…

Julia Bird had imagined the quiet of rural life would be soothing after years in the city, but she finds she can’t just sit still.Determined to throw herself into village activities, she joins the library just in time to attend a talk by celebrated local author Vincent Andrews.

Charming, devilishly handsome and talented, Vincent teases the crowd with a reading from his forthcoming novel. Set in a village bearing strange similarities to Berrywick, with characters the audience start to recognise, Vincent hints of dark secrets to be revealed, to gasps of outrage from the room. The meeting ends in uproar, and, just hours later, Vincent’s dead body is discovered behind the bookshelves…

As one of the last people to see him alive, Julia feels morally bound to help the police investigate. With her trusty Labrador, Jake, at her side, she decides to do her own sleuthing and quickly discovers that Vincent’s personal life is messy, his finances are in disarray and his book sales are declining. But most of all, remembering her neighbours’ faces at the book reading, Julia wonders if one of them could have lost the plot enough to kill…

As Julia interrogates the suspects, she walks straight into another scene of murder and mayhem, and realises Vincent’s manuscript is now missing. There’s someone out there who’s deadly serious about keeping their secrets unpublished. Will Julia be able to stop them, before anyone else gets hurt?

Brilliantly twisty, this completely thrilling cozy mystery is perfect for fans of M.C. Beaton, Helena Marchmont and Clare Chase.

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Katie Gayle is the writing partnership of best-selling South African writers, Kate Sidley and Gail Schimmel. Kate and Gail have, between them, written over ten books of various genres, but with Katie Gayle, they both make their debut in the cozy mystery genre. Both Gail and Kate live in Johannesburg, with husbands, children, dogs and cats. Unlike their sleuth Epiphany Bloom, neither of them have ever stolen a cat from the vet.

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My thoughts: this series is shaping up to be lots of fun as Julia Bird finds another dead body, this time in the shape of local author VF Andrews, in the local library.

Teaming up with her doctor beau Sean, and the local police detective, she’s soon on the case of a missing manuscript and the author’s slightly dodgy dealings.

As always Julia’s quick mind and understanding of people help her untangle the leads and follow the clues to find the culprit and solve the mystery of the author’s books, why was the latest one so bad? With Jake the naughty labrador at her heels, this is a great, fun comedy caper.

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