Every morning, I sit at the same table of my favourite café, sip my cappuccino, and watch them. The woman has no idea I’m watching, day after day, unravelling the secrets of her life. I see the way she smiles when he arrives, how she glances over her shoulder… like someone who is hiding something. She thinks she’s in control, but has no idea I’m on to them…
I know a lot more about the man. For a start, he’s not who he pretends to be – his lies are as plain as the nose on your face. There’s more to this story than meets the eye, a lot more than I’ll ever let on. I already know a lot about the man, but have learnt so much more from watching. Why do I think the man should tell me what’s going on? Because he’s my husband. That’s why.
An unforgettable tale of deceit, lies and revenge, from the bestselling author of The Girl in Seat 2A.
Diana Wilkinson was born and bred in Belfast, Northern Ireland and is the number 1 bestseller of The Girl in Seat 2a. Diana spent most of her working life in the business of tennis, and the inspiration for much of her work has come from the ladies she coached over the years.
My thoughts: Giving relationship advice to fictional characters isn’t my usual thing, but for goodness sake, why doesn’t anyone ever talk to their partner?
Spying on your husband, thinking he has another family, without any real proof, is a lot. But then so are his lies too. If the people in this book talked to each other, there would be no plot.
The whole situation spirals out of control as Izzy and Jed fail to communicate and Izzy starts using the Agony Aunt column she writes to air out her worries and solicit advice from her readers. She’s also getting far too interested in builder Adam, the brother of the woman she thinks Jed is seeing. Messy.
Short, punchy chapters, full of twists and turns, as Izzy and Jed’s marriage falls apart around them and things build to a head.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
PUT THE KETTLE ON AND DISCOVER AN UTTERLY CHARMING MURDER MYSTERY SET IN A SLEEPY ENGLISH SEASIDE TOWN.
It’s a perfect summer’s day in Southbourne. And Partial Sue’s in one of her rare generous moods. She wants to treat all the ladies of the Dogs Need Nice Homes charity shop to supper.
But before the ladies can shut up shop and head to the chippie, the air is filled with the strains of ‘Greensleeves’. And a clapped-out old ice-cream van lurches into view. The gang can barely believe their eyes. Especially when they see who’s behind the wheel. Daisy’s daughter Bella.
Newly divorced Bella’s only just rid herself of her rotten husband. Now she’s landed herself in an even stickier situation. This banger may be stocked with sweet treats, but its freezer once held something much more sinister — the dead body of its former owner!
Everyone in the village knows the van’s sinister history. Except poor Bella. The culprit slipped away without a trace. But the village folk all say it’s just a matter of time until the Vanilla Killer strikes again!
When Bella starts receiving poison pen letters, the ladies can’t help but worry. What if their beloved Bella’s next?
There’s only one thing for it, the ladies agree over a steaming pot of tea. They need to put the Vanilla Killer on ice . . . before anyone else dies.
Fans of Richard Osman, Robert Thorogood, Janice Hallett, Simon Brett, Ian Moore and Sarah Yarwood-Lovett will adore this exciting new talent in cozy crime.
After studying to be an architect, Pete realised he wasn’t very good at it. He liked designing buildings he just couldn’t make them stand up, which is a bit of a handicap in an industry that likes to keep things upright. So he switched to advertising, writing ads for everything from cruise lines to zombie video games.
After becoming disillusioned with working in ad agencies, he switched to writing thriller novels (or was it because he just wanted to work at home in his pyjamas?). He soon realised there’s no magic formula. You just have to put one word in front of the other (and keep doing that for about a year). It also helps if you can resist the lure of surfing, playing Nintendo Switch with his son, watching America’s Next Top Model with his daughter and drinking beer in a garden chair.
My thoughts: After Daisy’s daughter Bella buys an old ice cream van at auction, which the gang recognise as having been the scene of its previous owner’s death, they get embroiled in the town’s mysterious underbelly. Is there an ice cream mafia as Partial Sue keeps saying or is it something else?
The three most unlikely detectives start looking for the Vanilla Killer, and whoever it is that has the local ice cream sellers running scared.
You wouldn’t expect a cosy seaside town to be so crime-ridden, but the Charity Shop Detectives always manage to find the worst of the local community. Although, that could just be Sophie from the other charity shop!
This series is funny, wry and very entertaining. This book made me laugh and I do enjoy Partial Sue’s deeply unusual view of the world.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Embark on a gripping voyage of intrigue and danger in this fast-paced murder mystery.
Six friends agree to go on the cruise of a lifetime and leave their complicated past behind them. On night one of the cruise someone is murdered, and everyone is a suspect. As the calm facade unravels, deep secrets and complicated histories are exposed and one thing is for certain, not everyone is getting off the ship alive.
N.G.K. (Nathan) is an international bestselling author whose first children’s picture book ‘Harry The Happy Mouse’ has been featured on the bestseller lists in Paperback and eBook around the world. Harry The Happy Mouse is also now part of the curriculum in many UK schools to teach children about kindness.
N.G.K. was named one of the Top 10 worldwide children’s authors in 2018 by the Author Academy Awards, and ‘Harry Saves The Ocean’ won a gold standard at the Mom’s Choice USA awards.
NGK’s eighth book ‘The Fox Who Stole The Moon’ has been in the top 20 children’s books in the UK for the past two years since its release.
The Silent Wave is Nathan’s first book for adults.
My thoughts: Another book set on a cruise, reminding me to stay on dry land. They never end well, and this one certainly has a body count.
A group of old friends, none of whom seem to like each other anymore, or who are particularly happy, go on a cruise towards Norway. They don’t quite make the fjords after someone goes overboard, and it only gets worse from there. All sorts of old entities, grudges and schemes emerge, pitting the friends against each other and forcing them into secret pacts of equal jeopardy.
By the time they make it back to Southampton’s docks, things will never be the same for any of them again.
So that’s one – stay away from old “frenemies” and two – no cruises. Got that.
None of the characters are particularly likeable, even the ultimately innocent ones, and one character turns out to be a truly awful person, but not the one you might suspect. There can’t be many worse places than trapped at sea with people you don’t actually like anymore. Twisted and shocking, this is a clever and enjoyable 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.
Meet Detective Sophie Allen. She’s an expert on murder and violent crime. Her brilliant mind works tirelessly to put the most vicious criminals behind bars, but conceals dark secrets from her own past.
A dark, wet night on a lonely road in west Dorset. Bryony O’Neil stops her car when she spots a distressed young woman by the side of the road. But all is not as it seems . . .
The following day, keen rambler Robin Pryor sets off along the clifftop path from the pretty seaside town of Lyme Regis — and never comes home.
The subsequent search reveals a badly beaten body hidden in the undergrowth beside the path.
It’s the third time that week the police have been called out to the quiet little town. First an attempted car-jacking. Then a break-in — where nothing was taken. And now murder.
Detective Barry Marsh’s instincts tell him that a particularly callous killer has descended on his patch. And their timing couldn’t be worse. His boss and mentor, Detective Sophie Allen, is still in hospital, recovering from the injuries she sustained in their last case. Not that she’d let that stop her!
Then a second body is discovered, a few miles further along the coastal path. And the case takes a terrifying new twist . . .
Discover a captivating crime mystery which will have you gripped from start to finish.
If you like Joy Ellis, Ann Cleeves, J.D. Kirk, J.M. Dalgliesh, or Pauline Rowson, you will love this thrilling crime mystery.
I try to write thoughtful, contemporary crime novels and include several plot layers in my books. The adult novels feature DCI Sophie Allen and her close-knit team of detectives. I don’t write simple whodunnits, nor violent, all-action, gun-toting thrillers
My thoughts: When a woman is forced off the road in a nasty accident, followed by the disappearance of one of her colleagues and a break in at another’s home, the police start to think there might be something very weird going on. All three work at a company developing an eco park for a South American country, one that clearly has some objections. And not from local protesters but dangerous criminals.
Sophie Allen is in charge of the team, but currently in hospital, where she meets the first victim. It also allows her to gather some evidence the victim hasn’t shared with the police. As they dig into the company and it’s new project, they uncover an international conspiracy, which calls in Sophie’s old friend, the Home Secretary and the consulate. People are at serious risk and there seems to be someone on the inside. Can they team crack the case before anyone else gets hurt?
This was so clever, totally gripping and intense, lots of twists, red herrings and moments where you just can’t guess what they might uncover next. Totally had me hooked from the first page.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
My name is Linda. Most of my friends, not that I have many left, call me Lindy. I work as a housekeeper in a local hotel. I had the world at my feet once. Not anymore.
The first time I saw Mia was in the car park. She came over to help when my shopping bag split. There’s something about her delicate femininity that mesmerises me.
Ever since then, I’ve been kind of obsessed. Mia is stunning, with beautiful ash-blonde hair. I’ve had mine cut in the same style.
She has two beautiful children, the same age as mine. A gorgeous home on an exclusive estate. And a husband who’s the old-fashioned kind who picks her up after a night out. Mine wouldn’t even pick me up if I fell over in the street.
But then I get a call. Mia’s voice on the phone is breathy, edgy. She’s whispering, like she doesn’t want anyone to hear. ‘Lindy, I need your help. Listen to me, please.’
Sadie Ryan is the author of three books. Her latest, Guilty came out in April 2021, a psychological thriller. She loves animals and lives in leafy Cheshire in the North West of England with her daughter and rescue dog. When not writing she spends her time reading, gardening, walking her dog or watching old black and white movies.
When asked where she gets her ideas from, she says, ‘From observation, inspiration and lots of wicked thoughts.’
My thoughts: Lindy is quite messed up, driven by her grief, she’s been stalking Mia, spying on her, determined to see if Mia is the sort of person she thinks she needs to find.
Mia’s home life looks perfect on the surface, handsome TV presenter husband, two adult daughters, cute dogs, lovely house, but her husband is a controlling bully. She’s terrified of him and he’s got worse recently, taking her phone, changing the locks and holding her captive. Could new friend Lindy help?
As the two women become close and start to work together, events take a dark turn, and things only get worse from there.
Shocking, full of twists and turns and with a jaw dropping ending, this is a smart and gripping thriller.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
To protect their lavish allowances, four charismatic sisters in their thirties try to seduce, cajole, and mislead their less well-off neighbor Benjamin, who their father has hired to investigate an attempt to smother him while he was in the hospital recovering from a car crash. Their feckless brother responds by threatening Benjamin with a shotgun, while their socialite mother falsely confesses to the crime.
Trying to dominate everyone is their father, a wheeling, dealing, helicopter-flying entrepreneur who is afraid he might have hallucinated the smothering, even more afraid that it might have been real, and terrified that he might be losing control of his family and fortune. Desperate, he implements a devious and dastardly scheme . . .
Played out on the fashionable Connecticut shore and Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the shenanigans of the entitled rich don’t prevent Benjamin from finding the truth, and maybe even love.
“A knotted and frequently engaging tale of deception and family secrets.” – Kirkus Reviews
“In his literary debut, Leonard Orr demonstrates that he is a superb writer of spare, precise, and compelling prose. At the core of Entitled is hyperwealth and how it embroils a family. Like the The Great Gatsby, Orr’s gripping novel brings romance, selfishness, familial enmity, irony (even a touch of humor), and terrible tragedy to these lives of privilege. I highly recommend it.” – Peter Carry, writer, editor
“The twisted plot of this surprising whodunnit is a hunt for who didn’t do it-who it was that tried but failed to kill the rich and ruthless old patriarch. From the start, however, those suspects include even the old man’s loved ones. Set among the strivers and connivers of New York’s upper 1%, Orr’s engaging tale is a feast of family dysfunction, privilege, and secrets.” – William C. Rempel, bestselling author of The Gambler and At the Devil’s Table
“This is an intelligent, strong, intricate narrative, carried along by characters who are well drawn and complete, at least for the purposes they play in this narrative. While Benjamin claims much of the spotlight, Charlie Cantling’s presence is remarkable in its various roles – catalyst, antagonist, egomaniacal patriarch, with personal traits that all point to meanness and manipulation. Beyond that, four distinctive sisters, a woebegone brother, and Benjamin’s own brother come across as the various components of a complex mélange, each with his or her own psychological damage stemming from Charlie’s machinations. There’s a sophistication to all this that is quite refreshing, and very well done.” – Greg Fields, author of The Bright Freight of Memory
Leonard H. Orr has written for The Village Voice, The New York Times, and other publications. A graduate of Swarthmore College, he has also been an editor and investment manager, where he’s been a witness to the ambition and entitlement and sorrow his novel portrays.
He lies in a hospital bed, bandaged to the nines and attached to the latest instruments of artificial life. Images flicker before him, and fluttery lines on a video screen vouch for brain activity, but few would call it thinking. In his fractured world he doesn’t hear the beep of machines nor feel the stab of needles. He doesn’t remember instructing his driver to stay ahead of the Friday night traffic before it peaked. He doesn’t recall the rise in the road that hid the jam ahead, doesn’t recall the curse of his driver when the car reached the top of the hill, the scream of the brakes, the veering off, the tumbling.
The police have measured tire marks, a coroner examined the driver’s body, and chemists have parsed the dead man’s blood. They found a routine case of too much velocity and not enough time and redirected to more opaque disasters.
Visitors to the hospital are where the murk sets in. Men Charlie Cantling hired for the corporation—and a few women—arrive, look grim, and muse aloud about his chances and, in silence, about their jobs. They’d love to redo the pyramid of who reports to whom, each with a different design, but ancient arrangements leave them neutered and send them to lunch with headhunters. Real power resides with Cantling’s children, who arrive bringing a minimum of tears and some aptitude for scheming. With Charlie likely dying, they’ll need cold blood for decisions to come, and over the years, with their father’s help, they’d acquired it. Some have seen the family lawyer, who advises inaction and waiting for further advice. Some, whom Cantling would call them ungrateful, have lawyers of their own.
When he’s little changed day to day, the flow of visitors thins, for this protracted dying is somewhere between nuisance and tragedy, and doctors still can’t restore the dead. Then the surprises begin. His bones begin to mend, his limbs and organs start to function, he has moments of near-lucidity. The doctors admit he has chances, but early progress is crucia, and his may have been too slow. He’s in his late sixties and his health was good, but setbacks or stagnation are still major risks. The most reasonable hope is he’ll stabilize, neither paralyzed nor mobile, not numb and not alert, sometimes sensible, often not, born to command and commanding nothing.
In his lucid moments the doctors warn him: because of drugs and trauma, you can’t trust what you think you know, can’t tell the real from the imagined. About his brain’s wilder renderings—wingless flying, jumps in time, cameos of the dead—he agrees. One scene from the present is too coherent to shrug off and so vivid that in druggy variation it repeats again and again. He’s on his back in his hospital bed and half-awake. Suddenly, there’s a pillow on his face, a strangely heavy heap of fluff pressing on nose and mouth. He fights. The weight feels huge, relentless. He struggles to breathe but sucks in fabric and stuffing. He’s suffocating. His hands rip at forearms above him. I won’t let these bastards win, he thinks. Never. He writhes and swings his head, finds a pocket of air—and breathes and steels himself for further struggle.
The weight lifts. “Tough old guy,” whispers a voice he can’t identify. “The man’s mind doesn’t work but his body keeps fighting. We’ll have to find another way.” “It would be the right thing,” someone whispers, “for him”. “Yeah,” the first voice whispers, “for him and everybody else.
As his strength returns and his drug-induced delirium subsides, he notifies the authorities and calls for guards and cameras. He exults and he rages. Phantoms or not, the whisperers have lost. Their chances have died, and he hasn’t.
It takes him weeks to fully recognize his mistake.
My thoughts: This is a blackly comic novel about an obscenely wealthy family fighting over control of the family company and therefore the money, even though the patriarch isn’t actually dead. Yet.
Their unfortunate neighbour, Benjamin, gets dragged into the family drama, partly because helicopter wielding Charlie wants to buy his house, but also because he suspects one of his family tried to finish him off while he was lying in his hospital bed and he wants Benjamin to find out who it was.
But the Cantlings are all liars and deeply divided, they try to either get Benjamin on their side or threaten him, or both. He can’t get out of it, his boss is very keen to keep Charlie as a client, his brother keeps getting in the way (he may or may not have slept with multiple Cantling sisters), he’s tired of being threatened at gun point, and running out of ways to get the Cantlings to answer his questions.
I really enjoyed the absolutely over the top nonsense this privileged family got up to, talk about sibling rivalry. And the honey farm was hilarious. Benjamin was empathetic and stuck in the worst situation of his life. Nothing he did made anything better for himself, and he just couldn’t get out of it, even after ending up in the hospital. Very entertaining.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Two perfect families. Two beautiful homes. A one-way trip to hell.
When two families organise a house swap, it seems like the perfect holiday arrangement.
The Browns will exchange their London townhouse for a stunning chateau in the south of France, the perfect place to relax and rekindle their flagging marriage.
And the Lesters are looking forward to showing their son, Rafael, around their old haunts in the British capital.
Sounds wonderful. Except for one thing – both families are hiding dark secrets, and secrets have a way of coming out…
In France, there’s a mysterious break-in at the chateau. Then the Browns discover that a woman who lived there disappeared and was never seen again. Instead of feeling rested and relaxed, they now feel isolated and vulnerable.
Then, in London, 17-year-old Rafael vanishes without a trace.
As the tension mounts to an unbearable pitch, both couples are forced to face their darkest demons. Someone won’t be coming home…
Miranda Rijks is a writer of fast-paced, twisty psychological thrillers many of which have been Amazon bestsellers. She has an eclectic background ranging from law to running a garden centre.
After surviving bone cancer, Miranda turned to writing and is now living the dream, writing suspense novels full time.
She lives in West Sussex, England with her Dutch husband and two black Labradors and spends as much time as she can in the Swiss Alps.
This is her twenty-third psychological thriller with Inkubator Books.
My thoughts: I’m not sure I’d want to do a house swap, although a holiday in Provence would be great (although not in December). But the two families in this book swap a falling down French villa for a Kensington town house, apparently to see if it’s a viable prospect for Elodie’s business to expand into.
However some of the people involved have ulterior motives and the supposed Provencal idyll is far from it, the house is damp, smelly and has builders working on it. The neighbours seem nice, but they don’t get on with the usual residents, so they too might have their own reasons for being chummy.
Meanwhile in London, the Lesters aren’t having a good time either, their marriage is teetering on the edge and Piers learns a huge secret that could destroy everything, and that’s before their son Raf goes missing.
The perfect holiday starts to become the perfect nightmare for both couples.
Miranda Rijks’ books are always really fun and the twists are always total surprise, as it is here. I didn’t see some of them coming at all and the connections between the two families were a shock. I was hooked from the beginning, partly because swapping houses is just not something I would ever do, strangers rummaging through my stuff – no thanks. Really enjoyable, intelligent and full of suspense.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
To celebrate the paperback of Dead Sweet, I’m re-sharing my review from the hardback tour. You can get a copy from all good bookshops and here.
When Óttar Karlsson, a wealthy and respected government official and businessman, is found murdered, after failing to turn up at his own surprise birthday party, the police are at a loss. It isn’t until young police officer Sigurdís finds a well-hidden safe in his impersonal luxury apartment that clues start emerging. As Óttar’s shady business dealings become clear, a second, unexpected line of enquiry emerges, when Sigurdís finds a US phone number in the safe, along with papers showing regular money transfers to an American account. Following the trail to Minnesota, trauma rooted in Sigurdís’s own childhood threatens to resurface and the investigation strikes chillingly close to home…
Atmospheric, deeply unsettling and full of breakneck twists and turns, Dead Sweet is a startling debut thriller that uncovers a terrifying world of financial crime, sinister cults and disturbing secret lives, and kicks off a mind-blowing new series.
Katrín Júlíusdóttir has a political background and was a member of the Icelandic parliament from 2003 until 2016. Before she was elected to parliament, Katrín was an advisor and project manager at a tech company and a senior buyer and CEO in the retail sector. She worked from a young age in the fishing industry, was a store clerk and also worked the night shift at a pizza restaurant. She studied anthropology and has an MBA from Reykjavík University. Katrín’s debut novel Dead Sweet received the Blackbird Award and was an Icelandic bestseller upon publication. She is married to critically acclaimed author Bjarni M. Bjarnason, who encouraged her to start writing. They have four boys and live in Garðabær.
My thoughts: this was really good, but also really awful because when the truth comes out about the victim, Óttar, he turns out to have been one bad man and I didn’t really want the cops to find his killer, because weirdly I felt bad for them – not him!
SigurdÍs is a really good investigator, even if she does go off on her own – she just wants to prove to her bosses that she’s a great cop and not keep getting left out of investigations or given paperwork to shuffle.
I really hope this grows into a series as I was completely hooked, the writing (and Quentin’s brilliant translation work) was so gripping and compelling, even as I realised, oh no, he’s guilty of really gross and horrible things, I wanted to keep reading.
Four hundred years ago, the Monty Python team would have been burnt at the stake for making their hit movie ‘The Life of Brian’. Luckily on its release they survived the hostile reception but the film did not, as it was banned in many countries for blasphemy. But now, years later the whole controversy will be re-ignited by the most extraordinary research that was stimulated by the film’s infamous ending, where the Pythons sing “Always look on the Bright side of Life’ while being nailed onto their crosses.
It became obvious while filming that the crucifixion process does not work. But how can that be when it is reported by every Roman historian past and present, that crucifixion was the method of capital punishment used for slaves and rebels? The simple answer not only unravelled the true story of the charismatic Jew called Jesus, but also uncovered the monumental secret that has been hinted at by esoteric groups over the centuries, the implications being nothing less than earth shattering.
THE FACTS ARE UNDENIABLE
THE EVIDENCE IS COMPELLING
BUT THE CONCLUSIONS ARE ASTONISHING
Julian Doyle is a distinguished British filmmaker with an outstanding career in the film industry. He is widely recognised for his long-standing collaboration with Monty Python, where he worked on their most celebrated films including Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian, and The Meaning of Life. In addition to his work with Monty Python, Julian has directed several acclaimed feature films including Love Potion (1987) and Chemical Wedding (2008), a supernatural thriller co-written with Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson. His directorial credits also include music videos for iconic artists such as Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting and Iron Maiden’s Can I Play with Madness.
Described by Python Terry Jones as “an original polymath”, Julian is a leading expert on Christian history and mythology. His books include The Gospel According to Monty Python, Crucifixion’s A Doddle: The Passion of Monty Python, and historical mystery thriller The Jericho Manuscript. Visit www.juliandoyle.info.
My thoughts: Two things to know before I talk about this book; 1. I love Monty Python, 2. I studied Theology at A Level and know a weird amount about Biblical history. I also managed to get a Python reference into every A Level exam essay.
Right, moving on. The author very kindly wrote me a note to explain that this book is about the historical Jesus, not the Jesus of faith. I think he was worried that with my first name (Madeleine – the French version of Magdalene, who I am named for), I might be religious.
Well, I was raised in the Church of England and went to Sunday School and church schools, which were enough to put me off. I consider myself a person of faith, or spiritual rather than strictly religious. I have a very healthy dose of scepticism and have done plenty of reading around the scriptures, so this book was perfect for me. I like to question the accepted orthodoxy, and am highly suspicious about the huge amount of editing that the Bible has gone through over the centuries.
The author starts by looking at the physical act of crucifixion, which of course is how Life of Brian ends. I found this really interesting, partly because I read a lot of crime fiction and quite a few serial killers seem to crucify their victims in fiction, but having it debunked here, makes me wonder whether any of those crime writers did any research or just assumed it would work?
I enjoyed reading the different chapters on the Gospels inaccuracies, additions, erasures, and the weird ways in which the different writers (and the later editors) adjusted the stories to fit their particular viewpoint and narrative. It’s something I’ve actually studied and I was nodding my head a lot.
There’s also a chapter on my namesake – Mary Magdalene, and whether she’s also Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. He also explores the later myths and beliefs about her, and the Templars fascination with her.
What she definitely isn’t is a prostitute. That comes from a misreading of John’s Gospel, where a story about an unnamed sex worker is after a story about Mary M. They are not the same woman. That’s just some lazy casual sexism and misogyny. From the church? NEVER!! This was really interesting reading too, having read a book about Jesus’ women. I won’t give you an essay here, you can read them yourself.
There’s an incredible amount of research been done here, and it is all extremely interesting. I won’t break it all down. I did get a bit confused by all the Templar Knights, Masons, references to that godawful Dan Brown rubbish (bad literature, no grasp of geography, terribly poorly researched) as though it was legitimate scholarship, I am aware there are hundreds of theories and conspiracies about these organisations, I dont know much about any of it and thought it dragged some of the very good, legitimate points being made, down.
Overall I thought this was a really interesting book that makes some interesting points and it’s very readable, which not all scholarly examinations of the Bible are, trust me. I would have liked more on making Brian, but that was the jumping off point to looking more closely at the historical records in contrast to the Bible’s versions of events. I don’t know that I’d give this book to my religious relatives, but I can think of several people I know who would really enjoy it and happily hold internal debates with it as I have.
*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 guests are invited to paradise. Not all of them will survive.
Ryleigh is a struggling artist, still trying to catch her break in theater. Her new best friend offers her a once in a lifetime opportunity — a week on her family’s private island on Lake Michigan.
She doesn’t belong here. She doesn’t know these people at all.
Kerrigan is the housewife with the perfect life. She has a loving husband and a glamorous city apartment. Her life is everything she could ever dream of.
Her husband hates her. Their marriage is a sham.
Cole is the only local on Stonecliffe Island. He’s there to make sure the guests have everything they want. He has to focus on creating the perfect experience.
He can’t afford any distractions after last summer. This is his final chance.
Each guest has their own villa. There are staff on-call to help with every need — a masseuse, a chef to make dinner every night, waiters pouring endless champagne. It’s going to be perfect.
But a violent storm looms on the horizon. There’s no way off the island.
Then, one of the guests disappears. And they won’t be the last . . .
Adriane Leigh is a USA Today bestselling author of multiple novels and novellas. With appearances in publications such as Vogue Magazine and The Montreal Gazette, the award-winning author, in addition to writing, founded RARE: Romance Author & Reader Events, a community of internationally-renowned book conventions that draw thousands of readers and #1 bestselling authors to events around the world each year.
She hosts a podcast, The Rebel Artist, and her books are translated into French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.
Note to self; do not accept any invitations to remote islands, ever.
Invited for a combination will reading and holiday on a rather exclusive island, this rather disparate and bickering group arrive, spend several days falling out with each other and then leave, minus two of their number, who are either missing or dead.
There’s some serious confusion over what happened, stories keep changing, no one is reliable and the police never really seem to get to the bottom of it. The island’s caretaker is arrested and charged with neglect and manslaughter, but is he really to blame for any of it, or is there something larger and nastier going on?
Nine months later, the survivors are slowly building new lives, but none of them have really moved on. Questions still remain and some are plagued by guilt. Things get stranger and more volatile. But can anyone untangle the mess and find out what really happened?
Twisted and twisting, this is an edge of your seat “what just happened?” read. The lives of the characters are so enmeshed and messy, it’s not surprising that events are beyond their control and more than one of them is capable of murder.
*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 