Category: reviews

blog tour, books, reviews

Book Blitz: The Approval of Sheep – Karen Storey

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To celebrate the book’s birthday I’m re-posting my review from its release below, and there’s also a giveaway.


Gordon Slee fears he was never meant to be born. Anxious since childhood after hearing he was an accident, the forty-two-year-old is still struggling to escape the shadow of his high-achieving family.

But a glimmer of hope is on the horizon – a huge promotion within his hotel group is up for grabs, and he is sure that his time has come to make a mark on the world.
However, within his own department, redundancies are afoot. He may lose his job before he gets the chance. Until he learns of a historic covenant that preserves the right for sheep to run through the company’s top London hotel. Could he convince his boss that he’s the man to save the hotel from catastrophe?

Up in Bryn Nefyn, North Wales, live the descendants of the covenant owner. The elderly sheep farmer and his aging hippy brother could use the money the hotel might offer. But along with their strong-willed American shepherdess, they laugh at Gordon’s attempts to negotiate a deal. Surely, they couldn’t use a covenant that’s been forgotten about for over a hundred years.

Or could they?

For lovers of upmarket commercial fiction with a touch of romance and comedy, The Approval of Sheep is an uplifting story about family and love, overcoming adversity and discovering our reason
for our place in this world.

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Karen Storey is an award-winning fiction writer, featured on the acclaimed book podcast The Bestseller Experiment. Her short stories have been placed in several international competitions, and her memoir pieces published within The New York Times bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul series.
Originally from New York, Karen lives in Warwickshire and has written articles for American in Britain magazine. She lives with her husband, whose surname Storey was the perfect wedding gift. They share their home with a snarky cat who writes Karen’s monthly author newsletters and a crazy dog who barks at the wind.
The Approval of Sheep, a quirky uplifting book club read, is her first novel. You can find Karen on her website. 

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My thoughts: This was very entertaining, and features lots of sheep. Gordon wants to impress his boss and secure a promotion by buying off a Welsh sheep farmer whose family own an ancient right to drive sheep through the hotel where he works. Obviously this is a bit of a peculiar thing, and Gordon heads off to Wales to attempt to do a deal that will satisfy his boss, stop the farmer complaining and secure his future.

While in Wales he gets to know the family, the sheep and the land. He discovers that some things are more important than money and job titles, and that perhaps that world isn’t for him anymore. 

I liked Gordon, he’s a pretty nice man and just a bit lost in his own life, his relationships with the Priddys and their sheep, and especially his growing love affair with shepherdess Jenna is a delight and the moment when he bonds with sheep Molly and solves the issue of her head butting is sweet.

It’s a funny, heartwarming book with a sweet romance and a protagonist that deserves nice things.

Giveaway to Win a signed copy of The Approval of Sheep with bookmark (Open INT)


*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome. Please enter using the link above. The winner will be selected at random via Gleam from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.

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Blog Tour: A Monster in the Ash – Susie Gordon

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Based on the true story of the 43 Group, A Monster in the Ash combines the East End resistance of Jo Bloom’s Ridley Road with the emotion of Kristin Hannah’s The Women and the suspense of Lara Prescott’s The Secrets We Kept.

Sadie Shaposnick spent the war running a black-market racket out of her husband Leon’s East End butcher shop. Now Leon has returned from a German POW camp, traumatised and dismayed to find Fascism rising once again, only ten years after Cable Street. With the authorities turning a blind eye, Leon joins a vigilante gang formed by Simka Reubens, a charismatic former street-fighter with ties to Sadie’s late mother Rosy Gold—a local anti-fascist icon who died fighting Franco in Spain. At first, Sadie resists being drawn into the gang, but as the violence escalates she realises that fighting back is the only way to protect her neighbours and hopefully repair her faltering marriage.

Meanwhile, Sadie’s widowed sister Karla has to raise her daughters alone in her grief-stricken in-laws’ mansion. When her late husband’s younger brother Rafi returns from fighting with armed partisans in Mandatory Palestine, Karla must decide how far she’ll go to feel alive again. But when Rafi crosses paths with Sadie, he is drawn into the struggle as well, sending the gang into even greater peril.

With Oswald Mosley gaining power, the only option is resistance, even if it means facing the ghosts of the past while fighting the monsters that are rising from the ashes of the war.

My thoughts: This period of time after the Second World War isn’t one I know much about and having now read this book, I think that’s a shame. My family (on both sides) has roots in the East End of London and I grew up and live in North West London where many of my neighbours are Jewish. Yet I had never heard of the 43 Group, which was dedicated to fighting Oswald Mosley and his disgusting fascists. Even after being imprisoned, he didn’t just go away. 

The actions that Sadie, Leon and their friends take are dangerous and come with the threat of prison and worse (Britain still had the death penalty at this point) if they weren’t careful to never fully cross the line. I think Daniel’s heartbreaking betrayal was the worst bit, but they let him down first.

Reading this feels quite timely, in a rather unpleasant way, as antisemitic attacks seem to be on the increase again. This was what the characters, and their real life counterparts, were so determined to put a stop to.

The book isn’t an easy read, the suffering and tragedies of Sadie and her friends, the death of her father, Karla’s husband dying in the war, all of these things are very real, even if the people are fictional.

It’s a powerful book, sad and moving. I really wanted happier endings for Sadie and her sister-in-law Sorel.

*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 Marchesa – Sarah Dunant

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From the acclaimed author of The Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan comes a vibrant exploration of the Italian Renaissance through the eyes of Isabella d’Este, the leading female art collector and patron of her time. Born in 1474, she ran a famed court, was a fashion icon and a cunning political operator. She left behind a magnificent collection of paintings, sculptures, books, instruments and curiosities. Long since lost or dispersed, all that remains is her correspondence – thousands of letters preserved in a deconsecrated church and convent, which make up the state archive of the city of Mantua.

Inside this cavernous space, the ghost of Isabella is searching for the right scholar to give voice to her story. When she finds her, together through the letters, they resurrect a remarkable life: from a precocious daughter of a Duke and the painfully young wife of the Marquis of Mantua to a formidable court consort, collector, patron and political operator, guiding the state through the vicissitudes of war. A woman who unapologetically refuses to be bound by convention.

The Marchesa is Renaissance history at its most vivid, an immersive, multi-layered experience that mixes historical fiction with biography, scholarship and art, images of both the people and the time. It is also a meditation on our attitude to history itself, challenging how far we can set aside our own values and moral certainties when it comes to understanding those in the past who grew out of very different cultural soil.

The Author

Sarah Dunant is a historical novelist, thriller writer, broadcaster and lecturer on women’s lives in Renaissance Italy. Explore her books, podcasts and online lectures on art, sex and religion in the 15th/16th centuries.

My thoughts: I love Sarah Dunant’s historical novels, she’s such a fantastic writer. This was a little bit different, with the ghost of the Marchesa, Isabella d’Este, narrating her story from the Mantua archives as a scholar, possibly the author, reads through the many letters that remain chronicling the life and times of this powerful and important woman.

Born into the Este family, rulers of the city state of Ferrara, the daughter of a Duke and granddaughter of a king, she marries the Marquise of Mantua, a small city state in Italy, which while it might not rival Venice or Rome, was, in its Marchesa’s eyes, equally as important.

It’s a fascinating and compelling story, as she wrote to and was related to crowned heads across Europe, including Popes, Dukes, Duchesses and royalty. Her careful letter writing was an important part of maintaining relationships with potential invaders and keeping her hot headed husband out of trouble at times. She understood the vital art of negotiation, flattery and maintaining those bonds when things went wrong.

In Dunant’s hands Isabella is clever, funny and a wonderful teller of her own tale. A really enjoyable read about one of history’s less well remembered women. 

*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 River Murders – Colette Kebell

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Jack Wood catches thieves.
Shoplifters, kleptomaniac aristocrats, employees skimming the till. If someone steals, Jack finds them.

Then a teenager walks into a Canterbury shop with a rented gun in her bag—one already used in multiple murders.

Overnight, Jack is pulled into a dark black-market trade. A wealthy client’s story doesn’t add up. A detective leaks classified details. And the trail points straight to a corrupt town hiding a nightmare.

Jack Wood is no hero. He might not even be one of the good guys.

Some cities keep their secrets buried. Jack digs them up. One grave at a time.

Pick up The River Murders to uncover Canterbury’s darkest secrets.

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Colette Kebell is an author of Romcoms, Thrillers and a few Raunchies, and thus far
has self-published all of her books.

Her romcoms, due to a few lovely book bloggers, has been likened to a cross between Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic Series, Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’ Diary and The Devil Wears Prada. Her romcoms are light-hearted, fun and quirky and even said to be, by a few that have read them, inspirational. She has also found avenues to translate them all into Italian (thanks to her husband), and most, thus far, into French, Spanish and Portuguese via Babelcube.

Add to the mix the odd Thriller, just to change things up a bit and the raunchies (published under a different name) and I guess that Colette is rather eclectic.

As a career, Colette spent her latter years as a legal secretary. After a first attempt at writing many years ago, a book that remains in her drawer, she resumed this passion a few years back, following
having been made redundant. A few book signing events and a book talk later, which almost caused her to collapse with nerves,

Colette now spends her time at her home in the UK, having sold their holiday home in France. Colette has won the odd award for her writing, but hasn’t made any best
seller lists yet.

Colette has two adorable dogs and spends some time, other than writing and marketing her books, cooking for herself and her husband, gardening or designing various items for their home. Amongst
her other hobbies, she has experimented with upholstery of furniture and she might, from time to time, have a paintbrush in her hand.

Giveaway to Win a “A Just One More Chapter” reading log book, a signed copy of The River Murders, Thorntons Strawberries and Cream Classics & Thorntons Fudge Brownies Classics. (Open
UK only)

My thoughts: Jack used to be a Marine and now he advises businesses on their security, trains security guards to catch thieves and does a bit of private investigating on the side.

But when a teenage girl walks into a department store with a gun, he finds himself drawn into a case mixing human trafficking and organised crime, one with far reaching tentacles and one which will test him to the limits. Jack isn’t afraid of breaking laws to get justice as he sees it.

But a relationship with one of the detectives involved in the case might not be the smartest move he’s made. He’s too close to the case and her boss might be an idiot but he knows Jack isn’t telling the truth about everything. Maybe it’s time for Jack to disappear.

Full of sudden twists and turns as Jack tries to unravel the connections between the girl now in a coma, the countess who shoplifts and the gangster who owns a quarry. He puts himself in harm’s way to help a complete stranger all because he knows there’s more to the case than it appears. An enjoyable, fast-paced read as Jack brings the secrets beneath Canterbury’s genteel exterior to light.

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

**Terms and Conditions –UK entries welcome. Please enter using the Gleam link above. The winner will be selected at random via Gleam from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or
email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of
the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for
fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.**

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Blog Tour: Murder with a Side of Red Velvet – Skylar Warren

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It’s a blazin’ summer in Willow Bluff, Georgia, and chef Jessie Haynes has prepared the best darn wedding buffet the town has ever tasted. Love is in the air—peppered with the tantalizing aroma of fried chicken, and just a dash of… murder?

At the centre of Jessie’s pitch-perfect dinner table sits a tiered red velvet cake, decorated in pearly-white icing and delicate pink roses, just waiting for its moment to shine. But when groom Tommy Prescott takes a bite, he immediately slumps to the floor, dead. His wedding toast becomes his eulogy as his bride collapses in a sobbing heap of tulle and lace beside him.

Back at Honeybee’s Diner, Jessie dusts down her apron and rolls up her sleeves, fixin’ to find the killer—fast. But as folks around town start to spill the beans, she realizes this investigation won’t be a piece of cake. The happy couple were surrounded by bad apples—was it the one of groom’s grown children who feared they would lose their inheritance? Or the bride’s former foe, in an extreme case of sour grapes?

Honing-in on the bride’s years at Willow Bluff High, Jessie has success in her sights. But then the wedding planner goes missing, and the investigation looks to be well and truly cooked. Terrified the blushing bride could be next, the race is on for Jessie to follow the breadcrumbs and catch this killer before the whole case crumbles…

A deliciously gripping cozy mystery that will leave you hungry for more. If you like Ellery Adams, Deany Ray or Agatha Christie, you won’t be able to put this down.

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Skylar Warren is a Chicago native and a graduate of Chicago State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communications, Media Arts and Theatre. She now lives in New York City and works as a claims adjuster. In her spare time, she enjoys watching mysteries and solving puzzles.

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My thoughts: Jessie has been hired to cater a small event, which turns out to be a wedding, and then after taking a bite of wedding cake, the groom drops dead.

Jessie didn’t make the cake but unfortunately that doesn’t stop the gossip-mongers of Willow Bluff from claiming her diner is closing down.

So Jessie and co start another investigation, this time to find out who poisoned the cake – and why the groom sprung a surprise wedding on his bride, young enough to be his granddaughter, excluding his children from the event.

Carefully asking questions about the bride’s previous life in the town. Samantha left under something of a cloud and she might be the intended victim, if it wasn’t her ageing beau.

Funny, with great characters (I want Tee to be my friend) and not a book to read when hungry as the descriptions of the amazing food Jessie whips up will make you drool. It’s another highly enjoyable and clever mystery. Can’t wait for the next one!

*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: The Winter Job – Antti Tuomainen, translated by David Hackston

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To celebrate the paperback release of this funny book, i’m re-posting my review from the hardback blog tour. Grab yourself a copy!

Helsinki, 1982. Recently divorced postal worker Ilmari Nieminen has promised his daughter a piano for Christmas, but with six days to go – and no money – he’s desperate. A last-minute job offers a solution: transport a valuable antique sofa to Kilpisjärvi, the northernmost town in Finland.

With the sofa secured in the back of his van, Ilmari stops at a gas station, and an old friend turns up, offering to fix his faulty wipers, on the condition that he tags along. Soon after, a persistent Saab 96 appears in the rearview mirror. And then a bright-yellow Lada.

That’s when Ilmari realises that he is transporting something truly special. And that’s when Ilmari realises he might be in serious trouble…

Finnish Antti Tuomainen was an award-winning copywriter when he made his literary debut in 2007 as a suspense author. In 2011, Tuomainen’s third novel, The Healer, was awarded the Clue Award for Best Finnish Crime Novel and was shortlisted for the Glass Key Award.

In 2013, the Finnish press crowned Tuomainen the ‘King of Helsinki Noir’ when Dark as My Heart was published. Tuomainen was one of the first to challenge the Scandinavian crime-genre formula, and his poignant, dark and hilarious The Man Who Died became an international bestseller, shortlisting for the Petrona and Last Laugh Awards. Palm Beach, Finland (2018) was an immense success, with The Times calling Tuomainen ‘the funniest writer in Europe’, and Little Siberia (2019) was shortlisted for the Capital Crime/Amazon Publishing Readers Awards, the Last Laugh Award and the CWA International Dagger, and won the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel. It was released as a Netflix film in 2025.

The Rabbit Factor, the first book in a trilogy that includes The Moose Paradox and The Beaver Theory, is now in production for TV with Amazon Studios, starring Steve Carell. The Moose Paradox was a Literary Review and Guardian Book of the Year and shortlisted for CrimeFest’s Last Laugh Award. The trilogy was followed in 2024 by The Burning Stones.

Antti lives in Helsinki with his wife.

My thoughts:Taking a last minute delivery job that turns out to be a complete nightmare, Ilmari the postman is determined to buy a piano for his daughter for Christmas.

The dodgy van he’s given guzzles fuel and isn’t exactly designed for driving through the snow. He picks up an old friend, and some unwanted followers  – a Lada and a Saab, both want the sofa in the back of the van and are prepared to do almost anything to get it.

This blackly comic tale of a desperate drive across Finland to deliver a sofa and the unpleasant surprise they find inside it, made me laugh, it’s quite silly and weird, which is very Tuomainen, whose books I really enjoy. The stakes are pretty high and the ending is rewarding, definitely worth a re-read, maybe at Christmas!

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Blog Tour: Good Twin Bad Twin – Renita D’Silva

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I’m shaking as I turn the postcard over. A picture of a pretty Cotswold village. And a message: Bitter Honey, here I come.

It’s in my twin sister’s handwriting. She’s the only person who ever called me that. Except that can’t be true. Because, if it is, then whose body is buried under the patio?

She was the golden one. I was the shy, bookish one. Living in her shadow. Now I have everything I ever wanted. A stunning home on the Dorset cliffs. A handsome husband. A beautiful teenage daughter.

But my husband disappears at night. Our dog is the only member of the family that really loves me. And if my twin sister is alive, then everything I believed about my life is a lie.

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Renita D’Silva loves stories both reading and creating them. Her books have been translated into several languages. Her short stories have been published in The View from Here, Bartleby Snopes, this zine, Platinum Page, Paragraph Planet, Verve among others, have been nominated for the Pushcart prize, the Best of the Net anthology, shortlisted for the LoveReading Very Short Story award and The Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize and longlisted for the BBC National Short Story award. Her first psychological thriller, The Neighbours, won the Joffe Books Prize 2023.

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My thoughts: This was a good twist filled read. Twin sisters Ash and Nish do everything together. Nish is the driving force, the golden girl, Ash is the quiet one, desperate to escape her sister’s shadow.

As adults they are no longer in contact, until a postcard appears. But if her sister is alive, who did she bury under the patio?

As the narrator moves through her life, we try to work out which twin she is, it seems like she’s Ash, but the diary entries and flashbacks suggest something far stranger is going on. When the final reveal takes place – you will gasp.

This is clever, filled with unreliable characters, with people who change their names, their whole lives. With sisters who should have been allowed to be themselves not half of a whole.

*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: The Cold Shore – Rachel Amphlett

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A chilling murder. A coastal town full of secrets. A detective with everything to prove.

When a man is found savagely murdered on an abandoned vessel off the north Kent coast, what begins as a routine inquiry turns deadly. Detective Gavin Piper had intended only a brief visit to assist his superior officer – but when circumstance forces him to take command, he finds himself leading his first homicide case in a place that feels both unfamiliar and unforgiving.

As the investigation deepens, a key witness is found dead and dark secrets begin to surface. With the body count rising and the pressure mounting, Gavin must race against the clock to find the only surviving link – before the killer strikes again. Will Gavin’s inexperience cost him more than just the case? Or can he uncover the truth before it’s too late?

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Before turning to writing, USA Today bestselling crime author Rachel Amphlett played guitar in bands, worked as a TV and film extra, dabbled in radio, and worked in publishing as an editorial assistant.

She now wields a pen instead of a plectrum and writes crime fiction with over 30 crime novels and short stories featuring spies, detectives, vigilantes, and assassins.

A keen traveller and accidental private investigator, Rachel has both Australian and British citizenship. You can find out more about Rachel and her books at http://www.rachelamphlett.com.

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My thoughts: I really enjoyed this, it has the signature Rachel Amphlett blend of really good writing, interesting characters and gripping plot.

Assigned temporarily to North Kent to lead the investigation DC Gavin Piper feels a bit out of his depth, his boss however knows he can do this. And he does. Gradually finding his feet as this far more complex than it first appears case proceeds.

A man on an abandoned boat, murdered with an axe. His ID is in his pocket, but his life is full of secrets. Then a key witness is drowned. Someone is cleaning house. A huge clue in the form of packaging on the boat connects to a break in, but it’s the awful discovery beneath a static caravan that will have you shocked and opens up the case.

Absolutely thrilling, shocking and full of gasp-out-loud moments, this is crime writing at its best.

*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 Priest’s Wife – A.G. Rivett

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When her husband the priest dies, Morag loses more than her life partner. With him goes her home and her place in the community. In addition to these misfortunes, in a society that sets great store by lineage, she is challenged about the mysterious identity of her mother, and it is this that sets her on a quest of discovery that comes, at first, upon a blank, but in time leads her to the circle of the island’s ‘Guardians’, who mediate her discovery of her mother’s identity, and, step by step, her own deeper self-knowing and self-acceptance. 

When Aidan, the new priest, undertakes a campaign to upturn the township’s spirituality, which has accommodated older druidical forms alongside the Christ story, both he and the community are set on a collision course. As tension builds the shareg (headman) of the town, must intervene. Finding no way through that conforms to the norms of his world, he must take a radical and unconventional step. 

The book explores mental breakdown (Aidan’s) and severe depression (Morag’s, at the mid-point of the story when she finds herself at an impasse). It reflects religious tensions that have existed historically. It celebrates the natural world and the resilience of the human spirit in resisting a coercive authority. In doing so, Morag steps into her full personhood.

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Ceredigion author A G Rivett claims to have lived several lives in the course of his one life. Born in London, raised in the Home Counties, he has been a doctor, a priest, and a crofter in the Scottish Highlands. He has lived in rural Northern Nigeria and knows what a simpler life looks like, less dependent on technology. He now lives in West Wales with his wife, Gillian Paschkes-Bell, who works with him as a writing team. There, he grows fruit and vegetables and has sewn a wildflower meadow. He has three daughters and two grandsons.

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My thoughts: I felt for Morag, with her husband’s death she loses not only her partner but her home and her standing in the village. With nowhere for her, she leaves to travel back to the place she grew up, hoping to find a home there. She has questions about her mother’s identity that she alone cannot answer and on her quest for a new home, she must also reckon with her past. Meeting the Guardians helps her, and gives her guidance, but the rest is up to her.

At a point in her life where she might have expected stability and the quiet comforts of home and family, she is thrust into a quest for answers about her past and her future.

Meanwhile the new priest must contend with the islanders unique belief system, his own ambitions and try to find a place in this community that is wary of outsiders. Aiden must attempt to master the challenges of his role and rise to the beliefs his church leaders have in him.

Morag and Aidan are a study in contrast, both are starting again at points in their lives they did not expect and must overcome others’ assumptions about them and their place in the world as well as contend with their own personal internal worries.

It’s another interesting study of change and belief, as with Morag’s adopted son in The Seaborne.

*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: The Seaborne – A.G. Rivett

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John Finlay is fleeing from failure. His engineering business has failed. His relationship has failed. His flight from debts leads him to disaster – and to the Island, where he must learn to live anew.

Dermot, pulling a boy barely alive from the water, has never seen anyone so strangely dressed. His Celtic island knows nothing of debt, nor engineering. Where has this man come from?

John struggles to accept that he has been carried across time and into another world – both like and unlike his own. How he got there is a mystery. But John, the foreigner, must turn slowly into Dhion, the Islander.

Still, he brings with him unfinished business that must be faced, and ideas that may not always be welcomed. Meanwhile Dermot, consumed with a growing jealousy, develops his own deadly agenda.

The whole community finds itself caught up in what becomes a matter of survival – or transformation. A tale of loss and change. A spiritual inquiry. And a love story.

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Ceredigion author A G Rivett claims to have lived several lives in the course of his one life. Born in London, raised in the Home Counties, he has been a doctor, a priest, and a crofter in the Scottish Highlands. He has lived in rural Northern Nigeria and knows what a simpler life looks like, less dependent on technology. He now lives in West Wales with his wife, Gillian Paschkes-Bell, who works with him as a writing team. There, he grows fruit and vegetables and has sewn a wildflower meadow. He has three daughters and two grandsons.

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My thoughts: John finds himself on an island that might be a bit like a lost Scottish/Irish one, where people speak  sort of Gaelic/Celtic language, where Christianity has mixed into their traditional beliefs, and where they still believe in the sidhe (the fae/faeries/fair folk) as well as God the Father and Gaia the Mother.

John is unable at first to communicate with his rescuers, they don’t understand his modern English, too far removed from its mish-mashed roots in Latin, French, Greek and Germanic languages. He slowly learns their language and tries to adapt to the very different way of living, something closer to the way people lived a thousand years ago or so when the Anglo-Saxons and Norse lived in England.

As he adjusts to the island life, he forms relationships with some of the villagers he lives among, attempts to find work he can do, as an engineer he’s keen to build things and introduce some technology to the place. One of the young women becomes interested in him, and this adds to the enmity Dermot, a young man there, begins to feel, seeing John as his rival. A rivalry John does not feel. 

Offered a chance to return to his own time and world, John must choose the life he has found on the island, or the one he was running from – his business, his family and Helen, the woman he left behind. Can he start again there or has the life he has begun to build amongst the islanders become his real life? 

An interesting and imaginative book, would we, if offered a similar chance to begin somewhere new, choose it or return to our technologically advanced but disconnected one? Thought-provoking and intriguing.  

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