‘Good job you didn’t turn on the lights . . .’ A student nurse has the shock of her life when she discovers her patient, prosecutor Derek Nicholson, brutally murdered in his bed. The act seems senseless – Nicholson was terminally ill with only weeks to live. But what most shocks Detective Robert Hunter of the Los Angeles Robbery Homicide Division is the calling card the killer left behind.
For Hunter, there is no doubt that the killer is trying to communicate with the police, but the method is unlike anything he’s ever seen before. And what could the hidden message be?
Just as Hunter and his partner Garcia reckon they’ve found a lead, a new body is found – and a new calling card. But with no apparent link between the first and second victims, all the progress they’ve made so far goes out of the window.
Pushed into an uncomfortable alliance with confident investigator Alice Beaumont, Hunter must race to put together the pieces of the puzzle . . . before the Death Sculptor puts the final touches to his masterpiece.
My thoughts: Another creepy and chilling killer for Hunter and Garcia to find, LA seems to attract the worst monsters. This one is turning his victims into strange flesh sculptures. Hunter knows there’s a message here, but he needs to figure out what it is so they can solve the case.
They’re asked to work with DA’s investigator Alice Beaumont on the case, she’s an interesting addition to their partnership and brings a different perspective to the case.
It’s a race against time to figure out what the killer is saying with his disturbing artworks, keeping the reader guessing as to how exactly the detectives are going to solve another case before anyone else gets killed.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
One close-knit choir. Twenty members, singing in perfect harmony — but two won’t live to see the next rehearsal.
Welcome to sleepy Kings Richington, where nothing ever happens . . .until local butcher and bass singer Charlie Snell turns up murdered! He’s been conked on the head and dumped in the woods.
Detective Jack Dawes is on the case, with an endless list of suspects to interrogate. In life, Snell was a nasty piece of work, with a talent for making enemies wherever he went. From his jealous wife to the pretty young sopranos he groped — and the ambitious mayoral candidate who happened to ‘trip over’ his body. Anyone could be guilty. And anyone could be next.
Just when Jack thinks he’s getting somewhere, a second singer turns up dead. Is the killer picking off choir members one by one — or singing from their own twisted hymn sheet? It’s up to Detective Jack to find out before the body count rises again.
Frances Lloyd was born in Essex but spent a nomadic childhood being carted between RAF stations until mercifully, she was allowed a crack at a proper education in Cheltenham, studying English and Classics. As an adult, she became something of a wandering minstrel with no physical or spiritual roots apart from a strong work ethic. Frances has always been a writer. The job that paid the mortgage was in government communications, She also worked as a freelance journalist and photographer but her ambition was always to write crime novels. She now lives in Northumberland – “Vera” territory – and writes full time. She has published ten DI Dawes murder mysteries. Married three times but now a widow, Frances’ hobbies are reading, wine tasting and cooking
Greg Weaving took a gun to his workplace and killed several of his colleagues, before turning the weapon on himself.
A year on, plagued by guilt and humiliation, Marcus Weaving has been nursing a serious case of amnesia at The Barbary hospital. His son’s crimes caused a ripple effect in the local community and the media pointed fingers in his direction. As a former mental health professional, how could he not know that his own flesh and blood was planning on committing mass murder?
Determined to recover from his public scars and resume civilian life, Marcus is notably distracted by another patient at The Barbary. Lily is a traumatised young veteran suffering from depression and severe PTSD. She is just as intriguing as her beauty is unsettling for him.
Marcus observes questionable things happening at the hospital. Being a man of principle, he runs to the most logical possibilities, but even they are failing to alleviate his worries. Lily seems to be a conduit for these bizarre events and they are pulling at a familiar string in his spirit.
Kateri Stanley is a dark fiction author. Her books include bestselling debut horror FORGIVE ME, fantasy thriller FROM THE DEEP and the soon-to-be-released, BITTERSWEET INJURIES. By day, she works for a charity supporting people in prison with debt and gambling issues. She lives with her partner and cat in the Midlands, UK.
My thoughts: I read the first book in this series, Bittersweet Injuries, before I read this, and it does fill in the back story perfectly, and explain who everyone is, and what happened.
Cordial Convictions opens a year after the events of the previous book, with Marcus coming to the end of his stay in The Barbery, a mental health unit, after being found in a park with amnesia. He can’t remember what happened before his younger son Greg killed several colleagues and then himself. Wracked with guilt, Marcus has struggled to move past that point, wondering whether he could have prevented the deaths and saved his son.
He’s drawn to Lily, another patient, a former soldier with PTSD and strange dreams of events she can’t possibly have been present for.
There’s more to both of them, and a connection that’s much deeper than either of them can possibly know. When Lily begins to suffer strange incidents in the night, leaving her screaming and claiming evil visitors, Marcus is concerned, she seems so lucid, but this makes no sense.
Events are in motion that are much bigger than these two people but they may well be key in what comes next, Lily’s family are involved in an ancient and ongoing battle, and she was once one of their best.
Could her memories be the secret to saving the world?
Clever, twisting and complex fantasy writing, that reads like a thriller, with a love story at its heart. Book 3 is in the works, can’t wait!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own
Lord Andrew Framlington is known as a rogue of the highest order, a fortune hunter, a man without honour. He plans to marry a wealthy bride to secure his future… but beneath it all, could he be longing for something more, something real?
Miss Mary Marlow, the enchanting sister of a duke, is everything he should not want – innocent, fiercely protected by her powerful family and entirely out of reach. Yet from the moment he sets eyes on her, Drew knows she is the one. Not just for her fortune, but for the way she makes him feel.
Mary knows Drew’s reputation and the danger he poses, knows surrendering to him would be reckless, yet his charm and stolen kisses leave her breathless. Torn between duty and desire, she finds herself teetering on the edge of ruin.
Jane Lark is a writer of compelling, passionate and emotionally charged fiction filled with diverse characters. She is an international bestselling author of both historical fiction and psychological thrillers, and a finalist in British Fiction Industry awards.
My thoughts: We return to the Regency period in this first in a new series book, where Lord Framlington is in need of a wealthy wife. He isn’t too bothered who, until he meets Miss Mary Marlow, half sister to a duke, and a wealthy heiress. Her family are powerful and well connected, she’s related to much of the House of Lords and her father and brother are guard dog like in their behaviour, warning her away from the fortune hunter.
But there’s a connection between them that can’t be denied – or is there? At times Mary doubts Drew’s assertions of love, but she still elopes with him. Now they’re married, does he really love her and does she feel the same?
A witty, fast paced, enjoyable romance, with a dash of intrigue and lots of secrets on Andrew’s part. Can true love bloom when you barely know one another?
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
It’s the last day of Mer-May, and we have an amazing rec for you! To Free the Waves is now available and it’s the last book in the Kingsport Chronicles by C.H. Carter! You know what that means? COMPLETED TRILOGY!
To Free the Waves – Kingsport Chronicles Book 3
Release Date: May 20, 2025
Genre: Epic Fantasy/ Mermaids/ Pirates
🌊 Epic fantasy
🌊 Mermaids, pirates, and spies – Oh my!
🌊 Found family
🌊 Friends-to-lovers
🌊 Slow burn
🌊 Mental health rep
🌊 Multi-POV
🌊 Queer normative society
The tides have turned. The call has been made. And the legends of the sea are awake.
All seems well on the Birde Isles. Ally’s first year as a mermaid is nearly at an end — and despite the comfort of building a life beneath the waves, the call of the land is inescapable. But something ancient stirred in the depths when Pasha left her home to aid Ally’s rescue mission. A source of magic that holds the key to releasing a deadly enemy, intent on the destruction of mermaids.
When a member of Pasha’s long-lost shoal suddenly appears with a dire warning, Ally and Pasha are faced with a choice: stay and guard their home, or journey across the seas to save the rest of Pasha’s kin.
Whichever they choose, freedom threatens to slip through their fingers like sand…
The Kingsport Chronicles trilogy concludes with To Free the Waves.
They say blood is thicker than water. I say blood is just harder to wash off your hands.
My name’s Kimberley. I’m twenty-five. I have epilepsy, a seizure alert dog named Muffin, and a job I love as a senior housekeeper in one of London’s top hotels. I’m used to being invisible. Overlooked. Safe.
But that was before Jennifer Clifton checked in. She’s rich, powerful, terrifyingly calm — and she asked for me by name. She gives me my dream job, working in her exclusive hotel in the Scottish Highlands. It’s more money than I ever imagined. There’s just one catch: Don’t open the door to Room 21.
How hard can that be? But something is wrong in this hotel. The guests are unsettling. The staff whisper behind closed doors. And that room — the one I promised not to enter — calls to me. I took the job for a better life. Now I’m trapped in a nightmare.
Jessica Huntley is an author of dark and twisty psychological thrillers, which often focus on mental health topics and delve deep into the minds of her characters. She has a varied career background, having joined the Army as an Intelligence Analyst, then left to become a Personal Trainer. She is now living her life-long dream of writing from the comfort of her home, while looking after her young son and her disabled black Labrador. She enjoys keeping fit and drinking wine (not at the same time).
My thoughts: Kimberley had a rough start to her life, raised in care, diagnosed with epilepsy and asthma, not knowing anything about her biological family or where she came from. She works in a prestigious London hotel as a housekeeper, accompanied by Muffin, her seizure alert dog.
Offered a new opportunity in a very private hotel in the Scottish Highlands should be the chance of a lifetime – but it’s a hotel that caters to a very specific clientele, and not a nice one.
There are so many secrets and Kimberley must uncover them to get answers, to why she’s there, where she comes from and be prepared to change everything and fight back against the figures who’ve been controlling her life from the shadows.
Dark, twisted and shocking, this is not a book for the squeamish or faint hearted, but Kimberley is brave, unafraid and determined to get to the bottom of the secrets of Room 21. Thrilling stuff.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Once there were four kingdoms. Now there is only the Empire.
For a thousand years, Akkadia, the Empire of Engines, has reigned supreme, unchallenged. Within the Capitol, a city patrolled by machines, ten districts lay separated by social standing. While the wealthy enjoy the best of what life has to offer, the poor starve.
Only the Resistance, a group of ragtag rebels from all corners of Akkadia, dares to challenge the Empire. In recent months, they’ve been growing bolder, but it’s never enough.
Leo is a mechanic, living and working within the Capitol. His menial job ensures his family is provided for, but he dreams of giving them a better future.
Skye is a rebel, who has fought, spied, and killed for the Resistance for the past eleven years. Her only goal is to bring the Empire to its knees—no matter the cost.
When fate brings them together, they must decide what is right and what is wrong in the pursuit of freedom, how far each of them is willing to go, and what they must sacrifice along the way.
But unbeknownst to Skye and Leo, there is another enemy, more powerful and deadly than any threat posed by the Empire. An enemy who lurks beyond the throne…
As a woman, if you lived in Scotland in the 1500s, there was a very good chance that you, or someone you knew, would be tried as a witch. Witch hunts ripped through the country for over 150 years, with at least 4,000 accused, and with many women’s fates sealed by a grizzly execution of strangulation, followed by burning.
Inspired to correct this historic injustice, campaigners and writers Claire Mitchell, KC, and Zoe Venditozzi, have delved deeply into just why the trials exploded in Scotland to such a degree. In order to understand why it happened, they have broken down the entire horrifying process, step-by-step, from identification of individuals, to their accusation, ‘pricking’, torture, confessions, execution and beyond.
With characteristically sharp wit and a sense of outrage, they attempt to inhabit the minds of the persecutors, often men, revealing the inner workings of exactly why the Patriarchy went to such extraordinary lengths to silence women, and how this legally sanctioned victimisation proliferated in Scotland and around the world.
With testimony from a small army of experts, pen portraits of the women accused, trial transcripts, witness accounts and the documents that set the legal grounds for the hunts, How to Kill A Witch builds to form a rich patchwork of tragic stories, helping us comprehend the underlying reasons for this terrible injustice, and raises the serious question – could it ever happen again?
Leading human rights lawyer CLAIRE MITCHELL, KC, and writer, ZOE VENDITOZZI formed the WITCHES OF SCOTLAND campaign with the aim of shining a light on the historic injustice of the Witch Trials. As a result, on International Women’s Day, 2022, the First Minister of Scotland, at issued a formal state apology – the first time in 300 years there had been any formal recognition of those who were most wrongly accused.
Through their tireless campaigning, regular public appearances, and highly entertaining podcast, also called THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND, this pair of ‘quarrelsome dames’ are currently working to build a lasting memorial to the murdered women, and campaign to draw attention to the continued persecution of women as witches around the world today.
In 2022, Claire and Zoe were made Doctors of Laws by the University of Dundee in 2022 in recognition of their work. Claire lives in Montrose and Edinburgh and Zoe lives in Fife.
My thoughts: As someone with a lifelong passion for women’s history and especially the awful ways women were treated in past centuries (tbh it hasn’t really improved) I’ve been aware of the witch trials in England and Scotland (Wales doesn’t appear to have been affected by the same madness) for some time so this book was an absolute must read for me.
It is so well written, so well researched and incredibly interesting, informative and also very infuriating in a way. If I had a time machine (ok, that would be why they thought I was a witch) but things would have been very different. James I & VI especially would be getting a wallop. Awful man.
Women who were a bit different, who were vulnerable in some way – age, physicalor intellectual disability, mental illness, who looked a bit different, who were a bit “odd” were the most common targets for the hatred, ignorance and bigotry that lead to them being arrested, tortured, coerced and killed.
The sheer amount of work that has gone into what was a podcast, also campaign and now a book is incredible and the authors (and all the researchers and campaigners they consulted and worked with) must be applauded for their tireless determination to get the victims of this cruelty recognised, pardoned and commemorated.
I don’t think a similar campaign exists in England, but it needs to – if anyone knows of one, let me know, I’m definitely in.
It isn’t the easiest of reading, the awful things that these women (and a few men) went through, the violent deaths, the way even their remains were treated, is horrible, shocking even if you’re already aware of some of it. But it is important, to give a voice to the women who suffered so intensely, to give them back agency and their names to be remembered as victims of incredible injustice. Powerful, moving and rage-inducing as it is.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Welcome to the tour for Callie Pey’s latest release, Calling of the Grove! This is the second book in The Dryad Chronicles!
Calling of the Grove (The Dryad Chronicles Book 2)
Release Date: April 30, 2025
Genre: Romantic Fantasy/ Why Choose
🌱High Epic Fantasy
🌱Cinnamon Roll MMC
🌱Sweet but Steamy Romance
🌱Why Choose (MFM)
🌱Hidden Identity
🌱Friends to Lovers
🌱Portal worlds
🌱Always Been Her
🌱Fated Mates
🌱”I will find you” Vibes
🌱Bodyguard
When the earth calls, the answer must be resounding.
Melissa knew that staying on Artemesia meant putting her life in danger. After a harrowing night with a Shadow God, mages, and narrowly escaping a sacrificial death, she’s left with even fewer answers than before. One enigmatic question haunts her and may hold the key to everything: Who is Aurinia?
The aftermath of the failed winter solstice ritual continues to ripple through the groves, threatening to plunge the world into chaos. Following the gods’ advice, she must venture beyond Dytika’s borders to aid the vasilissas with their faltering elemental magic. This mission brings her face-to-face with the person she most dreads seeing: her second mate. The one that is in love with another.
Adding to her dilemma, Melissa is thrust into the precarious role of mediator in the delicate peace talks between the elves and the fae, striving to end a centuries-long war. Can she endure the tempest of trauma and grief to uncover her true strength? Will she defy the world’s expectations, guided only by a murmur of prophecy?
Hunter has secretly been in love with her best friend’s brother Dylan for years, despite barely registering as a blip on his radar. She’s not even in the friend zone—more like friend zone adjacent.
But her luck is about to change: Dylan is taking over her spare room, and she’s being promoted to roommate. Could this be the moment Dylan finally notices her? Not so fast. When Dylan moves in, he carries more than just boxes—he brings complications.
Suddenly, the dream of living under the same roof turns into a daily struggle. Dylan is off-limits, for reasons Hunter couldn’t have anticipated, and the closer they get, the harder it becomes to ignore her feelings. But Hunter’s determined to keep her heart in check—no matter how difficult the task. She just has to avoid ogling him in a towel. Definitely don’t imagine what’s under the towel. And try not to swoon when he bakes cookies.
But after he saves her from a terrible date and they’re forced to share a sofa bed at his parents’ house, her emotions reach a breaking point. She’ll have to either move on or move out. Will she tell him the truth—or lose him forever?
The Roommate Experiment is a roommates-to-lovers, forced proximity, STEMinist rom-com perfect for fans of Lynn Painter, Sarah Adams, and Abby Jimenez.
My thoughts: We come to the third in this series of interconnected stories and it’s Hunter’s turn as the protagonist after Nina and Rowena. She’s got a new roommate, and it’s Nina’s brother Dylan. Only problem is Hunter’s been in love with him for years and he has no idea and a girlfriend. Awkward.
As the two attempt to navigate their new relationship status, and Hunter tries to keep a lid on her feelings, could they be more than just roomies?
Fun, funny and really enjoyable, this is another cute rom com from Camilla Isley, with a smart but also a bit hopeless protagonist, great supporting characters and some fun twists and turns, the path to true love never did run smoothly!
*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 