Category: reviews

A NEW BEATTIE BRAMSHAW MYSTERY –

It’s the summer of 2001, and for WI Secretary and practised busybody Beattie Bramshaw, it’s a time of new beginnings.
Her much-anticipated wedding to vegetable grower extraordinaire Doug Sparrow is now just months away. However, in the throes of setting up their marital home and new market garden business, she receives a surprise request to care for a distant relative.

Likewise, a number of her fellow Elmesbury residents also find their lives on the cusp of change, and not all for the good. Is it pure chance that the arrival of Beattie’s young ward coincides with yet
another murder in the village? Or were plans already afoot?

Once again, Beattie picks up the gauntlet, but can she solve the case and uncover the murderer’s identity before it casts a shadow over her wedding to Doug?

Toffee Apple Strudel is a comedy crime caper in the style of Agatha Raisin and sees the conclusion of the ‘Beattie Bramshaw Mysteries series’. Make a brew, grab a chair, and prepare for a fun-filled finale.

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Susan King is hosting a giveaway on X, take a look here for all the details

Susan A. King lives with her husband in the North East’s equivalent to San Tropez,
otherwise known as Hartlepool.

The inspiration for her debut novel, Marrow Jam, came from her long experience and observation of competitors at a local country show where she regularly aspires to win Best in Show with her floral arrangements. Unsuccessful to date, she has been tempted to investigate more underhand methods by which to acquire the trophy but has yet to sink to the depths described in her novel. Or so she would have you believe!

Marrow Jam was shortlisted for the Write Here, Right Now novel competition at the Bradford Literature Festival.
The second book in the ‘Beattie Bramshaw Mysteries series’, Banana Devil Cake, is available in e-book and both are published by Eye/Lightning Books.

Toffee Apple Strudel sees the conclusion of the ‘Beattie Bramshaw Mysteries series’.

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My thoughts: I hadn’t read the previous books in this series and you don’t really need to (unless you want to) to follow this story. Beattie is a bit of a busy body, but in a village where everything anyone does is fuel for the gossip mill, it’s hardly surprising.

She’s asked to take in her cousin’s moody teenage granddaughter for a bit, as her mother’s had an accident and her grandmother is off to be nurse maid. Unfortunately Beattie has zero idea what to do with a teenager, and they initially struggle to get along.

While dealing with her new guest, wedding planning, a house move and setting up a business, Beattie also finds time to be secretary of the local WI, and when tragedy strikes, she decides to investigate. Something’s not right, and she’ll find out what it is, one way or another. Although the local police would rather she didn’t. 

Fun, with definite shades of Agatha Raisin and other series where the person who always cracks the case really isn’t the police but a very sharp local with a nose for lies and secrets.   

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

It’s our tenth wedding anniversary . . . and my husband is planning to kill me.

He’s planned the perfect cruise – and the perfect murder. His new girlfriend (my replacement) is waiting in the wings.

Our luxury cruise ship departs from Florida. Its destination – paradise. A surprise gift from Andre. Our first proper vacation in five years. A second honeymoon.

He’s bought me the perfect outfit. The champagne is flowing. Everything’s going to plan. Andre’s plan.
He thinks he’ll get away with it. But he doesn’t know what I’m capable of. Not yet.

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McGarvey studied voice at Manhattan School of Music and was later a theatre major in college.
She pursued an acting career but later moved into a magazine and digital media career. During that time, she sold advertising and managed sales teams for companies like Conde Nast, WebMD and worked for brands including GQ, Travel + Leisure, and Allure.
In between, she took a year off and backpacked alone around the world. Later, after having two children, she left media and became an executive recruiter for internet companies. In 2017, she began writing full time and has since published six novels.

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My thoughts: Fibromyalgia is not a very nice condition to have, I know a few people with it and it can be really hard to manage. Becca has it, and her rather awful husband is an ableist monster who’d rather not have to support his sick wife, clearly his wedding vows don’t matter to him. So he plans an elaborate and rather over the top way to get rid of his wife and be with his annoying girlfriend, while also milking the victim card for all it’s worth.

Unfortunately for him, someone knows what he did, and they’re willing to make sure he, and the rest of the world know about his scheme and expose him for the murderous monster he is.

The plot twists and turns, and while Andre thinks he’s planned the perfect murder, he hasn’t thought of everything…

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

They say sharing is caring, but sharing a husband? That’s a grave mistake.

And Hell hath no fury like three widows with a murder to solve . . .

Albert Franklynn’s sudden and mysterious death leaves everyone in the pretty village of Monksworthy in shock — especially his wife Sylvie, who runs the local tearoom.

But the real surprise comes at the mortuary, where not one, but three grieving widows show up to identify his body.

It turns out that Albert wasn’t just a devoted husband to Sylvie . . . He had two other wives as well.

As everyone reels from the revelation of Albert’s double — or triple — life, three widows reluctantly team up to investigate a mystery more tangled than the village’s gaudy bunting: who killed Albert — and why.

It turns out Albert’s list of enemies is longer than the village bake sale sign-up sheet. Can these three unlikely sleuths resolve their differences to become partners in crime-solving . . . before
the killer writes them out of the story for good?

The start of an unmissable cosy crime series, this gripping mystery about murder, mayhem and marital mischief is perfect for fans of Faith Martin, the Reverend Richard Coles, Kristen Perrin,
Veronica Heley or Fiona Leitch.

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Gaynor Torrance lives near Cardiff with her husband and their rescue cat, Cleo. The area is the setting for her Detective Inspector Jemima Huxley Crime Thriller series of books. Like Gaynor, Jemima has a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Though, apart from them both having a keen
interest in human behaviour, that’s where any similarity ends. When she’s not writing or glued to her Kindle, Gaynor enjoys listening to music, playing the piano, walking, travelling, and eating far too much chocolate.

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My thoughts: This is a very funny and rather clever book. Albert has (at least) three wives – Sylvie and Harriet, and the mysterious Tess, who does a bunk after identifying his body.

But Sylvie and Harriet find common ground, not least because they have children (all grown up) to think about. Albert has a list of secrets as long as his arm, including what he actually did for a living, and the fact his mother and brother are very much alive.

As Sylvie and Harriet carry out their own investigation, along with Sylvie’s friend and business partner Liz, they think they may have found a black widow in the absent Tess, with multiple identities and presumably in search of a new victim. With a little help from pal Barney, they alert well to do men on their own to be wary of this woman and try to get the police to take them seriously.

I really enjoyed this book and if the trio are going to be having more adventures – then I’ll be there to read them!

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

The remote village of Didsbrook is thrown into turmoil after its best-known resident, the former actress turned best-selling novelist Jocelyn Robertshaw, is found dead under mysterious circumstances.

Villagers are appalled to learn that the charismatic Jocelyn died from Hemlock poisoning. Police claim she shot and ate a quail that had ingested hemlock. A theory disputed by all who knew her well. The
animal-loving Jocelyn would never kill anything, but due to the lack of forensic evidence, police rule death by misadventure.

Jocelyn’s young protégée, Lucy Fothergill, determined to discover the truth about what happened to her mentor, discovers a hidden stash of Jocelyn’s notebooks, revealing jaw-dropping secrets from
Jocelyn’s past. The impression Jocelyn gave the world that she lived a near-perfect life was an Academy Award-winning performance.

RBelieving the events from Jocelyn’s past may have led to her death forty-eight years later, Lucy begins to piece together the clues that lead to the truth.

The sleepy village of Didsbrook is about to wake up!

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Author Bio

Tessa Barrie was born in Harrogate, Yorkshire, and despite her parents uprooting her at the age of three and moving her down south, she is proud of her Yorkshire heritage.

Growing up, she recalls her family life being more Little House on the Prairie than The Waltons because her early years were fraught with drama. However, intermingled with all the emotional disruption, she remembers humour squeezing its way through the frayed feelings.

So, incorporating humour in her writing has become very important to her as she believes that, however dark a story gets, there should always be a subtle sprinkling of humour.

In June 2021, Tessa self-published her debut novel, Just Say It, a bittersweet family saga, and her second novel, The Secret Lives of the Doyenne of Didsbrook, a quirky murder mystery, is currently on
pre-order and is due for release on 1st July 2025. Her third novel, The Rebuilding of Freya Michaels, will be published in 2026.

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My thoughts: When former actress turned author Jocelyn Robertshaw is found dead at home one Sunday morning, the police suspect foul play as she was in good health and the autopsy reveals she was poisoned by hemlock. From this I learned that quail are one of the few species that can eat hemlock and not be affected by it, I have never eaten quail, and just to be on the safe side, I don’t think I ever will.

Her protégée Lucy inherits Jocelyn’s writing studio, Manderley (named after the house in Rebecca, which seems a bit ominous) and finds her mentor’s diaries, all of her past and her secrets laid bare. They give a member of the community, later seen trying to break into Manderley, a serious motive, and armed with the facts, Lucy confronts the suspect at the local writers’ group. Could she be right? Are the secrets Jocelyn kept in her notebooks the reason for her death all these years later?

With lots of twists and turns as we learn,  along with Lucy, the story of Jocelyn’s life and loves, the secrets she kept till the very end, have implications for many of the other villagers and her family. 

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

A holiday island…

When private investigator, Dan Armstrong, and his girlfriend, Anna, are invited to the gorgeous island of Elba for a much-needed break, he jumps at the chance. The thought of sun-drenched shores makes Dan promise Anna he won’t “play detective” for a whole week…

A luxury hotel…

Their luxurious hotel, with its wonderful food and picturesque seaside views, seems the perfect escape, especially with Dan’s best friend Virgilio and his wife joining them. But the calm shatters with a sinister encounter and a sudden, suspicious death..

A decades old case…

Virgilio’s past connection to the victim casts a long shadow, pulling Dan into a decades-old case. But beneath Elba’s beauty lie secrets and resentments – the victim was universally hated – but was his
death the result of foul play or just a tragic accident?

With his faithful canine companion, Oscar, Dan must unravel the island’s mysteries, a task that soon takes a decidedly personal and unsettling turn.

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T. A. Williams is the bestselling author of the Armstrong and Oscar cosy mystery series. Trevor studied languages at University and lived and worked in Italy for eight years, returning to England
with his wife in 1972. Trevor and his wife now live in Devon.

Facebook: @TrevorWilliamsBooks
Twitter: @TAWilliamsBooks
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My thoughts: Dan, Anna and Oscar are on holiday with Virgilio and Lina, on the island of Elba (the one Napoleon infamously escaped from). They’re all hoping to get a break from murder for a while, but crime seems to follow them around. Although it might be an accident, a man seems to have fallen from the cliff. Until his brother turns up dead a night later, not a coincidence surely?

Obviously Dan can’t resist digging, especially as Virgilio has history with the first man, many years ago he arrested this person for a horrific crime. Now he’s on Elba at the same time – the police can’t believe that’s a coincidence either.

Do the brothers’ deaths have to do with the second one’s dodgy business dealings? The concigliere is interested in the smuggling of ancient Etruscan artefacts, and he might be using his campsite as a front for the removal of these priceless pre-Roman antiquities. As Dan and Virgilio assist the local police, Anna gets injured, and Dan makes a huge decision.

Oscar finds clues, suspects and saves a life because he is a hero dog. He is rewarded with lovely steak and fusses from the many admiring fans. As he should.

Another excellent crime caper in beautiful Italian sunshine.

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