Category: reviews

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Immorality Act – Berend Mets

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Cape Town, in the 1960s.

 Love across the colour bar is a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment.

 John Terreblanche, a police reporter seeking redemption, tells the story of a Xhosa nurse, Promise Madiba, a Dutch doctor, Willem Jansen, and a Malay prostitute, Marja de Koning, who engage in a passionate love triangle in the shadow of the Sharpeville massacre, as South Africa lurches towards becoming a Republic.

 Violent yet tender, Immorality Act spans from Indonesia to Cape Town and is a moving account of the impact of apartheid, racism and colonialism on lives in the twentieth century, as well as a celebration of the ungovernability of the human spirit.

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Dr Berend Mets was born in Indonesia of Dutch parents, and amongst other countries grew up in apartheid South Africa where he became a doctor, anaesthetist and scientist. He came to fiction through an MFA degree after a career of medical, historical and scientific writing. Berend is a Professor of Anesthesiology at the Pennsylvania State University and divides his time between America, the Dutch Caribbean, and Cape Town, South Africa.

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My thoughts: inspired by his experiences and those of his father, Dr Berend Mets has crafted a fascinating and moving story of the second half of the twentieth century. From Indonesia under Japanese occupation and the horrors of WW2 to the Netherlands and then apartheid South Africa, the story of Willem, Marja and Promise is both terribly sad and full of joy.

Falling in love across the colour bar is illegal in 1961, but not something Willem and Promise do intentionally. Meeting in the hospital where they both work, the damaged doctor and the impassioned nurse fall in love and work secretly to end apartheid.

Marja is Willem’s childhood friend, his first love, long thought lost to him. Near death, he saves her life in the operating theatre. As she recovers in Promise’s home, the net is closing in on them. Promise’s political activities and the fact a white doctor has been spending so much time with her has brought scrutiny on them. The Immorality Act forbids sex between the races and it is this law that sees Willem and Marja in court, Promise having escaped.

The framing narrative of a book written by Afrikaans journalist John Terreblanche is interesting and allows for the inclusion of court documents and police reports but does at times feel intrusive  – as does his presence in their lives. He’s not part of their tangled relationship and doesn’t really belong. His guilt at his involvement in the case, only confessed later on, drives him to tell their story, but is it his to tell?

Powerful and moving, evocative and provoking, this is an interesting and intelligent book about a time when love was illegal and the government of South Africa felt it had the right to involve itself in people’s personal lives.

*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: It’s Complicated – Camilla Isley

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Lori has been in love with her best friend Aiden since college. Now Aiden (handsome, fair, All-American dream doctor) is getting married, and Lori desperately needs a date to the wedding.
So she asks the best man, Jace (tall, dark, and brooding), to pretend their platonic friendship is something more not to have to face the worst day of her life alone.
Fake dating one best friend to forget the other should be easy… Plot twist—it’s not. When Jace starts acting like the sweetest, most attentive boyfriend, Lori begins to wonder if she’s been seeing him wrong all this time?
They’ve been an inseparable trio since freshman year, but now everything is changing — and that’s not even bringing Jace’s feelings into the mix.
Basically? It’s complicated.

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Camilla Isley is an engineer who left science behind to write bestselling contemporary rom-coms set all around the world. She lives in Italy and her first title for Boldwood, The Love Theorem, a
Hollywood-meets-STEM romance was published in June 2023.

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My thoughts: Lori loves Aiden, but Aiden’s marrying Kirsten, and Jace loves Lori, but they’re just friends…or are they?

When Lori asks her pal Jace to fake date till they get through Aiden’s wedding, she doesn’t realise that her friend has been in love with her since college, roughly the same length of time she’s been in love with Aiden, or is she?

Realising there’s more to Jace than she thought, and that he could be more than “just friends” totally blows Lori’s world view apart, maybe The One isn’t the friend she fell for all those years ago (Aiden) but the The One Next To Him.

With the humour and romance you expect from one of Camilla Isley’s delightful rom coms, this is Doctors Do Dating and Falling in Love, turns out they’re smart, just not when it comes to love!! Lots of fun and with a perfectly charming happy ever after.

*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: Queer Villains of Myth and Legend – Dan Jones

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Every good hero needs a villain!

Explore the hidden world of magnetic and mysterious villains, often cast aside and misunderstood in tales of mythology and folklore. Through the pages of Queer Villains of Myth and Legend, discover a diverse community of fascinating characters, ranging from seductive and cunning to powerful and awe-inspiring.

Experience the dark allure of Circe and Medusa through to David Bowie’s Jareth in Labyrinth and delve into their complex and multifaceted personalities and motivations. Take a deep dive into the intersection of queerness and villainy, re-examine some of our favourite characters, and discover why so many ‘bad’ characters are queer-coded.

From ancient mythology to contemporary pop culture, Queer Villains of Myth and Legend celebrates the fascinating stories of these often-overlooked characters.

Join Dan Jones on a journey of discovery, as he explores the hidden depths of queer villainy and sheds light on the queer identities of these compelling figures. It’s a powerful celebration of queerness through the ages in all its legendary complexity.

Dan Jones is a freelance writer and author based in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from the UK, he has previously covered men’s style and grooming as an editor for several fashion and lifestyle magazines – including the New York Times’ Wirecutter – and ecommerce brands. A big myth nerd and martini fan, Dan has published books on both legendary queer mythological characters and cocktails alongside a series of fashion titles.

My thoughts: in this book each short chapter focuses on one character from mythology or pop culture that is either overtly queer or queer coded; historically there are times when being openly gay or trans was criminalised or put you at risk, even if you were producing art rather than bring queer yourself.

While some of the chapters feel a bit rushed and lack details, others are more thorough and use examples from the tales these characters come from and retellings or scholarly work, especially the mythic figures.

Some of the names will be familiar and others less well known, unless you’re a mythology nerd like me, and some, such as the Knights Templar, don’t really have much evidence – they didn’t leave records behind, so we have to go on rumour and theory.

It’s a nice volume collecting some interesting figures from history, mythology, literature and pop culture, from Circe to Buffy’s Dark Willow.

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

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Blog Tour: The Descent – Paul Hardistry

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Kweku Ashworth is a child of the cataclysm, born on a sailboat to parents
fleeing the devastation in search for a refuge in the Southern Ocean. Growing
up in a world forever changed, his only connection to the events that set the
world on its course to disaster were the stories his step-father, now long-dead,
recorded in his manuscript, The Forcing.

But there are huge gaps in the story that his mother, still alive but old and frail,
steadfastly refuses to speak of, even thirty years later. When he discovers
evidence that his mother has tried to cover up the truth, he knows that it is time
to find out for himself.

Determined to learn what really happened during his mother’s escape from the
concentration camp to which she and Kweku’s father were banished, and their
subsequent journey halfway around the world, Kweku and his young family set
out on a perilous voyage across a devastated planet. What they find will
challenge not only their faith in humanity, but their ability to stay alive.

Canadian Paul E Hardisty has spent 25 years working all over the world as an
engineer, hydrologist and environmental scientist. He has roughnecked on oil rigs in
Texas, explored for gold in the Arctic, mapped geology in Eastern Turkey (where he was befriended by PKK rebels), and rehabilitated water wells in the wilds of Africa.

He was in Ethiopia in 1991 as the Mengistu regime fell, and was bumped from one of the last flights out of Addis Ababa by bureaucrats and their families fleeing the rebels. In 1993 he survived a bomb blast in a café in Sana’a.

Paul is a university professor and CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). The first four novels in his Claymore Straker series, The Abrupt Physics of Dying, The Evolution of Fear, Reconciliation for the Dead and Absolution all received great critical acclaim and The Abrupt Physics of Dying was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and Telegraph Thriller of the Year. The Forcing (2023) was a SciFi Now Book of the Month, with The Descent out in 2024.

Paul is a sailor, a private pilot, keen outdoorsman, and lives in Western Australia.

My thoughts: The Forcing was a heck of a book and I thought a tough act to follow, but The Descent is incredible. Chronicling not only a sequel featuring Teacher’s step-son, but also exploring how a cabal of wealthy and powerful men helped destroy the world, this is timely, powerful and moving writing.

After the safety of their home is violated, his mother, brother and sister-in-law murdered and their toddler daughter kidnapped; Kewku, his wife and son board Providence, the boat that brought his family to Australia, and head out in search of answers.

Retracing elements of his family’s journey to safety, Kweku hopes to find members of his biological father’s family still alive and rescue his stolen niece. Fuelled by the mysterious Sparkplug’s dispatches from the past, and Teacher’s own account of the terrible climate catastrophe and war, Kweku creates his own narrative of this second voyage of hope.

Sparkplug was the assistant and sometime mistress of Derek Argent, one of the rich, morally corrupt men who orchestrated the  events that have so divided the remnants of humanity. Kweku, Juliette and Leo will risk their lives, their family and their souls on this voyage into the unknown. There are dangers they could never have imagined lurking on the edges of what remains, desperate people and manipulative leaders, many of whom seem to offer much.

Kweku is reading an old copy of The Odyssey, and being a mythology nerd who studied that book, I can see the echoes of some of Odysseus’ misadventures in Kweku’s. As well as those of Teacher and his family in The Forcing. I could probably write whole essays on the similarities and comparisons in these three books, but here is not the place.

There isn’t a lot of hope for humanity here, stripped down to our basest instincts, it’s all murder and sex and violence and greed. Which is a little depressing. But when they return to Australia and the Aboriginal community there, amongst descendants of one of the oldest communities in the world, is hope for a better future. And there’s something incredibly powerful in that. This is a book that deserves to be on the bestseller lists and in readers’ minds for a long time.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Perfect Parents – J.A. Baker

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Jackson and Lydia Hemsworth are pillars of the community, feted for having the perfect marriage and three wonderful children – Florence, Jessica and Ezra.
But appearances can be deceptive.

Because behind closed doors Jackson Hemsworth rules his family with cruelty and control. His marriage is a sham; his children for years have cowed in fear.
Until the day that Jackson and Lydia throw themselves off Newport Bridge in a joint suicide pact – the final cruel blow by Jackson to control his wife and torture his adult children.

As the Hemsworth siblings return to their family home, they must try to make sense of their parents’ last act. But there are many dark secrets waiting to be unearthed at Armett House.

Like, why are the townsfolk so suddenly hostile towards them? And who are the strangers who arrive at Armett House unannounced? And why has their mother’s body still not been found?

In the aftermath of their parents’ death, it becomes clear that something terrible is about to be exposed about the Hemsworths’ perfect parents.

A secret they may all wish had stayed hidden…

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J. A. Baker is a successful psychological thriller writer of numerous books, previously published by Bloodhound. Born and brought up in Middlesbrough, she still lives in the North East, which inspires the settings for her books. Her first title for Boldwood will be published in December 2022.

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My thoughts: Florence, Jessica and Ezra gather at the family home after the funeral of their parents, dead in a terrible suicide pack. Things have changed in the village – people are hostile and their controlling father didn’t pay his bills before killing himself, leaving the people who worked for him in debt. 

The siblings don’t feel welcome in the village, and have a lot of stuff to wade through in the house, their parents left a lot up in the air and all three have questions.

But as they sort through everything, more questions rear their heads – is their mother still alive? When handyman Coop takes off all of a sudden without a word, it seems suspicious. Then there’s a terrible accident that turns their world upside down and makes it more important than ever to get some answers.

Gripping, with twists and turns I didn’t see coming, this is an incredibly enjoyable and clever 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.

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BBNYA Blog Tour: Secrets of Peace – T.A. Hernandez

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 About BBNYA

 BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

 Open your eyes. See the truth. Make a choice.

Nearly 30 years ago, the PEACE Project rose from the ruins of a global war to take power over a new America. Providing stability in exchange for absolute authority, the Project controls every aspect of citizens’ lives through each of its five units:

Protect

Enforce

Advance

Control

Eliminate

Raised in the Project since infancy, eighteen-year-old Zira has been trained as an assassin under the stern guidance of unit E-2’s Chairman Ryku. After she makes a careless mistake on an assignment, the chairman partners her with Jared, the best operative in her unit. Their partnership transforms into friendship as they work together and learn to rely on each other. But when misinformation causes a solo mission to backfire, Zira’s deepest loyalties and strongest relationships are tested in a place where even a hint of doubt can be perceived as treason.

The life she knows is falling apart, and nothing will ever look the same again.

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Author Bio

T. A. Hernandez is a science fiction and fantasy author and long-time fan of speculative fiction. She grew up with her nose habitually stuck in a book and her mind constantly wandering to make-believe worlds full of magic and adventure. She began writing after reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings many years ago and is now happily engaged in an exciting and lifelong quest to tell captivating stories.

She is a clinical social worker and the proud mother of two girls. She also enjoys drawing, reading, graphic design, playing video games, and making happy memories with her family and friends.

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 My thoughts: Zira has been raised inside the PEACE Project, she knows no different, trained to assassinate the Project’s enemies for her Chairman – she’s one of the youngest so far. But after an accident on a job, she begins to see things from a different perspective. One that makes her ask questions.

It puts her relationship with Jared under strain and with the Chairman, who doesn’t trust her all of a sudden. Maybe the Project isn’t the force for good they’ve all been raised to believe.

The first in a protected series, this is a smart Dystopian read with a controlling power that might be taking it too far and a young woman who needs to find her own way in a world where all she believes might be false.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Blog Tour: Prisoner of Acre – Murray Bailey

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Ash Carter returns to Israel on what should be a straightforward mission except for one small detail. Why did Alfred Duffy go AWOL from the British Army, go to Israel and then hand himself in at Acre Prison.

The mystery deepens when Carter finds that Duffy escaped just as he arrived.

The hunt begins but as the mystery unravels towards an exciting climax, it becomes unclear who is the hunter and who the hunted.

My thoughts: Ash Carter is dispatched to Israel, the newly formed country in former British Mandated Palestine, a country still riven with internal struggles.

He’s looking for a British soldier who’s gone AWOL, and been imprisoned in the old fortress prison in Acre, after handing himself in. But why did he go to Israel, only to hand himself in and where has he gone now? When Carter and Co turn up to take him into custody, he’s gone. And he’s escaped with another prisoner.

As Carter pursues him across the fledgling state, he uncovers a shocking and terrible series of deaths and an evil that goes right to the heart of the country, crossing all religious and ethnic lines.

I’m a big fan of Murray Bailey’s historical crime books, and of Ash Carter, so I was really excited to read this, and I wasn’t disappointed. Ash races back and forth across the desert, sometimes with others, often alone, despite having no real authority now the British have left, which brings him under suspicion at times. There’s a relentless pace as he’s up against it and the pressure of solving the case and finding Duffy is not exactly easy.

Ash of course wants to do the right thing, even if it means ignoring his orders, and luckily he’s the only one who knows exactly what’s happened. Which keeps the victims safe and Ash from getting locked up himself. Bring on his next high octane adventure!

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

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Blog Tour: Point Zero – Seicho Matsumoto, translated by Louise Heal Kawai

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Tokyo, 1958. Teiko marries Kenichi Uhara, ten years her senior, an advertising man recommended by a go-between. After a four-day honeymoon, Kenichi vanishes. Teiko travels to the coastal and
snow-bound city of Kanazawa, where Kenichi was last seen, to investigate his disappearance. When Kenichi’s brother comes to help her, he is murdered, poisoned in his hotel room.

Soon, Teiko discovers that her husband’s disappearance is tied up with the so-called “pan-pan girls”, women who worked as prostitutes catering to American GIs after the war. Now, ten years later, as the country is recovering, there are those who are willing to take extreme measures to hide that past.

A triumph by Seicho Matsumoto, the master of Japanese mystery writing. A beautifully written crime novel that takes on the taboo of Japanese prostitution catering to GIs during the American post-war occupation.

First published in Japanese in 1959, the novel abandoned the template of closed-room mysteries so popular in pre-war Japan to embrace social criticism.

In a radical departure from tradition, the novel has a female protagonist, a housewife seeking to find her missing husband. Respectful of the proprieties expected of a Japanese woman of the time, but stubborn, intrepid and a naturally intuitive sleuth.

Seicho Matsumoto (1909-1982) was Japan’s most successful mystery writer. His first detective novel, Points and Lines, sold over a million copies in Japan. Vessel of Sand, published in English as Inspector Imanishi Investigates in 1989, sold over four million copies and became a movie box-office hit.

Louise Heal Kawai is a translator of Japanese literature based in Yokohama. She previously translated Seicho Matsumoto’s A Quiet Place for Bitter
Lemon Press. She is the translator of other works in the mystery genre, including
Seishi Yokomizo’s The Honjin Murders and Death on Gokumon Island, and
Seventeen and The North Light by Hideo Yokoyama.

My thoughts: this was an excellent read, translated from the original Japanese, it brings to life the 1950s post-war country, recovering its identity and economy after being occupied by the US.

Teiko agrees to a marriage arranged through a match maker, but after her husband goes missing she realises she knows next to nothing about the man she married. As she investigates his disappearance, and his brother also goes missing, she uncovers a terrible truth that dates back to the war and someone who will go to any lengths to keep it hidden.

Teiko is doing the work the police seem to be unbothered by, they don’t put much effort into the search for Kenichi, so she and Kenichi’s colleague Honda are the ones doing all the digging. When Honda becomes another victim of the killer, Teiko starts to put the pieces together – and solves the case.

Clever and with enough twists to keep people hooked, this is exceptional crime writing that lingers. Japanese crime fiction had its own golden age, and we’re finally seeing some excellent translations, like this one, reach the English readership.

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

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Blog Tour: Deadly Animals – Marie Tierney

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Thirteen-year-old Ava Bonney is unlike other children. Exceptionally bright, she has an obsessive interest in the rate at which dead animals decompose. The motorway she lives by regularly offers up roadkill, and in the dead of night Ava likes nothing better than to pull her latest discovery into her roadside den so she can study it. But one day when she arrives she stumbles across the body of fellow pupil, Mickey Grant. DI Seth Delahaye is given the case, one of the most challenging of his career. But Ava is not the sort of person who will step back and let someone else take charge when children like her are dying. She uses all her unusual skills and deep local knowledge to try to track down the serial killer in her community.

My thoughts: this was so good, dark and twisted and with an incredible protagonist in teenager Ava, a young woman with a passion for science and pathology in particular. She’s checking on one of her research projects late at night when she finds the body of a schoolmate, a bully, but someone she knows. He’s been brutally murdered, and Ava decides to investigate.

I loved Ava’s relationship with DI Delahaye, despite her being so young the detective trusts her instincts and her understanding of the area and other teenagers. Ava is incredibly smart and has read books on so many subjects and seems to have memorised all the things she’s learnt. Her mum doesn’t see how brilliant she is, in fact most of the adults around her don’t, just Delahaye, her dad and her best friend John’s Grandpa, who keeps an eye on their investigation.

I hope there’s a sequel with a grown up Ava putting all her scientific knowledge to use solving crimes for the police, either as a detective or as a CSI.

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

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Blog Tour: Murder in the Library – Anita Davison

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A body in a hospital isn’t so unusual. Unless they’ve been murdered!

1916, London: Keen to support the war effort, bookshop manager and sometime amateur sleuth Hannah Merrill has taken a volunteer role in the library of the nearby military hospital. But arriving at
the hospital one cold winter’s morning, she is horrified to find the body of a dead soldier in the library.
What’s more, a beautiful young nurse confides in Hannah that she thinks she’s being followed, and then she abruptly disappears. Hannah can’t shake the suspicion that the two cases are connected,
but she can’t solve the case alone. She’ll once again need to call upon her delightful, demanding, only-occasionally devious aunt, Violet. The two women know they must find the missing nurse before it’s too late… but they don’t realise they’re now both in the killer’s sights.

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Anita Davison is the author of the successful Flora Maguire historical mystery series. Previously published by Aria, she is writing a new cosy mystery series for Boldwood, the first title of which,
Murder in the Bookshop will be published in August 2023.

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My thoughts: when Hannah opens up the hospital library where she volunteers, she doesn’t expect to find a body there, but she does. One of the patients, not a popular man, so there’s plenty of suspects to be had. And then a potential witness, one of the nurses, vanishes. What is going on?

Hannah doesn’t need much of an excuse to do some investigating, Aidan doesn’t think it’s connected and to begin with he doesn’t believe the nurse, Alice, is really missing. So much for Scotland Yard! So Hannah, and Aunt Violet, look into the young woman themselves. She thought someone was following her, and everyone they talk to, her landlady, her aunt, her friend, seem to be hiding things. Anyone of them could have been involved.

Unravelling the murdered soldier’s somewhat sordid tale does give a few clues to the missing heiress too, she might have seen something that could be dangerous. But threats come from another angle as Hannah, Aunt Violet, Aidan and Darius visit Lowestoft, the most easterly town in England, to get some answers.

Set amid the worries of WW1, and threats in the North Sea, this is a smart, entertaining and enjoyable crime 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.