Category: reviews

blog tour, books, reviews

Book Tour: The Book of Koli – M.R. Carey*

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The first in a gripping new trilogy, The Book of Koli charts the journey of one unforgettable young boy struggling to find his place in a chilling post-apocalyptic world. Perfect for readers of Station Eleven and Annihilation.
Beyond the walls of the small village of Mythen Rood lies an unrecognizable world. A world where overgrown forests are filled with choker trees and deadly vines and seeds that will kill you where you stand. And if they don’t get you, one of the dangerous shunned men will.

Beyond the walls of the small village of Mythen Rood lies an unrecognizable world. A world where overgrown forests are filled with choker trees and deadly vines and seeds that will kill you where you stand. And if they don’t get you, one of the dangerous shunned men will.
Koli has lived in Mythen Rood his entire life. He knows the first rule of survival is that you don’t venture beyond the walls.

What he doesn’t know is — what happens when you aren’t given a choice?

My thoughts:

It took me a while to get into this book, the faux naive dialect it’s written in grated at first but once the plot got going and Koli was no longer just explaining things and was actually on his way in the world it definitely improved.

That can be the problem with the first book in a series which has to explain how much has changed from our reality – The Book of Koli is set in a future Earth after nature has revolted against humanity and become murderous, though not quite in a Day of the Triffids way.

It will be interesting to see how the story progresses through the rest of the trilogy.

*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 Carer – Deborah Moggach*

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James is getting on a bit and needs full-time help. So Phoebe and Robert, his middle-aged offspring, employ Mandy, who seems willing to take him off their hands.

But as James regales his family with tales of Mandy’s virtues, their shopping trips and the shared pleasure of their journeys to garden centres, Phoebe and Robert sense something is amiss.

Then something extraordinary happens which throws everything into new relief, changing all the stories of their childhood – and the father – that they thought they knew so well.

Deborah Moggach, OBE is an English novelist and an award-winning screenwriter. She has written nineteen novels, including The Ex-Wives, Tulip Fever, These Foolish Thing, Heartbreak Hotel and Something to Hide. She lives in London.

My thoughts:

This book did not go where I thought it would, with a heck of a twist, or two, this is a thoroughly enjoyable book where family hides a dozen secrets and revealing them can change everything.

The writing is warm and engaging, the characters realistic and relatable, the plot clever and shows what a skilled writer can do.

*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 Forgotten Sister – Nicola Cornick*

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1560: Amy Robsart is trapped in a loveless marriage to Robert Dudley, a member of the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Surrounded by enemies and with nowhere left to turn, Amy hatches a desperate scheme to escape—one with devastating consequences that will echo through the centuries…
Present Day: When Lizzie Kingdom is forced to withdraw from the public eye in a blaze of scandal, it seems her life is over. But she’s about to encounter a young man, Johnny Robsart, whose fate will interlace with hers in the most unexpected of ways. For Johnny is certain that Lizzie is linked to a terrible secret dating back to Tudor times. If Lizzie is brave enough to go in search of the truth, then what she discovers will change the course of their lives forever.

My thoughts:

The past and present mirror each other in this fantasy tinged historical novel with a twist.

Lizzie is drawn into the secrets of the Robsart family’s history following the death of her best friend’s estranged wife. Coupled with her own strange gifts, she seeks the truth of Amelia’s tragic death and also that of noble woman Amy Robsart, wife of Elizabeth I’s favourite Lord Dudley.

Mixing historical fact with fiction, Nicola Cornick suggests Lady Dudley’s death was a bit more complicated that history suggests and reflects it down through the ages, until it comes into contact with Lizzie Kingdom.

A clever examination of fame, friendship and family ensues.

*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: Harrow Lake – Kat Ellis*

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Lola Nox is the daughter of a celebrated horror filmmaker – she thinks nothing can scare her. But when her father is brutally attacked in their New York apartment, she’s swiftly packed off to live with a grandmother she’s never met in Harrow Lake, the eerie town where her father’s most iconic horror movie was shot.

The locals are weirdly obsessed with the film that put their town on the map – and there are strange disappearances, which the police seem determined to explain away.

And there’s someone – or something – stalking Lola’s every move.

The more she discovers about the town, the more terrifying it becomes. Because Lola’s got secrets of her own. And if she can’t find a way out of Harrow Lake, they might just be the death of her…

My thoughts:

I was so excited to read this and I was not disappointed. Creepy, compelling and sinister; it draws you in like a moth to a flame, you just can’t resist following Lola into the woods and caves of 1920s throwback Harrow Lake.

I grew up in the London suburb of Harrow and we had our fair share of folklore and stories, but nothing as spine tingling as Mr Jitters, cave ins and murder.

Although this is YA, I think plenty of adult readers will enjoy it too, Lola makes for a engaging and very naive protagonist and the residents of Harrow Lake are suitably odd for the setting.

*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: Locked in Fear – Liz Cowley & Donough O’Brien*

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The stunning new thriller from the authors of Serial Damage. In a sleepy country village, Detective Inspector Robin Marshal – now in retirement – is nearly killed by a stranger. His friend Alice, a police psychiatrist, discovers that the murder attempt was almost certainly ordered by a terrifying criminal, ‘Big Mack’, currently incarcerated in a notoriously violent prison. There his criminal kingdom controls not only the inmates, but many of the guards, through the power of money and the threat of extreme violence.
When Alice goes to work in the prison to find out more, she too, becomes a target, her car machine-gunned on a country road, and Robin is attacked again while recovering in Spain.
Under pressure from an outraged public and with political concern rising, the authorities try to put a stop to Big Mack’s activities. But everyone is under threat when he is suddenly at large following a murderous escape. How can this evil kingpin be stopped?

Buy here

Donough enjoyed a successful marketing career in Britain, Ireland and the US. His previous books include Fame by Chance, Banana Skins, Numeroid, and In the Heat of Battle: a study of those who rose to the occasion in warfare and those who didn’t. His latest historical book was WHO? The most remarkable people you’ve never heard of. He has co-authored thrillers Peace Breaks Out with Robin Hardy and Serial Damage with his wife Liz Cowley.

Liz Cowley, whose family comes from Connemara, is a long-time fan of poetry, she enjoyed success with her first collection, A Red Dress, published in 2008 and her second, What am I Doing Here? (2010), which were then made into a theatrical show. Her next book ‘And guess who he was with?’ published in 2013, and two poetry books for gardeners, Outside in my Dressing Gown, and Gardening in Slippers, are bestsellers. Serial Damage was her first novel.

My thoughts:

This was a clever thriller about the past catching up to a copper and his psychiatrist friend and former colleague.

As the plot bounds from England to Spain and France, Big Mack’s reach seems unstoppable and Robin and Alice live in fear.

The writing is crisp, the plot clever and the narrative keeps you hooked with each twist and turn.

*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 Lies, Your Lies – Susan Lewis*

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His life was destroyed by a lie. Her life will be ruined by the truth.

Joely tells other people’s secrets for a living. As a ghost writer, she’s used to scandal – but this just might be her strangest assignment yet. Freda has never told her story to anyone before. But now she’s ready to set the record straight and to right a wrong that’s haunted her for forty years. Freda’s memoir begins with a 15-year-old girl falling madly in love with her teacher. As the story unravels, Joely is spun deeper into a world of secrets and lies.

Susan Lewis is the internationally bestselling author of over forty books across the genres of family drama, thriller, suspense and crime, including the Sunday Times bestseller One Minute Later and her most recent novel Home Truths. Susan’s novels have sold nearly three million copies in the UK alone. She is also the author of Just One More Day and One Day at a Time, the moving memoirs of her childhood in Bristol during the 1960s. Susan has previously worked as a secretary in news and current affairs before training as a production assistant working on light entertainment and drama. She’s had homes in Hollywood and the South of France, but now lives in Gloucestershire with husband James, two stepsons and dogs.

My thoughts:

This was a clever, twisting story. What seemed to be one thing turned out to be another. Sometimes the truth isn’t quite what you think.

The story Joely is transcribing turns out to be only one side of the story, and when the tension ratchets up and tragedy seems to loom, Lewis does a bait and switch on the reader and goes somewhere completely different.

*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 Girl & the Stars – Mark Lawrence*

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East of the Black Rock, out on the ice, lies a hole down which broken children are thrown. On the vastness of the ice there is no room for individuals.

No one survives alone.

To resist the cold, to endure the months of night when even the air itself begins to freeze, requires a special breed.

Variation is dangerous, difference is fatal. And Yaz is different. Torn from her family, from the boy she thought she would spend her life with, Yaz has to carve a new path for herself in a world whose existence she never suspected. A world full of danger.

Beneath the ice, Yaz will learn that Abeth is older and stranger than she had ever imagined. She will learn that her weaknesses are another kind of strength. And she will learn to challenge the cruel arithmetic of survival that has always governed her people.

Only when it’s darkest can you see the stars.

Mark Lawrence was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, but moved to the UK at the age of one. He went back to the US after taking a PhD in mathematics at Imperial College to work on a variety of research projects including the ‘Star Wars’ missile defence programme. Returning to the UK, he has worked mainly on image processing and decision/reasoning theory. His first trilogy, The Broken Empire, has been universally acclaimed as a ground-breaking work of fantasy, and both The Liar’s Key and The Wheel of Osheim have won the Gemmell Legend award for best fantasy novel. Mark is married, with four children, and lives in Bristol.

My thoughts:

Mark Lawrence’s last trilogy – The Book of the Ancestor, was some of my favourite recent reads so when I was offered the chance to review his newest book, set on the same world as before, Abeth, I jumped at the chance and I was not disappointed.

Abeth is a dying world, covered in ice where few people can survive, and while the Book of the Ancestor series was set in the narrow band of unfrozen land, The Girl and the Stars is set high up on the ice, and below it.

A brilliant, pulse racing adventure set below ground in a decaying city built by ancient people, the Guardians, a very long time ago, where abandoned children scavenge for iron and glowing rocks, known as stars, for the cruel priests who threw them away due to their perceived defects.

Yaz is special, the regulator wanted to keep her, but she chose to enter this underworld, to find her brother. She learns a lot about herself too, her strength, and some of the secrets of her world.

Yaz is a fantastic protagonist, she reminded me a bit of Nona, from the Ancestor series, fierce, independent and loyal to those she cares about.

The writing was as good as expected, the plot clever and complex, developing the history of Abeth deeper, and there were a few little links to the previous series for the eagle eyed reader. But you could easily read this without having read anything else by the author.

*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 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.