I thought I was lucky before all this happened. I have a beautiful baby boy. A man I want to make a life with. A gorgeous cottage in the Cotswolds that we’re in the middle of doing up. Life’s good.
Then Ben drops a bombshell. His brother Adam is coming to stay. ‘Promise me something,’ Ben says as he gazes into my eyes. ‘Don’t believe everything Adam tells you.’
Ben’s not home when Adam turns up, with his waif-like girlfriend — and a suitcase full of secrets. He looks me up and down, his mouth quirking into an amused smile. ‘You must be Sophie.’ Deep in my bones, I know this man is dangerous. He says he won’t stay long.
But the lies come quickly.
First his girlfriend disappears — and I think he’s done something very bad to her. I should have listened to my instincts . . .
Born in West Bromwich and with her family roots deep in the Black Country, Eve has spent much of her life ‘on the run’; she has probably lived in more houses in various parts of the country than most people eat dinners.
Currently settled in Herefordshire with her husband, she often has a houseful of offspring, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, partners and a growing tribe of little ones.
When not writing she can be found playing the piano, enjoying a glass of wine and/or reading, and has a particularly soft spot for historical and spy fiction.
My thoughts: Ben has a lot of secrets, but some of them are understandable, however his rather unpleasant brother shouldn’t have been one of them, dropping “oh my brother (the one you’ve never heard of) is coming to stay” isn’t the way to do things. And then the brother arrives.
Sophie knows something’s off straight away and it doesn’t take long before she’s desperate for the unexpected house guests to leave. But Adam has worked his way into her extended family and isn’t planning on going anywhere. Then his annoying girlfriend disappears and the police arrive. Things are about to get a whole lot worse.
Clever, full of twists, with a likeable protagonist in new mum Sophie and an excellent nemesis in horrible Adam, this is an enjoyable, well put together and engaging thriller.
*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 Celia. Life hasn’t worked out quite how she’d planned. Since her son left for university, Celia has felt stuck at home – battling with her husband Geoff over control of the thermostat, and without the merest glint of a social life. Her only joy comes from the plants she nurtures in her makeshift plant hospital in their Glasgow flat.
Then three unexpected things happen:
She catches Geoff in bed with a secretary from his sausage factory (no pun intended).
Her high-flying best friend Amanda arrives on her doorstep without warning (but with a very large suitcase).
A tall handsome French teacher asks her to tend his daughter’s cactus back to health.
Suddenly, Celia finds her life in freefall, but she makes a decision: she won’t let this be the end of her. She’ll bring herself back to life, just like the plants she works her magic on. But just how do you change the habits of a lifetime?
My thoughts: I really liked Celia, and I love the idea of a plant hospital, as someone who is only able to grow succulents and cacti successfully but loves plants, I need a plant doctor on standby to help me keep the silly things alive.
She’s surrounded by people who love her, despite her deeply rubbish husband in his mouldy caravan. Even though things get a bit chaotic with Amanda crash landing in her spare room, her son home from uni, her mad neighbour bringing cake over and trying to get herself in gear, she’s a good person who deserves to be happy.
The book made me laugh out loud at times and I really liked Enzo and Mathilde too. Geoff the rubbish husband can get in the bin, along with his haggis en croute (yuk). This is feel good fiction 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.
How deep can you go into the mind of a killer before you lose your own?
Dr. Evelyn Shaw is a celebrated forensic psychologist, known for her ability to uncover the minds of the most dangerous criminals. But when she is asked to profile James Hawthorne, a cunning and manipulative serial killer, she finds herself drawn into a psychological battle unlike any she has faced before.
James is no ordinary murderer. He reveals unsettling details about his crimes—and Evelyn’s past. As their sessions progress, Evelyn’s carefully constructed life begins to unravel. Long-buried childhood traumas resurface. James’s eerie knowledge of her darkest memories forces her to question whether he is manipulating her or if her mind is betraying her.
As Detective Inspector Ziggy Thornes races to uncover the truth behind James’s crimes, Evelyn becomes increasingly isolated. The line between victim and accomplice continues to blur. In a chilling finale, Evelyn must face her darkest fears and unravel her own connection to James’s crimes.
The Shadow Killer is a gripping psychological thriller that explores the thin line between sanity and madness, manipulation and truth, leaving readers questioning where darkness truly begins.
Catherine Yaffe is the author of crime thrillers that readers and reviewers frequently describe as compulsively readable. A creative writing student with the OU and a graduate of Curtis Brown Creative, Catherine wrote her first crime thriller, The Lie She Told in 2020. On its release it debuted in the top 10 hot new releases on Amazon, achieved number 1 in the Amazon paid chart and to date has accrued hundreds of five-star reviews. The Web They Wove followed as the second in the Tangled Web series and was released in 2021. Again, it was received with widespread acclaim. The third book in the series, When We Deceive launched in April 2023 and flew straight to the top of the Amazon charts. Catch Me Twice was released in May 2024, again achieving the much-coveted best-seller tag on release. The Shadow Killer is the fifth book in the DI Ziggy Thornes series, though each book is self-contained and can be read as a standalone. Popular with library borrowers and available in all major retail outlets, Catherine’s books have the unique ability to capture the readers imagination with fictional stories that read like true crime. When Catherine isn’t writing she loves nothing more than gardening, horse riding and travelling whenever she can. She lives in West Yorkshire with her husband and a menagerie of animals.
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My thoughts: This is a creepy, sinister case, and Dr Evelyn Shaw, a forensic psychologist, finds herself caught up in the middle of it. She’s attempting to assess a rather nasty killer, one who enjoys playing with her, causing her to question her abilities and her past. Has she met this monster before?
The police think there might be a live victim out there, hidden somewhere and desperately need him to tell them, she might not have much time left. But he refuses to say anything, preferring to taunt and terrify Evelyn.
Then she disappears. It’s a race against time, to find Evelyn and solve the case, the so-called Shadow Killer is messing with them, but there’s real danger here and it’s far closer to home than anyone realises.
Clever, twisted and utterly compelling. I couldn’t put it down. It’s quite gruesome in parts and filled with twists you won’t see coming.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own
*Terms and Conditions –UK entries welcome. Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below. The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter 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.
When everyone is lying, how do you catch a killer?
A brutal attack at Fakenham Racecourse plunges DI Ashley Knight into the competitive world of horse racing, where fortunes are won and lost in the blink of an eye. As the investigation unfolds, a chilling discovery reveals a darker side to this glamorous sport. In these high-stakes arenas, where winning is everything and everyone has something to hide, a few are willing to cross the ultimate line.
Can Ashley, an outsider in a world of whispers and long-held grudges, unmask the murderer before they kill again?
Ross Greenwood is back with a brand new, heart-pounding case for DI Ashley Knight, perfect for fans of Mark Billingham, Ian Rankin and Peter James.
Ross Greenwood is the author of crime thrillers. Before becoming a full-time writer he was most recently a prison officer and so worked everyday with murderers, rapists and thieves for four years. He lives in Peterborough.
My thoughts: I have family connections to the world of race horses, but I don’t know a lot about it, so it was interesting to follow Ashley and her team as they attempt to break into this tight knit but not always happy community of owners, trainers, bookies and race course staff.
The murders are strange, a hammer attack, then run through with a sword, a strange symbol drawn on the victims’ foreheads in the middle of winter. There’s also the attack on affable police officer Frank, is it connected or opportunistic?
It all seems to centre around one stables and the horses and people who spend their time there. Did some of these people fix a race a few months previously? And is the killer sending a message?
As they investigate the victims and the people around them, there seem to be more questions than answers and plenty of suspects too.
The case is really clever and as always there’s lots of clever twists, red herrings, and carefully seeded clues. But Ashley never let’s confusing evidence and attempts at misdirection stop her from finding out the truth.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
1922. Twenty-four-year-old Eleanor Mackridge is horrified by the future mapped out for her – to serve the upper classes or find a husband. During the war, she found freedom in joining the workforce at home, but now women are being put back in their place.
Until Eleanor crosses paths with a member of the notorious female-led gang the Forty Elephants: bold women who wear diamonds and fur, drink champagne and gin, who take what they want without asking. Now, she sees a new future for herself: she can serve, marry – or steal. After all, men will only let you down. Diamonds are forever.
In Poor Girls, Clare Whitfield exposes the criminal underbelly of 1920s London – but this isn’t a morality tale, it’s an adventure for the willingly wicked.
Clare Whitfield was born in 1978 in Morden (at the bottom of the Northern line) in Greater London. After university she worked at a publishing company before going on to hold various positions in buying and marketing. She now lives in Hampshire with her family. Her debut novel, People of Abandoned Character, won the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award and is also published by Head of Zeus.
My thoughts: The Forty Elephants were a real gang made up of female thieves in 1920s London. The First World War tipped the previous social order on its head and women like Eleanor no longer wanted to stay in their prescribed place. Having worked during the war in jobs that might traditionally have gone to men, she has no desire to be a house maid to a wealthy family.
My great-great-grandmother was in service and apparently it was no picnic. Low pay, long hours, early starts and as many houses didn’t have running hot water and central heating didn’t yet exist, back breaking chores like lugging hot water up the stairs for baths and cleaning all the grates. Fun. Not.
I can see why Nell doesn’t want that life, and the appeal of the Forty Elephants too. Although I’m not criminally minded, seeing other women just like you dressed up, wearing diamonds and appearing to have a great life, well why wouldn’t you want to try it?
I liked Nell, she’s an interesting character, she wants more from life and is willing to do almost anything to get it, a modern women in a modern age, not wanting to be held in place by social class. She does risk getting sent to prison, as many of the Elephants were, but for her it’s almost worth it, just to break out of her expected role.
I enjoyed the snapshot of a different London, the dark underbelly, the way working class people lived, as opposed to the upper classes more often depicted. The contrast between the different stratas of society fascinates me, so this was very interesting and entertaining reading.
*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 investigation into a young woman’s disappearance in 1989 falters as Yugoslavia unravels in war.
Beautiful Silva doesn’t come home. Young cop Gorki Sain discovers that she isn’t what she seemed–she dabbled in drugs and dealt in heroin. But Gorki soon finds himself out of a job as Yugoslavia plunges into a fratricidal war. Yet her brother stubbornly continues the search, amid the upheavals of Croatian society, from the fall of communism, through the 1991-1995 war, to the explosion of tourism with its toxic land speculation and corruption. Much happens as if we were witnessing vengeful providence at work in an ancient tragedy, in this case, set off by a sordid crime.
Jurica Pavičić (born 1965) is a Croatian writer, scriptwriter, and journalist, living in Split. He has written seven novels, two collections of short stories and essays. His work has been translated into five languages, but Red Water is his first novel to be translated into English.
Matt Robinson, born in the UK in 1978, lives in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Formerly a foreign correspondent with Reuters, he now works as a freelance editor and literary translator. Red Water is the second novel he has translated.
My thoughts: When seventeen year old Silva doesn’t come home from a local festival, her parents think she’s with her boyfriend, but he was away the night before. Where can she be? As her family search for her, worry grows. The police detective, Gorki Sain, assigned to her case is stumped too. There seem to be no witnesses to anything. But Silva had secrets.
As Yugoslavia falls into civil war and splits apart, only Silva’s father and brother Mate continue searching for her. Travelling further and further afield following possible sightings. A witness did eventually come forward, claiming to have spoken to Silva at the bus station.
As the years go by and people’s lives change, her family remain haunted by her absence. Even the former detective wonders what happened to her. Will they ever know?
Clever and interesting, blending the family’s lives with the history of Croatia in the late 80s to present day, as Silva’s absence leaves its mark on many lives. This gripped me and didn’t let go. The ending was unexpected and the twists to the tale enjoyable and satisfying. Brilliant.
*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 release week for Potions & Prejudice by Tee Harlowe! If you love cozy fantasy and all the cottagecore vibes, you’re going to want to grab this beauty right away! Did we mention there’s also a sentient cottage?
Potions & Prejudice (Moonflower Witches Book #1)
Release Date: June 3, 2025
Genre: Cozy Fantasy
Enemies to lovers
He falls first
Slow burn
Cottagecore
Cozy fantasy
Only one closet
Witch hates warlock.
Warlock hates witch.
Warlock falls for witch.
. . . Things get very, very complicated.
Elspeth Moonflower just wants to cast a spell. Unfortunately, that’s impossible due to a curse her grandmother cast that forces every witch in her family to marry before using magic. As a result, Elspeth and her sisters are outcasts, helping their mother run her traveling apothecary shop—while she complains that her daughters are all magicless spinsters.
When their cart breaks down and strands them in the charming village of Thistlegrove, Elspeth’s older sister meets a handsome warlock who’s smitten. If only the warlock’s best friend wasn’t completely insufferable. Draven Darkstone is broody, arrogant, wealthy—a perfect example of why Elspeth never wants to marry. But for the sake of her sister, she needs to be nice.
Which is hard when all Draven does is glower at her. It’s even harder when the glowering turns to longing glances. It’s downright impossible when he kisses her.
Little does Elspeth know, the line between love and hate just got thinner.
The low-stakes fantasy of Legends and Lattes meets the romance of Bridgerton in Potions & Prejudice, a spicy cozy fantasy romance with a grumpy sentient cottage, an anxious miniature dragon, and all the cottagecore vibes.
My thoughts: I really liked this sweet and funny book (with some very spicy scenes fyi) about witches who can’t stand each other, and then falling in lust that turns to love. It’s also about family, working out how to go from being a sort-of parent to being a friend and sibling, there’s a sentient house and a talking dragon, and soup, lots of soup. Plus quirky villagers, a vampire who’s bad news and a Witch Superior who needs to calm down.
Elspeth has been looking out for her mother and four sisters for years, as the family stay on the move to avoid anyone finding out they’re breaking the law. She trusted someone once and they betrayed her, so she has no intention of doing that again.
Draven is an innkeeper with a host of not so secret secrets, a teenage sister he’s trying to bond with, a pet talking dragon and a headache from juggling everything. When he meets Elspeth, sparks fly – but not the good kind.
After a rather fancy ball at Draven’s family home, however things look a bit different, but can these two actually admit they have feelings or will Elspeth and her family take off again without her saying a word?
Fun, funny, entertaining and enjoyable.
Head over to Instagram and enter the giveaway to win a copy for yourself.
Step into the thrill and danger of Tudor England in the rich, compelling new novel from Sunday Times bestseller Alison Weir – and witness the rise and fall of Cardinal Wolsey.
It begins with young Tom Wolsey, the bright and brilliant son of a Suffolk tradesman, sent to study at Oxford at just eleven years old. It ends with a disgraced cardinal, cast from the King’s side and estranged from the woman he loves. The years in between tell the story of a scholar and a lover, a father and a priest. From the court of Henry VIII, Tom builds a powerful empire of church and state. At home in London, away from prying eyes, he finds joy in a secret second life. But when King Henry, his cherished friend, demands the ultimate sacrifice, what will Wolsey choose?
Alison Weir’s riveting new Tudor novel reveals the two lives of Cardinal Wolsey, a tale of power, passion and ambition.
Alison Weir is a bestselling historical novelist of Tudor fiction, and the leading female historian in the United Kingdom. She has published more than thirty books, including many leading works of non-fiction, and has sold over three million copies worldwide. Her novels include the Tudor Rose trilogy, which spans three generations of history’s most iconic family – the Tudors, and the highly acclaimed Six Tudor Queens series about the wives of Henry VIII, all of which were Sunday Times bestsellers. Alison is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an honorary life patron of Historic Royal Palaces. Find Alison online: X: @AlisonWeirBooks | FB: Alison Weir | http://www.alisonweir.org.uk
Alison on Wolsey; Cardinal Thomas Wolsey enjoyed one of the most meteoric careers in history. From humble beginnings in an Ipswich inn, he rose to become Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor and cherished friend. The King relied heavily on his political acumen and remarkable ability, ignoring the jealous criticisms of the nobles, who resented Wolsey for usurping what they saw as their role as the monarch’s natural advisers. Wolsey operated on an international stage and worked hard to broker universal peace. All was going dazzlingly until Henry fell in love with Anne Boleyn – the woman whom Wolsey would one day call ‘the night crow’ – and sought to end his marriage to his first wife, Katherine of Aragon. Swept up in the maelstrom of ‘the Divorce’, Wolsey – who had successfully striven to give his master everything he wanted – found himself in an impossible situation, with his world crumbling around him. I wanted to tell the story of Wolsey the man, his incredible rise to power and his tragic fall. I was also keen to delve beyond the splendour and political machinations of the Tudor court to reveal the secrets of Wolsey’s private life, the mistress he loved devotedly, and the tragedy that overtook them. This is ultimately a tale of two women, one who loved him and one who hated him and also a tale of two men, king and commoner, the special, deep-rooted bonds that brought them together, and the forces that drove them apart.
My thoughts: I remember learning about Wolsey in history and I’ve been to Hampton Court Palace, which he had built and then had to give to Henry VIII, there used to be a Cardinal Wolsey pub across the road. But I didn’t know a huge amount about him as a person, mostly just about his role in the King’s Great Matter aka the divorce that created the Church of England and shook Europe.
Alison Weir is a historian and her books reflect the research that she puts into them, but in a very readable and enjoyable way. I’ve read several of her others, mostly about the women of the Tudor family, so it was interesting to have a different perspective.
Wolsey rose incredibly high, holding a huge number of offices both in government and the church, some at the same time. But it was always precarious, Henry being famously mercurial and not an easy man to get along with. He had people locked in the tower and beheaded for crossing him, and Wolsey’s main job seems to have been managing the King’s moods and temper.
But he had a whole secret life too, he was in love with Joan Larke, the sister of a friend, and despite his being a priest, they lived together and had children. Sadly they couldn’t live openly or raise their children, it would have meant disgrace. Joan does eventually leave him and would marry twice, having other children. But he seems to have loved her all his life.
Much of the narrative does indeed cover Wolsey’s most famous role – that of trying to negotiate with the Pope to annul Henry’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn. Anne and Wolsey do not like one another, and she schemes against him, trying to force Henry to put his chief advisor aside. She believes that he’s not really trying to find a resolution, even as Wolsey pleads with the Pope to end the Royal marriage.
His downfall is sudden and brutal, sent from court and kept in what probably felt like poverty after all his riches in Esher, then promptly dispatched to York, stripped of his titles and many of his offices, properties and wealth. Finally he is told to return to court, to answer to the king, but taken ill enroute, the once mighty cardinal, Henry VIII’s right hand man, dies.
His mark on history is evident, while he wasn’t alive to see the birth of the Church of England, he laid the groundwork for the huge upheaval that followed. The dissolution of the monasteries, the split from Rome, the many marriages of the king.
This was a very enjoyable, detailed and interesting book, I really liked learning more about this man and Alison Weir has given him a rich, complicated inner life, if he had thrown over his vows, quit and moved quietly to Suffolk with Joan, things would have been very different, both for him and for history.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
‘Good job you didn’t turn on the lights . . .’ A student nurse has the shock of her life when she discovers her patient, prosecutor Derek Nicholson, brutally murdered in his bed. The act seems senseless – Nicholson was terminally ill with only weeks to live. But what most shocks Detective Robert Hunter of the Los Angeles Robbery Homicide Division is the calling card the killer left behind.
For Hunter, there is no doubt that the killer is trying to communicate with the police, but the method is unlike anything he’s ever seen before. And what could the hidden message be?
Just as Hunter and his partner Garcia reckon they’ve found a lead, a new body is found – and a new calling card. But with no apparent link between the first and second victims, all the progress they’ve made so far goes out of the window.
Pushed into an uncomfortable alliance with confident investigator Alice Beaumont, Hunter must race to put together the pieces of the puzzle . . . before the Death Sculptor puts the final touches to his masterpiece.
My thoughts: Another creepy and chilling killer for Hunter and Garcia to find, LA seems to attract the worst monsters. This one is turning his victims into strange flesh sculptures. Hunter knows there’s a message here, but he needs to figure out what it is so they can solve the case.
They’re asked to work with DA’s investigator Alice Beaumont on the case, she’s an interesting addition to their partnership and brings a different perspective to the case.
It’s a race against time to figure out what the killer is saying with his disturbing artworks, keeping the reader guessing as to how exactly the detectives are going to solve another case before anyone else gets killed.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Greg Weaving took a gun to his workplace and killed several of his colleagues, before turning the weapon on himself.
A year on, plagued by guilt and humiliation, Marcus Weaving has been nursing a serious case of amnesia at The Barbary hospital. His son’s crimes caused a ripple effect in the local community and the media pointed fingers in his direction. As a former mental health professional, how could he not know that his own flesh and blood was planning on committing mass murder?
Determined to recover from his public scars and resume civilian life, Marcus is notably distracted by another patient at The Barbary. Lily is a traumatised young veteran suffering from depression and severe PTSD. She is just as intriguing as her beauty is unsettling for him.
Marcus observes questionable things happening at the hospital. Being a man of principle, he runs to the most logical possibilities, but even they are failing to alleviate his worries. Lily seems to be a conduit for these bizarre events and they are pulling at a familiar string in his spirit.
Kateri Stanley is a dark fiction author. Her books include bestselling debut horror FORGIVE ME, fantasy thriller FROM THE DEEP and the soon-to-be-released, BITTERSWEET INJURIES. By day, she works for a charity supporting people in prison with debt and gambling issues. She lives with her partner and cat in the Midlands, UK.
My thoughts: I read the first book in this series, Bittersweet Injuries, before I read this, and it does fill in the back story perfectly, and explain who everyone is, and what happened.
Cordial Convictions opens a year after the events of the previous book, with Marcus coming to the end of his stay in The Barbery, a mental health unit, after being found in a park with amnesia. He can’t remember what happened before his younger son Greg killed several colleagues and then himself. Wracked with guilt, Marcus has struggled to move past that point, wondering whether he could have prevented the deaths and saved his son.
He’s drawn to Lily, another patient, a former soldier with PTSD and strange dreams of events she can’t possibly have been present for.
There’s more to both of them, and a connection that’s much deeper than either of them can possibly know. When Lily begins to suffer strange incidents in the night, leaving her screaming and claiming evil visitors, Marcus is concerned, she seems so lucid, but this makes no sense.
Events are in motion that are much bigger than these two people but they may well be key in what comes next, Lily’s family are involved in an ancient and ongoing battle, and she was once one of their best.
Could her memories be the secret to saving the world?
Clever, twisting and complex fantasy writing, that reads like a thriller, with a love story at its heart. Book 3 is in the works, can’t wait!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own
ramblingmads 