Iceland, 1910. In the middle of a severe storm two sisters – Freyja and Gudrun – rescue a mysterious, charismatic man from a shipwreck near their remote farm.
Sixty-five years later, a young woman – Sigga – is spending time with her grandmother when they learn a body has been discovered on a mountainside near Reykjavik, perfectly preserved in ice.
Moving between the turn of the 20th century and the 1970s as a dark mystery is unravelled, The Swell is a spellbinding, beautifully atmospheric read, rich in Icelandic myth.
My thoughts: A powerful and fascinating story of sisters and family. In 1910 sisters Freya and Gudrun live on their father’s smallholding in Northern Iceland, when they rescue a young man from a sinking ship, his presence changes their lives.
Years later, Sigga, a teenager in a changing Iceland, spends time with her grandmother and learns a bit more about her life. She’s a survivor and raised her son, Sigga’s father, alone, after the deaths of her family, never naming his own father. Could the body recently found on a remote mountain near to where she lived, be someone she knew?
As Sigga struggles with her own brother and makes decisions about her own future, we see how the events of 1910 affect Freya and Gudrun, how their guest’s presence changes things in the village forever.
Moving back and forth, the two narratives, weave an inventive and captivating story of siblings and the complicated bonds between them. There is a third narrative of sorts too – a founding tale of Iceland, that weaves through the other stories. Sigga has won a prize for her version of the story, and the sisters refer to the same tale in their time too, adding to the interconnected nature of the book.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
An atmospheric and captivating old-house mystery, layered with romance and secrets.
Secrets lurk in the shadows at Rookswood House…
When Kate goes to look after her estranged sister’s children in their creepy old house, she takes a photo of what seems to be a ghost. Frightened yet intrigued, Kate undertakes to uncover the secrets of the house and the two mysterious sisters who lived there over a hundred years before.
But like the illusions of light and shadow in the sisters’ strange and disturbing Victorian post-mortem photography, Kate discovers that all is not what it seems. Someone – or something – has their own plans for Rookswood House – and for Kate.
With a potential developer circling around, her teenage niece in danger from an unseen force, and new love on the horizon, Kate must unravel the secrets and lies of her own and Rookswood’s past before she loses everything she holds dear.
If you like historical mysteries by Eve Chase, Rachel Burton and Harriet Evans, you’ll love Lauren Westwood.
My thoughts: I liked Kate, I felt awful bit sorry for her, estranged from her only family, but I know that sisters can be very hard work (personal experience has taught me that!) and that things are not always as they appear. When she steps in to take care of her niblings, while her sister gets better, she’s not entirely sure how to deal with teenagers.
Their dishy headteacher on the other hand, she’s intrigued by. And the crumbling old house her sister bought is also fascinating. Rookswood House was home to an earlier pair of sisters – one of whom was a photographer and worked with early special effects to create some unusual images. Victorians did some pretty weird things – like taking photos with their recently deceased loved ones as though they were still alive, but this early science and imagination also created some incredible things.
Ada might be dead, but part of her remains trapped in her home, unable to move on without her sister, lost to her years ago. Kate picks up on this energy and wants to help Ada move on, so Rookswood can too. Luckily headteacher, photographer and amateur historian Matthew does too. As the pair search for answers, they grow closer. Then Kate’s sister comes home and a few secrets and home truths need to be shared.
Pairing Kate’s story with Ada’s is interesting, the different relationships they have with their younger sisters, the struggles they both share as women who haven’t followed the expected paths in life (both unmarried, both working women) despite their different centuries. I really liked that aspect of the story – things don’t change as much as we sometimes would like.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Ex-intelligence agent James Ryker has done many things in the past he’d prefer to forget.
The last time he saw Gregor Minko – son to one of Ukraine’s most dangerous and politically influential arms dealers – Gregor was a scared 6-year-old boy in need of protection. But Ryker had to walk away. The boy wasn’t the mission.
Twenty years on Ryker is approached by two strangers in Antibes, France, asking for his help in finding Gregor – now going by the name of Gregor Rebrov. With a back catalogue of ‘crimes against the Russian state’, Gregor has escaped from a gulag in Siberia and is now in the wind.
Fuelled by old demons and painful memories of his own brutal actions in the past, Ryker finds himself once again in the thick of a complicated race against time and who knows how many of the world’s secret services, to find Gregor and get some answers.
As answers turn into more questions, they lead Ryker closer to home… and he can’t shake the feeling that he may be to blame.
Rob Sinclair is the million copy bestseller of over twenty thrillers, including the James Ryker series. Most recently published by Bloodhound, Boldwood will publish his latest action thriller, Rogue Hero, in June 2024 and will be republishing all the James Ryker series over the coming months.
My thoughts: James Ryker’s past as an undercover agent comes back to haunt him when he’s approached to look for a missing Russian prisoner. Gregor Rebrov escaped from a Siberian gulag and vanished. He’s an enemy of the Russian state, as was his oligarch/gangster father.
So Ryker heads to war torn Ukraine – the last place Gregor was seen. But he’s not been given all the information and Gregor isn’t an innocent by any means.
Ryker also isn’t operating with full cooperation of any government or agency, his boss Winter has agreed to give him some assistance, but he’s essentially on his own. And things do not go well.
There’s twists and turns, some harrowing moments and Ryker also relives his involvement with Gregor’s parents and the six-year-old Gregor in Cyprus. Gregor’s plan for revenge is pretty scary too – especially in a post-Covid 19 world and considering the way that things are at the moment, not too hard to imagine. Totally gripping, thrilling, will keep you on the edge of your seat!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
A disgraced former MP, Teddy Chesterton, is dying. He wants to put things right with his ex-wife, Laura, the only woman he has ever loved, but who left him after believing he deceived her. Teddy finds out that Laura has recently been widowed and invites her to come with him to Venice. To his surprise, she accepts.
They first meet at a gallery where Teddy’s university friend, Paul Merrick works, and Laura is offered the chance to work in London to help stage an exhibition of paintings by Tiepolo. Paul asks Laura to do him a favour and authenticate a sketch by the younger Tiepolo. She is told subsequently that what she believed to be a genuine Tiepolo was a fake, and her reputation in the art world is ruined. She blames Teddy for his part in getting her involved with Paul. They divorce, and Teddy goes to prison for money laundering.
Upon his release, he visits Paul, who explains that he had nothing to do with the sketch being a fake and that it was copied by a forger to whom he had unwittingly sold the original.
In Venice, Teddy gives Laura a pile of papers that prove Paul did not set out to deceive her about the sketch he asked her to authenticate. Teddy knows that he has done what he set out to do, even if everything is just too late.
Apart from three years studying History of Art and Philosophy at University College London, I have lived my entire life in the North West – born in Warrington, lived and worked in Manchester, and fourteen years ago moved to north Cumbria.
After several years of freelance arts journalism, I ran a NW-based public relations agency called Lawson Leah in the 1990s, then worked for various organisations in the construction industry, as CEO of Construction for Merseyside Ltd and then Director of the Civil Engineering Contractors’ Association. I have been a guest lecturer on urban regeneration and chaired a housing association for three years, and now work part-time as a consultant.
I have had articles on a range of topics, including the arts, construction, engineering, housing and economic development published in numerous magazines, as well as poetry and a guidebook to waterway walks in the NW.
My approach to writing tends to involve identifying a problematic situation and then finding a means of resolving it. I derive particular pleasure from finding the right words to achieve that. I was first inspired to write, as a teenager, after reading The Catcher in the Rye, and latterly find inspiration in the daunting novels of Bellow, Nabokov and Pynchon.
My thoughts: Teddy invites his ex-wife Laura to join him on a short trip to Venice, she is the only woman he’s ever loved and he doesn’t blame her for divorcing him when she did.
The story of their relationship is told in turns by them, the story of how a Jewish New Yorker art historian met a Home Counties Tory MP (as he became). It’s bittersweet as you know from the beginning that they aren’t together any more and that Laura moved on. It’s also the story of an art fraud that they were implicated in, one that could have ended very badly.
Teddy is dying, something he keeps from Laura even as they relive their previous trips to Venice and their life together. He leaves her with the proof that the art fraud that destroyed their marriage was not done with malice towards them, that it was in fact the buyer of the piece that perpetrated it and they were merely caught up in. While we’re not given Laura’s reaction, after everything else we as readers know, it would be a shock.
Once you get into the narrative flow, and the way it passes back and forth between Teddy and Laura, between the past and the present, it’s a well written and quite engaging story, Teddy is a bit of a rogue and Laura slightly naive and unworldly, but somehow it worked and they have two adult children together, keeping them always just in each other’s lives long after their marriage ended. A fascinating and thoughtful read.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Agatha Christie is about to embark on a new, gripping murder case. But this time, she’s not the author – she’s a suspect…
1926 – Christie is a darling of the literary circuit and the most desired guest in London’s glittering social scene. She can often be found at meetings of the Detection Club – where mystery writers come together to share ideas, swap secrets and drink copiously. But then a fellow author’s initiation ceremony takes a gruesome turn, and one of the group ends up dead. Now, Agatha is no longer just the creator of great mystery plots – she’s a player in one.
And when Agatha disappears the day after the murder, she’s widely assumed to be guilty. Only Eliza Baker, assistant to the Club’s enigmatic secretary, Dorothy Sayers, is interested in investigating the case. But in a world where murder is the ultimate plot device, can Eliza piece together the evidence and find the killer before it’s too late?
Kelly Oliver is the award-winning, bestselling author of three mysteries series: The Jessica James Mysteries, The Pet Detective Mysteries, and the historical cozies The Fiona Figg Mysteries, set in WW1. She is also the Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She is bringing new titles in the Fiona Figg series to Boldwood, the first of which, Chaos in Carnegie Hall, will be published in November 2022.
My thoughts: Blending fact and fiction, this is a fun historical crime caper. Agatha Christie was indeed a member of the Detection Club, a group of the top crime writers of the era, and she did disappear for a while in 1926, turning up in Harrogate with apparent temporary amnesia. This is usually attributed to the fact that her husband had asked for a divorce so he could marry his secretary. Agatha never revealed anything about this episode and after some time refused to discuss it at all.
But here an alternative theory is proposed, following the murder of a fellow crime writer, one of which she is accused of doing, she flees in fear. Although shooting someone in the dark isn’t very Christie – a former pharmacist she knew her poisons very well and many of her books feature death by deadly dose.
Luckily for her, Dorothy Sayers, the club’s secretary is on the case (Sayers and Arthur Conan Doyle did really look for her when she went missing) and so is her assistant Eliza Baker (sadly, fictional), who has some experience in these matters after working at Scotland Yard during the war.
I really liked Eliza, she was smart, resourceful and a lot more intuitive than the police, solving both the murder and Mrs Christie’s disappearance with apparent ease and playing a lot of chess along the way. I hope this is the start of a cracking series featuring the Detection Club and Eliza, who is a better detective than the creators of some of the most famous. She also has a faithful canine companion, and as you probably know by now, an animal detective is always a bonus in my book.
And don’t worry about Agatha, as well as being one of the most successful writers of all time, she also found love again with archaeologist Max Mallowen, and even went on digs with him, which inspired some of her more far flung books like Death on the Nile. Yes, I am a huge fan and a total nerd, why thank you.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Andi Glover loves nothing more than a good book. Any book in fact because when you’re raised by unconventional parents who think school’s for squares, alongside a deeply conventional sister who escapes home as soon as she can, fiction is eminently preferable to reality. The only problem is that fiction isn’t the best way to learn about the real world.
When Andi starts her new live-in job at Templewood Hall for the eccentric Lady Dawe and her enigmatic son Hugo, it’s tempting to think she’s fallen into the pages of one of her favourite gothic novels. But the plot twists at Templewood Hall are stranger than fiction and it’s not long before Andi questions if she’s living in a romance novel or a whodunnit. Bumps in the night, a missing heir, ghostly apparitions and secrets that have been kept for generations – the mysteries mount up. Then there’s the inscrutable gardener who seems to appear when needed – is Andi right to hope for a happily-ever-after end to her story?
Jane Lovering is a bestselling and multi-award winning romantic comedy writer. Most recently Jane won the RNA Contemporary Romantic Novel Award in 2023 with A Cottage Full of Secrets. She lives in Yorkshire and has a cat and a bonkers terrier, as well as five children who have now left home.
My thoughts: This was a lot of fun, I liked Andi, and her job cataloguing the dusty and neglected library is pretty much my dream (although the dust is a health hazard, I’m asthmatic!) accompanied by resident feline, The Master.
She’s supposed to be looking for the diaries of the house’s one time master, grandfather to Hugo, Lady Tanith’s father-in-law, with whom she is obsessed. But the diaries don’t seem to be anywhere Andi can find, and Lady Tanith is not happy.
What Andi does find is a whole heap of secrets, and considering that there’s only a few people in the house, it’s impressive that they’ve managed to keep them. She also finds a deaf gardener, Jay, with whom she develops a slightly awkward relationship. He almost drowns her in the fountain, she catches him peeing in the bushes, it’s very rom-com esque.
She’s slightly worried that Lady Tanith will either sack her or marry her off to poor Hugo, who doesn’t really want that either. Although he does need a friend. His mother is completely nuts and horrible.
As Andi’s time at the house is under pressure, and she’s still sort of falling for Jay, things take a few twists and turns. It’s lots of fun to read, but probably quite stressful to live, so maybe I won’t hire myself out as a librarian archivist just yet.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
In the rugged wilderness of Dartmoor, school teacher Sophie Parsons vanishes without a trace during a weekend trek. For Detective Inspector Jacob Knox, Sophie’s disappearance stirs unsettling echoes of a previous case involving another woman who vanished in the same desolate moorland six months earlier.
As Knox delves deeper, he uncovers the complexities of Sophie’s personal life, including a secret affair with a charismatic colleague and a tense relationship with her long-term boyfriend, Peter. But Sophie’s tangled love life is just the beginning of Knox’s troubles. A local legend about a beast stalking the moors resurfaces, fueling public fear and media speculation. Is it just a myth, or could something more sinister be at play?
With time running out and the possibility that two women have been claimed by the moor, Knox faces his toughest case yet—one that will test him professionally and personally. As the case unfolds, Knox realizes the dark truths buried beneath the surface of Sophie’s life may be the key to unlocking the mystery.
Introducing DI Jacob Knox, Hollow Ground is a gripping crime thriller set in the eerie beauty of Devon’s Dartmoor, blending elements of mystery, suspense, and psychological depth to explore the blurred lines between human vulnerability and the unknown.
Freya Wallace is a crime writer based in Devon. Her debut novel, Hollow Ground, introduces DI Knox in the first book of an atmospheric new series set against the backdrop of her local area. A lifelong reader, she always wanted to see a gripping crime series unfold in the place she knows best. When she’s not writing or reading, Freya can be found walking her two German Shepherds along the local beaches.
My thoughts: This was a really good, tense, crime thriller. Women have been going missing on Dartmoor – not an easy place to find a missing person. The local police are up against it, not helped by rumours that the infamous beast of legend is roaming once more.
As DI Knox and his team dig into Sophie’s life, trying to work out what her connection to the previous victim might be, if any, and whether she was targeted or just convenient, they uncover her secrets, do either her longterm boyfriend or colleague lover have anything to do with her disappearance?
Knox’s personal life also becomes more complicated in the form of his troubled brother, he wants to help him but needs to focus on the case. There’s also potential romance with her dog walker, Lucy, but when does he have time to date, there’s missing women and a dangerous person to find.
Clever, twisting and totally gripping, this is a great start to hopefully a new series of crime set in Devon.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Six thriller authors. One writing retreat. You’d die to be on the guest list . . .
The Host Legendary mystery author J. R. Alastor’s books are sold all over the world, but no one knows his real name. After years hiding in the shadows, he has sent out six invitations to an exclusive murder mystery retreat on his private island.
The Assistant Mila del Angél has been hired to ensure the week runs smoothly. She has yearned for revenge on a ghost from her past for years – and this could be her chance to get it.
The Players The six bestselling thriller writers accept their invitations without question – it’s an opportunity any author would kill for.
The Game What should have been a week of trope-filled games takes a sinister turn when one guest is found dead, and the others find themselves in the midst of a nightmare drawn from Alastor’s dark imagination. They may have written thrillers – but now they and Mila must survive one…
ANDE PLIEGO began writing stories when she discovered she could actually wield her overactive imagination for good. A lover of stories with teeth, she writes books involving mind games, dark humour, general murder and mayhem, characters pushed to the edge of themselves, and most importantly, finding the hope in the dark. When not reading or writing, she can usually be found dabbling in art, scheming up her next trip, or making constant expeditions to the library. Born in Florida, raised in France, and having left footprints all over the globe, Ande is settled in the Pacific Northwest, USA, with her craftsman husband and little son.
My thoughts: I really, really enjoyed this. It was just a very “me” book, thriller writers on a murder mystery weekend that ends up in more murder than expected, on a deserted island. Hello, have you ever read any Agatha Christie? Ever seen the movie Clue? Do not go on this retreat.
Obviously as a reader I am delighted that authors continue to send their characters into red flag draped bad ideas. But I will not be accepting invitations to these things. People always get killed. Messily, and entertainingly, yes, but I want to live to read more blackly comic, twisted, fun things like this.
I’m still not 100% a Mila fan, I think she still needs to deal with some stuff, but I do love a Final Girl or two. Even a Final Boy.
There are twists galore, as the victims end up killed like their characters, and someone has a very personal vendetta. Can you work out who J.R is? I didn’t quite get there fast enough, and there are clues to how it’s all connected. But the characters don’t have all the pieces.
Lots of fun, really enjoyed it, cannot wait to see what Ande does next.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
We are super excited to be touring The Bond that Burns by Briar Boleyn. If you have a dragon sized hole in your heart left over from Onyx Storm, this book is for you!
The Bond that Burns (Bloodwing Academy #2)
Publication Date: December 27, 2024
Genre: Dark Academia Fantasy Romance
🖤Fourth Wing meets Zodiac Academy 🖤Vampire Academy 🖤Slow-burn Dragons 🖤Vampire MMC with Draco Malfoy Vibes 🖤Steamy Enemies to Lovers 🖤Found Family 🖤Dual POV 🖤Bully Romance 🖤Trials 🖤Mean Girls 🖤Forced Engagement
At Bloodwing Academy, blood is currency, but a dragon’s legacy is priceless–and as dangerous as fire.
I thought surviving my first year in Bloodwing’s deadly halls would be enough. I was wrong.
I accidentally woke a dragon–a creature of myth, of death, of fire.
Now every highblood house wants control over me and the dragon’s legacy I carry. But here’s the truth: I have no control. I’m bluffing my way through every encounter, trying to keep everyone from realizing that I’m not the one pulling the dragon’s strings.
And then there’s Blake Drakharrow. I thought he was on my side, that I might even be able to trust him. But he betrayed me. Now I’m his only blood source. How messed up is that? In a place like Bloodwing, where power and survival are everything, this bond may well be the death of us both. Unless I can find a way to end it.
In this world of vampires, dragons, and lies, there are no happy endings. Just legends–and the darkness it takes to make them.
The Bond That Burns is a dark academia fantasy romance featuring a bully villain with Draco Malfoy energy who (eventually) gets the girl, all the tension and banter, and a tantalizingly dangerous blend of court and school intrigue all set in an intricately crafted world with unique vampire and dragon lore. If you’re a fan of original mythology, unique world-building, and character-driven romantasy books such as Crowns of Nyaxia, From Blood and Ash, and A Court of Thorns and Roses, you won’t want to miss out on this riveting new saga.
My thoughts: Read book one first or this will not make a great deal of sense as it picks up just as that ends. Do not make the same mistake I did.
Right, where were we. Oh yes, dragons. Also fluffins, which are little creatures a bit like Fennec foxes but maybe with smaller ears, or like Eevee from Pokemon. I think. This one’s called Neville, I already love him.
There’s more dragon in book two, and more sex, lots more sex (between human shaped people, not with dragons, I wish I didn’t have to explain this, but I do).
Medra has just about survived her first fun year at Bloodwing Academy, she still mostly hates Blake, she now has a dragon (with a nice line in sarcasm), who has only murdered one annoying vampire so far (I enjoyed that bit) and if she’s very lucky she might get to survive the second year. She still has no idea how she ended up here, and doesn’t seem too bothered about finding a way home. She’s finally got friends and is settling in, sort of.
Look, it’s messy, she’s basically the Promised One No One Wanted. She can do things no one else can, a lot of people would be happier if she was dead, she had to kill a friend at the end of the school year, and she’s still bonded to Blake. Who has his own issues to deal with.
It gets a whole lot messier before it gets better. Well, hopefully, it does in book 3. I also need a prequel, about Medra in the Camelot court and the fae.
Anyway, read this if you like dragons, mess, cute fluffy critters, friendships, complicated relationships, brooding men who need to grow up, conspiracies, and murder.
When Dr Viv DuLac, medievalist and academic, finds a mysterious runic inscription on a Rune Stone in the graveyard of her husband’s village church, she unwittingly sets off a chain of circumstances that disturb their quiet lives in ways she never expected.
She, once again, feels the echoes of the past resonate through time and into the present.
Can she unlock the secrets of the runes in the life of the 6th century Lady Vivianne and in Viv’s own life?
Again, lives of the past and present intertwine alarmingly as Viv desperately tries to save them both, without changing the course of history.
Dr Julia Ibbotson is fascinated by the medieval world and the concept of resonances across time. She sees her author brand as a historical fiction writer of romantic mysteries that are character-driven, well-paced, evocative of time and place, well-researched and uplifting page-turners.
Her current series focuses on early medieval dual-time/time-slip mysteries.
Julia read English at Keele University, England, specialising in medieval language/ literature/ history, and has a PhD in socio-linguistics. After a turbulent time in Ghana, West Africa, she became a school teacher, then a university academic and researcher.
Her break as an author came soon after she joined the RNA’s New Writers’ Scheme in 2015, with a three-book deal from Lume Books for a trilogy (Drumbeats) set in Ghana in the 1960s. She has also indie-published three other books, including A Shape on the Air, an Anglo-Saxon timeslip mystery, and its two sequels The Dragon Tree and The Rune Stone. Her latest, Daughter of Mercia, is the first of a new series of Anglo-Saxon dual time mystery/romances where echoes of the past resonate across the centuries.
Her books will appeal to fans of Barbara Erskine, Pamela Hartshorne, Susanna Kearsley, and Christina Courtenay. Her readers say: ‘compelling character-driven novels’, ‘a skilled story-teller’, ‘evocative and well-paced storylines’, ‘incredible writing style’, ‘intricately written’, ‘absorbing and captivating’, and ‘an absolute gem of a trilogy’
My thoughts: and so we come to the last book in this series, The Rune Stone. Viv and Rory are back from Madeira and adjusting to life in their Derbyshire village when an unusual discovery in the churchyard sets off Viv’s time travelling adventures once more. This time Lady Vivianne is in trouble, faced with invaders, an advanced pregnancy and war rumoured to be coming from all directions, she reaches through the centuries to her descendant for strength. And despite the worry she might drop the baby while having one of her turns, Viv answers. The carved stone in the churchyard might just refer to Lady Vivianne. But what does eccentric Ivy have to do with it all and can Viv stop a predatory parishioner stealing her husband at the same time?
I really enjoyed this series, the blend of historical fiction and modern day Time Team style investigations – especially once Tilly gets involved. I liked the linking of ancient traditions with more modern ones and the need to put things back where they belong so the dead can rest easy.
*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 