We’re celebrating the newly release dark romantasy A Fate Drawn to Flame by Skylark Melody!
A Fate Drawn to Flame (Realm of The Halo Book 1)
Release Date: October 30, 2025
Genre: Dark Romantasy
A dark, slow burn epic fantasy romance and a bit of spice.
A unique premise and delicious angst with a genre-blending, multi-layered plot.
A soft but confident FMC and a strong but conflicted MMC.
MORE TO LOVE:
Found family
Fated mates
She falls first/he falls harder
A Fate Drawn to Flame is the first book of the Realm of The Halo series and ends with a satisfying cliffhanger.
Is their love fated in forever, or will it be the beginning of the end?
Marked by a life of tragedy and sorrow, Araxia Arevin’s search for a new start begins with a harrowing accident in a place filled with old memories and ancient mysteries.
While she recovers, Arax meets the mercurial Konstantine. Cold and harsh, he wants nothing to do with her, but she is drawn to him.
Who is this man? What is this place? And why, of all things, does she feel most at peace by his touch?
An alpha meant to rule since birth, Konstantine has had a life filled with political turmoil, betrayal, and loss. To deny himself almost everything for the sake of duty means survival, including keeping the one destined for him from being dragged into the uncertainty of his world
A dark folk horror tale of a deadly family curse, crime and murder that is sure to turn your blood cold, from the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Netflix’s The Silence.
When Jodi, BB and Matt decide to burgle a derelict country home as a thrilling dare, they become embroiled in a twisted legacy of supernatural terror. There are rumours of a bizarre curse hanging over the hoard of antiques and jewellery within the house. And unbeknownst to the others, one member of the trio has darker motives for breaking into the property.
Lem is a brutal man obsessed with a gruesome family legend. He is determined to right the wrongs of the past and lift the curse placed on his bloodline. By completing the work of his father and bringing a bizarre selection of scattered relics back together, he hopes to be free of the malign influence that has hounded every generation of his family for two centuries.
Across a single day, a deadly pursuit will culminate on the desolate, storm-swept Crow Island, and those involved are given cause to wonder… can believing in a curse deeply enough bring its own bad luck?
TIM LEBBON is a New York Times-bestselling writer from South Wales. He’s written over fifty novels, as well as hundreds of novellas and short stories. His latest novel is Secret Lives of the Dead. He has won a World Fantasy Award, four British Fantasy Awards, a Dragon Award and a Scribe Award. His novel The Silence is a movie on Netflix starring Stanley Tucci and Kiernan Shipka. The movie of his novella Pay The Ghost stars Nicolas Cage.
Tim has written extensively in existing universes including Alien, Conan the Barbarian, Predator, Star Wars, Firefly and Hellboy novels. He also novelised the movies 30 Days of Night, The Cabin in the Woods, and Kong: Skull Island.
He has written computer games, comics, and audio dramas. He is currently developing more novels, and both original and adapted screen projects. He loves the outdoors, and spends a lot of time walking, running, cycling and swimming around the Welsh countryside. He’s competed in many Ironman and other triathlons. He’s a huge music fan and believes you’re never too old to jump up and down in a mosh pit.
My thoughts: This was a creepy, sinister book with a rather terrifying but apparently ordinary man in pursuit of something rather extraordinary.
Having convinced boyfriend BB and best friend Matt to go with her, Jodi and her pals break into an abandoned manor house. In the basement is a treasure trove, and if that was all they took, things would have been very different.
But Jodi has an ulterior motive, one that ends in death and destruction as her theft attracts the attention of a determined and murderous Lem.
He’s attempting to reverse a curse laid on his family many generations ago, and he doesn’t care who gets hurt along the way. He and Jodi have crossed paths before, and this spurs her need for revenge.
As the two pursue each other, and the strange relics Lem so needs, chaos unfolds. Neither is willing to back down, and innocents will be the price they pay.
Gripping, dark and sinister, this was fascinating and disturbing in equal measures.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own..
The haunting final chapter to an award-winning series… And a final reckoning…
With the fate of her missing sister, Ísafold, finally uncovered, Áróra feels a fragile relief as the search that consumed her life draws to a close. But when Ísafold’s boyfriend – the prime suspect in her disappearance – is found dead at the same site where Ísafold’s body was discovered, Áróra’s grip on reality starts to unravel … and the mystery remains far from solved.
To distract herself, she dives headfirst into a money-laundering case that her friend Daníel is investigating. But she soon finds that there is more than meets the eye and, once again, all leads point towards Engihjalli, the street where Ísafold lived and died, and a series of shocking secrets that could both explain and endanger everything…
Icelandic crime writer Lilja Sigurðardóttir was born in the town of Akranes in 1972 and raised in Mexico, Sweden, Spain and Iceland. An award-winning playwright, Lilja has written eleven crime novels, including Snare, Trap and Cage, making up the Reykjavík Noir trilogy, and her standalone thriller Betrayal, all of which have hit bestseller lists worldwide.
Snare was longlisted for the CWA International Dagger, Cage won Best Icelandic Crime Novel of the Year and was a Guardian Book of the Year, and Betrayal was shortlisted for the prestigious Glass Key Award and won Icelandic Crime Novel of the Year. The film rights for the Reykjavík Noir trilogy have been bought by Glassriver.
Cold as Hell, the first book in the An Áróra Investigation series, was published in the UK in 2021 and was followed by Red as Blood, White as Snow and Dark as Night. TV rights to the series have been bought by Studio Zentral in Germany.
Lilja lives in Reykjavík with her partner and a brood of chickens.
My thoughts: The police are still investigating the deaths of Áróra’s sister and her abusive partner, now that their bodies have been found. The theory that Bjorn killed her and then fled to Canada has been destroyed and now they need to find out what really happened.
Daniel asks Áróra to help with his latest case, hoping to distract her, he’s looking into a chain of coffee shops that seem to be making money that doesn’t entirely add up in terms of their customer numbers.
The police discover a link between Bjorn and a known local drug dealer and thug. Will this lead to answers about Isafold’s death?
Another gripping instalment in this series, and Áróra might finally get some closure around her sister’s tragic end.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Meet Sister Agnes. She’s not your typical nun. She loves killer shoes, sipping prosecco — and solving baffling mysteries . . .
Now an acclaimed BBC Radio Crime drama, starring Anne-Marie Duff.
Hackney convent — home to Agnes and her sisters — may be a house of God. But what’s buried beneath is anything but saintly. After days of brutal storms and lashing rains, the convent’s crumbling cellar gives up a terrible secret. The skeleton of a woman.
Her identity is a puzzle the police can’t solve. Not without a helping hand from sleuthing Sister Agnes. But her search for answers, deep in the convent’s chequered past, only leads to more questions.
Late one night, Agnes is woken by a gunshot — and the fear that history is about to repeat itself. Someone under this roof knows more than they’re saying. And they’ll stop at nothing to keep their secrets.
ALISON JOSEPH is a London-based crime writer and radio dramatist. She started her career in local radio, and then in television as a documentary director. Alison has written about twenty works for radio, including THE TRUE STORY and also dramatisations of Georges Simenon’s Maigret novels. She is the author of the series of novels featuring SISTER AGNES, a contemporary detective nun based in South London. She is also the author of ‘Dying to Know’, a crime novel about faith, evidence and particle physics featuring DI Berenice Killick. Her new series of novellas features Agatha Christie as a detective. Alison was Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association 2012-2014.
My thoughts: Sister Agnes has returned to the convent in Hackney from helping at the refugee camp in Calais, and is asked to assist in cataloguing the things in the basement.
However, there’s a bit of a problem with the basement – there’s a skeleton in it and the police say it’s not been there long enough to be history – it’s probably a crime. So Sister Agnes is trying to help identify the person.
The police are also at a house across the road – one of the residents has died from a gunshot. It doesn’t quite look like suicide. So Sister Agnes is also interested in that.
I’ve read several of the books in this series and they’re really interesting, Sister Agnes is an intriguing protagonist, she often seems to find herself in the middle of events, and perhaps because of her slight ambivalence towards her calling always gets involved. She’s good with people and they often open up to her, much as happens here.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
‘Thirty-seven years in the force, and if I was allowed to choose just one thing to erase from my mind, what’s inside that room would be it.’
That’s what a LAPD Lieutenant tells Detectives Hunter and Garcia of the Ultra Violent Crimes Unit as they arrive at one of the most shocking crime scenes they have ever attended.
In a completely unexpected turn of events, the detectives find themselves joining forces with the FBI to track down a serial killer whose hunting ground sees no borders; a psychopath who loves what he does because to him murder is much more than just killing – it’s an art form.
Welcome to The Gallery of the Dead.
My thoughts: Another macabre case for Hunter and Garcia sees them this time teaming up with the FBI to find a serial killer working across state lines.
This killer kills without cruelty, his victims don’t suffer, and then he removes their body parts. The LA victim that Hunter and Garcia are dealing with has had almost all her skin, hands and feet removed. On the only patch of skin left on her back is carved a message in Latin.
As they work through the victims, it becomes apparent that their killer is collecting, now they just have to find him and what connects their victims.
It’s dark and sinister, like all of the cases the LAPD’s Ultra Violent Crime Unit specialise in and despite the initial resistance, the FBI agents find Hunter’s insights vitally important to solve the case.
Hunter also finally has a personal life, in the form of a very attractive psychology professor who shares his taste in whisky and wins him over. Shame Garcia is late for dinner with his in-laws again!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Welcome to the tour for Court of Light and Dark by Heather D. Grace! If you sign up for the author’s newsletter you will be gifted with a digital edition of the prequel which is a full-length novel called Court of Treason and Fate!
Court of Light and Dark (Hidden Courts of the Fae #1)
Release Date: June 2025
Genre: Urban Fantasy Romance
– Reluctant Half-Fae Chosen One
– Slow-burn, Grumpy/sunshine Forbidden Romance
– Bonded Animal Companions
– Found Family
– Portal Urban Fantasy Romance
Half-fae, half-human—entirely unprepared to face the war my bloodline dragged me into.
The moment I touch the broken rescue stallion, scars thicken like armor across his back and wings begin to regrow. I’ve barely processed this when a gruff man with glowing eyes and a pulsing energy shows up on my ranch, claiming I’m half fae…and the key to saving three realms.
I refuse to let anyone else decide who I become, but that doesn’t stop my fae “guardian” from black mailing me to follow him to his realm, where small folk are vanishing, only to return stripped of their magic and dying slow, tortured deaths. And while my healing magic is stirring here, it’s barely enough to help with the demons hunting us, let alone save anyone.
As for my guardian? Seems like even being near me is painful, and I can’t tell if it’s from resisting the connection between us, or something darker. Especially when it feels like his blood commands mine… and my own might destroy him.
But distraction could cost us everything; if I fail the prophecy, demons will enslave the fae, destroy the human realm, and take the creature I care about most: my Leath Pegasus.
They say I’m the key to saving the realms, but as time runs out, I can’t help but wonder if anyone can stop what’s coming.
Fans of Anne Bishop’s Pillars of the World and Faith Hunters’ Jane Yellowrock Series will love this fast-pace, hidden magics, and forbidden love between a grumpy fae guardian and a sunshiny but reluctant chosen one.
When a body is found in the woods, more will soon be uncovered, and DS Felix will need to find the killer before another victim is claimed.
Private Investigator, Alison Greene, has been contacted to find a missing person, by the victim’s elderly father, but these two cases may be intertwined and working together will be the only way to solve this case.
Nina Craig isthe author of the crime novel ‘Fight or Flight’. When she isn’t behind the keyboard, writing into the early hours of the morning while her young family is sleeping, she can be found escaping into another book under the guise of it being ‘research’. Nina studied Creative Writing at the University of Kingston in Surrey and was inspired to get straight into writing (After working on her poetry and writing several short stories, she was inspired to write her first novel.) Nina currently lives in Hampshire as a naval wife with two young children. In addition to her passion for literature, she is also a qualified yoga instructor and has been teaching classes for the last five years. If you want to know what she’s reading now and to hear about her upcoming novel, connect with her on Instagram at @NLCraigwrites.
My thoughts: When human remains are found in the woods by the stereotypical dog walker, the police struggle to get a match with any missing persons. Enter private investigator Alison Greene, she’s been hired to look into a missing young woman by her dying father.
She stumbles across missing persons cases online and is able to match the details with those of one of the bodies found in the woods. If the police are willing to work with her, she might be able to match some more remains with names.
Unfortunately DS Felix isn’t doing so well, struggling with alcohol addiction, his boss has just about had enough of his loss of focus, but meeting Alison gets him back on track and questioning why they haven’t even got a single suspect for the multiple murders. Between the two of them, perhaps they can shake something loose.
But solving the case could come at a high personal cost, unless they work together.
An interesting read, showing that a more unorthodox approach sometimes yields results and introducing Alison Greene, an intelligent and dedicated investigator.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own
A mission like no other, will test the team to the limit ⚠️
Dr Max Hunter, Special Agent Amy Fox and the rest of the HARPA Team are on the most important mission of their lives to rescue their teammate Quinn Mosley, HARPA Director Jim Gates and his wife Susanna, Hunter’s UNESCO manager Professor Juliette Bonnaire who have all been kidnapped by a mysterious organisation claiming to be the Illuminati. The group’s leader, Oriax, says he will trade their friends’ lives for the Sword of the Archangel Michael and gives them a 24 hour deadline to meet his demands. 🗡️
In a race against time, from Europe to Moscow and beyond, Hunter leads his small team on a high-speed rollercoaster ride, attempting to track down Oriax before the deadline expires and rescue Quinn and the others as well as keeping the ancient sword out of Oriax’s depraved hands, but will they succeed in this most lethal of challenges?
Rob Jones has published over forty books in the genres of action-adventure, action-thriller and crime. Many of his chart-topping titles have enjoyed number-one rankings and his Joe Hawke and Jed Mason series have been international bestsellers. Originally from England, today he lives in Australia with his wife and children.
My thoughts: Dr Alex Hunter and his team have found a legendary sword, thought to have belonged to St Michael, the Archangel Michael (aka the flaming sword from Genesis) and maybe even King Arthur (Excalibur) in Cornwall. But their friends and colleagues have been abducted by a sinister organisation that wants the sword – believing it will grant whoever wields it incredible powers.
Not exactly wanting to hand it over, but keen to rescue their friends, the team agree to meet the mysterious Oriax aboard his never-stopping train across Russia. They pick up a few new friends along the way, ones who also want to safeguard the sword, and aim to rescue their friends without having to sacrifice their pawn.
It’s a high-speed race across Europe, with only 24 hours to locate Oriax and save their friends, the team must do their utmost to stay alive and carry out this mission or they risk losing those they care about.
Fast-paced, gripping and full of twists and risks, this is another action-packed thriller from Rob Jones, and another chapter in The Hunter Files.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Hannah Merrill is about to marry the love of her life…
The couple are determined that their low-key celebration will go without a hitch, but there can’t be an ‘I do’ while the vicar is missing. And when he’s found dead – a victim of a poisoning – in the crypt behind the church, Hannah knows only she and Aunt Violet can find out who did it.
Hannah’s beloved thinks she shouldn’t interfere. But if he fails to remember that an independent woman in 1916 doesn’t do what she’s told to by a man, the dead vicar may be the least of his worries…
Then the vicar’s own fiancé appears on the scene, even though nobody knew he was engaged. And suddenly it becomes clear someone has a secret, one shocking enough to kill for.
Will the intrepid pair of amateur sleuths catch the murderer before they kill again? Or will it be til death parts them all?
My thoughts: Hannah is about to get married in her local parish church, the only problem is the vicar is missing. Thankfully they find another who can fill in, but there’s still the question of where the original one went.
When the newlyweds find his body in the crypt, it initially looks like an accident – did he trip and fall down the stairs? The police reveal that the vicar was poisoned. And there’s so many secrets he was keeping – including a fiancé who arrives the following day.
Hannah and Aunt Violet (I love Aunt Violet so much) investigate – they have access that the police don’t, and uncover secrets that someone has killed for in the vicar’s past.
Hannah might now be married, but with her husband involved in war work and crime still happening, she’s going to investigate, with or without his approval.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Mike McCleary is offered a fantastic new job. With his beautiful new girlfriend by his side, he can move back to England and be closer to his loving and supportive parents.
Newly-promoted Detective Inspector Steve Denton is basking in the spotlight after stopping a serial killer’s nationwide campaign, and feels he’s finally getting some deserved recognition.
The Broker continues to evade the long arm of the law and is about to invest in a new criminal venture, with the opportunity to earn billions.
But not all dreams come true, and some can turn into nightmares.
Writing is his hobby, which he fits in-between full-time work, family, and completing unusual fundraising challenges. For more information, visit geoffmajor.info. He lives in Yorkshire, with his wife and their dog.
My thoughts: The sequel to Hell Hath No Fury (ideally read that first to get background on what’s happening), this sees the police and Europol trying to bring down The Broker and BOrg (an online crime syndicate) with the assistance of a few determined individuals, some of whom may end up paying with their lives.
A retired man is pushed to his limits, forced to encourage his son to do certain things to benefit those blackmailing him. A lawyer decides to break privilege after her family comes under attack.
There have been more Lottery murders, which infuriate DI Denton, who thought he’d solved that one, he wants to bring The Broker down, and being told to stand down by Europol makes it worse. They want the whole crime syndicate, not just one London-based thug.
But as the case is being built, and more knowledgeable and intelligent people bring their pieces to the table, building up the best way to bring it all down – Denton is brought back in to share what he has, and the end of The Broker’s reign is nigh.
Clever, fast-paced, wrapping up some ends while leaving others waiting for further investigation, inspired by real-life crimes and criminals. Be careful what you put on the Internet!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 