When everyone is lying, how do you catch a killer?
A brutal attack at Fakenham Racecourse plunges DI Ashley Knight into the competitive world of horse racing, where fortunes are won and lost in the blink of an eye. As the investigation unfolds, a chilling discovery reveals a darker side to this glamorous sport. In these high-stakes arenas, where winning is everything and everyone has something to hide, a few are willing to cross the ultimate line.
Can Ashley, an outsider in a world of whispers and long-held grudges, unmask the murderer before they kill again?
Ross Greenwood is back with a brand new, heart-pounding case for DI Ashley Knight, perfect for fans of Mark Billingham, Ian Rankin and Peter James.
Ross Greenwood is the author of crime thrillers. Before becoming a full-time writer he was most recently a prison officer and so worked everyday with murderers, rapists and thieves for four years. He lives in Peterborough.
My thoughts: I have family connections to the world of race horses, but I don’t know a lot about it, so it was interesting to follow Ashley and her team as they attempt to break into this tight knit but not always happy community of owners, trainers, bookies and race course staff.
The murders are strange, a hammer attack, then run through with a sword, a strange symbol drawn on the victims’ foreheads in the middle of winter. There’s also the attack on affable police officer Frank, is it connected or opportunistic?
It all seems to centre around one stables and the horses and people who spend their time there. Did some of these people fix a race a few months previously? And is the killer sending a message?
As they investigate the victims and the people around them, there seem to be more questions than answers and plenty of suspects too.
The case is really clever and as always there’s lots of clever twists, red herrings, and carefully seeded clues. But Ashley never let’s confusing evidence and attempts at misdirection stop her from finding out the truth.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
1922. Twenty-four-year-old Eleanor Mackridge is horrified by the future mapped out for her – to serve the upper classes or find a husband. During the war, she found freedom in joining the workforce at home, but now women are being put back in their place.
Until Eleanor crosses paths with a member of the notorious female-led gang the Forty Elephants: bold women who wear diamonds and fur, drink champagne and gin, who take what they want without asking. Now, she sees a new future for herself: she can serve, marry – or steal. After all, men will only let you down. Diamonds are forever.
In Poor Girls, Clare Whitfield exposes the criminal underbelly of 1920s London – but this isn’t a morality tale, it’s an adventure for the willingly wicked.
Clare Whitfield was born in 1978 in Morden (at the bottom of the Northern line) in Greater London. After university she worked at a publishing company before going on to hold various positions in buying and marketing. She now lives in Hampshire with her family. Her debut novel, People of Abandoned Character, won the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award and is also published by Head of Zeus.
My thoughts: The Forty Elephants were a real gang made up of female thieves in 1920s London. The First World War tipped the previous social order on its head and women like Eleanor no longer wanted to stay in their prescribed place. Having worked during the war in jobs that might traditionally have gone to men, she has no desire to be a house maid to a wealthy family.
My great-great-grandmother was in service and apparently it was no picnic. Low pay, long hours, early starts and as many houses didn’t have running hot water and central heating didn’t yet exist, back breaking chores like lugging hot water up the stairs for baths and cleaning all the grates. Fun. Not.
I can see why Nell doesn’t want that life, and the appeal of the Forty Elephants too. Although I’m not criminally minded, seeing other women just like you dressed up, wearing diamonds and appearing to have a great life, well why wouldn’t you want to try it?
I liked Nell, she’s an interesting character, she wants more from life and is willing to do almost anything to get it, a modern women in a modern age, not wanting to be held in place by social class. She does risk getting sent to prison, as many of the Elephants were, but for her it’s almost worth it, just to break out of her expected role.
I enjoyed the snapshot of a different London, the dark underbelly, the way working class people lived, as opposed to the upper classes more often depicted. The contrast between the different stratas of society fascinates me, so this was very interesting and entertaining reading.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
The investigation into a young woman’s disappearance in 1989 falters as Yugoslavia unravels in war.
Beautiful Silva doesn’t come home. Young cop Gorki Sain discovers that she isn’t what she seemed–she dabbled in drugs and dealt in heroin. But Gorki soon finds himself out of a job as Yugoslavia plunges into a fratricidal war. Yet her brother stubbornly continues the search, amid the upheavals of Croatian society, from the fall of communism, through the 1991-1995 war, to the explosion of tourism with its toxic land speculation and corruption. Much happens as if we were witnessing vengeful providence at work in an ancient tragedy, in this case, set off by a sordid crime.
Jurica Pavičić (born 1965) is a Croatian writer, scriptwriter, and journalist, living in Split. He has written seven novels, two collections of short stories and essays. His work has been translated into five languages, but Red Water is his first novel to be translated into English.
Matt Robinson, born in the UK in 1978, lives in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Formerly a foreign correspondent with Reuters, he now works as a freelance editor and literary translator. Red Water is the second novel he has translated.
My thoughts: When seventeen year old Silva doesn’t come home from a local festival, her parents think she’s with her boyfriend, but he was away the night before. Where can she be? As her family search for her, worry grows. The police detective, Gorki Sain, assigned to her case is stumped too. There seem to be no witnesses to anything. But Silva had secrets.
As Yugoslavia falls into civil war and splits apart, only Silva’s father and brother Mate continue searching for her. Travelling further and further afield following possible sightings. A witness did eventually come forward, claiming to have spoken to Silva at the bus station.
As the years go by and people’s lives change, her family remain haunted by her absence. Even the former detective wonders what happened to her. Will they ever know?
Clever and interesting, blending the family’s lives with the history of Croatia in the late 80s to present day, as Silva’s absence leaves its mark on many lives. This gripped me and didn’t let go. The ending was unexpected and the twists to the tale enjoyable and satisfying. Brilliant.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
It’s release week for Potions & Prejudice by Tee Harlowe! If you love cozy fantasy and all the cottagecore vibes, you’re going to want to grab this beauty right away! Did we mention there’s also a sentient cottage?
Potions & Prejudice (Moonflower Witches Book #1)
Release Date: June 3, 2025
Genre: Cozy Fantasy
Enemies to lovers
He falls first
Slow burn
Cottagecore
Cozy fantasy
Only one closet
Witch hates warlock.
Warlock hates witch.
Warlock falls for witch.
. . . Things get very, very complicated.
Elspeth Moonflower just wants to cast a spell. Unfortunately, that’s impossible due to a curse her grandmother cast that forces every witch in her family to marry before using magic. As a result, Elspeth and her sisters are outcasts, helping their mother run her traveling apothecary shop—while she complains that her daughters are all magicless spinsters.
When their cart breaks down and strands them in the charming village of Thistlegrove, Elspeth’s older sister meets a handsome warlock who’s smitten. If only the warlock’s best friend wasn’t completely insufferable. Draven Darkstone is broody, arrogant, wealthy—a perfect example of why Elspeth never wants to marry. But for the sake of her sister, she needs to be nice.
Which is hard when all Draven does is glower at her. It’s even harder when the glowering turns to longing glances. It’s downright impossible when he kisses her.
Little does Elspeth know, the line between love and hate just got thinner.
The low-stakes fantasy of Legends and Lattes meets the romance of Bridgerton in Potions & Prejudice, a spicy cozy fantasy romance with a grumpy sentient cottage, an anxious miniature dragon, and all the cottagecore vibes.
My thoughts: I really liked this sweet and funny book (with some very spicy scenes fyi) about witches who can’t stand each other, and then falling in lust that turns to love. It’s also about family, working out how to go from being a sort-of parent to being a friend and sibling, there’s a sentient house and a talking dragon, and soup, lots of soup. Plus quirky villagers, a vampire who’s bad news and a Witch Superior who needs to calm down.
Elspeth has been looking out for her mother and four sisters for years, as the family stay on the move to avoid anyone finding out they’re breaking the law. She trusted someone once and they betrayed her, so she has no intention of doing that again.
Draven is an innkeeper with a host of not so secret secrets, a teenage sister he’s trying to bond with, a pet talking dragon and a headache from juggling everything. When he meets Elspeth, sparks fly – but not the good kind.
After a rather fancy ball at Draven’s family home, however things look a bit different, but can these two actually admit they have feelings or will Elspeth and her family take off again without her saying a word?
Fun, funny, entertaining and enjoyable.
Head over to Instagram and enter the giveaway to win a copy for yourself.
Step into the thrill and danger of Tudor England in the rich, compelling new novel from Sunday Times bestseller Alison Weir – and witness the rise and fall of Cardinal Wolsey.
It begins with young Tom Wolsey, the bright and brilliant son of a Suffolk tradesman, sent to study at Oxford at just eleven years old. It ends with a disgraced cardinal, cast from the King’s side and estranged from the woman he loves. The years in between tell the story of a scholar and a lover, a father and a priest. From the court of Henry VIII, Tom builds a powerful empire of church and state. At home in London, away from prying eyes, he finds joy in a secret second life. But when King Henry, his cherished friend, demands the ultimate sacrifice, what will Wolsey choose?
Alison Weir’s riveting new Tudor novel reveals the two lives of Cardinal Wolsey, a tale of power, passion and ambition.
Alison Weir is a bestselling historical novelist of Tudor fiction, and the leading female historian in the United Kingdom. She has published more than thirty books, including many leading works of non-fiction, and has sold over three million copies worldwide. Her novels include the Tudor Rose trilogy, which spans three generations of history’s most iconic family – the Tudors, and the highly acclaimed Six Tudor Queens series about the wives of Henry VIII, all of which were Sunday Times bestsellers. Alison is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an honorary life patron of Historic Royal Palaces. Find Alison online: X: @AlisonWeirBooks | FB: Alison Weir | http://www.alisonweir.org.uk
Alison on Wolsey; Cardinal Thomas Wolsey enjoyed one of the most meteoric careers in history. From humble beginnings in an Ipswich inn, he rose to become Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor and cherished friend. The King relied heavily on his political acumen and remarkable ability, ignoring the jealous criticisms of the nobles, who resented Wolsey for usurping what they saw as their role as the monarch’s natural advisers. Wolsey operated on an international stage and worked hard to broker universal peace. All was going dazzlingly until Henry fell in love with Anne Boleyn – the woman whom Wolsey would one day call ‘the night crow’ – and sought to end his marriage to his first wife, Katherine of Aragon. Swept up in the maelstrom of ‘the Divorce’, Wolsey – who had successfully striven to give his master everything he wanted – found himself in an impossible situation, with his world crumbling around him. I wanted to tell the story of Wolsey the man, his incredible rise to power and his tragic fall. I was also keen to delve beyond the splendour and political machinations of the Tudor court to reveal the secrets of Wolsey’s private life, the mistress he loved devotedly, and the tragedy that overtook them. This is ultimately a tale of two women, one who loved him and one who hated him and also a tale of two men, king and commoner, the special, deep-rooted bonds that brought them together, and the forces that drove them apart.
My thoughts: I remember learning about Wolsey in history and I’ve been to Hampton Court Palace, which he had built and then had to give to Henry VIII, there used to be a Cardinal Wolsey pub across the road. But I didn’t know a huge amount about him as a person, mostly just about his role in the King’s Great Matter aka the divorce that created the Church of England and shook Europe.
Alison Weir is a historian and her books reflect the research that she puts into them, but in a very readable and enjoyable way. I’ve read several of her others, mostly about the women of the Tudor family, so it was interesting to have a different perspective.
Wolsey rose incredibly high, holding a huge number of offices both in government and the church, some at the same time. But it was always precarious, Henry being famously mercurial and not an easy man to get along with. He had people locked in the tower and beheaded for crossing him, and Wolsey’s main job seems to have been managing the King’s moods and temper.
But he had a whole secret life too, he was in love with Joan Larke, the sister of a friend, and despite his being a priest, they lived together and had children. Sadly they couldn’t live openly or raise their children, it would have meant disgrace. Joan does eventually leave him and would marry twice, having other children. But he seems to have loved her all his life.
Much of the narrative does indeed cover Wolsey’s most famous role – that of trying to negotiate with the Pope to annul Henry’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn. Anne and Wolsey do not like one another, and she schemes against him, trying to force Henry to put his chief advisor aside. She believes that he’s not really trying to find a resolution, even as Wolsey pleads with the Pope to end the Royal marriage.
His downfall is sudden and brutal, sent from court and kept in what probably felt like poverty after all his riches in Esher, then promptly dispatched to York, stripped of his titles and many of his offices, properties and wealth. Finally he is told to return to court, to answer to the king, but taken ill enroute, the once mighty cardinal, Henry VIII’s right hand man, dies.
His mark on history is evident, while he wasn’t alive to see the birth of the Church of England, he laid the groundwork for the huge upheaval that followed. The dissolution of the monasteries, the split from Rome, the many marriages of the king.
This was a very enjoyable, detailed and interesting book, I really liked learning more about this man and Alison Weir has given him a rich, complicated inner life, if he had thrown over his vows, quit and moved quietly to Suffolk with Joan, things would have been very different, both for him and for history.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
‘Good job you didn’t turn on the lights . . .’ A student nurse has the shock of her life when she discovers her patient, prosecutor Derek Nicholson, brutally murdered in his bed. The act seems senseless – Nicholson was terminally ill with only weeks to live. But what most shocks Detective Robert Hunter of the Los Angeles Robbery Homicide Division is the calling card the killer left behind.
For Hunter, there is no doubt that the killer is trying to communicate with the police, but the method is unlike anything he’s ever seen before. And what could the hidden message be?
Just as Hunter and his partner Garcia reckon they’ve found a lead, a new body is found – and a new calling card. But with no apparent link between the first and second victims, all the progress they’ve made so far goes out of the window.
Pushed into an uncomfortable alliance with confident investigator Alice Beaumont, Hunter must race to put together the pieces of the puzzle . . . before the Death Sculptor puts the final touches to his masterpiece.
My thoughts: Another creepy and chilling killer for Hunter and Garcia to find, LA seems to attract the worst monsters. This one is turning his victims into strange flesh sculptures. Hunter knows there’s a message here, but he needs to figure out what it is so they can solve the case.
They’re asked to work with DA’s investigator Alice Beaumont on the case, she’s an interesting addition to their partnership and brings a different perspective to the case.
It’s a race against time to figure out what the killer is saying with his disturbing artworks, keeping the reader guessing as to how exactly the detectives are going to solve another case before anyone else gets killed.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Greg Weaving took a gun to his workplace and killed several of his colleagues, before turning the weapon on himself.
A year on, plagued by guilt and humiliation, Marcus Weaving has been nursing a serious case of amnesia at The Barbary hospital. His son’s crimes caused a ripple effect in the local community and the media pointed fingers in his direction. As a former mental health professional, how could he not know that his own flesh and blood was planning on committing mass murder?
Determined to recover from his public scars and resume civilian life, Marcus is notably distracted by another patient at The Barbary. Lily is a traumatised young veteran suffering from depression and severe PTSD. She is just as intriguing as her beauty is unsettling for him.
Marcus observes questionable things happening at the hospital. Being a man of principle, he runs to the most logical possibilities, but even they are failing to alleviate his worries. Lily seems to be a conduit for these bizarre events and they are pulling at a familiar string in his spirit.
Kateri Stanley is a dark fiction author. Her books include bestselling debut horror FORGIVE ME, fantasy thriller FROM THE DEEP and the soon-to-be-released, BITTERSWEET INJURIES. By day, she works for a charity supporting people in prison with debt and gambling issues. She lives with her partner and cat in the Midlands, UK.
My thoughts: I read the first book in this series, Bittersweet Injuries, before I read this, and it does fill in the back story perfectly, and explain who everyone is, and what happened.
Cordial Convictions opens a year after the events of the previous book, with Marcus coming to the end of his stay in The Barbery, a mental health unit, after being found in a park with amnesia. He can’t remember what happened before his younger son Greg killed several colleagues and then himself. Wracked with guilt, Marcus has struggled to move past that point, wondering whether he could have prevented the deaths and saved his son.
He’s drawn to Lily, another patient, a former soldier with PTSD and strange dreams of events she can’t possibly have been present for.
There’s more to both of them, and a connection that’s much deeper than either of them can possibly know. When Lily begins to suffer strange incidents in the night, leaving her screaming and claiming evil visitors, Marcus is concerned, she seems so lucid, but this makes no sense.
Events are in motion that are much bigger than these two people but they may well be key in what comes next, Lily’s family are involved in an ancient and ongoing battle, and she was once one of their best.
Could her memories be the secret to saving the world?
Clever, twisting and complex fantasy writing, that reads like a thriller, with a love story at its heart. Book 3 is in the works, can’t wait!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own
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.
ramblingmads 