Tag: blog tour

How long can the desire for revenge last?

Kate Shaw, a successful pharmacist, goes to a thirty-year reunion at her old university and uses the weekend to settle some old scores. Her main target is her ex-lover, Jonathan. She decides to scar him for life as he scarred her. Her bizarre plan works but he shocks her with his strange, unwanted reaction.

What is the unexpected link between Jonathan and Kate’s husband?
What is the significance of the ‘Love Bite’ photograph?
What hold does Jonathan have over Kate?

Revenge is never simple.
A darkly humorous story of love, lust, loss and vengeance.

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Linda Fawke is an arts person who studied science but always wanted to write. Now retired, she indulges this passion, writing fiction and non-fiction, even occasional poetry, preferably late at night.

She has now written two novels, ‘A Taste of his own Medicine’ and its sequel, ‘A Prescription for Madness’ using her background in pharmacy as the setting of both. These are easy books to read, suitable for Book Club discussions. ‘ A Prescription for Madness’ is more serious than the first book, dealing with such issues as pregnancy in later life and Down’s Syndrome.
She has been a winner of the Daily Telegraph ‘Just Back’ travel-writing competition and has published in various magazines including ‘Mslexia’, ‘Litro’ online, ‘Scribble’, ‘The Oldie’, ‘Berkshire Life’ and ‘Living France’. She was a finalist in the ‘Hysteria’ short story competition.

Visit Linda’s blog where her ‘Random Writings’ include a range of topics
from travel to ‘Things that pop into my head’.

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My thoughts:

I didn’t really take to the character of Kate, who’s held on to grudges for thirty years and decides to carry out some acts of revenge at her university reunion, both large and small. While her embarrassing of one former classmate was a little funny, some of the other things she does just seem a little mean. She should really have seen a therapist instead to work out her issues.

And it doesn’t go well, the one person she decides to take the most long-lasting revenge on, former boyfriend Jonathan, turns out to be a truly nasty, manipulative man, twisting everything into a cruel game, involving her unwitting husband (who isn’t a particularly faithful one), seemingly planning to toy with Kate’s happiness for the foreseeable future.

It ends on a cliffhanger, with Kate forced to wait and see what Jonathan will do next. Neither of them are particularly good people and maybe they deserve each other.

I did enjoy the book, I just didn’t warm to the characters, either trapped in the past or boastful idiots, I don’t think I’d enjoy knowing them if they were real people. But then that may be the point – who would want to be around this lot.

Revenge is a dish best served cold, so the saying goes, and I think the point of this twisted and well written story is that no one ever gets away with it, you can’t carry out cruel games and expect to walk away.

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

‘Some secrets were meant to be buried forever. Until now.’

Sean Richardson, a disgraced former intelligence agent, is tasked to lead a team to search for a British intelligence officer on the cusp of exposing thousands of secrets to the media. It includes a long lost list of Russian moles embedded since the Cold War, one of whom remains a public favourite in the British parliamentary system.

The action moves with absorbing pace and intrigue across Central Asia and Europe as the puzzle begins to unfold through a deep hidden legacy. As Sean gets closer to the truth, senior figures are left to nurse their anxiety knowing that if the secret is revealed, it will destroy their lives.

On the verge of success, his eye is taken off the ball, and the Russians step forward ready to pounce.

Tense, fast paced, and insightful, The Failsafe Query twists and turns to a satisfyingly dramatic finale.

The first in a set of spy thrillers that have been expertly crafted with stunning plot lines, magnificent locations, and twists that leave you gasping for air. Perfect for fans of Frederick Forsyth, Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy, and Scott Mariani.

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I started climbing at 13, survived being lost in Snowdonia at 14, nearly drowned at 15, and then joined the Army at 16. Risk and adventure was built into my DNA and I feel very fortunate to have served the majority of my working career as an intelligence officer within Defence Intelligence, and as an explosive ordnance disposal officer and military surveyor within the Corps of Royal Engineers.

I was privileged to serve for twenty-eight years in the British Army as a soldier and officer, rising through the ranks to complete my service as a major. I served across the globe on numerous military operations as well as extensive travel and adventure on many major mountaineering and exploration expeditions that I led or was involved in.I was awarded the Geographic Medal by the Royal Geographical Society for mountain exploration in 2003 and served on the screening committee of the Mount Everest Foundation charity for many years. It was humbling after so many years of service when I was awarded the MBE for services to counter-terrorism in 2007.

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My thoughts:

This was a fast paced, clever and knotty thriller. There’s a mole somewhere in government, secrets threatened with publication, a missing body and the Russians are on the trail of a list of names. Sean and his team must do whatever is necessary to locate the dead agent’s remains and his files full of top secret information before the Russian operatives do.

Combing the French countryside looking for potential burial sites quietly, trying not to attract attention, the team utilise both high tech and low (dogs’ noses mostly) to look for the remains. The files are even better hidden, even the killers missed them.

Meanwhile an enemy agent deep within the government is starting to feel uneasy, his name is on a list and the scandal his exposure could bring will topple the government.

This was gripping and fascinating stuff, I was interested in all the clever techniques used by Sean’s colleagues and the brilliant way the secret files had been hidden. The political subplot ties very nicely in with the rest of the story and the ending leaves things waiting ready for the sequel.

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

London-based financial journalist Spencer Beck is obsessed with billionaire biotech prodigy, Adam Reid, orphaned in his mid-teens when his parents died in a tragic murder-suicide in New York City. A shadowy informant with MI5 connections promises Beck unfettered access to the mysterious Reid and introduces him to Daniel Flanagan, a retired Big Apple detective who investigated the deaths of Adam’s mother and father. Spencer’s initial scepticism, fed by the suspicions of the former police officer, turns to excitement when Reid reveals the truth about himself and his altruistic ambitions to protect society from a deadly virus with a powerful vaccine he’s developed.

But when Beck’s entire world starts to implode, he discovers Reid harbours a vendetta that, left unchecked, threatens not only his survival but that of an entire species.

A shadowy informant with MI5 connections promises Beck unfettered access to the mysterious Reid and introduces him to Daniel Flanagan, a retired Big Apple detective who investigated the deaths of Adam’s mother and father. Spencer’s initial scepticism, fed by the suspicions of the former police officer, turns to excitement when Reid reveals the truth about himself and his altruistic ambitions to protect society from a deadly virus with a powerful vaccine he’s developed.

But when Beck’s entire world starts to implode, he discovers Reid harbours a vendetta that, left unchecked, threatens not only his survival but that of an entire species.

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A Cambridge economics graduate, Mark Brumby is a vastly experience financial analyst and owner of Langton Capital, an FCA-regulated advisory company specialising in the hospitality and leisure sectors. He is a partner in the Imbiba Partnership, which invests in pub, bar and restaurant start-ups.

Mark wrote Always Adam (originally published as Payback) in 2013. Boomslang is republishing the book in November 2020 as it deserves to reach a wider audience in the current pandemic climate.

“Covid-19 has brought home not just the fragility of human life but the power of vaccines. Very shortly, we hope, a vaccine could physically alter the cell structure of three or four billion people and protect the same number again via herd immunity. But what if a vaccine were misused?”

“In some ways the world has changed but in many ways it remains the same. The ‘facts’ re our existence have not and will not change. But the events of the last few months have brought home the truth that we are only animals and that we are almost as much at risk from novel diseases with high R ratios and significant mortality rates as we have ever been.”

“I tried to take a step back and look at how we got here & what we’re doing. That sounds deep but some 99% of species that have ever existed are extinct, so what makes us so special?”

“Indeed, we’ve very nearly joined the list of ‘used-to-be’ species list on several occasions. Anthropologists believe that the human population at times in our history fell to a total of less than 10,000 individuals worldwide. You could fit them all in a small football ground and it’s more than a 99.99% reduction on the number of people around today.”

“As an author, Covid-19 has moved the goalposts a little. It has made the unbelievable a little more believable. A pandemic, until December of last year was, literally, a fiction.”

Mark Brumby is married with five children and commutes between London and his home in York.

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Publisher – Boomslang Books

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Published by Boomslang Books on 30th November 2020

My thoughts:

This was a really crazy ride, taking us from London to New York and from the modern age back to before humans like us existed.

Imagine if you could bring mammoths and Neanderthals back to life, imagine if our assumptions about our ancient relatives were wrong. Imagine if a billionaire genius wanted revenge on the entire human race and was prepared to weaponise a virus to do so.

Journalist Spencer is offered the exposé of a lifetime by a voice on the end of the phone – reclusive billionaire Adam Reid, the only survivor of his parents’ supposed murder/suicide, genius and inventor. Someone no other hack has ever been able to get close to. Of course Spencer says yes.

Suddenly his life is spinning out of his control – he’s drugged, the contact he meets is kidnapped, and now Adam Reid is asking him to come to New York. But things are going to get a lot worse.

Gripping, unexpected, relevant and clever, this was a rather brilliant read and the ending left me with a lot of questions – ones that may never be answered for me or Spencer.

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