Category: reviews

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Eye Spy – C.M. Ewan

ramblingmads

A high-speed train. A deadly game. Three hours to save your family.

A father and daughter are caught in a deadly game of ‘I Spy’ on a train journey from Paris to London in this brand-new claustrophobic thriller from C. M. Ewan, author of The House Hunt and One Wrong Turn.

Whilst queuing for the Eurostar in Paris, Mark’s four-year-old-daughter points out a fellow traveller – a ‘Bad Man’ – during a game of ‘I Spy’. As they board the train, he realizes her description may not have been wrong, as the man now carries a different suitcase – and is sitting very near to them.

This new high-octane thriller weaves an emotional family survival plot and will leave readers shuddering.

C. M. Ewan is a pseudonym for Chris Ewan, the critically acclaimed and bestselling author of many mystery and thriller novels. Chris’s first standalone thriller, Safe House, was a bestseller in the UK and was shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.

He is also the author of the thrillers One Wrong Turn, The House Hunt, The Interview, Dead Line, Dark Tides, Long Time Lost and A Window Breaks, as well as the Good Thief’s Guide series of mystery novels. The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam won the Long Barn Books First Novel Award and has been published in thirteen countries.

Chris lives with his wife and their two children in Somerset, where he writes full time.

Find Chris on twitter/X: @ChrisEwan and Instagram: @c.m.ewan

My thoughts: Travelling with children is stressful enough without one of them being kidnapped on the Eurostar between Paris and London, but that’s what happens to Mark as he returns from a solo parenting holiday with his young daughter and stepdaughter, teenager Freya.

He looks away for a few minutes and Freya’s gone. With his toddler in his arms, he can’t search as thoroughly as he’d like, but then a stranger tells him to sit down. If he does as he’s told then Freya will be fine. But if he doesn’t, she dies.

His wife Claire isn’t stuck at work dealing with IT chaos, she’s meeting someone, someone they all believed had died six years before. And the people who have Freya would like to talk to that someone. Mark has to make that happen. But with no way to talk to Claire due to the huge underwater tunnel he’s in, he’s stuck begging for the life of his teenage daughter and keeping his other daughter occupied. It might not be a long trip but for Mark it’s the longest train ride of his life.

It’s a really compelling and fascinating concept, they’re stuck on a train, there’s nowhere to go, no way to get help, but also super limited places to stash a teenage girl. Even when they arrive at St Pancras, with the millions of CCTV cameras everywhere, they still can’t rescue Freya from her captors without problems. And when you learn what it is the kidnappers want, and how totally beyond Mark and Claire’s normal life things have become, it’s jaw dropping.

Utterly gripping, very clever and filled with so many twists, you’ll be up all night!

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Collateral Damage – Sam Cogley

ramblingmads


Winter came for the pancakes. Hollowvale fed him the dead.

Dane Winter is unemployed and on a lonely road to nowhere. Riding his motorcycle west from New  York, he spots a sign on the Interstate: Hollowvale, Pennsylvania. A place he hasn’t visited since his  Redwind Security days. Back then, the town was known for its coal mines and the best pancakes he ever tasted.

A chance encounter with a distraught local woman pulls him into investigating her friend’s disappearance. When Jacob Rhodes’ body is found at the bottom of an abandoned mine shaft, the local authorities are quick to label it an accident. Winter isn’t convinced…

Between the death of Jacob and the unexplained illnesses spreading through the local population, it’s clear that nothing is as it seems in the town of Hollowvale. Worse still, Winter thinks it might have something to do with his time there two years earlier.

What starts as a quest for answers becomes a fight to expose a conspiracy that reaches far beyond the small town.
But Winter is never one to give up, and he’s willing to burn it all down in order to uncover the horrific truth.

Purchase


Sam Cogley is the author of popular action thrillers, melding suspense-laden espionage plots with the mesmerising world of high-tech innovations. He writes the high-octane Dane Winter thrillers for
Boldwood Books.
Sam lives in Victoria, Australia with his wife and children.

Facebook: @SamCogleyAuthor
Newsletter
Bookbub profile: @samcogley

My thoughts: Stopping off for what he remembers as excellent pancakes, Dane Winter finds himself embroiled in a murder case and some dodgy dealings at the local plastic recycling plant after a teacher knocks him off his motorbike. 

Her friend is missing, having gone camping in the woods, and she fears the worst. Dane offers to help her search for him, but what they find will send shockeaves through the local community when the truth is exposed.

Gripping, full of twists and turns, bent cops, evil corporations and one man with the skills to stay alive and shine a light on the misdeeds of others.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: First of December – Karen Jennings

ramblingmads

On the 1st December 1838, all slaves were finally freed on South Africa, four years after slavery had officially been abolished.

First of December follows three people during the week of November 1838: James and Caroline Kendrick, and an unnamed runaway slave making her way to Cape Town along the coast, desperate to reach it by midnight on the 31st November.

Caroline is trapped in an unhappy marriage, in a place she hates, always longing to go home; bored, lonely, without purpose or any sense of belonging. James is forever on the move, desperate for success after a lifetime of failure and humiliation, seeing South Africa as his last great hope, preparing for the climax of his work, a bank to serve the city. Each resents the other, feeling trapped and unloved, yet with a wish for it all to change.

Meanwhile the slave-apprentice, fearful of being caught before the deadline, meets others living on the coast, at the edge of society, yet always remaining alone, without any clear idea of what to expect in Cape Town.

My thoughts: This is a slender book that packs some serious thought-provoking heft. As the true freedom for South Africa’s slaves approaches, the British settlers fuss and worry about whether they will be murdered in their beds (maybe you should have treated your slaves better) when the 1st of December arrives. 

Caroline is miserable, her husband never comes anywhere near her after her battle with typhus, she doesn’t really have any friends and she misses her family back home. Lonely and frustrated, she relies on Leah, her maid, who she thinks will stay with her once she is free.

Caroline’s husband James is worrying about his standing, he doesn’t think much about his wife and her feelings, scared that his business plans will all fall apart, that his bank will fail and he will be forced to return to England in disgrace. He’s broke and keeping it hidden is causing terrible stress.

The unnamed slave heading for the city, looking for a new start, a fresh page, the safety of anonymity. She’s terrified as she travels alone through potentially dangerous places, unsure of what she will find in the city, but certain anything has to be better than where she’s left.

All three characters stand on the cusp of huge changes, in their personal lives, in their society and country. The British like James and Caroline might have to adjust to life without staff, or at least to paying their servants.

But the freed slaves, embodied by the Everygirl making her way to the city, face uncertainty too. Will they be able to find paid employment, will they be able to find safe places to live, feed their families, reunite with their families who have been sent elsewhere?

Thoughtful and quietly moving, the shift comes quietly with the new day, not with the violence the military believes they will have to quell, but with a slow understanding that things will be, must be, different from now on.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Sister Olive Wouldn’t Hurt A Fly – Gill Calvin Thomas

ramblingmads

If this whole saga was a fight between good and evil, then who had won?

As far as Miriam could work out, neither good nor evil had triumphed yet. Now she was having to confront the grim consequences of Will’s behaviour, and she was mortally afraid.
Maybe he and his darkness would win after all.

The tragic suicide of a young student starts a shocking chain of events for William
Marshall, his wife Miriam and their son, Ollie. As Will descends into madness, a
ghostly presence appears in their old house to protect Ollie. However, when two
strangers threaten Miriam and an attempt is made to snatch Ollie, mother and son are forced to flee.

Amidst ever-present danger, they shake off pursuers to seek sanctuary in Rock House in Dorset, where they meet Caitlin and her friends. Twenty years have passed since Charlie Bond helped Caitlin solve the mystery of her mother’s death. Now, it is the turn of Charlie’s sidekick, Sam Haskell, to investigate a mysterious cult and unmask a killer.

Goodreads Purchase

Gill Calvin Thomas has retired from academic life and lives with her husband in Swanage, Dorset. She finds inspiration while walking in the Isle of Purbeck. Here, she is able to escape into a world of her own making, getting to know her characters, whilst she plans the next twist and turn of the plot.

As writing has become a major part of Gill’s life, she has withdrawn from taking a
leading role in many community volunteer activities, although she has retained her
interest in local and national politics. A lifelong feminist, Gill likes nothing better than a spirited debate on the issues of the day with family and friends. As her writing
career develops, she hopes to explore those issues in her stories.

Website

My thoughts: Worried about the changes in her husband, Miriam and her son Ollie flee their home for the safety of her cousin’s home in Dorset. Unfortunately the other members of the cult her husband seems to have founded are still after Ollie.

Especially the rather malevolent Sister Olive, who has plans of her own for William, her own husband Leo and young Ollie.

But Miriam has some new friends who want to help her stay safe and Sam goes undercover in the group to try to discern their plans and find the missing William.

Twisted and strange, this cult has deviated from their original beliefs and now Olive has seized control, and no one feels safe.

The story is clever and full of twists and turns as Miriam and Ollie try to stay ahead of this dangerous woman.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Nine Missing Girls – Steena Holmes

ramblingmads

From two-million-selling author Steena Holmes, nine dark and gripping stories featuring Detective Meri Amber.

Nine missing girls. Nine cases the world wants to forget. One detective who never will.

Each file is someone’s daughter. Someone’s sister. And if Meri Amber can’t bring them home, she’ll make sure their stories end with justice.

As the FBI’s leading child abduction specialist, Meri has spent her career chasing the vanished – from Minnesota to Montana, from abandoned barns to dark cellars that still echo with screams. But every case cuts deeper than the last.

“I’m Detective Meri Amber. I’ve been searching for my sister for twenty years. Every missing girl is a mirror. Every scream behind a wall could be hers.
I’ll never stop looking. These are the stories of the girls I’ve found, the truths I’ve uncovered, and the cracks in my own past I can’t seem to seal.”

From the horrifying secrets of the House of Dolls, to a macabre twelfth birthday party, to the sinister truths buried in the Widow’s Barn: delve into nine intriguing mysteries which will chill you to the bone.

NINE NAIL-BITING STORIES FULL OF SHOCKING TWISTS BY A NEW YORK
TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR.

Goodreads
Purchase 

With 2 million copies of her titles sold world wide, Steena Holmes was named in the Top 20 Women Author to read in 2015 by Good Housekeeping. She continues to
write books that deal with issues that touch parents heart, whether it is through her contemporary fiction or psychological suspense novels.

Facebook Instagram X Website

My thoughts: Over nine cases Meri Amber looks for missing girls, girls like her sister, who she still wants to find, even if she can’t save her. She’s building a case, missing girl by missing girl, tracking evil across the country.

Sometimes she can help a vulnerable young woman, sometimes all she can do is ensure they aren’t forgotten, that any family they might have gets answers.

The stories are shocking, dark and sinister, there’s no happy endings here. There’s a narrative running through the nine stories, as Meri and her colleagues try to get justice, and stop the men who exploit, kidnap, abuse and kill.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: To The Moon and Back – Eliana Ramage

ramblingmads

Steph Harper is on the run. 

When she was five, her mother ran – with Steph and her younger sister in tow – from an abusive husband into the arms of a small Cherokee community, where she hoped they might finally belong. But Steph soon sets her sights as far away as she can get, vowing that she will let nothing interfere with her dream to become an astronaut, and ultimately, to go to the moon.

In Steph’s certainty that only her ambition can save her, she will stretch her bonds with the three women who know and love her most dearly: her younger sister Kayla, an artist whose determination to appear good takes her life to unexpected places; her college girlfriend Della, who strives to reclaim her identity as an adult after being removed from her family as a young girl through a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act; and her mother Hannah, who has held up her family’s history as a beacon of inspiration to her kids, all the while keeping the truth about her own past a secret.

Told through these women’s interwoven lives, and spanning three decades and several continents, To the Moon and Back is an astounding and expansive coming-of-age novel of mothers and daughters, love and sacrifice, alienation and heartbreak, terror and wonder. At its core, it is the story of the extraordinary lengths one woman will go to find a little space for herself.

Eliana Ramage holds an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She has received residencies and fellowships from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Lambda Literary, Tin House, and Vermont Studio Center. A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, she lives in Nashville with her family. To the Moon and Back is her first novel.

My thoughts: This is very good, a beautifully written, engaging, intelligent story about family, as complicated as that can be, told through the eyes of two sisters – Steph and Kayla, and their mother Hannah. As well as Steph’s friend Della.

Their lives haven’t been easy, as members of the Cherokee, they live with the memories of the trauma their people suffered over generations. And they have their own too.

Hannah fled her abusive husband with her daughters, from Texas to Oklahoma, hoping to give them more than she had. Her parents threw her out when she was pregnant, and she does her best to love and support them, struggling to express that all the while. 

Steph wants to be an astronaut, it’s her lifelong, obsessive, dream. It takes over at times and damages her relationships with her family, her friends and her girlfriend Della. She works diligently at achieving her goal, studying hard, applying for fellowships and eventually going to Hawaii to live in a simulated environment in an experiment.

But her interpersonal relationships are a mess, she’s bad at expressing her emotions, bad at communicating. Her obsessive plan to go to space overwhelms everything.

I found the relationship dynamics between the characters fascinating, they felt like real people – messy and complicated. The writing is confident and engaging. I don’t know a lot about Native Americans, living in the UK, they’re not something that we’re taught about, so a lot of those parts were interesting too.

It’s a really enjoyable book, and for a debut, is so confident and well written, I can’t wait to see what Ramage writes 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.

blog tour, books, reviews

Dylan Thomas Prize Longlist Blog Tour: Gunk – Saba Sams

ramblingmads

To celebrate the longlist (see image above) the books are being reviewed on book blogs and social media. To follow along search #SUDTP26

Worth £20,000, this global accolade recognises exceptional literary talent aged 39 or under, celebrating the international world of fiction in all its forms including poetry, novels, short stories and drama. The prize is named after the Swansea-born writer Dylan Thomas and celebrates his 39 years of creativity and productivity. The prize invokes his memory to support the writers of today, nurture the talents of tomorrow, and celebrate international literary excellence.

 With an average age of 32, and comprising seven novels, three poetry collections, and two short story collections, the longlist is:

–         Harriet Armstrong, To Rest Our Minds and Bodies (Les Fugitives) – novel

–         Isabelle Baafi, Chaotic Good (Faber) – poetry

–         Colwill Brown, We Pretty Pieces of Flesh (Chatto & Windus, Vintage) – novel

–         Sasha Debevec-McKenney, Joy Is My Middle Name (Fitzcarraldo Editions) – poetry

–         Suzannah V. Evans, Under the Blue (Bloomsbury Poetry) – poetry

–         Seán Hewitt, Open, Heaven (Jonathan Cape, Vintage) – novel

–         Kanza Javed, What Remains After a Fire (W.W. Norton & Company) – short stories

–         Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo, The Tiny Things Are Heavier (Manilla Press, Bonnier Books) – novel

–         Derek Owusu, Borderline Fiction (Canongate) – novel

–         Issa Quincy, Absence (Granta) – novel

–         Saba Sams, Gunk (Bloomsbury Circus) – novel

–        Vanessa Santos, Make a Home of Me (Dead Ink Books) – short stories

I read Gunk by Saba Sams, find my thoughts below ⬇️

From the award-winning author of the smash hit Send Nudes: an electrifying debut exploring love and desire, chaos and control – and family in all its forms

Jules has been divorced from her ex-husband Leon for five years, but she still works alongside him at Gunk, the grotty student nightclub he owns in central Brighton. She spends her nights serving shots and watching, from behind the bar, as Leon flirts with students on the dancefloor. In the early hours of the morning, she paces home to sleep.

But then Leon hires nineteen-year-old Nim to work the bar with Jules – Nim, with her shaved head and steady pour, her disarming sweetness and sudden distance – and Jules finds herself jolted awake. When Nim discovers she’s pregnant, Jules agrees to help. As the months pass, and the relationship between the two women grows increasingly intimate and perplexing, it emerges that Nim has her own unexpected gifts to give.

Now, alone in her small flat, Jules is holding a baby, just twenty-four-hours old, who still smells of Nim. But no one knows where Nim is, or if she’s coming back. What could the future – for Jules, Nim, and this unnamed baby – possibly look like?

Raw, exhilarating, tender and wise, Gunk is an electrifying debut novel exploring love and desire, safety and destruction, chaos and control – and family in all its forms.

My thoughts: Jules has been divorced for five years but still works in her husband’s student filled night club Gunk. When he hires Nim to work behind the bar, she and Jules become friends, and possibly more as Jules finds herself drawn to Nim.

When Nim finds she’s pregnant, she offers the baby to Jules, who has wanted to be a mother, but never managed to get pregnant. Nim moves in with her, and the two women share her flat while waiting for the baby to arrive.

Neither knows how the birth will change things, whether Nim will stay or how they will cope. Can their relationship, whatever that might be, survive the changes coming?

Jules is a complicated character, she’s basically stuck in a rut in her life, still in the same job, still looking after her ex-husband, not having started a new relationship or really moved on in her life in a long time. Nim’s arrival shakes things up, although there’s a big age difference and Nim doesn’t talk about her life before.

The relationship between them is quite strange, they share a bed as there’s only one in the flat, Jules is a caretaker, she wants to look after Nim, even though Nim finds it too much.

It’s an interesting book, even if I never felt I really knew the characters, even Jules, the narrator, her habit of being arms length with her family felt like she was written to keep the reader at a distance too.

The longlisted titles will now be whittled down to a six strong shortlist by an impressive panel of judges chaired by Irenosen Okojie MBE, award-winning Nigerian British author of Curandera, Butterfly Fish, Speak Gigantular and Nudibranch, and former Women’s Prize for Fiction judge, who is joined by: Joe Dunthorne, award-winningSwansea-bornpoet and novelist; Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, poet, pacifist and fabulist; Prajwal Parajuly, multi-award nominatedauthor of The Gurkha’s Daughter and Land Where I Flee; Eley Williams, acclaimedauthor and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

 Last year’s prize was awarded to Palestinian writer Yasmin Zaher for her novel The Coin, and previous winners include Caleb Azumah Nelson, Arinze Ifeakandu, Patricia Lockwood, Max Porter, Raven Leilani, Bryan Washington, Fiona McFarlane, and Kayo Chingonyi.

 The Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize shortlist will be unveiled on Thursday 19 March, followed by a shortlist celebration event in London (13 May), with the winner revealed on International Dylan Thomas Day (14 May) at an evening ceremony in Swansea.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Son – Johana Gustawsson & Thomas Enger

ramblingmads

Expert on body language and memory, and consultant to the Oslo Police, psychologist Kari Voss sleepwalks through her days, and, by night, continues the devastating search for her young son, who
disappeared on his birthday, seven years earlier.

Still grieving for her dead husband, and trying to pull together the pieces of her life, she is thrust into a shocking local investigation, when two teenage girls are violently murdered in a family summer
home in the nearby village of Son.
When a friend of the victims is charged with the barbaric killings, it seems the case is closed, but Kari is not convinced. Using her skills and working on instinct, she conducts her own enquiries, leading
her to multiple suspects, including people who knew the dead girls well…

With the help of Chief Constable Ramona Norum, she discovers that no one – including the victims – are what they seem. And that there is a dark secret at the heart of Son village that could have
implications not just for her own son’s disappearance, but Kari’s own life, too…

Known as the Queen of French Noir, Johana Gustawsson is one of France’s most highly regarded, award-winning authors, recipient of the prestigious Cultura Ligue de l`Imaginaire Award for her historical thriller Yule Island. Number-one bestselling books include Block 46, Keeper, Blood Song and The Bleeding. Johana lives in Sweden with her family.

A former journalist, Thomas Enger is the number-one bestselling author of the Henning Juul series and, with co-author Jørn Lier Horst, the international bestselling Blix & Ramm series. One of the biggest proponents of the Nordic Noir genre, his books have been translated into twenty-eight languages. He lives in Oslo.

My thoughts: I knew from the authors that this was going to be good, gripping and shocking. There are lots of different sons in this book, from Kari’s, missing for seven years, to the suspect, whose parents don’t seem remotely interested in him, as friends and other connected people. 

The town where two teenage girls are brutally murdered is called Son, it’s quiet, not many full time residents, and they’re planning a Halloween party, but someone decides to stop them from ever having a good time. The police arrest an acquaintance of theirs, who admits to being in the house, having been invited to bring over some drugs, but says he’s innocent. The detectives don’t believe him. Kari does. She analyses his body language, those nonverbal clues that say a lot more than words.

So she starts digging. Digging into the lives of the two victims, into the lives of their families and friends. She learns a lot of secrets – affairs, money troubles, blackmail. But are any of them bad enough to kill over? Or is it something she can’t even yet guess at?

This is a real page turner – each revelation and twist kept me hooked. Kari is an interesting character, she goes against her police colleagues, determined that the science proves she’s right and that somewhere in all the evidence she uncovers, will be the answer, the reason why two young women were brutally killed. And in helping the suspect, her lost son’s best friend, maybe she can find some peace too.

*this is a repost from last year’s hardback tour, when I was provided with a copy of the book, but as always, all opinions remain my own.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Don’t Answer the Phone – Miranda Rijks

ramblingmads

She’s the woman of his dreams. He’s the monster from her nightmares.

When Daniella rescues elderly Peggy from a mugger on a Boston street, she expects
nothing in return. But then she meets Peggy’s son, Lucas—devastatingly handsome and utterly captivating. Unlike her distant husband Grant, Lucas sees her. Wants her.

Daniella can’t resist and they spend one reckless night together which she immediately regrets.

Too late, because Lucas doesn’t just want Daniella. He needs her. And he’s willing to
destroy everything—and everyone—standing in his way.

Lucas plays the long game, worming his way into Daniella’s life—befriending Grant, charming her twin daughters, inveigling his way into her family. Every time she turns around, he seems to be there.

As the depths of his obsession become clear, Daniella realizes she’s in a fight for her life. Because the family she tried to help is hiding something dark. Something deadly.

And she’s already in too deep to escape.

Don’t Answer the Phone – the chilling psychological thriller from the best-selling
author of One Little Mistake and The Visitors.

Goodreads Purchase

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.

Facebook Instagram Twitter Website

My thoughts: Daniella helps an older woman who was being mugged. Peggy is very grateful and the two women become friends. Unfortunately this brings Daniella, a married mother of twins, to the attentions of Peggy’s son, Lucas. He’s obsessive, violent and likes to get his own way. He decides that Daniella is the one for him, and won’t let anyone – his mother, her husband, get in his way.

His campaign to win over Daniella starts well, but as she rejects him, he turns violent. But not towards her. He believes that he can still convince her to be his. Things get nastier, more violent, Daniella becomes a victim too.

There are plenty of red flags in Lucas’ behaviour, and Daniella certainly spots some of them. He’s scarily obsessive, the death of his former girlfriend worries her, other incidents make things worse. The story is gripping and full of sudden twists and turns, Daniella and her family are put into danger, and things change for them forever.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Secrets Taken to the Grave – Isobel Blackthorn

ramblingmads


The Scottish Highlands, 1893.

Ingrid Barker arrives back at Strathbairn to attend the funeral of her old employer, Charles McCleod.

Every bone in Ingrid’s body screams for her to leave, and as she walks from the graveside, she can’t shake the suspicion that Charles was murdered. As she hurries to uncover the truth and get away from Strathbairn, another murder takes place – one that traps her in the very place she is desperate to escape from.

Running out of time and clues, can Ingrid evade the truth of that terrible night up at the abbey the last time she was here, and can she solve the mystery of Charles’ death before his ghost does away with her?

An unputdownable gothic mystery laced with dark family secrets, SECRETS TAKEN TO THE GRAVE is the second book in the Strathbrain Trilogy series of historical mystery novels by Isobel Blackthorn.

Universal book link
Amazon
Apple Books
Barnes & Noble
Google Books
Rakuten Kobo


Isobel Blackthorn is an award-winning author of immersive and inspiring fiction. She has penned over twenty-five books including a number of bestsellers.

Among her credits, Isobel’s biographical short story ‘Nothing to Declare’, which forms the first chapter of her biographical novel Emma’s Tapestry, was shortlisted for the Ada Cambridge Prose Prize 2019. One of her Canary Islands novels, A Prison in the Sun, was shortlisted in the LGBTQ
category of the Readers’ Favorite Book Awards 2020 and the International Book Awards 2021. The Cabin Sessions was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award 2018 and the Ditmar Awards 2018.
And The Unlikely Occultist: A biographical novel of Alice A. Bailey received an Honorable Mention in the 2021 Reader’s Favorite Book Awards.

Blackthorn is the author of the world’s only biography of Theosophist and mother of the New Age movement Alice Bailey – Alice A. Bailey: Life & Legacy. Isobel’s writing has appeared in journals and
websites around the world, including Esoteric Quarterly, New Dawn Magazine, Paranoia, Mused Literary Review, Trip Fiction, Backhand Stories, Fictive Dream and On Line Opinion. Isobel was a judge
for the Australasian Shadow Awards 2020 long fiction category. Her book reviews have appeared inNew Dawn Magazine, Esoteric Quarterly, Shiny New Books, Sisters in Crime, Australian Women Writers, Trip Fiction and Newtown Review of Books.

Isobel’s interests are many and varied. She has a long-standing association with the Canary Islands, having lived in Lanzarote in the late 1980s. A humanitarian and campaigner for social justice, in 1999
Isobel founded the internationally acclaimed Ghana Link, uniting two high schools, one a relatively  privileged state school located in the heart of England, the other a materially impoverished school in
a remote part of the Upper Volta region of Ghana, West Africa. After working as a teacher, market  trader and PA to a literary agent, she arrived at writing in her forties, and her stories are as diverse and intriguing as her life has been.

Isobel has performed her literary works at events in a range of settings and given workshops in  creative writing.

British by birth, Isobel entered this world in Farnborough, Kent, UK. She has lived in England, Australia, Spain and the Canary Islands. She now lives and writes in Spain. She is currently at work on two novels composed in Spanish.

Facebook Goodreads Instagram Bluesky Bookbub

My thoughts: Ingrid returns to Strathbrain for the funeral of her former employer, despite misgivings. What she learns there is that his supposed natural death wasn’t.

And there’s more – she finds a history of the McCleod family that details the bloody history of the members. Generations of them with murder on their minds. It makes her even more concerned about staying there as Miles is behaving strangely. Is he the one Charles’ ghost wants her to identify as his killer?

Her daughter, Susan, is happily settled in with the house’s staff, baking with the cook, helping the maid clean the fireplaces. It makes it harder for Ingrid to insist on returning to Winchester soon. She also learns some things about her own family, but these are happier. Until bones are found in the old Abbey and bring up more recent history and could change everything. 

Haunted and sinister, Strathbrain is not a friendly house, but by putting its ghosts to bed, things might finally change. And as Christmas approaches, putting the past behind them and starting the new year fresh is something Ingrid really wants.

The plot zigs and zags, every time Ingrid thinks she might escape, something happens to keep her there. All the twists kept me wondering what might happen next, were Ingrid and Susan at risk? Hopefully the darkness is behind them and when Ingrid next returns to Scotland it’s for happier reasons. But probably not!

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.