We’re proud to present the cover for Strange Shape of Love, a gripping, twisted mystery, a second-chance romance, and a provocative, adrenaline-filled thriller by Herta Feely.
Strange Shape of Love
Expected Release: September 2025
Genre: Suspense/ Romantic Suspense
Strange Shape of Love is a gripping suspense novel that tackles the dark intersections of love, trauma, and technology. Timely and emotionally complex, the book explores the aftermath of revenge porn and the resilience of a woman who refuses to be silenced.
Charlotte Cooper, a thirty-year-old New York journalist, is assigned to London—a place steeped in memories she’d rather forget. A second chance at professional fulfillment and personal healing seems within reach, especially when she reconnects with Rafe, the artist she once loved. But just as her life begins to stabilize, Charlotte receives an anonymous envelope containing explicit photos of herself from years past. The message is clear: abandon her career or face public humiliation. With two weeks to uncover the source, Charlotte must navigate buried secrets, the powerful men who seek to control her, and the difficult truths that could cost her everything.
Early Praise for Strange Shape of Love
Herta Feely’s Strange Shape of Love is a gripping, twisted mystery, a second-chance romance, and a provocative, adrenaline-filled thriller for fans of Gone Girl and Winnie M Li’s Complicit. Through the lens of a pulse-pounding adventure, Feely confronts some of today’s most urgent societal, cultural, and personal issues: gendered power dynamics, sex trafficking, race, class, and what it means to love and forgive despite the scars of the past. I tore through this book in two days and was amazed, both at the scope of the story and the courage and passion of its author.
A wedding, a missing fiancée, and a murder – Melody Harper is about to discover just how dangerous “I do” can be…
Fledgling private detective Melody Harper is down on her luck and nursing a black eye when she’s approached by a new client who believes her daughter is in danger.
There’s a wedding next weekend, and the client’s daughter is the bride. Except Melody’s client hasn’t told her the whole truth – the groom’s last fiancée seems to have disappeared, and nobody has any answers. Now tasked with going undercover to protect the bride-to-be, Melody finds herself out of her comfort zone and on an outdoor adventure weekend in the Lake District with the hen party.
After narrowly escaping death in a climbing accident, Melody’s detective skills are tested to the limit when one of the bridesmaids is murdered – and time is running out. This is her biggest investigation to date, but will Melody even survive long enough to unmask the killer and protect the bride?
Murder in the Lakes is a page-turning murder mystery from USA Today bestselling author Rachel Amphlett and perfect for readers who love amateur sleuths and deadly crimes.
Before turning to writing, USA Today bestselling crime author Rachel Amphlett played guitar in bands, worked as a TV and film extra, dabbled in radio, and worked in publishing as an editorial assistant. She now wields a pen instead of a plectrum and writes crime fiction with over 30 crime novels and short stories featuring spies, detectives, vigilantes, and assassins. A keen traveller and accidental private investigator, Rachel has both Australian and British citizenship. You can find out more about Rachel and her books at http://www.rachelamphlett.com.
My thoughts: I can’t think of anything I’d like to do less than an outdoors abseiling and climbing weekend, and as a hen do, no thank you! But that’s what Melody gets roped into doing.
She’s starting out as a PI, mostly investigating men who seem too good to be true before some unfortunate young woman marries them. But asked to provide protection to Natasha, who’s due to get married in just over a week, finds her in the Lake District, doing all many of outdoor activities.
After a couple of close calls, one of the bridesmaids is killed. What did she know that put her in the killer’s crosshairs? The police are on their way but first the party has to make its way back to the base camp in one piece and Melody is quickly putting the pieces together. She needs to find the killer fast, before they can act again.
Smart, enjoyable crime fiction with an excellent protagonist in Melody, and supporting cast in her adoptive family who run the fish and chip shop downstairs, a nasty murderer, who haven’t got away with it once, thinks they can do so again but without counting on Melody’s instincts and investigating nous. Hopefully there will be more.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
The threat of nuclear war is no longer scary. This is much worse. It’s invisible. It works quickly. And it’s coming…
The scourge has already infected and killed half the population in China and it is heading towards the UK. There is no time to escape. The British government sees no way out other than to distribute ‘Dignity Pills’ to its citizens: One last night with family or loved ones before going to sleep forever … together.
Because the contagion will kill you and the horrifying news footage shows that it will be better to go quietly.
Dr Haruto Ikeda, a Japanese scientist working at a Chinese research facility, wants to save the world. He has discovered a way to mutate a virus. Instead of making people sick, instead of causing death, it’s going to make them… nice. Instead of attacking the lungs, it will work into the brain and increase the host’s ability to feel and show compassion. It will make people kind.
But governments don’t want a population in agreement. They want conflict and outrage and fear. Reasonable people are harder to control. Ikeda’s quest is thoughtful and noble, and it just might work. Maybe humanity can be saved. Maybe it doesn’t have to be the end. But kindness may also be the biggest killer of all…
Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series and the critically acclaimed, mind-blowingly original Detective Pace series, which includes Good Samaritans (2018), Nothing Important Happened Today (2019) and Hinton Hollow Death Trip (2020), all of which were ebook bestsellers and selected as books of the year in the mainstream international press.
Nothing Important Happened Today was longlisted for both the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2020 and the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Hinton Hollow Death Trip was longlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize, and was followed by the literary thrillers, The Beresford, Psychopaths Anonymous, The Daves Next Door, Suicide Thursday and Upstairs at the Beresford.
Will spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He and his partner run their own fitness and nutrition company, and live in Reading with five children and a tortoise.
My thoughts: This was suitably weird and intense for a Will Carver book. There’s a genius scientist in Dr Ikeda, who just wants people to be a bit nicer to each other, and a complete idiot in the British Prime Minister who cares more about getting away with all his indiscretions than the country.
Dr Ikeda finds a secret file that suggests someone, but not the Chinese government, plans to release a deadly virus, Tau, on the world. His team have developed a vaccine for this virus, but millions will still die. So being a brilliant scientist and a genuinely nice person, he engineers an alternative – a virus that behaves a bit like the flu but leaves the sufferer kinder, nicer, and hopefully makes the world a bit better.
He secretly releases his virus, watching it slowly spread from China to the rest of the world. Sadly there are some deaths, but nowhere near what Tau would have done.
Unfortunately for the British people, one of the people who was involved in the plot to release that virus was the PM. He’s a nasty, slimy man (I imagine him with a thatch of blonde hair that needs a good brush for some reason) who can’t seem to stop cheating on his wife and getting caught.
Despite being the perfect person for Ikeda’s virus, he doesn’t contract it, instead pretending he has been hospitalised. He really is the worst.
Then a deadly cloud of some sort is seen over China, it appears to be acidic in nature, melting flesh from bone and leaving behind millions of dead. Now it’s on a collision course for the UK. So of course the government issue suicide pills to the populace and tell everyone to say goodbye. As the world watches, what will happen to us?
I’m a bit torn as having lived through the delights of Covid-19, lockdown and the horrors of 2020, I don’t really like any sort of pandemic fiction, and there’s a lot of it about. But I really like Carver’s darkly funny, macabre and peculiar books. There were certainly bits of this book I enjoyed, and even found very funny, but I just don’t know if we need more books about pandemics and corrupt politicians doing dodgy deals behind our backs.
It wasn’t my favourite Will Carver book but it was enjoyable and clever, and I did really like Dr Ikeda and his wife, two truly good souls in a Sisyphean struggle. If you read it, let me know what you think, I’d love some different perspectives.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
We’re celebrating the release of epic fantasy Stormvalor by Starr. Z. Davies! There’s also a stunning deluxe hardcover edition coming out this month that is a collector’s dream!
Stormvalor: A Noblebright Fantasy (Divica Stormborn Chronicles # 1)
Release
We’re celebrating the release of epic fantasy Stormvalor by Starr. Z. Davies! There’s also a stunning deluxe hardcover edition coming out this month that is a collector’s dream!
Stormvalor: A Noblebright Fantasy (Divica Stormborn Chronicles # 1)
Release Date: June 9, 2025
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Friends to lovers
Fake Dating
Strong female lead
The Bachelorette vibes
Rich fantasy world
Dangerous assassin
Gladiator-like tournament
Spice
Empire in decline
Gods are gone
Evil imperial overlord
Noble sacrifice
Lost prophecies
Court intrigue
Multicast POV
Touch her and die
She falls first, he falls harder
In the heart of a tournament, where legends are born and destinies forged, the fate of kingdoms hangs in the balance.
Aethan Starkling, a lord with dreams as vast as the realm itself, has long yearned to prove himself in the prestigious Stormvalor Tournament.
Aslyn Kiernan, destined to ascend the throne of Novavito, faces her own dangerous trials. An ambitious suitor from the Emperor’s court schemes to force her into a marriage that would jeopardize her kingdom’s future. Confronted with treachery, Aslyn must navigate the perils of the tournament to secure her destiny—or risk losing everything she holds dear.
As the tournament unfolds, Aethan & Aslyn’s path intersect—pushed together by parents who seek a strong marriage match, and drawn together by the threads of fate. Together, they discover that strength and honor alone are not enough to secure victory. The price of winning is far higher than they ever imagined.
Bast Blackblade, a hardened assassin, lives by the edge of his lethal blades, dismissing the notions of gods and friendship. But when his final payment for a completed job vanishes, Bast embarks on a treacherous journey that leads him to the heart of Stormvalor, where he seeks to disrupt the budding romance between Aethan and Aslyn for his own purposes.
As alliances shift and secrets unravel, Aethan, Aslyn, and Bast must confront the truth of their own beliefs and the price they are willing to pay for victory… and for love.
London, late 1990s. Stan, a young and promising French composer, is invited to arrange the music for a theatrical adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The play will never be staged, but Stan meets Liv, the love of his life, and their harmonious duo soon becomes a trio with the birth of their beloved daughter, Lisa. Stan’s world is filled with vibrant colour and melodic music, and under his wife and daughter’s gaze, his piano comes to life.
Paris, today. After Liv’s fatal accident, Stan returns to France surrounded by darkness, no longer able to compose, and living in the Rabbit Hole, a home left to him by an aunt. He shares his life with Babette, a lifeguard and mother of a boy of Lisa’s age, and Laïvely, an AI machine of his own invention endowed with Liv’s voice, which he spent entire nights building after her death. But Stan remains haunted by his past. As the silence gradually gives way to noises, whistles and sighs – sometimes even a burst of laughter – and Laïvely seems to take on a life of its own, memories and reality fade and blur… And Stan’s new family implodes…
Anne Sénès was born in Paris and studied at the Sorbonne, where she obtained a PhD in English studies. Her passion for Anglo-Saxon literature and culture has taken her all over the world, from London to Miami, passing through the south of France. She is currently based on the Mediterranean coast, where she works as a journalist and translator. Chambre Double (Double Room) is her first literary novel.
My thoughts: This is quite a bittersweet book, Stan is mourning his late wife, having left London with his young (and almost entirely silent) daughter for a house his aunt left him. He’s in a new relationship, with Babette, but he can’t stop thinking about Liv. He’s built an AI a bit like Alexa or Siri, that chirps and sings away to itself. He’s a bit obsessed with it, and treats it like it’s alive. Having given it Liv’s voice, it haunts him.
As he reflects on the before and after, dwelling on his happiest moments, struggling to compose any new music, barely bothering with the people in his life, he risks losing the lively Babette for good.
I don’t think Stan should have moved Babette and her strange son into his house, he’s not really ready for a new relationship and definitely hasn’t recovered from his loss. The book is melancholic and sad, and Babette is all life and vibrancy. It won’t end well.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
We’re proud to present the cover for the next book in Legends of Andolin series, The Fall of Valenna!
The Fall of Valenna (The Legends of Andolin #3)
Expected Release: Fall 2025
Genre: Dark Fantasy/ Epic Fantasy
Strong Female Lead
Ancient Prophecy
Slow Burn Romance
Enemies-to-Lovers
Morally Grey Hero
Found Family
Magical Artifact
Dark Lord
Sea Monsters
IN THE HEART OF BATTLE
As tensions between Valenna and Sornia reach their breaking point, Prince Matei unleashes a devastating new power that threatens to change the course of the war. With the Queen missing and the kingdom of Valenna left vulnerable, Lady Adella Grimless and her allies must fight against impossible odds to protect everything they hold dear.
OLD CONFLICTS RESURRECTED
Torn between her past and present, Adella finds her heart caught between her old flame, Captain Declan, and her burgeoning feelings for Kol, her loyal companion on the war front. But when old rivalries and unspoken truths come to light, the two men are set on a collision course—one that will reach its deadly culmination in the midst of battle upon the waves.
TEAR THEIR WORLD APART
With war encroaching on multiple fronts, Adella and her allies must navigate treachery, shifting alliances, and a threat unlike any they have ever faced. But as the final battle looms and the rising sea tears apart the landscape, one thing remains certain:
I thought I was lucky before all this happened. I have a beautiful baby boy. A man I want to make a life with. A gorgeous cottage in the Cotswolds that we’re in the middle of doing up. Life’s good.
Then Ben drops a bombshell. His brother Adam is coming to stay. ‘Promise me something,’ Ben says as he gazes into my eyes. ‘Don’t believe everything Adam tells you.’
Ben’s not home when Adam turns up, with his waif-like girlfriend — and a suitcase full of secrets. He looks me up and down, his mouth quirking into an amused smile. ‘You must be Sophie.’ Deep in my bones, I know this man is dangerous. He says he won’t stay long.
But the lies come quickly.
First his girlfriend disappears — and I think he’s done something very bad to her. I should have listened to my instincts . . .
Born in West Bromwich and with her family roots deep in the Black Country, Eve has spent much of her life ‘on the run’; she has probably lived in more houses in various parts of the country than most people eat dinners.
Currently settled in Herefordshire with her husband, she often has a houseful of offspring, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, partners and a growing tribe of little ones.
When not writing she can be found playing the piano, enjoying a glass of wine and/or reading, and has a particularly soft spot for historical and spy fiction.
My thoughts: Ben has a lot of secrets, but some of them are understandable, however his rather unpleasant brother shouldn’t have been one of them, dropping “oh my brother (the one you’ve never heard of) is coming to stay” isn’t the way to do things. And then the brother arrives.
Sophie knows something’s off straight away and it doesn’t take long before she’s desperate for the unexpected house guests to leave. But Adam has worked his way into her extended family and isn’t planning on going anywhere. Then his annoying girlfriend disappears and the police arrive. Things are about to get a whole lot worse.
Clever, full of twists, with a likeable protagonist in new mum Sophie and an excellent nemesis in horrible Adam, this is an enjoyable, well put together and engaging 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
Meet Celia. Life hasn’t worked out quite how she’d planned. Since her son left for university, Celia has felt stuck at home – battling with her husband Geoff over control of the thermostat, and without the merest glint of a social life. Her only joy comes from the plants she nurtures in her makeshift plant hospital in their Glasgow flat.
Then three unexpected things happen:
She catches Geoff in bed with a secretary from his sausage factory (no pun intended).
Her high-flying best friend Amanda arrives on her doorstep without warning (but with a very large suitcase).
A tall handsome French teacher asks her to tend his daughter’s cactus back to health.
Suddenly, Celia finds her life in freefall, but she makes a decision: she won’t let this be the end of her. She’ll bring herself back to life, just like the plants she works her magic on. But just how do you change the habits of a lifetime?
My thoughts: I really liked Celia, and I love the idea of a plant hospital, as someone who is only able to grow succulents and cacti successfully but loves plants, I need a plant doctor on standby to help me keep the silly things alive.
She’s surrounded by people who love her, despite her deeply rubbish husband in his mouldy caravan. Even though things get a bit chaotic with Amanda crash landing in her spare room, her son home from uni, her mad neighbour bringing cake over and trying to get herself in gear, she’s a good person who deserves to be happy.
The book made me laugh out loud at times and I really liked Enzo and Mathilde too. Geoff the rubbish husband can get in the bin, along with his haggis en croute (yuk). This is feel good fiction at its best.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
How deep can you go into the mind of a killer before you lose your own?
Dr. Evelyn Shaw is a celebrated forensic psychologist, known for her ability to uncover the minds of the most dangerous criminals. But when she is asked to profile James Hawthorne, a cunning and manipulative serial killer, she finds herself drawn into a psychological battle unlike any she has faced before.
James is no ordinary murderer. He reveals unsettling details about his crimes—and Evelyn’s past. As their sessions progress, Evelyn’s carefully constructed life begins to unravel. Long-buried childhood traumas resurface. James’s eerie knowledge of her darkest memories forces her to question whether he is manipulating her or if her mind is betraying her.
As Detective Inspector Ziggy Thornes races to uncover the truth behind James’s crimes, Evelyn becomes increasingly isolated. The line between victim and accomplice continues to blur. In a chilling finale, Evelyn must face her darkest fears and unravel her own connection to James’s crimes.
The Shadow Killer is a gripping psychological thriller that explores the thin line between sanity and madness, manipulation and truth, leaving readers questioning where darkness truly begins.
Catherine Yaffe is the author of crime thrillers that readers and reviewers frequently describe as compulsively readable. A creative writing student with the OU and a graduate of Curtis Brown Creative, Catherine wrote her first crime thriller, The Lie She Told in 2020. On its release it debuted in the top 10 hot new releases on Amazon, achieved number 1 in the Amazon paid chart and to date has accrued hundreds of five-star reviews. The Web They Wove followed as the second in the Tangled Web series and was released in 2021. Again, it was received with widespread acclaim. The third book in the series, When We Deceive launched in April 2023 and flew straight to the top of the Amazon charts. Catch Me Twice was released in May 2024, again achieving the much-coveted best-seller tag on release. The Shadow Killer is the fifth book in the DI Ziggy Thornes series, though each book is self-contained and can be read as a standalone. Popular with library borrowers and available in all major retail outlets, Catherine’s books have the unique ability to capture the readers imagination with fictional stories that read like true crime. When Catherine isn’t writing she loves nothing more than gardening, horse riding and travelling whenever she can. She lives in West Yorkshire with her husband and a menagerie of animals.
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My thoughts: This is a creepy, sinister case, and Dr Evelyn Shaw, a forensic psychologist, finds herself caught up in the middle of it. She’s attempting to assess a rather nasty killer, one who enjoys playing with her, causing her to question her abilities and her past. Has she met this monster before?
The police think there might be a live victim out there, hidden somewhere and desperately need him to tell them, she might not have much time left. But he refuses to say anything, preferring to taunt and terrify Evelyn.
Then she disappears. It’s a race against time, to find Evelyn and solve the case, the so-called Shadow Killer is messing with them, but there’s real danger here and it’s far closer to home than anyone realises.
Clever, twisted and utterly compelling. I couldn’t put it down. It’s quite gruesome in parts and filled with twists you won’t see coming.
*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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When everyone is lying, how do you catch a killer?
A brutal attack at Fakenham Racecourse plunges DI Ashley Knight into the competitive world of horse racing, where fortunes are won and lost in the blink of an eye. As the investigation unfolds, a chilling discovery reveals a darker side to this glamorous sport. In these high-stakes arenas, where winning is everything and everyone has something to hide, a few are willing to cross the ultimate line.
Can Ashley, an outsider in a world of whispers and long-held grudges, unmask the murderer before they kill again?
Ross Greenwood is back with a brand new, heart-pounding case for DI Ashley Knight, perfect for fans of Mark Billingham, Ian Rankin and Peter James.
Ross Greenwood is the author of crime thrillers. Before becoming a full-time writer he was most recently a prison officer and so worked everyday with murderers, rapists and thieves for four years. He lives in Peterborough.
My thoughts: I have family connections to the world of race horses, but I don’t know a lot about it, so it was interesting to follow Ashley and her team as they attempt to break into this tight knit but not always happy community of owners, trainers, bookies and race course staff.
The murders are strange, a hammer attack, then run through with a sword, a strange symbol drawn on the victims’ foreheads in the middle of winter. There’s also the attack on affable police officer Frank, is it connected or opportunistic?
It all seems to centre around one stables and the horses and people who spend their time there. Did some of these people fix a race a few months previously? And is the killer sending a message?
As they investigate the victims and the people around them, there seem to be more questions than answers and plenty of suspects too.
The case is really clever and as always there’s lots of clever twists, red herrings, and carefully seeded clues. But Ashley never let’s confusing evidence and attempts at misdirection stop her from finding out the truth.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 