Lord Andrew Framlington is known as a rogue of the highest order, a fortune hunter, a man without honour. He plans to marry a wealthy bride to secure his future… but beneath it all, could he be longing for something more, something real?
Miss Mary Marlow, the enchanting sister of a duke, is everything he should not want – innocent, fiercely protected by her powerful family and entirely out of reach. Yet from the moment he sets eyes on her, Drew knows she is the one. Not just for her fortune, but for the way she makes him feel.
Mary knows Drew’s reputation and the danger he poses, knows surrendering to him would be reckless, yet his charm and stolen kisses leave her breathless. Torn between duty and desire, she finds herself teetering on the edge of ruin.
Jane Lark is a writer of compelling, passionate and emotionally charged fiction filled with diverse characters. She is an international bestselling author of both historical fiction and psychological thrillers, and a finalist in British Fiction Industry awards.
My thoughts: We return to the Regency period in this first in a new series book, where Lord Framlington is in need of a wealthy wife. He isn’t too bothered who, until he meets Miss Mary Marlow, half sister to a duke, and a wealthy heiress. Her family are powerful and well connected, she’s related to much of the House of Lords and her father and brother are guard dog like in their behaviour, warning her away from the fortune hunter.
But there’s a connection between them that can’t be denied – or is there? At times Mary doubts Drew’s assertions of love, but she still elopes with him. Now they’re married, does he really love her and does she feel the same?
A witty, fast paced, enjoyable romance, with a dash of intrigue and lots of secrets on Andrew’s part. Can true love bloom when you barely know one another?
*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 blood is thicker than water. I say blood is just harder to wash off your hands.
My name’s Kimberley. I’m twenty-five. I have epilepsy, a seizure alert dog named Muffin, and a job I love as a senior housekeeper in one of London’s top hotels. I’m used to being invisible. Overlooked. Safe.
But that was before Jennifer Clifton checked in. She’s rich, powerful, terrifyingly calm — and she asked for me by name. She gives me my dream job, working in her exclusive hotel in the Scottish Highlands. It’s more money than I ever imagined. There’s just one catch: Don’t open the door to Room 21.
How hard can that be? But something is wrong in this hotel. The guests are unsettling. The staff whisper behind closed doors. And that room — the one I promised not to enter — calls to me. I took the job for a better life. Now I’m trapped in a nightmare.
Jessica Huntley is an author of dark and twisty psychological thrillers, which often focus on mental health topics and delve deep into the minds of her characters. She has a varied career background, having joined the Army as an Intelligence Analyst, then left to become a Personal Trainer. She is now living her life-long dream of writing from the comfort of her home, while looking after her young son and her disabled black Labrador. She enjoys keeping fit and drinking wine (not at the same time).
My thoughts: Kimberley had a rough start to her life, raised in care, diagnosed with epilepsy and asthma, not knowing anything about her biological family or where she came from. She works in a prestigious London hotel as a housekeeper, accompanied by Muffin, her seizure alert dog.
Offered a new opportunity in a very private hotel in the Scottish Highlands should be the chance of a lifetime – but it’s a hotel that caters to a very specific clientele, and not a nice one.
There are so many secrets and Kimberley must uncover them to get answers, to why she’s there, where she comes from and be prepared to change everything and fight back against the figures who’ve been controlling her life from the shadows.
Dark, twisted and shocking, this is not a book for the squeamish or faint hearted, but Kimberley is brave, unafraid and determined to get to the bottom of the secrets of Room 21. Thrilling stuff.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
As a woman, if you lived in Scotland in the 1500s, there was a very good chance that you, or someone you knew, would be tried as a witch. Witch hunts ripped through the country for over 150 years, with at least 4,000 accused, and with many women’s fates sealed by a grizzly execution of strangulation, followed by burning.
Inspired to correct this historic injustice, campaigners and writers Claire Mitchell, KC, and Zoe Venditozzi, have delved deeply into just why the trials exploded in Scotland to such a degree. In order to understand why it happened, they have broken down the entire horrifying process, step-by-step, from identification of individuals, to their accusation, ‘pricking’, torture, confessions, execution and beyond.
With characteristically sharp wit and a sense of outrage, they attempt to inhabit the minds of the persecutors, often men, revealing the inner workings of exactly why the Patriarchy went to such extraordinary lengths to silence women, and how this legally sanctioned victimisation proliferated in Scotland and around the world.
With testimony from a small army of experts, pen portraits of the women accused, trial transcripts, witness accounts and the documents that set the legal grounds for the hunts, How to Kill A Witch builds to form a rich patchwork of tragic stories, helping us comprehend the underlying reasons for this terrible injustice, and raises the serious question – could it ever happen again?
Leading human rights lawyer CLAIRE MITCHELL, KC, and writer, ZOE VENDITOZZI formed the WITCHES OF SCOTLAND campaign with the aim of shining a light on the historic injustice of the Witch Trials. As a result, on International Women’s Day, 2022, the First Minister of Scotland, at issued a formal state apology – the first time in 300 years there had been any formal recognition of those who were most wrongly accused.
Through their tireless campaigning, regular public appearances, and highly entertaining podcast, also called THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND, this pair of ‘quarrelsome dames’ are currently working to build a lasting memorial to the murdered women, and campaign to draw attention to the continued persecution of women as witches around the world today.
In 2022, Claire and Zoe were made Doctors of Laws by the University of Dundee in 2022 in recognition of their work. Claire lives in Montrose and Edinburgh and Zoe lives in Fife.
My thoughts: As someone with a lifelong passion for women’s history and especially the awful ways women were treated in past centuries (tbh it hasn’t really improved) I’ve been aware of the witch trials in England and Scotland (Wales doesn’t appear to have been affected by the same madness) for some time so this book was an absolute must read for me.
It is so well written, so well researched and incredibly interesting, informative and also very infuriating in a way. If I had a time machine (ok, that would be why they thought I was a witch) but things would have been very different. James I & VI especially would be getting a wallop. Awful man.
Women who were a bit different, who were vulnerable in some way – age, physicalor intellectual disability, mental illness, who looked a bit different, who were a bit “odd” were the most common targets for the hatred, ignorance and bigotry that lead to them being arrested, tortured, coerced and killed.
The sheer amount of work that has gone into what was a podcast, also campaign and now a book is incredible and the authors (and all the researchers and campaigners they consulted and worked with) must be applauded for their tireless determination to get the victims of this cruelty recognised, pardoned and commemorated.
I don’t think a similar campaign exists in England, but it needs to – if anyone knows of one, let me know, I’m definitely in.
It isn’t the easiest of reading, the awful things that these women (and a few men) went through, the violent deaths, the way even their remains were treated, is horrible, shocking even if you’re already aware of some of it. But it is important, to give a voice to the women who suffered so intensely, to give them back agency and their names to be remembered as victims of incredible injustice. Powerful, moving and rage-inducing as it is.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Hunter has secretly been in love with her best friend’s brother Dylan for years, despite barely registering as a blip on his radar. She’s not even in the friend zone—more like friend zone adjacent.
But her luck is about to change: Dylan is taking over her spare room, and she’s being promoted to roommate. Could this be the moment Dylan finally notices her? Not so fast. When Dylan moves in, he carries more than just boxes—he brings complications.
Suddenly, the dream of living under the same roof turns into a daily struggle. Dylan is off-limits, for reasons Hunter couldn’t have anticipated, and the closer they get, the harder it becomes to ignore her feelings. But Hunter’s determined to keep her heart in check—no matter how difficult the task. She just has to avoid ogling him in a towel. Definitely don’t imagine what’s under the towel. And try not to swoon when he bakes cookies.
But after he saves her from a terrible date and they’re forced to share a sofa bed at his parents’ house, her emotions reach a breaking point. She’ll have to either move on or move out. Will she tell him the truth—or lose him forever?
The Roommate Experiment is a roommates-to-lovers, forced proximity, STEMinist rom-com perfect for fans of Lynn Painter, Sarah Adams, and Abby Jimenez.
My thoughts: We come to the third in this series of interconnected stories and it’s Hunter’s turn as the protagonist after Nina and Rowena. She’s got a new roommate, and it’s Nina’s brother Dylan. Only problem is Hunter’s been in love with him for years and he has no idea and a girlfriend. Awkward.
As the two attempt to navigate their new relationship status, and Hunter tries to keep a lid on her feelings, could they be more than just roomies?
Fun, funny and really enjoyable, this is another cute rom com from Camilla Isley, with a smart but also a bit hopeless protagonist, great supporting characters and some fun twists and turns, the path to true love never did run smoothly!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
What desperate steps will Lucy Westenra take to save her own life?
Hillingham in Hampstead, once the home of the well-to-do Westenra family, is now divided into apartments. When teacher Kate Balcombe sets about renovating her flat in the attic, she finds an unsent letter written 130 years before by Lucy, the nineteen-year-old daughter of the house.
You may know Lucy from Bram Stoker’s Dracula… a pretty, flirtatious girl with three ardent suitors, she is Mina Harker’s best friend. When Lucy falls mysteriously ill and dies, Van Helsing identifies her as a victim of the vampire. But what if the monsters who hunt Lucy are much closer to home?
As Kate begins to investigate Lucy’s story, she meets James Harker, Mina’s great-great grandson, and together they uncover a long-hidden story of deception and murder.
Rosie Fiore is the author of eight published novels, including Wonder Women, After Isabella and What She Left, as well as The After Wife, written as Cass Hunter. She is a teacher of creative writing and a Royal Literary Fund Fellow. She lives in North London with her family, and can frequently be found wandering on the Heath or haunting a churchyard.
My thoughts: I really liked this book, it gives life and agency to Lucy and Mina, the victims of the count in Bram Stoker’s book. Two young women who don’t have much say or power. Which is of course true of many women in the Victorian era, there might have been a woman on the throne, but women were still not free or equal.
Kate finds Lucy’s letter in her mum’s old flat, never delivered, and wonders about the woman who wrote it, her life, and what happened to her. As she investigates, events will change her life forever. She will also get a glimpse of who her mum was, having lost her quite young.
Along the way she meets James Harker, Mina’s great-great-grandson, and a bond forms. The two will follow in Lucy’s footsteps, from Hampstead to Devon and finally all the way to Texas.
Lucy’s story is tragic, mostly because she has so little power over the events of her life, she cannot fight back against the men who want to use her, so she must find a different path and set herself free.
Clever, interesting and enjoyable, bringing old characters into a new and more rounded version of the story we know from Dracula.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
We’re celebrating the May 27th release of Shadow of the Yew Tree this week! Fans of Outlander and A Discovery of Witches will love this one!
Shadow of the Yew Tree (The Mythic Bones Duology #1)
Publication Date: May 27, 2025
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy Romance
🌙𝙳𝚞𝚊𝚕 𝙿𝙾𝚅
🌿𝙶𝚛𝚞𝚖𝚙𝚢 / 𝚂𝚞𝚗𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚎
🌙𝙼𝚎𝚗 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚙𝚢
🌿𝙾𝚙𝚎𝚗 𝚍𝚘𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎
🌙𝙷𝚒𝚍𝚍𝚎𝚗 𝚖𝚊𝚐𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚍
🌿𝙰𝙳𝙷𝙳 𝚛𝚎𝚙
🌙𝙼𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚘𝚛 / 𝙼𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚎
🌿𝙰𝚍𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜-𝚝𝚘-𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜
🌙𝚂𝚕𝚘𝚠 𝙱𝚞𝚛𝚗
🌿𝙾𝚗𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚍 / 𝙵𝚘𝚛𝚌𝚎𝚍 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚡𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚝𝚢
🌙𝙳𝚛𝚞𝚒𝚍𝚜 & 𝚂𝚌𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎
🌿𝙵𝙼𝙲𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 30’𝚜 (& 𝙼𝙼𝙲𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 40’𝚜😉)
“You must heed our warning!”
“We have always rewarded surrender over sacrifice, Ronan.”
“You must remember this for what is to come—”
“And the promise of who you will meet in what comes after.”
It seemed a lifetime ago that Dr. Ronan Gallagher had succumbed to his obsessive need to uncover the deepest secrets of the Codex Druidicus, a grimoire of the very darkest magic. Though he’d tried to protect his closest friends from a threat that had followed them through multiple lifetimes, the choices made by the Druid doctor had been a betrayal of not only his friends but his own sacred oaths—a betrayal he would pay for with his life.
Through the intervention of the Otherworld, he was given a second chance on this earthly realm to set things right. Yet, while the curse of the evil Sorcerer Cassius, ancient Child of Rome, might have been vanquished together with the Codex, the torturous tendrils born of Ronan’s pride and obsessive weakness still thrive in the shadows, their reach extending further every day.
When his fellow Druids learn of a massive explosion that has reduced a secret experimental Wraith facility to ruins, none can understand how Phoebe Ashburn, the sole survivor of the tortured experiments, has survived the blast’s devastation … and evaded their capture. With dark and volatile Wraith magic now trapped inside her—threatening her control and sanity—Phoebe is determined to discover how to rid herself of this inner darkness … even if it means accepting the assistance of the very Druid doctor whose actions had led to her torture in the first place.
My thoughts: I really liked Phoebe and her take no prisoners attitude, she’s angry and wants revenge on the Wraiths for what they’ve done to her, but she also wants to know what exactly they did. The information she’s found so far doesn’t tell her much. It’s only when she teams up with Ronan and the other Druids that she gets more information. But that still doesn’t help her.
I found Ronan a bit annoying, his obsessive need for control, not telling Phoebe things that might help her, how arrogant he could be. I get that he’s very knowledgeable and carries his own guilt, but I just got a bit fed up with him.
I haven’t read the trilogy that precedes this book, and while I may well go and read it now, I don’t think it’s essential to enjoy this one, if you’re thinking of reading it, do. I liked the mix of magic and modern day Canada and Ireland, I liked most of the supporting characters, especially Imogen. It’s a fun read, I’m hoping the next one is too.
A brutal murder. A deadly secret. A killer who’s done this before . . .
DCI Rob Miller is called to a murder scene in the early hours of the morning. A young woman’s body has been discovered under Putney Bridge. There are clear signs this was a brutal attack. The crime scene is especially unnerving for DCI Miller. It mirrors the victims of the Surrey Stalker — a sadistic predator Miller took down five years ago. But the Surrey Stalker is dead.
This killer isn’t just copying the past — They know things only the original murderer could have known. They know police secrets and crime scene details that were withheld from the press. With the media circling and a mole inside the force leaking information, Miller must untangle a deadly web of deception before the killer strikes again.
But as the body count rises and the noose tightens, one question haunts him: Did he catch the wrong man all those years ago?
Biba Pearce is a crime writer and author of the DCI Rob Miller, Kenzie Gilmore and Shrap Nelson series. Her books have been shortlisted for the Feathered Quill and the CWA Debut Dagger awards, and The Marlow Murders was voted best crime fiction book in the Indie Excellence Book Awards. Biba lives in leafy Surrey with her family and when she isn’t writing, can be found walking along the Thames River path – near to where many of her books are set – or rambling through the countryside.
My thoughts: Putney’s a nice little place, but even nice places can attract terrible people. When a body is found by the river, the first officer on the scene wonders if it washed up from somewhere else, but instead it appears as if the killer has risen from the dead. The woman was killed in exactly the same way as five years before.
DCI Miller and his team have a copy cat on their hands, but more troublingly this killer seems to know details the police withheld from the public. There’s also someone inside the investigation leaking information to the press. Something they really don’t need. The pressure is coming from all directions. Can they catch this killer before he kills as many as the Surrey Stalker did before and prove they were right back then too?
Smart police investigation fiction with a likeable team of officers, a gruesome killer and some pretty clever twists.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own
In November 1944, in the worst winter ever known in Bologna, less than a year since the founding of the Republic of Salò, the bomb-scarred streets are filled with starving refugees who have fled the advancing Allies. The Fascist Black Brigades, the officers of the S.S. and the partisans of the Italian Resistance compete for control in bloody warfare.
Comandante De Luca, once “the most brilliant investigative officer in Bologna” and now working for the Political Police in a building that doubles as a torture facility, finds himself in over his head when three murders land on his desk: a professor shot through the eye, an engineer beaten to death, and a German corporal left to be gnawed on by rats in a flooded cellar.
Losing sleep and his peace of mind, De Luca must close all three cases with ten lives on the line: the Italian hostages who will face a Nazi firing squad if the corporal’s killing is not solved to their satisfaction. As he threads his way through a web of personal and political motivations, risking his life with every step, De Luca will uncover to his own cost the secrets awaiting him in the frozen heart of Bologna.
Carlo Lucarelli was born in Parma in 1960. While researching for his thesis on the history of Italian law enforcement, he became intrigued by the Italian police force’s role in the political upheavals of the 1940s during and after the Second World War. From this seed sprouted his De Luca trilogy, later to grow into an oeuvre of more than twenty crime novels focusing on various characters. Lucarelli hosted the popular late-night Italian television programme Blu notte misteri d’Italia, on unsolved crimes and mysteries, and he is the founder of the Italian crime-writing collective Gruppo 13. He is also a journalist and has worked for multiple Italian newspapers.
My thoughts: I found this very interesting, I don’t know much about Italy in WW2 apart from the fact that they eventually gave the fascists the boot and joined the Allies, so learning a bit about the history and specifically about Bologna, which had its own complicated situation in the 40s, was good.
I also liked De Luca, he doesn’t exactly relish certain aspects of his job at the political police, he doesn’t participate in torture and would probably prefer to just stay a detective, solving murders, much as he does here. He’s trying to solve several different crimes at once, one written off as a crime of passion, another of a rat chewed German soldier found in the water, a third of a man supposedly with connections to the partisans waging their own war on the occupying force.
There’s wheels within wheels, a spy in the department, a woman who may or may not be a killer, the lives of ten prisoners on the line, lies, half truths and the ever present threat of being arrested himself, just because.
He forms an odd sort of partnership with another officer from the passport office, who might be a member of the resistance, as well as a German lieutenant who wants to find out what the dead soldier did with a load of stolen goods, themselves taken from the people of the city.
There are refugees everywhere, living in strange places amongst the bombed out buildings, a whole community sheltering in a theatre, based on what really happened at the time.
The research that has gone into this book is fascinating, it really brings the past vividly to life, I could picture the streets and the soldiers, the air of menace and fear, the scurrying people trying to avoid notice.
De Luca is a brilliant detective, he slowly builds his cases, contending all the while with the complex and delicate political situation, with the genuine risks to his own life if someone isn’t happy with his answers.
If you like historic crime fiction, or any combination of those genres, this is definitely worth 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.
Edinburgh, 1936. People are disappearing. The police are clueless. Can Finlay MacBeth track down the perpetrator before someone else goes missing?
Haunted by his recent past, Professor Finlay MacBeth returns to his home town to take up a new post at the university. Within hours, his reputation for solving the occasional murder prompts the police to ask for his help. Four men—seemingly unconnected—have vanished into thin air. MacBeth must find whatever it is that links the men before the kidnapper strikes again.
But the police aren’t the only ones interested in MacBeth’s activities, and the amateur sleuth soon discovers that finding the missing men is the least of his problems…
In this thriller series set in Edinburgh, Metropolis is book #1 in the Finlay MacBeth Thriller series.
Colin Garrow grew up in a former mining town in Northumberland. He has worked in a plethora of professions including taxi driver, antiques dealer, drama facilitator, theatre director and fish processor, and has occasionally masqueraded as a pirate.
He has published more than thirty books, and his short stories have appeared in several literary mags, most recently in Witcraft, and Flash Fiction North. Colin lives in a humble cottage in Northeast Scotland where he writes novels, stories, poems and the occasional song. He also plays several musical instruments and makes rather nice vegan cakes.
My thoughts: Finlay MacBeth returns to his home city of Edinburgh to teach literature at the university, but news of his success in helping the London police has reached there before him, and after a series of disappearances, the police ask him for his help. Aided by his young apprentice and his flirty landlady, he soon gets to work puzzling out the connections and the perpetrator.
However he is being followed by a mysterious man in a trench coat. MacBeth has secrets, secrets he must protect, but someone out there knows them. And now he will need to find out who.
Clever, atmospheric, full of literary references, particularly Sherlock Holmes, and with an interesting cast of characters as well as an intriguing and somewhat disturbing plot. I look forward to the next book.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Hampstead County Police Department is embroiled in scandal after corruption at the top of the force was exposed.
Cleared of involvement and returned to active duty, Detective Sergeant Casey Wray nonetheless finds herself at a crossroads when it becomes clear that not everyone believes she’s innocent. Partnered with rookie Billy Drocker, Casey works a shocking daytime double homicide in downtown Rockport with the two victims seemingly unknown to one another.
And when a third victim is gunned down on her doorstep shortly after, it appears an abusive ex-boyfriend holds the key to the killings. With powerful figures demanding answers, Casey and Billy search for the suspect, fearing he’s on a murderous rampage. But when a key witness goes missing, and new evidence just won’t fit, the case begins to unravel.
With her career in jeopardy, Casey makes a shattering discovery that threatens to expose the true darkness at the heart of the murders … with a killer still on the loose
Rod Reynolds is the author of five novels, including the Charlie Yates series. His 2015 debut, The Dark Inside, was longlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger, and was followed by Black Night Falling (2016) and Cold Desert Sky (2018); the Guardian has called the books ‘Pitch-perfect American noir.’
A lifelong Londoner, in 2020 Orenda Books published his first novel set in his hometown, Blood Red City. The first in the Casey Wray series, Black Reed Bay, published in 2021, was shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger, with its long-awaited sequel, Shatter Creek, out in 2025.
Rod previously worked n advertising as a media buyer, and holds an MA in novel writing from City University London. Rod lives with his wife and family and spends most of his time trying to keep up with his two daughters.
My thoughts: Even though she’s the one that exposed the corruption in the police department, Casey is still being treated as though she’s tainted, and the new lieutenant is the worst for this. She’s all over Casey, threatening to demand a transfer for her, taking her off the tricky case they’ve landed, blaming her for an over keen identification of a suspect, even when the evidence didn’t fit.
Two people have been killed, there’s a missing witness, then another murder, that may or may not be connected. Something seems off about the case from the beginning. Casey and her team are putting a lot into the investigation, trying to identify the missing witness, a young woman with a small child, trying to deal with the crazy wife of one of the victims, who is throwing her weight around.
The higher ups aren’t happy, the stench of corruption lingers, there’s still an open case on the department with the feds, more heads may need to roll. Now this mess, could there be a connection?
Casey is a diligent detective, she sees things others miss and wants all the answers, she’s not happy with the decision to pin all three deaths on a dead man, it doesn’t make sense. So she keeps looking. And with her new boss threatening her badge, what has she got to lose?
Smart, tense, full of sudden twists, with a brilliant protagonist, the writing is compelling and the plot keeps you intrigued. Excellent.
*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 