Tag: blog tour

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: So Pretty – Ronnie Turner

ramblingmads

Fear blisters through this town like a fever…

When Teddy Colne arrives in the small town of Rye, he believes he will be able to settle down and leave his past behind him. Little does he know that fear blisters through the streets like a fever. The locals tell him to stay away from an establishment known only as Berry & Vincent, that those who rub too closely to its proprietor risk a bad end.

Despite their warnings, Teddy is desperate to understand why Rye has come to fear this one man, and to see what really hides behind the doors of his shop.

Ada moved to Rye with her young son to escape a damaged childhood and years of never fitting in, but she’s lonely, and ostracised by the community. Ada is ripe for affection and friendship, and everyone knows it.

As old secrets bleed out into this town, so too will a mystery about a family who vanished fifty years earlier, and a community living on a knife-edge.

Teddy looks for answers, thinking he is safe, but some truths are better left undisturbed, and his past will find him here, just as it always has. And before long, it will find Ada too.

Ronnie Turner grew up in Cornwall, the youngest in a large family. At an early age, she discovered a love of literature and dreamed of being a published author. Ronnie now lives in the South West with her family and three dogs. In her spare time, she reviews books on her blog and enjoys long walks on the coast. Ronnie is a Waterstones Senior Bookseller and a barista, and her youth belies her exceptional, highly unusual talent.

My thoughts: this was really good, it got creepy very quickly and I really felt for Ada and Albie, terrified and trapped in Rye. With Teddy and the really disturbing Mr Vincent (he never speaks and collects really odd things). Teddy claims to want to escape the shadow of his father but proves to be more like him as the book goes on.

There is something a bit creepy about seaside towns, especially out of season, something sad and haunted about them. I don’t know Rye itself but it serves as the perfect setting for this tale of obsession and loneliness.

*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

Blog Tour: A Deal With Darkness – Alexis L. Menard

ramblingmads

We are thrilled to share A Deal with Darkness by Alexis L, Menard with all of you! This romantic fantasy will keep you warm during the long dark months of winter!

Deal With Darkness DIGITAL

A Deal with Darkness (Eternal Night #2)

Publication Date: November 10, 2022

Genre: Dark Romance/ Dark Fantasy
Before the Eternal Night or the Huntress, there was a deal with darkness.

Isoldra Maan is drowning in debt, specifically over 250 souls deep. As a Hound for the diabolical yet irresistible Lord of Lost Souls, she’s been stuck serving the fallen god and hunting his contracts in order to be free of her own. But when Haalarcus strikes a bargain with a divine, he places her freedom finally within reach.

A dark power threatens the integrity of the realm, splitting open the world and starting a series of plagues that force humanity to point fingers at the heavens. Isoldra reluctantly agrees to work with the divine who turns out to be the self-righteous watcher, Evander, in order to track down the heretic causing all this, but the simplicity of this bargain complicates when the stakes become much bigger than her freedom.

An evil has awakened. A darkness unleashed. When death is not the end, how far will she go for a love crossing realms, lifetimes, and the very concept of mortality?

Add to Goodreads

Screenshot_20221103_092625

Available on Amazon at Barnes & Noble

Don’t miss out on A Night of Wings and Starlight, the first book in the Eternal Night series

51l0FVm7VpL

A Night of Wings and Starlight (Eternal Night #1)
Breaking the curse will risk her heart, her life, and the future she never thought possible.

Before Arya was Chosen, she knew nothing of what lay waiting in the eternal night—certainly not alluring yet arrogant winged Watchers, a cursed queen, nor the possibility that she could be more than a runner, carrying messages through the vampyre-infested wastelands of Valdihr.

But the biggest surprise waiting in the dark is the brazen Watcher who sparks her heart and calls her a Huntress.

A hundred years shrouded in darkness and Arya is the only one who can finally bring back the dawn. With a blessing that marks her for death and an infuriatingly tantalizing man at her side, Arya must embrace her calling and her courage in order to face the danger lurking in the shadows. Because the night holds more than just secrets, and the monsters are closer than she realizes.

Amazon

About the Author

6844EC14-6B61-412B-953B-6549DEBCDF91 2

Alexis is a registered nurse based out of Louisiana where she lives with her husband, toddler, and two oversized dogs. She enjoys long walks through the Renaissance Fair, reading smutty romance into the dark hours of the night, and wine nights with her “Finer Things Club.” She hopes to enrich the lives of her readers with worlds they can both escape in and take with them long after the final chapter.

Alexis L. Menard | Instagram | TikTok | Twitter

Book Tour Schedule

December 19th

R&R Book Tours (Kick-Off) http://rrbooktours.com

@read.em.if.you.got.em (Spotlight) https://www.instagram.com/read.em.if.you.got.em/

@over.on.my.bookshelf (Review) https://www.instagram.com/over.on.my.bookshelf/?hl=en

@bookswithstacie (Review) https://www.instagram.com/bookswithstacie/

@littlebonelibrary (Review) https://www.instagram.com/littlebonelibrary/

Nesie’s Place (Spotlight) https://nesiesplace.wordpress.com

@fle_d (Spotlight) https://www.instagram.com/fle_d

Stine Writing (Spotlight) https://christinebialczak.com/

Latisha’s Low-Key Life (Review) https://latishaslowkeylife.com/

December 20th

@bayyyansbooks (Review) https://www.instagram.com/bayyyansbooks/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D

Lecari’s Live Journal (Review) http://www.lecari.co.uk

@mels_booksandhooks (Review) https://www.instagram.com/mels_booksandhooks/

Book Reviews by Taylor (Review) https://www.bookreviewsbytaylor.com/

Lady Hawkeye (Spotlight) https://www.ladyhawkeye.com

@kellyatx (Spotlight) https://www.instagram.com/kellyatx/

December 21st

@its_b.e.l.l.e (Review) https://www.instagram.com/its_b.e.l.l.e/

@margiebythebookcase (Review) https://www.instagram.com/margiebythebookcase/

@bookbriefs (Review) https://www.instagram.com/bookbriefs/

@caffeinatedbibliophilia (Review) https://www.instagram.com/caffeinatedbibliophilia/

December 22nd

@alexis.reads__ (Review) https://instagram.com/alexis.reads__?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

@thejinxedlibrary (Review) https://www.instagram.com/thejinxedlibrary/

@booksnsnax (Review) https://www.tiktok.com/@booksnsnax

@abookworld___ (Review) https://www.instagram.com/abookworld___/

@boundbymischief (Review) https://www.instagram.com/boundbymischief/

@the_princess_library (Review) https://www.instagram.com/the_princess_library/

December 23rd

@amber.bunch_author (Review) https://www.instagram.com/amber.bunch_author/

@hazelwriteswords_ (Review) https://www.instagram.com/hazelwriteswords_/

@starseternal182 (Review) https://www.instagram.com/starseternal182/

@itsabookthing2021 (Review) https://www.instagram.com/itsabookthing2021/

@thorn_n_thistle_reads (Spotlight) https://www.instagram.com/thorn_n_thistle_reads/

Rambling Mads (Spotlight) http://ramblingmads.com

@ashleywslaughter (Spotlight) https://www.instagram.com/ashleywslaughter/

Book Tour Organized By:

R&R Button

R&R Book Tours

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Concierge – Miranda Rijks

ramblingmads

They hired an assistant to help them. But she has other plans.

High-flying duo Goldie and Braun Delucci run a major film production company. But recently their gilded lives were touched by tragedy when one of their leading actors, Ally, died in a car crash.

What the Deluccis don’t realise is that their newly hired private assistant is actually Ally’s sister. Simone is convinced Ally’s death was suspicious and she is determined to find out what happened on that terrible night.

Simone’s new job puts her at the heart of a rich, dysfunctional family. As she digs for the truth about Ally’s death, she realises someone is watching her. And they want her gone.

That just makes Simone more determined to discover whatever terrible secret the Deluccis are hiding. But she doesn’t understand she is about to uncover something so dark, so shocking that her own life may never be the same again.

Goodreads – Buy Links –

Miranda Rijks is a writer of psychological thrillers and suspense novels. She has an eclectic background ranging from law to running a garden centre. She’s been writing all of her life and has a Masters in writing. A couple of years ago she decided to ditch the business plans and press releases and now she’s living the dream, writing suspense novels full time. She lives in Sussex, England with her Dutch husband, musician daughter and black Labrador.

Facebook Instagram Twitter Website

My thoughts: this was a clever premise and paid off nicely. Simone goes undercover with her sister’s former employers to find out what really happened to her and gets caught up in a messed up family and a terrible situation.

No one is particularly honest about things, apart from maybe the children, though not teenager Rose, who’s hiding all sorts of nasty little secrets. But her dad isn’t very truthful either and his secrets put people in harm’s way.

Simone finds that her sister, far from the drug addicted car thief the media are spinning her as, was, as expected, an innocent caught up in something bigger than her and with someone who can’t be trusted.

I felt for Simone but she took things incredibly far, pretending to be someone else and her niece almost paid the price. Honesty tends to be the better policy. Luckily Goldie was a really nice person and not to blame and able to forgive the deception, of Simone at least.

*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

Blog Tour: Where David Threw Stones – Elyse Hoffman

ramblingmads

Welcome to the tour for Where David Threw Stones by Elyse Hoffman. Perfect for fans of The Book Thief.

Where David Threw Stones Cover PROOF 1 (2)

Where David Threw Stones

Publication Date: September 27th, 2022

Genre: Historical Fantasy/ Historical Fiction/ WW2

“Welcome to the Brennenbach of Midnight! The Curse Hours have begun.”

West Germany, 1968

When ten-year-old David Saidel’s parents are murdered, he is sent to live with his grandfather in the anti-Semitic village of Brennenbach. Miserable and lonely, David finds solace in his kindly Grandpa Ernst, who has one strict rule: never go out after midnight.

When David breaks curfew to search for his missing dog, he discovers why Ernst is so serious about his curfew: Brennenbach is cursed. When midnight strikes, the town is thrown back to 1943, the height of Hitler’s reign.

The Nazi ghosts that infest Brennenbach are just as dangerous as they were in life. They’re hunting for David, thinking he is the last member of a family they’ve been ordered to destroy.

Through the help of a little girl named Maria Rahm, David sets out to end the Curse before it claims more victims.

Award-winning author Elyse Hoffman has crafted an expertly woven tale of World War II’s horrors – perfect for readers of Marcus Zusak’s “The Book Thief,” or Michael Reit’s “Beyond the Tracks.”

Check out the wonderful reviews on Goodreads and grab a copy today!

Available on Amazon

About the Author

5R5A2575C-320x490

Elyse Hoffman is an award-winning author who strives to tell historical tales with new twists. She loves to meld WWII and Jewish history with fantasy, folklore, and the paranormal. She has written six works of Holocaust historical fiction: The Barracks of the Holocaust five-book series and The Book of Uriel. Elyse’s books are the way to go if you love history and want to read some unique stories.

Elyse Hoffman

Book Tour Organized By:

R&R Button

R&R Book Tours

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Case Files – Rachel Amphlett

ramblingmads

Discover twelve dark and twisted mysteries from USA Today bestselling author Rachel Amphlett.

This page-turning collection features The Man Cave in which Darren regains consciousness in a dank basement where escape turns out to be the least of his worries; in All Night Long Zoe soon wishes she wasn’t working the late shift; and in Nowhere to Run a rookie detective encounters her first serial killer… but will she survive?

My thoughts: this was a really enjoyable collection of short crime stories. Some were very brief and others felt like the beginning of a novel. All were clever and a couple made me laugh out loud. If you like crime fiction and short stories, you could do a lot worse than starting with these.

*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: Local Girl Missing – J.A. Baker

ramblingmads

Missing without trace…
When local woman Deborah goes missing, her colleagues Adrian, Yvonne and Merriel are all left in shock. Gossip around the office begins to swirl – what could have happened to Deborah? Is she dead or alive? And who could be responsible for her disappearance?
Everyone is terrified that they could be next…except the one person who has all the answers. The last person people expect.
Because Deborah is being held captive by a monster, a psychopath. But not a stranger… it’s someone she knows all too well…
Purchase


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

Facebook Twitter Instagram Bookbub

My thoughts: I enjoyed this, I liked the switching between different characters so you see what they think about each other and recent events. You don’t know who to trust because they all seem to be hiding something. Even Deborah, who ask the kidnapped victim, you’d think would be the most honest.

I had no idea who the kidnapper was. There were too many suspects, too many messed up families. So it was a huge surprise and yet there were definitely questions at the end that still needed answers.

*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 Secrets of Rochester Place – Iris Costello

ramblingmads

Spring 1937: Teresa, a young Basque girl, is evacuated to London in the wake of the Guernica bombing. She thinks she has reached safety in the lofty halls of Rochester Place and the soothing arms of Mary Davidson, but trouble seeks her out wherever she goes…

Autumn 2020: Corrine, an emergency services operator, receives a call from a distressed woman called Mary. But when the ambulance arrives at Rochester Place – the address the woman gave them – she is nowhere to be found. No matter how hard she tries to forget, memories of Mary’s raw fear haunt Corinne and secrets, long-hidden in Corinne’s family tree, begin to surface.

Is Mary calling from beyond the grave? And what actually happened at Rochester Place all those years ago?

Set between the dusty halls of Rochester Place and the bustling streets of modern-day Tooting, this emotive, intricately layered mystery tells the spellbinding story of two people, separated by time, yet mysteriously connected through an enchanting Georgian house and the secrets within its walls. The perfect escapist read for fans of Kate Morton, Eve Chase and Lulu Taylor.

My thoughts: inspired by the author’s family, this is a moving and clever timeslip book, set between now and events in the Spanish Civil War and Second World War.

Sadly Spain’s horrific 1930s War is not taught much here, and what little I know I’ve learnt as an adult. But it was the precursor to the horrendous events of WW2, especially the massacre of Guernica. Which is where little Theresa is fleeing from.

Sent to safety in England by her elder sister, Theresa travels by sea with other refugee children. Offered a home by the kind and intriguing Mary, an Irish woman who speaks Basque and lives with her English husband in Rochester Place, she finds herself in a world unlike that she’s known. But Mary has secrets and a past too.

How these two are connected to Corinne, who works as an emergency services call handler, while her wife and sister-in-law run a family restaurant, selling the delicious food their mum used to make. After a strange phone call shakes her, Corinne and her historian uncle Robin look into Rochester Place and its occupants. Then she’s called to Ireland, where her grandmother is ill. And secrets are about to be revealed.

Moving and rather lovely, with several love stories mixed into the history, this is a heartwarming tale of found family, survival and love.

*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: A Deadly Covenant – Michael Stanley

ramblingmads

While building a pipeline near the Okavango Delta, a contractor unearths the remains of a long-dead Bushman. Rookie Detective David ‘Kubu’ Bengu of Botswana CID and Scottish pathologist, Ian MacGregor, are sent to investigate, and MacGregor discovers the skeletons of eight more men.

Shortly after the gruesome discoveries, the elder of a nearby village is murdered in his home. The local police are convinced it was a robbery, but Kubu isn’t so sure … and neither is the strange woman who claims that an angry river spirit caused the elder’s death.

As accusations of corruption are levelled and international outrage builds over the massacre of the Bushman families, Kubu and his colleagues uncover a deadly covenant, and begin to fear that their own lives may be in mortal danger…

Michael Stanley is the writing team of South African authors Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. On a flying trip to Botswana, they watched a pack of hyenas hunt, kill and devour a wildebeest, eating both flesh and bones. That gave them the premise for their first mystery, A Carrion Death, which introduced Detective ‘Kubu’ Bengu of the Botswana CID. It was a finalist for five awards, including the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger. The third in the series, Death of the Mantis, won the Barry Award for Best Paperback Original mystery and was a finalist for an Edgar award. Deadly Harvest was a finalist for an International Thriller Writers’ award. A Death in the Family and Dying to Live are the latest in the Detective Kubu series, published by Orenda Books. A prequel to the Detective Kubu series, Facets of Death, was published in 2021 and A Deadly Covenant follows Kubu’s second case.

My thoughts: Detective Kubu returns in a case of murder, secrets and promises. Sent out to a remote village to investigate human remains found while digging for new water pipes, Kubu encounters people who won’t speak up, closing ranks against the outsiders. As more bones are found and pathologist Dr McGregor thinks they’re the massacred remains of a group of Bushmen, discriminated against widely, and some may be children, Kubu becomes more determined to find the truth. Then new murders occur.

As Assistant Commissioner Mabuku comes out to help with this new spate of crime, the local police think it’s a newcomer – a Bushman who says he’s come at the behest of his ancestors, because of the bodies they’ve found.

Digging into local history, rumours and friendships, the team find a terrible pact made between a group of friends years before. Could this hold the answers?

Gripping, trawling through the worst things humans can do, but with a lightness of touch, finding moments of humour, and with such intriguing characters. I loved the last Kubu I read and this was also very good. Enjoyable and thought provoking.

*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: Alone With You in the Ether – Olivie Blake

ramblingmads

Chicago, sometime. Two people meet in the Art Institute, in the armoury section, quite by chance. Prior to their encounter, he is a doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts with compulsive calculations about time travel; she is a bipolar counterfeit artist undergoing court-ordered psychotherapy. After their meeting, those things do not change.

Everything else, however, is slightly different.

Both obsessive, eccentric personalities, Aldo Damiani and Charlotte Regan struggle to be without each other from the moment they meet. The truth – that he is a clinically depressed, anti-social theoretician and she is a manipulative liar with a history of self-sabotage – means the deeper they fall in love, the more troubling their reliance on each other becomes.

Alone with you in the Ether, is a glimpse into the nature of love, what it means to be unwell, and how to face the fractures of yourself and still love as if you’re not broken.

My thoughts: as someone living with mental illness, I do understand Regan’s ambivalence towards medication – I take mine because without it I can’t realistically function but I do wonder what parts of me it silences. For Regan it’s her art, she can’t draw or paint while medicated.

For Aldo perhaps it’s his brilliance with numbers, she calls him a genius. Constantly working on complex calculations in his head, contemplating hexagons and bees. The number six repeats throughout the book. The six conversations Regan agrees to have with him.

This isn’t an easy to read, simple love story. It’s complex and messy, much like life. Similarly to the author’s Atlas books there is a fascination with time travel – Aldo is trying to solve it with maths, the Atlas scholars with magic.

Regan and Aldo are interesting figures, trying to solve their place in the world, to understand themselves as well as the bigger questions in the universe – love being one of them.

*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 Weekend Alone – Jacqueline Grima

ramblingmads

Bella has the perfect life with her husband Jack and their two children – until the ex who stalked her years ago is released from prison.

A tragic past that haunts her
Now Bella is convinced he’s back to hurt her, and sees him everywhere – but no one else can see that anything is wrong.

One last chance to put it behind her
With her family away for the weekend, Bella determines to leave the past in the past – but she’s about to discover the danger is closer to home than she ever imagined…

My thoughts: traumatised and haunted by a terrible experience with a stalker, Bella is reliving it and seeing him everywhere after he’s released from prison. Her husband Jack is worried about her, more so when she insists on spending the weekend alone while the kids are away.

But all is not as it seems, and this time the monster terrorising Bella is a lot closer to home. I was genuinely thrown when their identity was revealed, as it chucks the preceding narrative up in the air and you have to reevaluate everything that’s gone before.

I was really glad that Bella had a true friend in Jazz, someone who had her back even when Bella didn’t realise it. And that her stalker got to redeem himself along the way. Clever and twisted, this stays with you.

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