Category: reviews

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Girl in the White Dress*

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The Girl in the White Dress is quite simply unforgettable and unputdownable.

It is based on true story .

Every Family has secrets.

Imagine discovering you were guilty of something you can’t remember.

1974 A family from London take a trip of a lifetime to the Caribbean aboard the cruise liner Oriana.

2005 The Peak District. Following the death of his wife , Paul finds a menu card from the Oriana covered in personal messages from the ghosts of his childhood.

One particular address catches his eye , and memories are stirred as he begins to dream about a girl in a white dress.Gradually with his mothers help he starts to unravel the identity of a long forgotten childhood sweetheart, and the disturbing truth about an incident that took place in their cabin.

Something that would implicate his whole family, a Pandoras box of lies and deceit.Paul never saw the girl again after the cruise .

Their shared guilt had remained hidden for 30 years.

That was until today…

It is a remarkable true story about loss and grief, and one persons quest for the truth. Sometimes in life things happen to us that are beyond our control; you don’t need to believe in ghosts or the supernatural, just believe in the Universe and the threads of random chance that link us all together.

Amazon

Paul Barrell is a keen sportsman, and has skied all over the world. He is a serial entrepreneur and has owned restaurants, wine companies and is passionate about food and wine. He came to writing later than most, and writes about real events and people that have shaped his life. His first book Postcards from Pimlico is currently being turned into a screenplay for TV. He now lives in the Surrey Hills with his wife and rescue dog Lottie.

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My thoughts:

This was a fascinating story of memory and the things that haunt us, even if we can’t name them.

Paul and his daughter move to Cheshire following his wife’s death; among their possessions he finds a menu card from a cruise his family took when he was 13. Among the names scribbled on the back is a local address. Paul’s vague memories of the trip draw him down memory lane and he looks for the girl in the white dress who starts to haunt his dreams.

*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: Perdition’s Child – Anne Coates*

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The new book in the bestselling Hannah Weybridge thriller series!

Dulwich Library is the scene of a grisly murder, followed swiftly by another in Manchester, the victims linked by nothing other than their Australian nationality. Police dismiss the idea of a serial killer, but journalist Hannah Weybridge isn’t convinced. She is drawn into an investigation in which more Australian men are killed as they try to trace their British families. Her research reveals past horrors and present sadness, and loss linked to children who went missing after the Second World War. Have those children returned now?
Once again Hannah finds herself embroiled in a deadly mystery, a mystery complicated by the murder of Harry Peters; the brother of Lucy, one of the residents of Cardboard City she had become friendly with. It soon becomes clear Lucy is protecting secrets of her own.
What is Lucy’s link to the murders and can Hannah discover the truth before the killer strikes again?

Buy here


For most of her working life in publishing, Anne has had a foot in both camps as a writer and an editor, moving from book publishing to magazines and then freelancing in both. Having edited both fiction and narrative non-fiction, she has also had short stories published in a variety of magazines including Bella and Candis and is the author of seven non-fiction books. Telling stories is Anne’s first love and nearly all her short fiction as well as Dancers in The Wind and Death’s Silent Judgement began with a real event followed by a ‘what if …’. That is also the case with the two prize-winning 99Fiction.net stories: Codewords and Eternal Love.

My thoughts:

Set in the 1990s and inspired by the real life cases of children wrongly sent to Australia during the Seconf World War, this is a clever, knotty thriller that takes in murder, government cover ups, child abuse and religious maniacs.

Hannah Weybridge is a determined journalist and investigator, her connections to families of the men murdered make this case personal to her, but also puts her at great risk from a killer who wants to complete his mission.

Well written, gripping and full of detail, Anne Coates’ books deserve to be as well known as other crime writers like Val McDermid, Lynda LaPlante and Kathy Reichs.

*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 Princess of Felling – Elaine Cusack*

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The Princess of Felling describes Elaine’s childhood and adolescence growing up on Tyneside in the 1970s and 1980s. The book pays homage to her home town of Felling on Tyne and is an extended, loving letter to her late parents.

This illustrated poetic memoir features a Foreword by Michael Chaplin, photographs of Felling taken in summer 2018 by Rossena Petcova and unique maps by poet and artist Steve Lancaster.

The book contains reminiscences by Felling folk plus guest appearances by Nick Heyward, David Almond, Tracey Thorn, Sir Kingsley Amis, The Reverend Richard Coles, Lady Elsie Robson, U.A. Fanthorpe, Gyles Brandreth and more.

Buy your copy in person from selected outlets including Hexham’s Cogito Books, Felling Volunteer Library, Newcastle Central Library, Happy Planet Studio and Gallery in Whitley Bay and online from Elaine’s publisher http://www.limelightclassics.com.

Find out more about Elaine’s writing and forthcoming gigs by visiting http://www.dipdoomagazoo.wordpress.com, http://www.ticketsource.co.uk/cusackmansions and by liking her Elaine Cusack writer page on Facebook.

The Princess of Felling by Elaine Cusack resonates with readers of all ages. As actress and Felling lass Jill Halfpenny says in the book, “Reading Elaine’s stories and poetry takes me back to my childhood in Felling and all of the smells, sounds and tastes of that time. Her words allow me to remember things that I didn’t know I’d forgotten.”

READERS’ COMMENTS

“It’s perfect! I picture it like the Hundred Acre Wood…only in Felling. Just as magic, though.”

“Was so tempted to gobble this down in one sitting but forced myself to savour small delightful morsels. Just beautiful. And I’d forgotten all about skinshees!”

“In parts it’s educational, nostalgic, humorous, sometimes evoking sad memories for me and lovely memories too. The story telling is seamless and impressive; I summed it up as being a delight!”

“It isn’t long enough! You get to the end and you want more! I love that it’s full of nostalgia and gentle pathos, but shot through with such a delightful, whimsical humour. It’s made me do what I never imagined I’d do: roam around the streets of Felling on Google Earth, looking for the places where these magic events occurred.”

My thoughts:

Something different today, a part memoir, part collection, part making of here as poet and writer Elaine Cusack revisits her childhood in Felling on Tyne. Family photos add to the memories and history Elaine shares with us, taking the story of her life from her first home on Nursery Lane to her moving away for university and then returning as an adult to revisit the places she remembers so fondly.

There is a strong sense of time and place in Elaine’s memoir, aided by recollections of the TV and music of the time.

This was an interesting and clearly deeply personal ode to a small North East town.

*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: Breaker – Annemarie Allan*

ramblingmads

An environmental disaster. An undersea adventure.

Tom and Beth are not happy when they move to Scotland and find themselves facing a rainy, windswept beach, a house that’s falling to pieces, and a school full of strangers.

But when an oil tanker crashes into the Bass Rock, their small seaside town is shaken to its core and Tom and Beth suddenly find themselves in a race to rescue the local sea life and save their new community from environmental catastrophe…

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Annemarie Allan’s first published novel, Hox, won the 2007 Kelpies Prize and was shortlisted for both the Scottish Children’s Book of the Year and the Heart of Hawick book awards. Her third novel, Ushig, a fantasy based on Scottish myths and legends, was shortlisted for the 2011 Essex Children’s Book Award.

She writes for both adults and children and her novels and short stories range from fantasy and science fiction to historical and contemporary fiction, taking their inspiration from the landscape and culture of Scotland, both past and present. Annemarie lives in Prestonpans, near Edinburgh.

My thoughts:

This was a thought provoking read, set on the Scottish coastline, an oil tanker runs aground and threatens the wildlife, Tom and Beth join forces with the eccentric Professor MacBlain and his secret weapon Gaia, to stop the spill.

Growing up I remember seeing the images of birds and fish caught in oil spills and being horrified at the loss of marine life. The oceans are uniquely vulnerable to humanity’s mess and slowly we’re choking them with pollution and plastic.

This is a timely and important novel, written in a light hearted style but with a vitally important message at its heart.

*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: Identity Thief – Alex Bryant*

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A shapeshifting sorcerer called Cuttlefish unleashes a terrifying wave of magical carnage across London. A strange family known as the River People move into Cassandra Drake’s neighbourhood. Are the two events connected?

Amazon

Alex has led a largely comfortable but unremarkable life in North London, and more recently Oxford. His main hobbies as a kid were reading and sulking.

When he’s not writing, he’s performing with his improvised comedy troupe, Hivemind Improv. And when he is writing, he’s procrastinating.

The first idea for The God Machine came when he was 19, shortly after falling off a horse. Or possibly shortly before – the exact chronology is lost to history. So is the horse’s name, in case you were wondering.

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My thoughts:

This is a fun, clever fantasy novel, which plays with some of the conventions of the genre, with several surprising twists along the way.

*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: Rebel With a Cupcake – Anna Mainwaring*

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Jesobel Jones is bold and beautiful. The daughter of a hand model and a washed-up rock star, she sees no need to apologise for her rambling house, her imperfect family, her single status … or her weight. Jess makes her own cupcakes and she eats them, too. That is, until Own Clothes Day when a wardrobe malfunction leaves Jess exposed, and a mean girl calling her the one thing that’s never bothered her before: fat.

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Anna Mainwaring read ‘The Lord of the Rings’ at the age of seven and hasn’t stop reading since. After studying English at university, she took the bizarre decision to follow a career in corporate banking. This made her sad so she left, went travelling and trained to be a teacher. When not teaching, writing or hiding from her children in the study, Anna can be found in bookshops, cafes or walking slowly up big hills.

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My thoughts:

Jess is certainly a girl I can empathise with, I was the “big girl” all through high school, the one who made jokes about my love of food to cover up how unhappy I was, but unlike me Jess figures it all out very swiftly. You can bake cakes and work out, you can have curves and kiss cute boys.

With the help of her friends and the support of her somewhat dysfunctional family, Jess is going to be The Rebel with a Cupcake!

This was a fun read with real heart.

*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 F*ck It List – John Niven*

ramblingmads

You are dying. Who do you kill?

Set in a near-future America, an America that has borne two terms of Trump Presidency and is now in the first term of Donald’s daughter as president, Frank Brill, a retired small-town newspaper editor, lives in a world where the populist policies Trump is currently so keen to pursue have been a reality for some years and are getting even more extreme – an erosion of abortion rights, less and less gun control, xenophobic immigration policies.

Frank, a good man, has just been given a terminal diagnosis. Rather than compile a bucket list of all the things he’s ever wanted to do in his life, he instead has at the ready his ‘fuck-it list’. Because Frank has had to endure more than his fair share of personal misfortune. And he has the names of those who are to blame for the tragedies that have befallen him.

But eventually, as he becomes more accustomed to dishing out cold revenge and the stakes get higher and higher, and with a rogue county sheriff on his tail, there only remains one name left at the bottom of his fuck-it list.

John Niven was born in Irvine, Ayrshire. He is the author of the novella Music from the Big Pink and the novels Kill Your Friends, The Amateurs, The Second Coming, Cold Hands, Straight White Male, The Sunshine Cruise Company, No Good Deed and Kill ‘Em All.

My thoughts:

This is a strange book, set in near future America where Ivanka Trump is President and life is horrible for many people, Frank Brill decides to take revenge on the five men who he feels wronged him and his family over the years.

It’s a jarring read, where you find yourself feeling sorry for a serial killer on his cross country mission before the cancer kills him.

Dark and unsettling, with a vision of the future I really hope doesn’t come to pass.

*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: My Pear Shaped Life – Carmel Harrington*

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Meet Greta.

She’s funny.

She’s flawed.

She’s hiding so much behind her big smile she’s forgotten who she is.

But Greta is about to discover that the key to being happy is…being you.

Greta Gale has played the part of the funny fat one her entire life, hiding her insecurities behind a big smile. But size doesn’t matter when you can laugh at yourself, right? Until Greta realises she’s the only one not laughing. And deep down, she’s not sure if she’ll ever laugh again. But with her world feeling like it’s falling down around her, Greta is about to discover she’s stronger than she feels. And that sometimes the best moments in life come when it’s all gone a bit pearshaped…

Carmel Harrington is an internationally published novelist from Co. Wexford, where she lives with her family. She has published seven novels and been shortlisted twice (2016 & 2017) for an Irish Book Award. Her books have captured the hearts of readers worldwide and are published in eight languages to date. She is co-founder of The Inspiration Project and was Chair of Wexford Literary Festival from 2015 – 2018.

My thoughts:

This was a charming, sweet, funny read. The cast of characters are relatable and realistic, I really like Greta and Billie. Uncle Ray was a total sweetheart too.

Funnily enough my Nan’s maiden name is Gale so I felt some kinship with Greta and her love of The Wizard of Oz.

A book with a lot of heart, it reminds you that while life can be tough and there are struggles ahead, you have to do your best to live your best 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: Bitter Wash Road – Garry Disher*

ramblingmads

A modern western set in an isolated Australian bush town with a soaring crime rate, where a local constable with a troubled past must investigate the death of a teenage girl whose murder threatens to set the dusty streets ablaze.

Constable Paul Hirschhausen—“Hirsch”—is a recently demoted detective sent from Adelaide, Australia’s southernmost booming metropolis, to Tiverton, a one-road town in the country three hours north.

Hirsch isn’t just a disgraced cop; the internal investigations bureau is still trying to convict him of something, even if it means planting evidence. When someone leaves a pistol cartridge in his mailbox, Hirsch suspects that his career isn’t the only thing on the line.
But Tiverton has more crime than one cop can handle, due largely to the town’s stagnant economy, rural isolation, and entrenched racism and misogyny. When the body of a 16-year-old local girl is found on the side of the highway, the situation in Tiverton gets even more sinister, and whether or not Hirsch finds her killer, there’s going to be hell to pay.

My thoughts:

A remote Australian town, a violent death, a dysfunctional police force and a cover up gone wrong. Hirsch is in disgrace but determined that crime and murder won’t be brushed away this time.

Unhelpful colleagues aside, the lack of witnesses and general disinterest from the community makes it hard for him to solve the murder of a young woman; despite the convenient “accident” Hirsch’s instincts sense more going on than it appears.

The setting, the plot and the sense of isolation give the novel a claustrophobic feel, as Hirsch drives along the handful of roads, trying to solve crime in his truck, despite a campaign of intimidation against him.

A clever, twisted read, with an ending I didn’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.

books, reviews

Book Review: Plan for the Worst – Jodi Taylor

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I would have trusted this man with my life. Until a couple of days ago, anyway.

You know what they say – hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

Max is quite accustomed to everything going wrong. She’s St Mary’s, after all. Disaster is her default state. But with her family reunited and a jump to Bronze Age Crete in the works, life is getting back to normal. Well, normal for St Mary’s.

And then, following one fateful night at the Tower of London, everything Max thought she knew comes crashing down around her.

Too late for plans. The worst has happened. And who can Max trust now?

My thoughts:

The Chronicles of St Mary’s are some of my absolute favourite books, hilarious, ridiculous, thrilling fun.

I am so pleased that another one has been published because they cheer me up no end.

In this, book 11, Max and co are off to Crete, to witness the end of the Minoan culture, get chased by bulls and then several natural disasters, of course.

There’s the general mayhem that ensues whenever the History Department is involved, a few scrapes with the Time Police and an old foe or two, plus Max in the Tower of London, but thankfully not under arrest.

Laughed out loud several times, to the horror of my husband, in my defence he’s normally at work, but that’s lockdown life for you!

I was super kindly sent a copy by the publishers, but all opinions remain, as always, my own.