blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Night Lawyer – Alex Churchill*

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Sophie Angel is the night lawyer. Once a week, she’s the one who decides what the papers can and can’t say.

During the day, she’s a barrister. She struggles for justice in a system that’s close to collapse, where she confronts the most dangerous aspects of humanity.

Her life changes when a wealthy Russian offers her the biggest case of her career, a rape trial with a seemingly innocent client.

But is someone manipulating Sophie from the shadows? With her marriage under strain and haunted by nightmares from the past, Sophie must find the answer to these questions before it’s too late.

This is a story about betrayal, trust, guilt and innocence, played out from the courtrooms of London to the darkest corners of Soviet era Moscow.

My thoughts:

This was a really interesting thriller that didn’t go where the synopsis suggests. It’s not Sophie’s Moscow connection that puts her in danger, or her work at the newspaper.

Sophie is an interesting character and this books gives a glimpse into the reality of life as a barrister under a system where there’s no guarantee of getting paid unless you take cases, some of which might make you very uncomfortable.

Sophie really grew as the plot unfolded, stepping into her own rightful place, demonstrating her competence and intelligence, in and out of the court room.

*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: The Wish List – Sophia Money-Coutts*

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‘You want me to write a list? Like a shopping list?’
Gwendolyn nodded. ‘Exactly. But for what you want from a man, not ASDA.’

Florence Fairfax isn’t lonely. She loves her job at the little bookshop in Chelsea and her beloved cat Marmalade keeps her company at night. She might have been single for quite a while – well, forever actually, if anyone’s asking – but she’s perfectly happy, thank you. And then Florence meets eccentric love coach Gwendolyn, and everything changes.

When Gwendolyn makes Florence write a wish list describing her perfect man, Florence refuses to take it seriously. Finding someone who likes cats, has the sexual athleticism of James Bond and can overlook her ‘counting’ habit? Impossible! Until, later that week, a handsome blond man asks for help in the bookshop…

Rory seems to fit the list perfectly. But is he ‘the one’, or simply too good to be true? Florence is about to find out that her criteria for Mr Right aren’t as important as she thought – and that perhaps she’s been looking for love in all the wrong places…

My thoughts:

A funny, warm and entertaining read about love, family and cats. Also working in a bookshop. All of which are good things, especially the bookshop and the cats.

Florence has lots of routines and rules to help her cope with life, she also has two sisters who are her house mates, a slightly overbearing stepmother, works in a genteel old bookshop with a matching boss, a theatrical co-worker and not a lot of luck in the romance department.

Her stepmother buys her a course of love therapy with an eccentric guru and it seems to be working, or is it?

There’s some genuine laugh out loud moments and the bonds between Florence and her friends and family are endearing, a really jolly read.

This was a great read for the summer heatwave, sat with my feet in a bowl of water, wishing it was a pool or the sea. So take it to the park, your back garden or the sofa with snacks.

*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: Hinton Hollow Death Trap – Will Carver*

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It’s a small story. A small town with small lives that you would never have heard about if none of this had happened. Hinton Hollow. Population 5,120. Little Henry Wallace was eight years old and one hundred miles from home before anyone talked to him. His mother placed him on a train with a label around his neck, asking for him to be kept safe for a week, kept away from Hinton Hollow. Because something was coming. Narrated by Evil itself, Hinton Hollow Death Trip recounts five days in the history of this small rural town, when darkness paid a visit and infected its residents. A visit that made them act in unnatural ways. Prodding at their insecurities. Nudging at their secrets and desires. Coaxing out the malevolence suppressed within them. Showing their true selves. Making them cheat. Making them steal. Making them kill. Detective Sergeant Pace had returned to his childhood home. To escape the things he had done in the city. To go back to something simple. But he was not alone. Evil had a plan.

Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series. He spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He turned down a professional rugby contract to study theatre and television at King Alfred’s, Winchester, where he set up a successful theatre company. He currently runs his own fitness and nutrition company, and lives in Reading with his two children. Good Samaritans was book of the year in Guardian, Telegraph and Daily Express, and hit number one on the ebook charts.

My thoughts:

Sort of following on from Nothing Important Happened Today (a book that scrambled my brains) this is narrated by Evil, and is another brain scrambler of a book.

Someone is shooting children in a small suburban town, an abattoir worker has taken to cruelty and people are having affairs, breaking windows and going missing.

I feel sorry for DS Pace, he’s trying to solve these awful killings while also maintaining some semblance of order in his own life (and failing).

The ending did a number on my noggin and Evil somehow triumphs despite insisting they did very little to affect events.

Will Carver is an evil genius of a writer and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next, once I’ve rested my poor scrambled brain.

*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: With or Without You – Drew Davies*

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‘How long does a coma last?’ I ask.
‘Days, weeks, months?’ the nurse replies with a shrug, although her eyes are very kind.
‘But on average?’
She just smiles, unable to give me an answer.

Wendy’s life can be neatly divided into two: before and after.
Before her husband’s car accident, it was just the two of them. They never took the train at rush hour, and they avoided their noisy neighbour upstairs.

Naveem devoted his spare time to vintage train models, and Wendy to re-reading the well-thumbed pages of her favourite books. It didn’t matter what others thought about their small, quiet life together – they were happy.
After the coma, Wendy barely recognises herself. When she’s not holding the love of her life’s hand, accompanied by the beep of the life-support machine, who is she? The nurse tells her to talk to Naveem – that he can still hear her – but she doesn’t have a single thing to say.
Suddenly Wendy can’t bear the silence. She needs something, anything, to talk to Naveem about.

Suddenly she’s losing herself at fairgrounds packed with crowds and candyfloss, she’s at the airport, waiting for the whoosh of the planes as they take off, making friends with the neighbour she has spent over a decade avoiding.
Knowing that every breath her husband takes might be his last, Wendy has no choice but to try to carry on without him. Should she feel guilty about living while his life is on pause? And when – if – he wakes up, will he still love the woman she has become?

This poignant, moving and uplifting tale is for anyone who has taken life for granted, neglected to say ‘I love you’ to their loved ones, or forgotten to find happiness in the little things. Perfect for fans of Josie Silver, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and Jojo Moyes.

Drew Davies was born in London and grew up in Whanganui, New Zealand. He attended the Unitec School of Performing Arts in Auckland and won a Playmarket New Zealand Young Playwright of the Year award in 2000. After a brief stint on a kiwi soap, he has worked in Search for the past 15 years.

Drew’s other claim to fame is that Stephen Fry once called him droll. Either that, or he got his name wrong. He now lives in Wanstead, London.

My thoughts:

A bittersweet tale about learning who you are later in life. When Naveem ends up in a coma, his wife, Wendy, finds herself alone for the first time in twenty years.

But who is she without him?

This book made me laugh, Wendy’s growing relationships with her eccentric neighbour in particular was very entertaining and her delightful bond with small nephew Henry is a joy.

This was a really enjoyable read and perfect for the quiet moments in busy lives.

*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

Book Blitz : Paralleled Bond – Stephanie Hansen

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Happy book birthday to author Stephanie Hansen! Today marks the release of Paralleled Bond, book #3 in her Altered Helix series. To celebrate we’re sharing the entire series!

Read on for an excerpt from her latest installment and enter the giveaway at the end for a chance to win a $30 Amazon gift card!

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Paralled Bond (Altered Helix #3)

Publication Date: Today!

Genre: YA/ Paranormal Mystery/ Novella

When the only option left means losing someone you love, you have no options. How could you, how could you save one person you care about, when doing so would harm another? What if they weren’t even letting you choose but choosing for you? You’d have to intervene without letting them know, right?

To be an Altered Helix and put others in danger is the new reality for Austria. Luckily someone’s there to catch her when she falls, Josh, and fall she does, in love that is. While witnessing her family being put in danger, Austria’s haunted house family grows. Now that Austria has found a way to defeat Mutant Altered Helixes after her, a dangerous stream of events occur to those around her. Just when the family has finally come together, could they be ruined?

The amazing conclusion to the Altered Helix series, Paralleled Bond displays the results when polar opposites come together for the greater good.

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Excerpt

“Please let them be okay.” If I had known I would be chanting this phrase over and over again, I don’t believe I would have ever set out on this mission. If I had known that my entire world would change in just a matter of months, would I have taken the job at the haunted house? If I had been given a heads up about my DNA being different, would I have lived a different life?

I don’t know; those are not options for me now. We’re too far in. We are inches away from saving many lives. We can do this. I know we can. I just don’t know what it will cost us. I have no clue how I’m going to find the dough to pay. The odds seem stacked up against us. Is that because it is impossible to accomplish what we want to, or is it because we’ve gotten too close?

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Altered Helix (Book One)

I didn’t want to take the traditional path. First, I wasn’t ready for college. Second, I was going to live with my best friend, Tiff, and work at the Haunted House. Third, did I mention the hot guy Josh that works there too?

The most exciting thing about Austria’s new job, at a local haunted house, was the fact that the toughest looking people screamed the loudest. But when she meets the boy without a home, Josh, Austria’s life takes intriguing and eventful turns. Up until now, Josh has managed to hang with his Street crowd, but they’re in danger, and so is Austria, the girl Josh recently fell for. The group finds themselves joining forces with previously considered enemies who also now find themselves in danger.

Deeply compassionate and full of twists, Altered Helix captures the struggle of polarized people that must work together for the greater good.
Goodreads

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Stranded Coil (Altered Helix #2)

For Austria, travelling to the Stranded Coil means she gets to see someone she believed was lost. She’s able to do this because she’s an Altered Helix. But doing so takes her away from her first true love, Josh. Josh is working hard to keep their Haunted House family safe on Earth, but seems to fall in love with Austria more with every second they spend together.

Austria and Josh face a devastating challenge, the mysterious appearance of Mutant Altered Helixes, and an enticingly dangerous answer to their questions.

Impulsive, caring, and full of surprises, this teenage love against the odds is well on its way to breaking even…maybe.
Goodreads

Giveaway: $30 Amazon Gift Card (International) Giveaway will be open until August 7th!
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About the Author

Stephanie Hansen

Stephanie Hansen’s short story, Break Time, and poetry has been featured in Mind’s Eye literary magazine. The Kansas Writers Association published her short story, Existing Forces, appointing her as a noted author. She has held a deep passion for writing since early childhood, but a brush with death caused her to allow it to grow. She’s part of an SCBWI critique group in Lawrence, KS and two local book clubs. She attends many writers’ conferences including the Writing Day Workshops, New York Pitch, Penned Con, New Letters, All Write Now, Show Me Writers Master Class, BEA, and Nebraska Writers Guild conference as well as Book Fairs and Comic-Cons. She is a member of the deaf and hard of hearing community.

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Book Blitz Organized By:

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blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The End of the Road – Anna Legat*

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The fight for survival has begun.

All-out war spins out of control, and it doesn’t discriminate. Governments fall, continents are obliterated, deadly viruses consume everything in their path, and what’s left of humanity is on the run. Caught in this global refugee crisis are a few unlikely survivors.

Tony, a philandering London lawyer, escapes the doomed city and his own murky past as he evacuates to the continent.

A hapless flock of Belgian nuns prays for a miracle as they watch their city turn to rubble.

Bella, a naïve teenager, thinks she is going on holiday when her father drags her across the globe to New Zealand.

Reggie, a loyal employee of a mining corporation, guards a hoard of diamonds in the African plains, fending off desperate looters.

Alyosha, a nuclear scientist, has been looking for the God-particle in Siberia, but now the world is at an end, he wishes to return home to Chernobyl.

A pair of orphaned children are cowering in the Tatra Mountains, fearing the sky will fall in on them.

Will they find an escape route before it is too late? Or are they doomed to fail?

AmazonAnna Legat is a Wiltshire-based author, best known for her DI Gillian Marsh murder mystery series. A globe-trotter and Jack-of-all-trades, Anna has been an attorney, legal adviser, a silver-service waitress, a school teacher and a librarian. She read law at the University of South Africa and Warsaw University, then gained teaching qualifications in New Zealand. She has lived in far-flung places all over the world where she delighted in people-watching and collecting precious life experiences for her stories. Anna writes, reads, lives and breathes books and can no longer tell the difference between fact and fiction.

My thoughts:

This was a really good end of the world book. A disparate group of people, spread out across the globe somehow survive the nuclear bombs and falling meteorites, finding shelter where they can and trying to stay alive; they connect via long haul radio waves. Each section tells the story of one group, bringing the all out war and chaos from every corner of the globe.

There’s tragedy, but also humour to be found amidst the ongoing fallout and this is the first in what promises to be an enjoyable series (I hope!).

*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 Crow Rider – Kalyn Josephson*

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The thrilling conclusion to the epic Storm Crow duology that follows a fallen princess as she tries to bring back the magical elemental crows taken from her people.
Thia, her allies, and her crow, Res, are planning a rebellion to defeat Queen Razel and Illucia once and for all. Thia must convince the neighboring kingdoms to come to her aid, and Res’s show of strength is the only thing that can help her.But so many obstacles stand in her way. Res excels at his training, until he loses control of his magic, harming Thia in the process.

She is also pursued by Prince Ericen, heir to the Illucian throne and the one person she can’t trust but can’t seem to stay away from.As the rebel group prepares for war, Res’s magic grows more unstable. Thia has to decide if she can rely on herself and their bond enough to lead the rebellion and become the crow rider she was meant to be.

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Kalyn Josephson is a fantasy writer living the California Bay Area. She loves books, cats, books with cats, and making up other worlds to live in for a while. THE STORM CROW is her debut novel.
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My thoughts:

I really enjoyed The Storm Crow so I was super excited to read The Crow Rider, and it did not disappoint. The magic system and the fighting crows is really interesting and unique, with the different abilities.

This was a really enjoyable, fun read with all the loose ends and plots tied up neatly. In a way it’s a shame as there’s no further books planned, but hopefully this isn’t the end of the author and there will be more forthcoming from her soon.


*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

Book Blitz: The End of the Road – Anna Legat

ramblingmads

The fight for survival has begun

All-out war spins out of control, and it doesn’t discriminate. Governments fall, continents are obliterated, deadly viruses consume everything in their path, and what’s left of humanity is on the run. Caught in this global refugee crisis are a few unlikely survivors.

Tony, a philandering London lawyer, escapes the doomed city and his own murky past as he evacuates to the continent.

A hapless flock of Belgian nuns prays for a miracle as they watch their city turn to rubble.

Bella, a naïve teenager, thinks she is going on holiday when her father drags her across the globe to New Zealand.

Reggie, a loyal employee of a mining corporation, guards a hoard of diamonds in the African plains, fending off desperate looters.

Alyosha, a nuclear scientist, has been looking for the God-particle in Siberia, but now the world is at an end, he wishes to return home to Chernobyl.

A pair of orphaned children are cowering in the Tatra Mountains, fearing the sky will fall in on them.

Will they find an escape route before it is too late? Or are they doomed to fail?


Anna Legat is a Wiltshire-based author, best known for her DI Gillian Marsh murder mystery series. A globe-trotter and Jack-of-all-trades, Anna has been an attorney, legal adviser, a silver-service waitress, a school teacher and a librarian. She read law at the University of South Africa and Warsaw University, then gained teaching qualifications in New Zealand. She has lived in far-flung places all over the world where she delighted in people-watching and collecting precious life experiences for her stories. Anna writes, reads, lives and breathes books and can no longer tell the difference between fact and fiction.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Cry of the Lake – Charlie Tyler*

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A gruesome discovery unravels a dark trail of murder and madness.

A six-year-old girl sneaks out of bed to capture a mermaid but instead discovers a dead body. Terrified and unable to make sense of what she sees, she locks the vision deep inside her mind.
Ten years later, Lily is introduced to the charismatic Flo and they become best friends. But Lily is guilt-ridden – she is hiding a terrible secret which has the power to destroy both their lives.
When Flo’s father is accused of killing a schoolgirl, the horrors of Lily’s past come bubbling to the surface. Lily knows that, whatever the consequences, she has to make things right. She must go back to the events of her childhood and face what happened at the boat house all those years ago.
Can Lily and Flo discover what is hiding in the murky waters of the lake before the killer strikes again?

Charlie has been writing for years but it was taking a creative writing course in 2018 which gave her the gentle kick she needed to finish her debut novel.

Charlie is very much a morning person and likes nothing more than committing a fictional murder before her first coffee of the day. She studied Theology at Worcester College, Oxford and now lives in a Leicestershire village with her husband, three teenagers and golden retriever.

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My thoughts:

There’s a woozy, disjointed feel to this tale of perverse sisterhood that mimics Lily’s lost memories and the past she can’t piece together.

At first I thought we were in My Sister, The Serial Killer territory but then it veered off somewhere completely different. In fact it does that several times, keeping the reader on their toes as Grace’s facade starts to slip and the trail of bodies begin to unravel behind her.

Shocking and chilling, the twists keep coming and I didn’t really know what to expect. A clever, clever book.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Masters & Beginners – Daley Downing*

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When Sophie Driscoll’s grandmother dies, her parents take over running the Annex, a warehouse facility that stores magical artifacts and documents proving, and protecting, the existence of faeries. Sophie and her brothers, Flynn and Cal, happily adjust to a new house, new friends, and a new way of living, joining the ranks of generations who have kept the fey and mortal realms separate for centuries. Before the first month of their new life is over, they’ll encounter romance, elves, talking cats, ancient secrets, and potentially lethal danger. What could possibly go wrong…

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Amazon

Daley Downing is an autistic author, parent to special needs children, a dance teacher, and cat whisperer. She spends her days attempting to write just a few more words than in the previous 24 hours, and lovingly refers to her genre as suburban fantasy.

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My thoughts:

This was a really fun read, and will definitely appeal to fans of the Shadowhunter books, with its mix of magical beings, mortals and shape shifting cats (yes to more books about magical cats please).

I instantly connected with Sophie, who wouldn’t fall for a hot fey boy and want to be friends with faeries next door? And I hope the pixies are OK now they’ve moved house.

The only thing I found grating was the British-isms, which I think I only picked up on because I’m a Brit, so most people won’t and it’s a personal bugbear of mine, so ignore me.

I can see this developing into a really enjoyable and interesting series, with hints of Warehouse 13 (which I loved) and magical mysteries and did I mention the talking cats…

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