blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Good Twin Bad Twin – Renita D’Silva

I’m shaking as I turn the postcard over. A picture of a pretty Cotswold village. And a message: Bitter Honey, here I come.

It’s in my twin sister’s handwriting. She’s the only person who ever called me that. Except that can’t be true. Because, if it is, then whose body is buried under the patio?

She was the golden one. I was the shy, bookish one. Living in her shadow. Now I have everything I ever wanted. A stunning home on the Dorset cliffs. A handsome husband. A beautiful teenage daughter.

But my husband disappears at night. Our dog is the only member of the family that really loves me. And if my twin sister is alive, then everything I believed about my life is a lie.

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Renita D’Silva loves stories both reading and creating them. Her books have been translated into several languages. Her short stories have been published in The View from Here, Bartleby Snopes, this zine, Platinum Page, Paragraph Planet, Verve among others, have been nominated for the Pushcart prize, the Best of the Net anthology, shortlisted for the LoveReading Very Short Story award and The Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize and longlisted for the BBC National Short Story award. Her first psychological thriller, The Neighbours, won the Joffe Books Prize 2023.

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My thoughts: This was a good twist filled read. Twin sisters Ash and Nish do everything together. Nish is the driving force, the golden girl, Ash is the quiet one, desperate to escape her sister’s shadow.

As adults they are no longer in contact, until a postcard appears. But if her sister is alive, who did she bury under the patio?

As the narrator moves through her life, we try to work out which twin she is, it seems like she’s Ash, but the diary entries and flashbacks suggest something far stranger is going on. When the final reveal takes place – you will gasp.

This is clever, filled with unreliable characters, with people who change their names, their whole lives. With sisters who should have been allowed to be themselves not half of a whole.

*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 Cold Shore – Rachel Amphlett

A chilling murder. A coastal town full of secrets. A detective with everything to prove.

When a man is found savagely murdered on an abandoned vessel off the north Kent coast, what begins as a routine inquiry turns deadly. Detective Gavin Piper had intended only a brief visit to assist his superior officer – but when circumstance forces him to take command, he finds himself leading his first homicide case in a place that feels both unfamiliar and unforgiving.

As the investigation deepens, a key witness is found dead and dark secrets begin to surface. With the body count rising and the pressure mounting, Gavin must race against the clock to find the only surviving link – before the killer strikes again. Will Gavin’s inexperience cost him more than just the case? Or can he uncover the truth before it’s too late?

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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.

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My thoughts: I really enjoyed this, it has the signature Rachel Amphlett blend of really good writing, interesting characters and gripping plot.

Assigned temporarily to North Kent to lead the investigation DC Gavin Piper feels a bit out of his depth, his boss however knows he can do this. And he does. Gradually finding his feet as this far more complex than it first appears case proceeds.

A man on an abandoned boat, murdered with an axe. His ID is in his pocket, but his life is full of secrets. Then a key witness is drowned. Someone is cleaning house. A huge clue in the form of packaging on the boat connects to a break in, but it’s the awful discovery beneath a static caravan that will have you shocked and opens up the case.

Absolutely thrilling, shocking and full of gasp-out-loud moments, this is crime writing 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.

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Blog Tour: The Priest’s Wife – A.G. Rivett

When her husband the priest dies, Morag loses more than her life partner. With him goes her home and her place in the community. In addition to these misfortunes, in a society that sets great store by lineage, she is challenged about the mysterious identity of her mother, and it is this that sets her on a quest of discovery that comes, at first, upon a blank, but in time leads her to the circle of the island’s ‘Guardians’, who mediate her discovery of her mother’s identity, and, step by step, her own deeper self-knowing and self-acceptance. 

When Aidan, the new priest, undertakes a campaign to upturn the township’s spirituality, which has accommodated older druidical forms alongside the Christ story, both he and the community are set on a collision course. As tension builds the shareg (headman) of the town, must intervene. Finding no way through that conforms to the norms of his world, he must take a radical and unconventional step. 

The book explores mental breakdown (Aidan’s) and severe depression (Morag’s, at the mid-point of the story when she finds herself at an impasse). It reflects religious tensions that have existed historically. It celebrates the natural world and the resilience of the human spirit in resisting a coercive authority. In doing so, Morag steps into her full personhood.

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Ceredigion author A G Rivett claims to have lived several lives in the course of his one life. Born in London, raised in the Home Counties, he has been a doctor, a priest, and a crofter in the Scottish Highlands. He has lived in rural Northern Nigeria and knows what a simpler life looks like, less dependent on technology. He now lives in West Wales with his wife, Gillian Paschkes-Bell, who works with him as a writing team. There, he grows fruit and vegetables and has sewn a wildflower meadow. He has three daughters and two grandsons.

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My thoughts: I felt for Morag, with her husband’s death she loses not only her partner but her home and her standing in the village. With nowhere for her, she leaves to travel back to the place she grew up, hoping to find a home there. She has questions about her mother’s identity that she alone cannot answer and on her quest for a new home, she must also reckon with her past. Meeting the Guardians helps her, and gives her guidance, but the rest is up to her.

At a point in her life where she might have expected stability and the quiet comforts of home and family, she is thrust into a quest for answers about her past and her future.

Meanwhile the new priest must contend with the islanders unique belief system, his own ambitions and try to find a place in this community that is wary of outsiders. Aiden must attempt to master the challenges of his role and rise to the beliefs his church leaders have in him.

Morag and Aidan are a study in contrast, both are starting again at points in their lives they did not expect and must overcome others’ assumptions about them and their place in the world as well as contend with their own personal internal worries.

It’s another interesting study of change and belief, as with Morag’s adopted son in The Seaborne.

*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 Seaborne – A.G. Rivett

John Finlay is fleeing from failure. His engineering business has failed. His relationship has failed. His flight from debts leads him to disaster – and to the Island, where he must learn to live anew.

Dermot, pulling a boy barely alive from the water, has never seen anyone so strangely dressed. His Celtic island knows nothing of debt, nor engineering. Where has this man come from?

John struggles to accept that he has been carried across time and into another world – both like and unlike his own. How he got there is a mystery. But John, the foreigner, must turn slowly into Dhion, the Islander.

Still, he brings with him unfinished business that must be faced, and ideas that may not always be welcomed. Meanwhile Dermot, consumed with a growing jealousy, develops his own deadly agenda.

The whole community finds itself caught up in what becomes a matter of survival – or transformation. A tale of loss and change. A spiritual inquiry. And a love story.

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Ceredigion author A G Rivett claims to have lived several lives in the course of his one life. Born in London, raised in the Home Counties, he has been a doctor, a priest, and a crofter in the Scottish Highlands. He has lived in rural Northern Nigeria and knows what a simpler life looks like, less dependent on technology. He now lives in West Wales with his wife, Gillian Paschkes-Bell, who works with him as a writing team. There, he grows fruit and vegetables and has sewn a wildflower meadow. He has three daughters and two grandsons.

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My thoughts: John finds himself on an island that might be a bit like a lost Scottish/Irish one, where people speak  sort of Gaelic/Celtic language, where Christianity has mixed into their traditional beliefs, and where they still believe in the sidhe (the fae/faeries/fair folk) as well as God the Father and Gaia the Mother.

John is unable at first to communicate with his rescuers, they don’t understand his modern English, too far removed from its mish-mashed roots in Latin, French, Greek and Germanic languages. He slowly learns their language and tries to adapt to the very different way of living, something closer to the way people lived a thousand years ago or so when the Anglo-Saxons and Norse lived in England.

As he adjusts to the island life, he forms relationships with some of the villagers he lives among, attempts to find work he can do, as an engineer he’s keen to build things and introduce some technology to the place. One of the young women becomes interested in him, and this adds to the enmity Dermot, a young man there, begins to feel, seeing John as his rival. A rivalry John does not feel. 

Offered a chance to return to his own time and world, John must choose the life he has found on the island, or the one he was running from – his business, his family and Helen, the woman he left behind. Can he start again there or has the life he has begun to build amongst the islanders become his real life? 

An interesting and imaginative book, would we, if offered a similar chance to begin somewhere new, choose it or return to our technologically advanced but disconnected one? Thought-provoking and intriguing.  

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

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Blog Tour: All or None – Clive Fleury


Returning to Sydney, Detective Ramesh Ryan is promoted to the Homicide Squad. Zoe Yang joins him there. Now a detective herself, she is assigned as his junior partner.

Straight up, the cops are off and
running—investigating the discovery of a murdered company director. Following the clues, Detective Ryan finds that this and a second murder may be linked to past events.

As the pressure mounts for a quick solution to the case, the detective finds that he too, is in the killer’s crosshairs. But Ryan is distracted from the investigation by a romantic encounter with an old university friend.

He also worries about his mother, Mumta, and her new obsessive desire for grandchildren from her only son. Could this be linked to her recent medical tests? And there’s another pressing problem— the plague of rats in his apartment block.

Detective Ryan’s hands are well and truly full.

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Clive Fleury is an award-winning writer of novels and screenplays, including most recently the murder mystery Off Season, which was the first in the Detective Ryan Mystery series.

He is also a TV/Film writer, director, and producer who has worked for major broadcasters and studios on a wide variety of successful drama and documentary projects, in the US, the UK, Europe, Australia and the Middle East.

He has written and directed four feature films, one of which, “Big City Blues,” starred Giancarlo Esposito, the late Burt Reynolds, and Balthazar Getty. His most recent film, “Sons of Summer,” is a surfing movie set on the Gold Coast of Australia and stars Temuera Morrison and Isabel Lucas.

Clive currently spends his time between Miami, Florida and Sydney, Australia.

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My thoughts: Detective Ryan meets his new partner Detective Zoe Yang about two seconds before they’re sent off to investigate a murder. They’ve met before but their new partnership gets off to a rocky start as Ryan isn’t very good at sharing, his thoughts or the work.

But someone clearly has it in for the managing trio of the company, as first one, then two of its partners are killed. As the bodies mount up, their boss is running out of patience with his so-called dream team, and might have to send out the department’s dinosaurs if they don’t get some results soon.

But Ryan sends Zoe off to do paperwork, while getting side tracked by his mother’s health worries and the appearance of an old friend from his student days.

There’s also some rather nasty gangsters running around, and as a former organised crime detective, Ryan is aware that they’re operating in his city, and that they might be connected to his case.

Can he find the killer or killers, make his boss happy, look after his mother, find love and not drive his new partner away? As well as attend to the rat infestation in his apartment complex? Sure, why not.

A smart and enjoyable crime caper in the Sydney sunshine with an intriguing pair of detectives and entertaining cast of characters (I want more Tik and Tok!)

*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 Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black – Lisa Hall

You know she has been murdered. Can you stop it happening twice?

Two very different lives

It is 2019 and Lily Jones is living her dream in LA. Sort of. It hasn’t quite turned out as she planned and instead of working as a movie producer, she is cleaning at the prestigious Beverly Hills Hotel. At least she gets to work in the renowned Paul Williams suite, site of the brutal murder of Honey Black 70 years ago, shrouded in rumour and dark glamour.

It is 1949 and Honey Black is about to hit the big time. She may have started out a country girl from Hicksville but now she is a star. And Hollywood had better watch out nothing can stop her now!

One Hollywood murder

After an accidental bump to the head, Lily finds herself in Hollywood, 1949. Like a dream come true, she is rubbing shoulders with the great and good of Tinseltown. Including Honey Black…

Horrified, Lily realises that the actress has only two weeks left to live before she will be murdered. Could this be why she has found herself in 1949? To find the killer and stop them in their tracks?

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Lisa Hall is the bestselling author of six psychological thrillers and the Hotel Hollywood time-slip murder mystery series. Her debut novel Between You and Me was a Kindle UK number one bestseller, sitting in the top spot for over four weeks. Lisa has a First Class Honours degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. She lives in Kent with her husband and their three children.

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My thoughts: Lily suffers a very nasty bump on the head while cleaning a hotel bathroom and somehow she’s in 1949, but complete with her 2019 brain. She knows it’s two weeks until movie star Holly Black will be murdered, and she’s going to try to stop it, if she can.

Luckily being a fan of all things vintage, she manages to fit in pretty well and even gets a job that might bring her closer to Holly, close enough to save her?

But she also might need to find a way back to her own life somehow. Can she stop a murder and figure out time travel? Well, she’s got to try and she doesn’t have a lot of time left. The countdown is on to find a killer in this clever and funny time travelling crime caper, Lily is a fantastic sleuth in some regards, she knows details of Holly’s death but not who the killer was, so that’s a problem.

I really like this series so I’m glad to have a reason to re-read this book, I couldn’t remember whether Lily managed it or not, so it felt like reading it for the first time. It’s a fun read and Lily’s a great protagonist, 40s Hollywood is a really interesting time, largely cut off from the realities of post-war life, making glamorous films, and operating under the unpopular Hays Code.

*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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Blog Tour: The Hollow Garden – Natalie Grace Lewis

Seventeen years ago, Kyra Masters fled the Hollow Garden and never looked back.

Haunted by fragmented memories of her friend Eleanor’s death and the events that followed, she has spent years trying to build a life far from the estate that shattered her family and left her questioning her own mind.

Following her aunt’s death, Kyra unexpectedly inherits the Hollow Garden. A sprawling Victorian graveyard of crumbling mausoleums, ruined monuments, and paths tangled with the rare Night Ivy that has grown there for generations.

The place she returns to is not the one she remembers. Time has transformed it into something stranger, its shadows heavy with secrets long hidden behind graves and mausoleum. Family resentments linger, and an old flame is unwilling to let the past remain buried.

As old memories begin to surface, Kyra is forced to confront the tragedy she has spent years trying to forget. What really happened on the night Eleanor died? And why have those around her worked so hard to bury the truth?

The estate was never meant to be hers.

And the Hollow Garden has a will of its own.

Nostalgia is for those who sleep well.

Natalie Grace Lewis is a British author of contemporary gothic fiction. Her work combines haunting settings, family secrets, and supernatural elements to explore memory, loss, and the stories we inherit.

Drawn to historic cemeteries, ruined churches, and forgotten corners of the past, she writes about inheritance, grief, identity, and the uneasy relationship between memory and truth.

Her debut novel, The Hollow Garden, is a contemporary gothic novel set within a decaying Victorian graveyard, where old tragedies refuse to remain at rest.

When Natalie isn’t writing, she can usually be found wandering historic graveyards, visiting old bookshops, or planning her next research trip.

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My thoughts: Kyra is forced to return to her childhood home, a deeply unhappy one, by the contents of her aunt’s will. She has been left everything – the house, land and stake in the family business. Having fled years before after her stepfather had her incarcerated in a psychiatric unit, that she refers to as an asylum, she doesn’t want to go back, and once there, she experiences strange visions, nightmares and headaches.

According to her aunt’s will she must stay there for at least three days before she can sign anything over to her half-sister Dana. Something at first, Kyra is desperate to do. But then she starts to remember things – like the death of their friend Eleanor, that led to her being sectioned. And other things aren’t quite right, her aunt’s death for a start.

As Kyra starts to investigate, the past rushes up to greet her. Her former boyfriend and his sisters live in the gatehouse, her sister is constantly stopping by to cook, or chat, despite saying how busy she is. The estate seems full of ghosts, and they all need Kyra to listen.

A Gothic story full of twists and turns as Kyra searches for the truth behind her aunt’s recent death and the long ago deaths of Eleanor and her own mother, the things she’s been told no longer seem like the truth. She’s never been in more danger than she is just as she learns the answers, but without them she could find herself locked away yet again. Clever and more than a little nasty, the Hollow Garden plays for keeps.

*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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Blog Tour: Realm Walker – Bruce Martin

The mortal world and Netherworld collide in a twisted fight for power and freedom.

Still haunted by his fears for Alison and desperate to uncover the truth behind the hospital attack, John digs deeper into a mystery that grows more dangerous by the hour.

Meanwhile, realms away in the shadowed depths of the Netherworld, Alison fights to survive a place that was never meant to claim her, burdened by a destiny she never asked for.

With so much at stake, and mythological forces coming at them from all sides, will the two best friends find their way back to one another, before it’s too late?

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Bruce loves to write about other realms, alternate realities, monsters and mayhem. He likes to make people think about their own lives while getting lost in someone else’s. He loves nothing better than to sit down at his computer and play with his imaginary friends.

He was obsessed with horror and monsters from a very early age, and always knew he was different to everyone else, but never knew why! He never felt like he fitted in.

As a result, Bruce has always strived for perfection in everything he has done, and through working in the leisure industry for many years, he has his own unique take on the human psyche.

Bruce was born and raised in Leeds, West Yorkshire. He graduated from Humberside University with a degree in Exhibition & Museum Design, but soon fell out of love with design, due to him constantly thinking outside the box.

He worked in many fields before finding great success as a multi-award-winning public house manager and brewer.

After the infamous Covid lockdowns and personal tragedy in 2022, Bruce turned his attention to writing, crafting his first eagerly anticipated novel Dream Walker – Somewhere Between Realm and Reality.

He now lives in Lancashire with his daughter.

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My thoughts: Alison continues to lie in a perilous state – her body in a coma, her mind in another realm. Her friend John watches over her and searches for answers so he help her.

Alison and new Netherworld friends are gathering an army to take the fight to the vampire queen and end this struggle. But they will suffer a few losses along the way.

As good and evil gear up for an almighty war, the gods finally begin to pay attention and the police in Alison’s London learn about the other realms.

John finds an ally and a girlfriend in his quest and they meet with the detectives and the berserker keeping watch over Alison’s body. Her mother comes for a visit, realising too late that she left her daughter in danger.

As war begins, Alison must learn her true strength and just how important she is to every realm – and what she could be should she survive.

This series is growing on me, I like Alison, she’s somehow taking this all in her stride and accepting each new group of people she meets, no matter how strange. I like John too, he’s much braver than he realises, as he hunts for answers to help save his friend.

*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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Blog Tour: What She Did – Lauren Dykovitz

Liz has been watching the neighbors. One of them has noticed.

Liz McAdams knows a lot about her neighbors. Recently divorced, with time on her hands, she amuses herself by observing them as she walks her dog past their houses. And no life looks more wonderful than Sabrina Thompson’s.

Beautiful, wealthy, married to a gorgeous husband, Sabrina seems to have it all. But one day Liz sees something through Sabrina’s bedroom window – something that could blow her seemingly perfect marriage apart. Liz is shocked and intrigued. She herself has always played by the rules and now she can’t help envying Sabrina’s reckless abandon as she risks everything for her own pleasure.

Fascinated, she starts to watch Sabrina’s every move. And soon realizes that her glamorous neighbor has some very dark secrets. Then there is a chilling murder on this affluent street, and Liz wonders if Sabrina could be involved.

Even more disturbing, Sabrina seems to have noticed that Liz has been shadowing her. Leaving Liz with two terrifying questions – Is Sabrina a killer? And what might she do to the woman who knows too much?

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Lauren Dykovitz writes psychological thrillers and suspense novels. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, Steve, and her black lab, Lucy. Lauren is a former police officer with a Bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and sociology, as well as a minor in legal studies. She has an unhealthy obsession with true crime and murder that makes her husband sleep with one eye open. Lauren has also self-published two memoirs about her mom’s battle with Early Onset Alzheimer’s.

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My thoughts: Liz has taken a sabbatical from her job as a divorce lawyer, hoping to spend her time writing a book but she’s having writer’s block. Lonely, she spends her time walking her dog, and watching her neighbours.

She’s fascinated especially by Sabrina and her husband Greg. Sabrina is beautiful, with a lovely house, great wardrobe and an apparently loving husband. Liz becomes a bit too obsessed with Sabrina.

When Sabrina’s husband is murdered, Liz starts her own investigation, which catches Sabrina’s attention. She’s fed up with her nosey neighbour, especially when she’s questioned by the police. She was at a spa weekend her husband sent her on when he died, but Liz is convinced the beautiful young widow was involved.

Can Sabrina, with her collection of lovers, truly be innocent? And what will Liz find out if she keeps spying on her neighbour? Well, read it and find out!

With a rather brilliant twist at the end, this is a smart and entertaining whodunnit.

*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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Blog Tour: Hunted by Darkness – Kyla Rose

When she inherits her grandmother’s vast gothic mansion, Alyssa expects dust and family secrets—not the dangerously magnetic neighbor, Detective Nathan Hale, who watches her a little too closely. He’s possessive, protective, and her every instinct tells her to run…

Yet she keeps being pulled back to him. The town surrounding the mansion is steeped in fear. Women are disappearing, rumors of a serial killer spread like rot, and the clues uncovered inside the mansion’s forgotten rooms suggest her new home is tangled in something far more sinister.

Caught between desire and danger, Alyssa must decide whether Nathan’s her greatest threat or the only one who can save her.

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Kyla Rose is the penname for Louise Mullins, the international best-selling thriller author. Check out her other titles sold by Amazon, Waterstones, and Blackwell’s.

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My thoughts: Alyssa moves into her grandparents’ old house, but almost immediately local cop Nathan is warning her not to stay there. There’s been a series of abductions recently and a young woman alone in a remote place is at risk. But she doesn’t believe him, until it becomes clear someone else is living in her house. 

Nathan moves her out, and into his own house, while the police investigate. Problem is sparks are flying and he could lose his job if he gives into how Alyssa makes him feel, she’s a victim of crime and he’s the lead detective.

This isn’t a very long read, but it gets very spicy very quickly. Which in a crime thriller dealing with human trafficking is a lot. Just try to separate the plots. One is romantic/sexy stuff and the other is the crime thriller detective/potential victim one.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, just more of a heads up if you’re not comfortable with that mix. The characters are mostly fantasising about each other until it’s appropriate for them to act on their feelings, her house has been made safe and the creep who was watching her is under arrest.

I liked the ending, where “natural justice” deals with the bad guys and Alyssa and Nathan can relax and enjoy getting to know one another….in all ways!

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