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Blog Tour: Hidden in the Mists – Christina Courtenay plus giveaway!

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A love forged in fire lives on through the ages.
She stared at the man again. Was he real? Her mind returned to the ghostly figure by the shore and to her strange dream. No, he was not a figment of her imagination.
Skye Logan has been struggling to run her remote farm on Scotland’s west coast alone ever since her marriage fell apart. When a handsome stranger turns up looking for work, it seems that her wish for help has been granted.
Rafe Carlisle is searching for peace and somewhere he can forget about the last few years. But echoes of the distant past won’t leave Skye and Rafe alone, and they begin to experience vivid dreams which
appear to be linked to the Viking jewellery they each wear.
It seems that the ghosts of the past have secrets . . . and they have something that they want Skye and Rafe to know.

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Giveaway to Win a signed copy of Hidden in the Mists Viking tea-towel and Viking carved butter knife (Open INT)


Christina Courtenay writes historical romance, time slip and time travel stories, and lives in Herefordshire (near the Welsh border) in the UK. Although born in England, she has a Swedish mother and was brought up in Sweden – hence her abiding interest in the Vikings. Christina is a former chairman of the UK’s Romantic Novelists’ Association and has won several awards, including the RoNA for Best Historical Romantic Novel twice with Highland Storms (2012) and The Gilded Fan (2014) and the RNA Fantasy Romantic Novel of the year 2021 with Echoes of the Runes. Hidden in the Mists (timeslip/dual time romance published by Headline Review 18th August 2022) is her latest
novel. Christina is a keen amateur genealogist and loves history and archaeology (the armchair variety).

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My thoughts: slightly different to the previous books in this series – instead of one person journeying back in time to live with Vikings, this time two people dream themselves into the bodies of two actual people from the past. When Skye and Rafe meet, there’s an instant connection and with both of them wearing mysterious jewellery decorated with runes, they are transported into the lives of two Viking-era people who lived on Skye’s land years before. They experience the past in dreams but the things they see and feel are very real.

This was quite fun, I loved Skye’s dogs, Pepsi and Cola, even if they were a bit rubbish as guard dogs. I liked Rafe and Skye, they seemed like good, genuine people, both with things in their pasts they’d rather forget. I was less involved with the Viking story of Ata and Otturr – I just didn’t connect with them very much. Though I was glad their story had a happy ending, as both had suffered.

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

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Blog Tour: Lo – Bradford Tatum

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LO copy

Welcome to the tour for genre-blurring novel, LO by Bradford Tatum. Read on for more details!

LO Front Cover

LO

Publication Date: June 7, 2022

Genre: Sci-Fi/ Noir Thriller

Publisher: Soft Moon Press

Willoughby, known back on Earth as “the East Hamptons of the Kuiper Belt,” is the first sustainable colony on Mars.

Built by the mysterious geneticist Carlo Yakamura this settlement encourages the rich to live as they please. They can enjoy decadent homes, physically modifiable partners, meals based on their best memories and even boutique children known on Willoughby as Builds.

Designed to impress even at the dullest cocktail parties, the Builds’ proprietary motive genes have been sourced from the DNA of some of the greatest artistic disruptors of the last several centuries. But even among a host of uniquely gifted Builds, Lo is unique. And uniquely unbalanced. So what would be the grisliest of murders back on Earth, is just an inconvenience on Willoughby. That is why Lo is sent to be “seasoned” by a man we come to know only as Cook.

Can Cook’s fatherly hand guide Lo to a deeper understanding of his potential and purpose or is Lo’s innate power destined to destroy all of Willoughby? Is Lo the key to Cook’s creative redemption or is he the cause of Cook’s worst nightmares? And once Cook learns the true purpose of Yakamura’s Willoughby will Lo or Cook find the colony worth saving at all?

LO is a sci-fi noir thriller, painted in more deeper shades of blue than black. It is also a story of fathers and sons, lost to one another through terrible compromises and found again through the limits of love. It is a parable of our possible future, a future that is doomed if we rely only on the digital representation of our present while forgetting the lessons and lore of our analogue past.

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About the Author

Bradford Tatum Author Photo

Bradford Tatum’s award winning debut novel I Can Only Give You Everything was published in 2010. His second novel, Only the Dead Know Burbank was published by HarperCollins in 2016 and received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. His book Gray Matters has been used as a text book in various college business communication courses.

Bradford began his career as an actor appearing in numerous television shows and movies such as 20th Century Fox’s submarine comedy DOWN PERISCOPE, Disney’s POWDER and HBO’s WESTWORLD. 

He was a staff writer for Dick Wolf on the NBC series DEADLINE and has written and directed two award winning independent features. He has won an Alfred P. Sloan grant for his written work as well as sold pitches to various production companies. 

 Bradford Tatum | Facebook | Instagram

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Blog Tour: The Promise of the Visitor – David Gittlin

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PromiseVisitor copy

Welcome to the tour for Promise of the Visitor, one of three novellas in the Silver Sphere Series by David Gittlin. Read on for more info and a chance to win a $50 Amazon e-gift card!

GOLDEN SPHERE COVER

Promise of the Visitor

(The three volumes in the Silver Sphere Series can be read independently and in any order)

Publication Date: April 14th, 2022

Genre: Science Fiction/ Sci-fi Fantasy

Length: 142 Pages

The police have arrived to investigate a strange report. What happens next?

An unconscious body lies on the kitchen floor. Two Daytona Police deputies are ringing the bell on the front door of the beach house mystery writer Jacob Cassel rents. It’s going to be an interesting morning for Jacob, his super-smart girlfriend, Amy, and Arcon, an AI from the other side of the Milky Way. If they can survive the morning without being thrown in jail, they are expecting a visitor from the planet Aneleya to arrive later in the evening bearing a cornucopia of gifts for the human race. Instead of gifts, the visitor arrives with dire news about a doomsday device threatening the destruction of planet Earth and the entire solar system.

Welcome aboard for this suspenseful interstellar adventure of The Silver Sphere Series!

Excerpt

NO ONE BESIDES ME and Amy knows that inside the golden sphere lives an artificial intelligence originating from the other side of the Milky Way. Said sphere rests on top of a beige granite counter beside a nickel-plated sink in Jeffrey’s ultra-modern kitchen. Except the kitchen belongs to a guy named Jack. I keep thinking “Jeffrey” because that’s the alter ego Jack uses as a front for his real name, Jack Markham. I thought Jeffrey Mortenson was my friend. Instead, he turns out to be an international criminal named Jack.

When I first met the artificial intelligence on a lonely stretch of Daytona Beach one night, it identified itself to me as “Arcon” because its actual name is unpronounceable in English or any other terrestrial tongue. At the time, Arcon was packed by his makers into something resembling a basketball-sized silver sphere. The packaging has changed on multiple occasions with the ridiculous demands of the circumstances we have somehow managed to live through. To be completely transparent, Arcon doesn’t actually have a name. He has an unpronounceable Aneleyan name only because the Aneleyan scientists who created Arcon needed to call him something besides, “it” or “the thing.” Arcon definitely doesn’t like to be referred to as a “thing.”

Arcon has preferences, but as far as I know, he doesn’t have feelings. He may, however, be developing them because his consciousness is evolving. I want to explore feelings and other matters in depth with Arcon when there isn’t a crisis at hand. Currently, we have one looming. I think of Arcon as a “he.” Actually, Arcon is neither male nor female. When we first met, Arcon presented himself to me as a “he” because he didn’t want any sexual tension to complicate our relationship. We only had three days to save the Earth, so there was no time to dither around with anything remotely romantic. Therefore, I’ve become accustomed to calling Arcon a “he,” although he really isn’t.

Speaking of sexual tension, my partner and current flame, Amy Goodwin, just walked back into the room. A white robe covers her lithe body. She’s put her long red hair up in a ponytail. She wears a light mask of makeup and a pair of flat heels. In her simple attire and after our long night of digging Arcon out of a sand dune, Amy still manages to look like a knockout. The ponytail, freckles, and white robe lend her an air of child-like innocence, despite her nearly six-foot-tall frame. I know that Amy can change from an innocent child into a desirable twenty-six-year-old woman in a heartbeat. She never ceases to surprise me. For example, if she wasn’t a brainy aerospace engineer and part-time astronomer, Amy might have had a successful career as a criminal. In the short time we’ve been together, Amy has proven she can think on her feet. She can talk her way out of the stickiest of circumstances. We’ve been through many of them. We’re in one now.

Amy had to take a break to put herself back together after what happened only fifteen minutes ago. Presently, there are two sheriff’s deputies knocking on our front door. Their unexpected arrival so soon after the incident is unnerving, to put it mildly. The man lying unconscious on the marble kitchen floor owns the beach house we’ve been staying in. Whether the house is owned in the name of Jack, Jeffrey, or some shell corporation doesn’t matter. What matters is Jack will surely claim that we broke into his house, or we had an argument, and I attacked him. He’ll say he came back from a business trip, found us in the house, and a struggle ensued. He’ll claim he used the double-barreled Derringer a few feet from his bloodied head for self-defense.

If he goes with the self-defense story, Jack will have to come up with a plausible explanation as to how he wound up conked out on the floor. He had a gun, after all, and we didn’t. In actuality, Jack cracked his head on the marble flooring when he crumbled after Arcon zapped him with an electromagnetic energy bolt. At the time, Jack was in a murderous rage. He wanted to kill Amy, again, after succeeding to do so once before. Jack is as devious a criminal as any. I’m sure he’ll come up with a doozy of a story to cover his tracks. And, since he owns the house, I fear the deputies will believe Jack’s fictional version of the story, assuming he wakes up to tell it.

“Daytona Beach Sheriff’s Deputies,” I hear through the front door. “Coming,” I announce.

Available on Amazon

About the Author

D GITTLIN 3.1

Only one thing stood between me and my dream of becoming a creative writer: I couldn’t do two things at once.

Upon retiring from my career in marketing communications, I decided to devote my full attention to writing fiction, thereby solving my multi-tasking challenge.

I began my creative writing journey by enrolling in the online Writers’ Program offered by UCLA.  In a series of courses taught by professional writers, I learned how to craft memorable characters, create colorful worlds, and outline suspenseful plots enriched with drama and conflict.  Taking one baby step at a time, I managed to bridge the gulf between writing promotional copy in short bursts to rendering full scale novels.  As an interim step, I wrote three screenplays.

My three feature length scripts; “Love Will Find You,” “Joshua’s Decision, and “A Prescription for Happiness” have reached the finals or placed in several major screenplay competitions.  My first novel, a Science Fantasy, “Three Days to Darkness,” was nominated to the James Kirkwood Prize for creative writing.  My publishing company, Entelligent Entertainment, has also published “Scarlet Ambrosia” and my latest novel: “Micromium–Clean Energy from Mars.”

David Gittlin | Instagram | Facebook

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Blog Tour: Regency Fairies – Olivia Atwater

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It’s difficult to find a husband in Regency England when you’re a young lady with only half a soul.

Ever since she was cursed by a faerie, Theodora Ettings has had no sense of fear or embarrassment—an unfortunate condition that leaves her prone to accidental scandal. Dora hopes to be a quiet, sensible wallflower during the London Season—but when Elias Wilder, the strange, handsome, and utterly ill-mannered Lord Sorcier, discovers her condition, she is instead drawn into peculiar and dangerous faerie affairs.

If her reputation can survive both her curse and her sudden connection with the least-liked man in all high society, then she and her family may yet reclaim their normal place in the world. But the longer Dora spends with Elias, the more she begins to suspect that one may indeed fall in love even with only half a soul. 

Effie has most inconveniently fallen in love with the dashing Mr. Benedict Ashbrooke. There’s only one problem: Effie is a housemaid, and a housemaid cannot marry a gentleman. It seems that Effie is out of luck until she stumbles into the faerie realm of Lord Blackthorn, who is only too eager to help her win Mr. Ashbrooke’s heart. All he asks in return is that Effie sew ten thousand stitches onto his favorite jacket.

Effie has heard rumors about what happens to those who accept magical bargains. But life as a maid at Hartfield is so awful that she is willing to risk even her immortal soul for a chance at something better. Now she has one hundred days—and ten thousand stitches—to make Mr. Ashbrooke fall in love and propose…if Lord Blackthorn doesn’t wreck things by accident, that is. For Effie’s greatest obstacle might well be Lord Blackthorn’s overwhelmingly good intentions. 

Proper Regency ladies are not supposed to become magicians–but Miss Abigail Wilder is far from proper.

The marriageable young ladies of London are dying mysteriously, and Abigail Wilder intends to discover why. Abigail’s father, the Lord Sorcier of England, believes that a dark lord of faerie is involved. But while Abigail is willing to match her magic against Lord Longshadow, neither her father nor high society believes that she is capable of doing so.

Thankfully, Abigail is not the only one investigating the terrible events. Mercy, a street rat and self-taught magician, insists on joining Abigail in unraveling the mystery. Mercy is unpredictable, and her magic is strange and foreboding–but the greatest danger she poses may well be to Abigail’s heart.

A queer romantic faerie tale of defiant hope and love against all odds, set in Olivia Atwater’s enchanting version of Regency England.

My thoughts: these are delightful fairy tale influenced Regency era love stories. George III, who was technically still king in this period, was one of many who believed in fairies, so it makes sense that they pop up at balls and try to blend in to society.

Half a Soul reminded me a little of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, especially with magicians on the battlefields of Wellington’s campaign against Napoleon. There’s also elements of Bridgerton – with the endless rounds of parties and ‘at homes’ of the Season and the marriage schemes of the ton.

Ten Thousand Stitches had definite Cinderella and The Wild Swans – with poor Effie cleaning the house and spending her nights sewing. Although of course she’s brilliant and escapes to the land of faerie.

Longshadow is a bit different, bringing the daughter of England’s Lord Sorcier to the fore and giving us a queer love story too. Something you definitely wouldn’t find in a Regency era story elsewhere.

All three are tremendous fun to read and feature clever young women who don’t fit in with society’s expectations for them. Thankfully with faerie just next door they can escape and find their own happily ever afters.

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

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Blog Tour: Absent Victim – David Roy

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No body, no motive, no name…so who did she kill?

When wealthy divorcee Stephanie Kuler asked a private detective to investigate a murder, he told her to go to the police instead. 

But when she told the rest of the story, he took the case. 

There was no body, no reason to kill and no name for her supposed victim, but she knew she was the murderer. 

Solving the mystery meant jail for her and a headache for him. Premonition, false memories, déjà vu…the mind playing tricks or reality distorted through time? 

The unmissable new thriller from David Roy explores the dark side of memory and its impact on us all.

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David Roy was born in Bangor, Northern Ireland in the mid ’60s. After a number of years in the army he left a life in uniform to read for a degree, ultimately qualifying as a secondary school teacher.  

He is the author of many books, the first written in 1994 as an account of his service in the first Gulf War. His book ‘The Lost Man’, the first of his Ted Dexter adventures, featured on ITV ‘The Alan Titchmarsh Show’; where it was shortlisted in The People’s Novelist competition. 

As well as being a soldier, David has been a dishwasher, a teacher, a civil servant, a security guard, a welfare assistant and an ambulance crew member. He is married and now lives in the north of England with his wife and two daughters.

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My thoughts: this was a very clever and slightly strange tale. A woman insists she’s killed someone but doesn’t know who, when, how or why. The police aren’t interested, this is too silly for them but the narrator – a private investigator, agrees to try to solve this. He’s also got several other cases on the go so puts his best man – the rather peculiar Billy, on the case.

There’s absolutely no evidence to go on, the client barely exists online, she’s given them almost nothing to work with so it’s time for some rather unorthodox approaches, like hypnotism. It’s all twists and turns as they try to piece the truth together. Does the answer lie in Steph’s past? In the family she never knew or the care home she was raised in? How deep will they have to dig? And why does she seem so determined to send herself to prison? Answers will be revealed. (But not by me!)

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

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Blog Tour: The Change – Kirsten Miller

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Big Little Lies meets The Witches of Eastwick—a gloriously entertaining and knife-sharp feminist revenge fantasy about three women whose midlife crisis brings unexpected new powers—putting them on a collision course with the evil that lurks in their wealthy beach town. 

In the Long Island oceanfront community of Mattauk, three different women discover that midlife changes bring a whole new type of empowerment…

After Nessa James’s husband dies and her twin daughters leave for college, she’s left all alone in a trim white house not far from the ocean. In the quiet of her late forties, the former nurse begins to hear voices. It doesn’t take long for Nessa to realize that the voices calling out to her belong to the dead—a gift she’s inherited from her grandmother, which comes with special responsibilities.

On the cusp of 50, suave advertising director Harriett Osborne has just witnessed the implosion of her lucrative career and her marriage. She hasn’t left her house in months, and from the outside, it appears as if she and her garden have both gone to seed. But Harriett’s life is far from over—in fact, she’s undergone a stunning and very welcome metamorphosis.

Ambitious former executive Jo Levison has spent thirty long years at war with her body. The free-floating rage and hot flashes that arrive with the beginning of menopause feel like the very last straw—until she realizes she has the ability to channel them, and finally comes into her power.

Guided by voices only Nessa can hear, the trio of women discover a teenage girl whose body was abandoned beside a remote beach. The police have written the victim off as a drug-addicted sex worker, but the women refuse to buy into the official narrative. Their investigation into the girl’s murder leads to more bodies, and to the town’s most exclusive and isolated enclave, a world of stupendous wealth where the rules don’t apply. With their newfound powers, Jo, Nessa, and Harriett will take matters into their own hands…

My thoughts: of the three woman I loved Harriett the most – she just doesn’t care a lick about what other people think about her anymore. They say she’s a witch, fine, she’s a witch. Jo and Nessa still worry about other people’s opinions, even as they investigate the missing girls and the super privileged community on the cliffs.

This is a shocking and brutally honest book in many ways. Women are often overlooked and undervalued. All three of these women and many others whose stories weave into the narrative have suffered, often horrifically, at the hands of selfish, cruel and overindulged men. From sexist comments and being passed over for promotion to domestic violence and sexual assault, woman suffer. And now these three are not going to take it anymore. Woe betide any man who crosses 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.

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Blog Tour: The Generation Killer – Adam Simcox

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The second thrilling instalment of Adam Simcox’s ‘wildly entertaining’ (Adam Hamdy) THE DYING SQUAD series.

There’s a new serial killer on the streets of Manchester – and only a dead cop can stop them.

Detective Joe Lazarus works for the Dying Squad, solving crimes the living police can’t. When the Generation Killer starts wiping out Manchester’s innocents, Joe and his new partner Bits have mere hours to catch the murderer. A young woman’s life depends on it.

Joe’s former partner Daisy-May has her own problems. Children are going missing in the afterlife, and she’s the only one who seems to care. Her investigation uncovers a conspiracy so vast, it threatens both the living and the dead.

Her predecessor the Duchess can’t help this time; she’s tracked her treacherous sister, Hanna, to Tokyo, where she’s been recruiting the dead. The Duchess must enlist the help of a local detective if she’s to have any choice of stopping her.

Time is running out for the Dying Squad. And if they can’t crack their cases, it’s the living that will pay…

My thoughts: time to crawl through some toxic Gloop once more and hang out with the residents of the Pen. Or not, as this case seems to be taking everyone soil side. Joe Lazarus and his new partner Bits are chasing a murderer, who’s killing grandfathers and their grandchildren in Manchester, Daisy-May’s trying to find out where the children of the Pen are going missing and why, and the Duchess has tracked her homicidal sister to Tokyo.

Of course none of these things is even remotely straightforward or easily resolved and there’s all sorts of chaos and horrors to fight through before even getting an answer, and without a way to communicate with each other, no one knows what’s happening or if their different cases might be connected. Just another day in the afterlife of the Dying Squad.

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

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Blog Tour: The Gauntlet & the Burning Blade – Ian Green

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In the second instalment of the Rotstorm series, heroine Floré must continue to fight back against the encroaching children of the storm – but now her daughter Marta is dying, too. Can Floré save her daughter, and her people, from threats familiar and new?

Break the chains. Hold your strength. Burn your foes.

Once a warrior of the Stormguard Commandos, Floré wrought horrors in the rotstorm to protect her people. She did her duty and swore to leave the bloodshed behind. But when her daughter, Marta, was kidnapped, Floré was forced to once again raise her gauntlet against the devils of Ferron to bring her home.

Now Marta is dying from the skein-magic she inherited from her father, and the Protectorate is weakened by the absence of the whitestaffs. The mystical order of healers and sages fled to their island citadel of Riven when strange orbs cut through the night.

Floré and her comrades must race to find a cure for Marta, to find the truth of the whitestaffs’ betrayal, and to fight back against the encroaching children of the storm.

Floré has taken up her gauntlets and her sword to keep her people safe – but steel alone might not be enough…

My thoughts: a lot happens in this book, and there are various interludes and different characters have their own chapters, as the disparate groups slowly start to meet. The soldiers that Florè and Benazir command are heading off to hunt for the whitestaffs, who have withdrawn to their island home, Tullan One-Eye is also around and the rotfolk are on the move, led by a charismatic crow-man. Ashbringer is still hunting Tullan, Janos might still be alive somehow, and Marta desperately needs him.

As each character moves towards the others, there will be fighting, there will be loss, but perhaps there will also be some clarity as to what it is the Stormguard are fighting, and why the whitestaffs have run.

Florè and her comrades continue to be interesting and enjoyable figures, though I want more from mole-person Voltos and also more Cuss and Yselda. Hopefully the next book will do that.

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

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Blog Tour: With Fire in Their Blood – Kat Delacorte

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Packed to the brim with bisexual and queer representation, With Fire in Their Blood is a simmering supernatural romance set in the crumbling Italian city of Castello, where mafia clans make the rules, dark magic pulses the streets and the sins of the past threaten to consume the present. . . 

When sixteen-year-old Lilly arrives in Castello, she isn’t impressed.
A secluded town in the Italian mountains is not where she saw her last years of high school playing out. 

Divided for generations by a brutal clan-family war, the two halves of Castello are kept from destroying each other by the mysterious General, a leader determined to maintain order and ‘purity’. . . whatever the cost. 

Lilly falls in with the rebellious Liza, brooding Nico and sensitive Christian, and sparks begin to fly. But in a city where love can lead to ruin, Lilly isn’t sure she can trust anyone — not even herself. 

And then she accidentally breaks Castello’s most important rule: when the General’s men come to test your blood, you’d better not be anything more than human… 

Perfect for lovers of Chloe Gong, Renée Ahdieh and V.E. Schwab, With Fire in Their Blood is quality YA storytelling at its best by an exciting new voice in YA fantasy. 

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Kat Delacorte was eleven years old when her family moved from the United States to a small town in central Italy. She soon began writing stories about her new friends developing superpowers, and she hasn’t looked back since. She graduated with a BA in History from Columbia University, and lives in Venice, Italy. 

My thoughts: Lilly’s whole life, what there was of it anyway, is uprooted when her dad gets a job in a small Italian town thats proudly stuck in a sort of timeloop – no WiFi, no technology at all really. There’s a reason for that, as Lilly discovers. This town burns witches, or those it suspects of being Saints, as they’re known. And the mysterious General keeps a tight grip on everything in the town.

As Lilly investigates the town’s past and finds links to her own dead mother, she discovers she has some unusual gifts herself.

A clever and imaginative take on the witch trials of the past and the problems of living under a censorious regime. No information gets in or out.

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

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Blog Tour: The Last White Man – Mohsin Hamid

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One morning, Anders wakes to find that his skin has turned dark, his reflection a stranger to him. At first he tells only Oona, an old friend, newly a lover. Soon, reports of similar occurrences surface across the land. Some see in the transformations the long-dreaded overturning of an established order, to be resisted to a bitter end. In many, like Anders’s father and Oona’s mother, a sense of profound loss wars with profound love. As the bond between Anders and Oona deepens, change takes on a different shading: a chance to see one another, face to face, anew.

Mohsin Hamid writes regularly for The New York Times, the Guardian and the New York Review of Books, and is the author of Exit West, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Moth Smoke, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia and Discontent and its Civilizations. Born and mostly raised in Lahore, he has since lived between Lahore, London and New York.

My thoughts: there’s a sense of Kafka about this story of Anders, who wakes up one morning to discover that over night he has changed colour, becoming darker. He’s not alone and soon there are fewer white people than ever before. This, unsurprisingly if you’ve been paying attention to world events over even just the last few years, doesn’t go down well with everyone and there are ugly confrontations. Anders feels forced to leave his home and go to live with his dying father.

His girlfriend Oona is slow to change, and her mother is frightened of the prospect, inhaling the nonsense online – much like anti-vaxxers or covid conspiracy nuts of the last few years. But since becoming darker is inevitable in this reality, she has to come to terms with it. Although there is a suggestion that she never truly accepts it.

I was intrigued by the author’s use of the word “dark” to describe this change. It is only at the end that he says brown. But throughout he doesn’t specify how much darker, or whether it happens gradually in some cases. I don’t really have an explanation but it’s an interesting word choice.

A slight novel this does pack and punch and is very thought provoking. You find yourself wondering how you would feel or what that would be like in the world we live in – especially in a country like America, which is still so segregated.

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