blog tour, books

BBNYA Semi-finalists: Dead Sexy – Cameo MacPherson

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This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. 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.

Taking a chance on love can be harder than hunting the undead.

Cassie Jones, the head of Jones’ Post-Mortem Tracking Agency, has been cursed with a capital “C.” Thanks to an unfortunate incident with an angry wizard, any guy she falls for is guaranteed to betray her. So when David MacDuff – the most mouthwatering man she’s ever had the misfortune to meet – hires her to track his recently deceased brother, Gideon, she knows she’s got to keep things strictly professional.

Yeah… like that’s going to happen. She should have stuck to hunting vampires after all.

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Author Bio

Cameo MacPherson is an author with a strange sense of reality. She honestly thinks it’s possible to write books, maintain an acting career, raise three children, and fight off an encroaching zombie horde all at the same time. (Although sometimes she does get the children and the zombies confused.) A graduate of St. Vincent College in Pennsylvania, Cameo is proud to have put her degree in Advertising/Communications to absolutely no use and hopes to continue doing so. She can be found on social media (Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and BlueSky) @cameomacpherson

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Blog Tour: The Curse of Moonseed Manor – D. Lieber

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A haunted hotel. A skeptical photographer. A deadly curse that could cost her everything.
Wren Mabry’s life is a disaster. Her last few years have been rife with tragedy and hardship. So when she’s offered a job at Moonseed Manor, a Gothic revival mansion that’s never welcomed visitors, it
seems suspicious. Even so, this is her chance to finally turn her life around.
The gloom that hangs over Moonseed Manor is enhanced by its cold yet alluring owner, Mr. William Courtland Bennings. And the spooky tales of the flirtatious and sexy caretaker, Watt, play up that feeling.
Even though Wren doesn’t believe in ghosts or curses, she’s always had a flair for the darker side.
And when she finds a handwritten book of poetry filled with longing, terror, and ghostly revenge, it reawakens her very soul—or rather the unknown poet does.
Love, death, secrets, and lies await in this gothic romance.

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D. Lieber has a wanderlust that would make a butterfly envious. When she isn’t planning her next physical adventure, she’s recklessly jumping from one fictional world to another. Her love of reading led her to earn a Bachelor’s in English from Wright State University.
Beyond her skeptic and slightly pessimistic mind, Lieber wants to believe. She has been many places—from Canada to England, France to Italy, Germany to Russia—believing that a better world
comes from putting a face on “other.” She is a romantic idealist at heart, always fighting to keep her feet on the ground and her head in the clouds.
Lieber lives in Wisconsin with her husband (John) and cats (Yin and Nox).

My thoughts: as someone figuring out their next life move, I completely empathised with Wren, her dad died, her mum has basically turned into a different, and not very nice, person, she’s juggling two jobs, struggling to get by and so the opportunity of a live in, well paid photography job is one she jumps at.

But it’s at a slightly sinister, supposedly haunted manor on an island in the middle of Lake Ontario, in upstate New York, further from her sister and friends. She takes the offer anyway, maybe it’ll be a short term thing but worth it.

Meeting the other employees, and her new boss, calms her worries, they all seem pretty ok, even if Mr Bennings is a bit strange. Flirty handyman/gardener Watt does his best to get her into trouble and himself into her knickers, but Wren keeps him at bay. Besides she’s come to realise her employer is the most haunted thing on the island.

Helping Corey (as Mr Bennings likes to be called) makes Wren happy, he’s been struggling alone for so long, if she can rescue him from the family curse, perhaps they can be together. But when things go wrong, will their newly found love last?

Sweet and spooky, this is a perfect seasonal read, with a protagonist you can root for.

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

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BBNYA Semi-finalists: Curse of the Fallen – H.C. Newell

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This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. 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.

Nerana is a sorceress born in a world where magic is forbidden. Outcast, exiled, and hunted since birth, she seeks to free herself of a curse that ties her to the Order of Saro who relentlessly hunt her down.

Her hope now lies in a legend from the time of the elves that speaks of the Trials of Blood, a test that promises salvation. Darkness gathers, and the hunters close in on their prey, but with little left to lose Nerana embarks on her perilous journey and soon learns that the path to redemption may prove more fatal than the Order itself.

But for Nerana, this is more than a quest for survival… it’s a promise of revenge.

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H.C. Newell is an American author of dark fantasy. She is best known for the Fallen Light fictional universe, in which her fantasy novels Curse of the Fallen, The Forbidden Realms, and The Banished are set.

In 2014, Newell started her first novel series, Forthwind, which was a young adult trilogy. As she grew as an author, she found her niche in adult fantasy, and created the Fallen Light universe. This six-part novel series took Newell over ten years to create. She published her debut novel “Curse of the Fallen” in April 2021.

Newell’s works have been compared by readers to authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien, Andrejz Sapkowski, and Robert Jordan among others. Newell lives in Nashville, TN with her husband.

Linktr.ee/hcnewell includes all website and social media links

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Blog Tour: Mrs Sidhu’s Dead and Scone – Suk Pannu

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Mrs. Sidhu – unofficial Aunty to everyone, caterer, and amateur sleuth from Slough – spices up the lives of Berkshire’s elite with both her mouth-watering dishes and her sharp detective skills. But when she stirs up trouble among the rich and ruthless, she finds herself an outsider in her own community.

Banished to the kitchen by her boss and sentenced to an endless loop of aubergine bhajis, Mrs. Sidhu seizes the opportunity to whip up a new recipe for success – getting a job as a private chef at an exclusive celebrity rehab retreat. But when a therapist is found dead in the quiet village, Mrs. Sidhu’s appetite for mystery is rekindled.

As the plot thickens, it becomes clear that the killer is picking victims through a twisted raffle at the village fete. Is a vengeful spirit returning to exact a horrifying revenge, or is there an impostor among the residents hiding a deadly secret?

Suk grew up along the M4, the draughty corridor that connects London to Slough. The son of immigrants, his upbringing was filled with discipline, love and aunties. At an early age, he got his head stuck into books and escaped into other worlds. He has long believed that one of his aunties would be the perfect crime solver.

Suk Pannu has written for some of Britain’s best-loved Asian shows including Goodness Gracious Me and five series of the award-winning The Kumars at No 42. He has also contributed to radio shows like The News Quiz and Armando Iannucci’s Charm Offensive, and he has had several successful series and pilots of his own. This is his debut novel.

My thoughts: first of all it took me ages to get the pun in the title because I say scone with an ‘e’ like stone not gone. But that’s a me issue (me and a lot of other people!)

Anyway, I didn’t know this series from the radio, but my mum did, so I now need to seek it out online and listen. But I thought the book was hilarious and I loved Mrs Sidhu, she reminded me of a lot of my friends’ mums and aunties, always feeding everyone, always worrying and a lot smarter than you might think.

Mrs Sidhu knows people, and that’s her secret talent, she can read them, she’s sure everyone else is looking in the wrong place, at the wrong suspect, and missing the clues. And of course, she’s right.

But even her detective friend overlooks her theories, and lets others lead him the wrong way. They’re all fascinated by the “Dr” who runs the rehab centre, and celebrities in recovery, missing the quietly odd cult still existing in their midst. But not Mrs Sidhu, who follows her own path, solves the murders, and a few other mysteries along the way. All the time cooking up a storm and producing perfect scones for the fete. More please!

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

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BBNYA Semi-finalists: Carved Amidst the Shadows – M.T. Fontaine

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This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. 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.

When the gods shaped the continent into five kingdoms to be ruled by their progeny, they did not account for the greed of men. When they created the Order from their god-blessed followers to mediate between realms, they neglected to plan against the hoarding of power. War between the royalists and the godly was inevitable.

Five centuries later, the borders between kingdoms are impenetrable. No branded-born Marked can cross them without burning to ash, except the Order’s Stewards. But a damaging new war has been prophesied, one that haunts the Order, one that will come to pass if Carved traitors roam free and brandless-born Flawed are left alive.

It starts with one girl that survives the impossible. Kaianne, the Carved. It takes shape through one prince with ambition. Andreiyes, the Marked. It hinges on one grieving man who is ready to give up hope. Rau, the Steward. Three people bound by fate – whether they like it or not.

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Author Bio

Writing has been a staple of my daily diet since I first learned how to pen my first word. It started out with notes left behind for family members and short stories, to writing skits for the neighborhood kids. I’d wake up in the middle of the night unable to go back to sleep because of the thousands of ideas floating in my head.

I’m an introvert at its finest. If I could bury myself in books and my writing, whenever my kids were at school, I would. I have a wonderful partner in life, two kids, and two fur babies. I’ve lived in three countries: the grand canyon state in the US, France, and now Spain. I speak both french and english fluently and am working on refining my spanish, however difficult that currently is since I work solely from home. One day, I hope to make authoring my day-job, but until then I’m a part-time finance manager who gorges on tea, lots and lots of tea.

instagram: @m.t.fontaine

twitter: MT_Fontaine

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Blog Tour: Take Me Home – Beth Moran

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Sophie Potter’s job is helping people deal with the worst, because Sophie Potter knows what the worst feels like.
An expert at keeping moving, with her trusty motorhome and faithful dog Muffin, Sophie has built her life around keeping her loves and loyalties as few as possible.
Fabulous fifty-something Hattie Langford has kept her heart and past safely stored away too. But for reasons she’s only willing to share with a stranger, Hattie needs to tell the story her family has been
hiding at Riverbend, their home in Sherwood Forest. There is a history of heartbreak and hurt that Hattie is ready to face.
As Sophie helps Hattie uncover the secrets of generations of women who have lived at Riverbend, along with the stories of the men they have loved and lost, they start to see echoes in their own pasts. And as Riverbend shares its biggest secret of all, can Hattie and Sophie finally embrace the
lives they’ve put on hold for so long, and risk their hearts to men who can break the Riverbend curse?
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Beth Moran is the award winning author of ten contemporary fiction novels, including the top ten bestselling Just the Way You Are. Her books are set in and around Sherwood Forest, where she can
be found most mornings walking with her spaniel Murphy. She has the privilege of also being a foster carer to teenagers, and enjoys nothing better than curling up with a pot of tea and a good story.

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My thoughts: Sophie has an unusual job, helping clear up the things the recently deceased leave behind, possessions and admin, for the bereaved. She travels from place to place in her trusty campervan with pooch Muffin at her side but fears staying in one place after losing her family and her home.

But invited to Riverbend by the eccentric artist Hattie Hood, to help her sort out her home and her things just in case she’s running out of time. But it’s the story of the women of Riverbend is what she really needs to share.

Hattie is also an art therapist, and by including Sophie in her work, she helps her start to deal with her grief and fear, just in time for Sophie to fall in love, with Riverbend and Gideon.

The book is sweet and sad, heartbreaking at times and so warm and full of love, it’s just the most cosy and enjoyable hug of a book. Perfect for this rainy, cold time of year.

*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: Fatal Lies – Anita Waller

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For Matt Forrester, The Forrester Detective Agency is going from strength to strength: they’ve expanded their office space and even hired a new office manager – a qualified and astute woman named Carol.
What starts as a simple burglary case soon turns into something darker. The victim of said burglary soon turns up dead, after engaging in threats with the local yobs she believed to have been responsible.
But it soon becomes clear that there’s more at play here, and Matt – alongside sister Hermia, partner Steve, and life partner Karen – will have to put all their skills to the test, even if it puts them in
danger…
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Anita Waller is the author of many bestselling psychological thrillers and the Kat and Mouse crime series. She lives in Sheffield, which continues to be the setting of many of her thrillers.

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My thoughts: the Forrester Detective Agency is getting plenty of work, mostly of the cheating spouse kind, when there’s a burglary round the corner. It’s one of Karen’s official police ones, but Matt casts an eye over it, hoping he can help.

While Steve has a landscaping client whose garden has been trashed, and as well as putting it right, he offers to look into the incident.

A brilliant new receptionist, in the shape of scone baking, file sorting, super capable Carol, helps them get the office into shape and creates a database, WATSON, to keep their cases organised.

A strange woman, claiming to be an old friend of Matt’s dad, has appeared but no one has heard of her, but Carol offers to dig through the files for a trace of her. What does this woman really want?

As the team work on their cases, there’s still time for family, although Harry is struggling, and needs his dad more than ever with a new baby sister in the picture.

Another gripping and intelligent thriller that might keep you awake if you read it too late!

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

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Blog Tour: A Third is Darkness – Murray Bailey

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Judge not the man


Charles Balcombe cannot control his alter ego.
BlackJack is killing for fun and DI Munro knows his partnership with Balcombe can’t continue.
While Balcombe seeks help, Munro is asked to work for the Hong Kong governor’s aide-de-camp. He seems to be sidelined as Garrett resumes his hunt for the Squeezed-heart murderer.
But people have secrets and the more Munro investigates, the murkier they seem. When people start dying and with Balcombe’s help, Munro tries to get to the bottom of a conspiracy of silence.

Will he find the truth?

Will Garrett catch his killer?


Will Balcombe learn the truth about himself?


As the psychoanalyst told him: a third of the mind is darkness. If you dig too deep, be prepared. You won’t like what you find there.

This is book three of the series which should be read in order.

Murray Bailey Is the author of Amazon bestseller Map of the Dead, the first of the series based on his interest in Egyptology. His main series however is the Ash Carter thrillers, inspired by his father’s experience in the Royal Military Police in Singapore in the early 1950s.

Murray is well traveled, having worked in the US, South America and a number of European countries throughout his career as a management consultant. However he also managed to find the time to edit books, contribute to articles and act as a part-time magazine editor.

Murray lives on the south coast of England with his family and a dog called Teddy.

My thoughts: we return to Hong Kong and Balcombe is a man in trouble, he can’t control the murderous BlackJack side of his personality anymore. He’s sleepwalking and having to rely on his friends, and Albert his rickshaw driver, to piece his nights back together. The blackouts, the drinking, it isn’t going to end well. Detective Garrett is gunning for him and Munro is in half a mind to let his colleague take him down.

There’s a missing girl in danger with links to the governor’s house, and Munro asks for Balcombe’s help, as long as he sees pyschologist Dr Georgina Swift and get some help.

Even Balcombe is getting worried about his alter ego, about the gaps in his memory and the number of bodies that keep winding up in the morgue. As the lines begin to blur, can he save himself or is it too late?

Another gripping thrill ride of a read, as Balcombe tries to decipher his own psyche and change his ways, before he hurts someone who doesn’t deserve it. I cannot wait for book four – if the ambiguous ending doesn’t mean it’s all done for Balcombe.

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

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Cover Reveal: Christmas at the Cabin – Rebecca Boxall

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A festive, coming-of-age tale about an Oxbridge candidate and a young homeless man who find themselves in the bittersweet predicament of falling in love with exactly the right person at exactly the wrong time. 

Well-to-do Jed never imagined he’d end up homeless, but family circumstances have made it his only option. Local vicar, Ben, tries to help him but there’s an element of self-punishment to the homelessness that makes Jed continue to put up with his situation – until disaster leads him to re-consider the vicar’s offer of a place to stay. 

Hattie is on the cusp of adulthood, frantically trying to persuade her mum that she doesn’t want to attend an elite university, preferring the idea of pursuing her love of art and textiles. When she meets Jed, she badly wants to understand his circumstances and why, when she has everything at her fingertips, he doesn’t. 

Hattie’s mum, Christine, has had a hard life and is desperate for more for her only child. When she meets Ben, the vicar who’s trying to help Jed, she finds an unlikely ally, and the two heartbroken souls find themselves drawn to each other. Until they find their relationship suddenly tested to the limit. 

One thing’s for certain: none of these characters is looking forward to Christmas. It’s the worst time of year for each of them, for different reasons. But perhaps this year, the festive season could defy all expectations.

Rebecca Boxall is the award-nominated author of five bestselling novels – Christmas at the Vicarage, Home for Winter, Christmas on the Coast, The Christmas Forest and Christmas by the Lighthouse. She is also the author of Christmas at the Farmhouse and her popular short story, A Winter’s Day.

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Publication Date: 24th November 2023

Rebecca Boxall was born in East Sussex in 1977 and grew up in a bustling vicarage always filled with family, friends and parishioners. She now lives by the sea in Jersey with her family and Rodney the cat. She read English at the University of Warwick before she trained as a lawyer and more recently worked at a psychiatric unit.

She is the No. 1 bestselling author of Christmas at the Vicarage and Christmas on the Coast as well as the bestselling writer of Home for Winter, The Christmas Forest and Christmas by the Lighthouse, in respect of which she was nominated for the Romantic Novel Awards in 2020. She is also the author of Christmas at the Farmhouse and her popular short story, A Winter’s Day. 

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BBNYA Semi-finalists: Broken Sky – Morgan K. Bell

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This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. 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.

Dorian Valmont is the sorriest excuse for an aeronaut the crew of skyship Phoenix has ever seen.

Forced to flee his home to protect his magical inheritance from the machinations of his ambitious stepfather, awkward misfit Dorian finds himself poorly suited to the rigors of life in the sky. But when an exiled dragon finds him, injured and desperate for help, Dorian learns it’s not enough merely to run away. Dorian must learn to fight back.

Caught between forces that seek to use or destroy him, Dorian must train and adapt if he wants to survive. But if he can, he might just hold the key to restoring the world’s faltering magic — or destroying it once and for all.

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Drawn to fantastical worlds since the earliest days of their childhood, Morgan K. Bell has written stories since they were first old enough to hold a pencil. When not writing, Morgan enjoys craft beer, lifting weights, and dabbling in digital art and game development. Morgan has worked as a software developer, science lab assistant, and cashier at a quite-possibly-haunted tourist destination, but their first passion has always been bringing their pretend worlds and imaginary friends to life. Morgan lives in Washington state with their partner, child, and an enthusiastic corgi.