Category: reviews

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Summoned Ones – Darryl A. Woods*

ramblingmads

The Bericean army was in Malabrim for the ninth straight fighting season. Over the past 9 years, Zybaro, the leader of a small band of unknowns, had evolved from his days as a minor usurper of a tiny kingdom. Now, almost the entire country of Malabrim was under Zybaro’s control, and his army was large enough to easily challenge Bericea’s army. Still, Bericea continued its raids into Malabrim, hoping to stem Zybaro’s methodical progress and thwart his tyrannical means of control. Zybaro had seized village after village, forcing anyone capable of joining his army and enslaving all who remained in deplorable working conditions to supply his army.

This latest conflict with Zybaro had pushed General Darnon to a decision, one he had resisted making for over a year. Though he still held grave reservations about the Prophecies, he was willing to support the clerics who would attempt the summoning. The details of the ritual had recently been discovered in an ancient tome. The clerics were confident they could bring forth the Summoned Ones of Prophecy, those mysterious beings who would aid Bericea in its time of greatest need.

Darnon also had concerns about the location of the summoning. It would have to take place farther into Malabrim than they had ventured in many years. And even if the ritual was effective, it would be a great challenge to get the Summoned Ones safely back to Bericea, in addition to the soldiers sent to protect them. However, Darnon felt that morale was so low, if they survived this battle, he owed his troops the hope the summoning ritual could bring.

Join the soldiers of Bericea and the Summoned Ones through a life-or-death struggle. The Summoned Ones was made up of a small college aged group of friends from a small Kentucky town near the Daniel Boone National Forrest, who find themselves somehow brought to a chaotic world through magic. Their epic journey will push the Summoned beyond the limits of their endurance. This unlikely group will discover many truths about themselves and experience another world beyond their imagination.

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Darryl Woods is a storyteller who hones his craft entertaining coworkers. He also enjoys regaling family and friends with stories of his upbringing in rural Ohio, of the motorized contraptions his father fabricated, and of the timber cutting and sawmill work he did with his father-in-law. With an appetite for reading fantasy, it was inevitable he would choose to write about an epic journey in a world dominated by magic and sword fighting.

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My thoughts:

There’s hints of A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court about this tale of a group of friends pulled into another world and thrust into a war.

Each comes into their own as they aid the Bericean forces defend their homes and grow as people.

I liked the way the group traded knowledge with their new friends, swapping skills and working together. Instead of assuming that they’re better because the Bericeans are less advanced, they see that there is much to be learnt from one another.

This book was a fun adventure story, with well rounded characters and a clearly laid out narrative. Rather than masses of world building that would clog the plot, Woods adds just enough detail for the reader to picture the environment and characters, allowing the action to stay centre stage, which bodes well for the rest of the series.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Strange Book of Jacob Boyce – Tom Gillespie*

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A spiralling obsession. A missing wife. A terrifying secret. Will he find her before it’s too late?

When Dr Jacob Boyce’s wife goes missing, the police put it down to a simple marital dispute. Jacob, however, fears something darker. Following her trail to Spain, he becomes convinced that Ella’s disappearance is tied to a mysterious painting whose hidden geometric and numerical riddles he’s been obsessively trying to solve for months. Obscure, hallucinogenic clues, and bizarre, larger-than-life characters, guide an increasingly unhinged Jacob through a nightmarish Spanish landscape to an art forger’s studio in Madrid, where he comes face-to-face with a centuries-old horror, and the terrifying, mind-bending, truth about his wife.

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About the Author

Tom Gillespie grew up in a small town just outside Glasgow. After completing a Masters in English at Glasgow University, he spent the next ten years pursuing a musical career as a singer/songwriter, playing, recording and touring the UK and Europe with his band. He now lives in Bath with his wife, daughter and hyper-neurotic cat, where he works at the university as an English lecturer. Tom writes long and short stories. His stories have appeared in many magazines, journals and e-zines. He is co-author of Glass Work Humans-an anthology of stories and poems, published by Valley Press.

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My thoughts:

This was a strange book indeed. I got very confused at one point over what was real and what was all in Jacob’s mind. There’s a woozy, disorientating feel to parts of the novel, reflecting the things Jacob is experiencing.

I’m also not 100% sure what happened to Ella or whether she was ever in Spain, this is a book that maybe needs more than one reading to fully understand all the allusions and illusions.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days – Juliet Conlin*

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Approaching 80, frail and alone, a remarkable man makes the journey from his sheltered home in England to Berlin to meet his granddaughter. He has six days left to live and must relate his life story before he dies…

His life has been rich and full. He has witnessed firsthand the rise of the Nazis, experienced heartrending family tragedy, fought in the German army, been interred in a POW camp in Scotland and faced violent persecution in peacetime Britain. But he has also touched many lives, fallen deeply in love, raised a family and survived triumphantly at the limits of human endurance. He carries within him an astonishing family secret that he must share before he dies… a story that will mean someone else’s salvation.

Welcome to the moving, heart-warming and uncommon life of Alfred Warner.

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Juliet Conlin was born in London and grew up in England and Germany. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Durham. She works as a writer and translator and lives with her family in Berlin. Her novels include The Fractured Man (Cargo, 2013), The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days (Black & White, 2017), The Lives Before Us (Black & White, 2019).

My thoughts:

This was a sad and moving story, covering the life of Alfred Warner née Werner, recounted to a kind stranger turned friend as his grandaughter lies in a hospital bed.

Alfred’s life has been full of tragedy and hardship, but also love and kindness, from his early days as an orphan in Berlin, to a POW in Scotland, eventually becoming a British citizen and building a family with his wife.

The writing is warm and inviting, pulling you along with Alfred as he grows, into his present. He desperately wants to impart the family secret to his comatose granddaughter but is running out of time, but Julia, his new friend, provides the means to do so.

This is a lovely, life affirming read and worth spending six days with Alfred.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Storm – Amanda Jennings*

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To the outside world Hannah married the perfect man. Behind the closed doors of their imposing home it’s a very different story. Nathan controls everything Hannah does. He chooses her clothes, checks her receipts, and keeps her passport locked away. But why does she let him?

Years before, in the midst of a relentless storm, the tragic events of one night changed everything. And Hannah has been living with the consequences ever since. Keeping Nathan happy. Doing as she’s told.

But the past is about to catch up with them.

Set against the unforgiving backdrop of a Cornish fishing port in the ‘90s, this is a devastating exploration of the power of coercive control in a marriage where nothing is quite as it seems…

My thoughts:

Coercive control is often in the media at the moment as people understand how dangerous it can be, Hannah’s quite frankly, insane, husband Nathan uses it, along with financial abuse, to keep Hannah trapped in an unhappy, and dangerous, marriage, constantly gaslighting and threatening her.

Hannah lives for her son Alex and dog Cass, her only real outlets, unable to drive, with no job or money of her own. She dwells on a terrible incident from her past, which gave Nathan his power, and when a figure from that past comes back into her life, is forced to deal with things that she’s kept locked away.

Shocking, and terribly sad, Hannah’s story is not unique but set amidst the scenic fishing villages of Cornwall, (shout out to Newlyn, home of the best crab!), it seems somehow magnified.

Jennings is a powerful and clever writer and this book gripped me, waiting for Hannah to finally take back control of her own life.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The End of Her- Shari Lapena*

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It starts with a shocking accusation…

Stephanie and Patrick are recently married, with new-born twins. While Stephanie struggles with the disorienting effects of sleep deprivation, there’s one thing she knows for certain – she has everything she ever wanted.

Then a woman from his past arrives and makes a horrifying allegation about his first wife. He always claimed her death was an accident – but she says it was murder.

He insists he’s innocent, that this is nothing but a blackmail attempt. But is Patrick telling the truth? Or has Stephanie made a terrible mistake?

How will it end?

My thoughts:

This was a very clever, twisting narrative and it was hard at times to figure out who was telling the truth, turning the reader into Stephanie, with conflicting stories that all sound like they could just be true…

The writing was compelling and the plot had me gripped, the deeply ambiguous ending and the sudden twists as well as the subplot concerning another family threatened by the same conniving blackmailer is equally intriguing.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Rags of Time – Michael Ward*

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‘Rags of Time’ is set in London in 1639. It tells the story of spice merchant Thomas Tallant, accused of murder and fighting to clear his name, and the enigmatic Elizabeth Seymour whose passion for astronomy and mathematics is only matched by her addiction to tobacco and the gaming tables.

Can Elizabeth’s brilliance untangle the web of deceit that threatens to drag Tom under, as England slides into civil war?

‘Rags’ is a murder mystery but not just a procedural thriller. Tom’s hunt for the real killer takes him on a journey through the ferment of new thinking that’s sweeping London in the 1640s. Change is everywhere – science, street politics, commerce and religion – and this shapes the plot, action, characters and outcome.

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Writing has been central to Mike Ward’s professional life. On graduating from university he became a journalist, working in newspapers and for the BBC. He then went into journalism education, teaching and researching journalism practice before becoming head of the UK’s prestigious Journalism School at UCLan. For the last eight years he has run his own content creation company.

‘Rags of Time’ is Mike’s debut novel. Its sequel is due to be published late in 2020.

My thoughts:

This was a fun and intelligent historical crime novel, with an engaging protagonist in Thomas Tallent and plenty of period detail.

A suitably knotty plot, replete with conspiracies, religious conflicts and grim murders in squalid Stewart London in the lead up to Civil War.

The reveal at the end was a twist indeed and the plot far more fiendish that it first appeared. An excellent debut that holds it’s own in a growing field.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Precious You – Helen Monks Takhar*

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Trusting you was my first mistake.
To Katherine, twenty-four-year-old Lily Lunt is a typical “snowflake.” It seems like the privileged, politically correct millennial will do whatever she can to make it big as a writer, including leveraging her family’s connections. To Lily, Katherine Ross, a career woman in her early forties, is a holdover from another era: clueless, old-fashioned, and perfectly happy to build her success on the backs of her unpaid interns.
When Lily is hired as the new intern at the magazine where Katherine is editor in chief, her arrival threatens the very foundation of the self-serving little world that Katherine has built. She finds herself obsessively drawn to Lily, who seems to be a cruel reminder of the beauty and potential she once had—things Lily uses against Katherine as she slowly begins to undermine her, sabotaging her work and turning the magazine’s new publisher against her. Is Katherine being paranoid? Or is Lily seeking to systematically destroy her life? As Katherine tries to fight back, a toxic generational divide turns explosive and long-buried secrets are exposed—with deadly consequences for both. . . .
Gripping and provocative, Precious You delivers an unsettling, provocative take on the contemporary workplace, turning the professional roles women play on their heads in a razor-sharp, revenge-driven thriller for our age.

My thoughts:

This is dark tale of stalking, gaslighting and twisted revenge. Lily sets out to destroy Katherine’s life, on the surface just because she can. She’s fuelled by misplaced anger and jealousy, and all of this ultimately will lead to her downfall as Katherine is smart enough to see through her.

Twisted and shocking, with an ending I couldn’t predict, this is a thriller for the way we live now, with generations pitched against each other, competing for the things we take for granted.

*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 Women Who Ran Away – Sheila O’Flanagan*

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Two women form an unlikely friendship as they face up to shocking truths about the men they’ve loved – and take the reins on deciding their future.

Deira is setting out on the holiday she’d planned with her long-term partner Gavin – only she’s on her own. Gavin will not be amused when he finds out she’s ‘borrowed’ his car, but since their brutal break-up Deira’s not been acting rationally. Maybe a drive through beautiful France will help her see things differently.

Grace is also travelling alone, each stage of her journey outlined in advance by her late husband. Ken was head of the household when he was alive, and it seems he’s still in charge. His last decision was a surprise – could there be more surprises to come? There’s only one way to find out, galling though it is to dance again to Ken’s tune.

Thrown together by chance, Grace and Deira find that it’s easier to share secrets with a stranger, especially in the shimmering sunny countryside of Spain and France. But they soon find that there’s no escaping the truth, whether you’re running away from it or racing towards it…

Sheila O’Flanagan is the author of bestselling charttoppers, including Her Husband’s Mistake, The Hideaway, What Happened That Night, The Missing Wife, My Mother’s Secret and All For You (winner of the Irish Independent Popular Fiction Book of the Year Award).

After working in banking and finance for a number of years, Sheila’s love for writing blossomed into curating stories about relationships in all their many forms.

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My thoughts:

A fun and heartwarming journey through France and Spain with two women who aren’t so much running away as running towards their future.

Following a break up (Deira) and bereavement (Grace), both protagonists find themselves on a trip of a lifetime, learning about themselves as they follow a treasure map devised by Grace’s late husband.

I really enjoyed this joyful and warm novel, it would be nice to have been reading it on the beach or by a pool but I had to make do with my sofa!

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: All Adults Here – Emma Straub*

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When Astrid Strick witnesses a school bus accident in the center of town, it jostles loose a repressed memory from her young parenting days decades earlier. Suddenly, Astrid realizes she was not quite the parent she thought she’d been to her three, now-grown children. But to what consequence?
Astrid’s youngest son is drifting and unfocused, making parenting mistakes of his own. Her daughter is pregnant yet struggling to give up her own adolescence. And her eldest seems to measure his adult life according to standards no one else shares. But who gets to decide, so many years later, which long-ago lapses were the ones that mattered? Who decides which apologies really count? It might be that only Astrid’s thirteen-year-old granddaughter and her new friend really understand the courage it takes to tell the truth to the people you love the most.
In All Adults Here, Emma Straub’s unique alchemy of wisdom, humor, and insight come together in a deeply satisfying story about adult siblings, aging parents, high school boyfriends, middle school mean girls, the lifelong effects of birth order, and all the other things that follow us into adulthood, whether we like them to or not.

My thoughts:

This is a clever, funny, warm book about family, the mistakes we make, finding your place and love.

Robin and Cecelia were my favourite characters, I wanted to give them both a hug and cheer on the festival float along with the family Strick.

I really liked the way this was written, moving between the different family members, their pasts and presents.


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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Deadly Vengeance – OMJ Ryan*

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When the fifteen-year-old daughter of UK munitions dealer, Sir Richard Hawkins vanishes without a trace – the race is on to find her. But Sir Richard and his wife’s worst fears are realised when they receive a video of Hollie, tied to a chair, with a masked man holding a gun to her head.

The ransom demands are simple, pay four million pounds in cash – or they’ll never see their daughter again. DCI Jane Phillips is assigned to the case, and has no idea of who, or what she’s up against. But as the investigation unfolds, it becomes clear Hollie’s kidnapping was the work of a formidable gang – who operate in the shadows and will stop at nothing to get what they want.

As the pressure mounts, can Phillips and the team find Hollie before it’s too late? Or will this investigation signal not only the death of the Major Crimes Unit, but one of her beloved team, as well?

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Hailing from Yorkshire, OMJ Ryan worked in radio and entertainment for over twenty years, collaborating with household names and accumulating a host of international writing and radio awards. In 2018 he followed his passion to become a full-time novelist, writing stories for people who devour exciting, fast-paced thrillers by the pool, on their commute – or those rare moments of downtime before bed. Owen’s mission is to entertain from the first page to the last.

Deadly Vengeance is the third Detective Jane Phillips book in the series and OMJ’s fourth book with Inkubator Books.

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My thoughts:

This was a cracking thrill ride against time as the police team under DCI Phillips hunt down a team of sophisticated kidnappers in order to rescue the teenage stepdaughter of an arms dealer with connections to the government.

The pace doesn’t let up and there are several heart in your throat moments, as the chase unravels across the Manchester backdrop. *I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour but all opinions remain my own.