blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Fatal Lies – Anita Waller


For Matt Forrester, The Forrester Detective Agency is going from strength to strength: they’ve expanded their office space and even hired a new office manager – a qualified and astute woman named Carol.
What starts as a simple burglary case soon turns into something darker. The victim of said burglary soon turns up dead, after engaging in threats with the local yobs she believed to have been responsible.
But it soon becomes clear that there’s more at play here, and Matt – alongside sister Hermia, partner Steve, and life partner Karen – will have to put all their skills to the test, even if it puts them in
danger…
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Anita Waller is the author of many bestselling psychological thrillers and the Kat and Mouse crime series. She lives in Sheffield, which continues to be the setting of many of her thrillers.

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My thoughts: the Forrester Detective Agency is getting plenty of work, mostly of the cheating spouse kind, when there’s a burglary round the corner. It’s one of Karen’s official police ones, but Matt casts an eye over it, hoping he can help.

While Steve has a landscaping client whose garden has been trashed, and as well as putting it right, he offers to look into the incident.

A brilliant new receptionist, in the shape of scone baking, file sorting, super capable Carol, helps them get the office into shape and creates a database, WATSON, to keep their cases organised.

A strange woman, claiming to be an old friend of Matt’s dad, has appeared but no one has heard of her, but Carol offers to dig through the files for a trace of her. What does this woman really want?

As the team work on their cases, there’s still time for family, although Harry is struggling, and needs his dad more than ever with a new baby sister in the picture.

Another gripping and intelligent thriller that might keep you awake if you read it too late!

*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: A Third is Darkness – Murray Bailey

Judge not the man


Charles Balcombe cannot control his alter ego.
BlackJack is killing for fun and DI Munro knows his partnership with Balcombe can’t continue.
While Balcombe seeks help, Munro is asked to work for the Hong Kong governor’s aide-de-camp. He seems to be sidelined as Garrett resumes his hunt for the Squeezed-heart murderer.
But people have secrets and the more Munro investigates, the murkier they seem. When people start dying and with Balcombe’s help, Munro tries to get to the bottom of a conspiracy of silence.

Will he find the truth?

Will Garrett catch his killer?


Will Balcombe learn the truth about himself?


As the psychoanalyst told him: a third of the mind is darkness. If you dig too deep, be prepared. You won’t like what you find there.

This is book three of the series which should be read in order.

Murray Bailey Is the author of Amazon bestseller Map of the Dead, the first of the series based on his interest in Egyptology. His main series however is the Ash Carter thrillers, inspired by his father’s experience in the Royal Military Police in Singapore in the early 1950s.

Murray is well traveled, having worked in the US, South America and a number of European countries throughout his career as a management consultant. However he also managed to find the time to edit books, contribute to articles and act as a part-time magazine editor.

Murray lives on the south coast of England with his family and a dog called Teddy.

My thoughts: we return to Hong Kong and Balcombe is a man in trouble, he can’t control the murderous BlackJack side of his personality anymore. He’s sleepwalking and having to rely on his friends, and Albert his rickshaw driver, to piece his nights back together. The blackouts, the drinking, it isn’t going to end well. Detective Garrett is gunning for him and Munro is in half a mind to let his colleague take him down.

There’s a missing girl in danger with links to the governor’s house, and Munro asks for Balcombe’s help, as long as he sees pyschologist Dr Georgina Swift and get some help.

Even Balcombe is getting worried about his alter ego, about the gaps in his memory and the number of bodies that keep winding up in the morgue. As the lines begin to blur, can he save himself or is it too late?

Another gripping thrill ride of a read, as Balcombe tries to decipher his own psyche and change his ways, before he hurts someone who doesn’t deserve it. I cannot wait for book four – if the ambiguous ending doesn’t mean it’s all done for Balcombe.

*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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Cover Reveal: Christmas at the Cabin – Rebecca Boxall

A festive, coming-of-age tale about an Oxbridge candidate and a young homeless man who find themselves in the bittersweet predicament of falling in love with exactly the right person at exactly the wrong time. 

Well-to-do Jed never imagined he’d end up homeless, but family circumstances have made it his only option. Local vicar, Ben, tries to help him but there’s an element of self-punishment to the homelessness that makes Jed continue to put up with his situation – until disaster leads him to re-consider the vicar’s offer of a place to stay. 

Hattie is on the cusp of adulthood, frantically trying to persuade her mum that she doesn’t want to attend an elite university, preferring the idea of pursuing her love of art and textiles. When she meets Jed, she badly wants to understand his circumstances and why, when she has everything at her fingertips, he doesn’t. 

Hattie’s mum, Christine, has had a hard life and is desperate for more for her only child. When she meets Ben, the vicar who’s trying to help Jed, she finds an unlikely ally, and the two heartbroken souls find themselves drawn to each other. Until they find their relationship suddenly tested to the limit. 

One thing’s for certain: none of these characters is looking forward to Christmas. It’s the worst time of year for each of them, for different reasons. But perhaps this year, the festive season could defy all expectations.

Rebecca Boxall is the award-nominated author of five bestselling novels – Christmas at the Vicarage, Home for Winter, Christmas on the Coast, The Christmas Forest and Christmas by the Lighthouse. She is also the author of Christmas at the Farmhouse and her popular short story, A Winter’s Day.

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Publication Date: 24th November 2023

Rebecca Boxall was born in East Sussex in 1977 and grew up in a bustling vicarage always filled with family, friends and parishioners. She now lives by the sea in Jersey with her family and Rodney the cat. She read English at the University of Warwick before she trained as a lawyer and more recently worked at a psychiatric unit.

She is the No. 1 bestselling author of Christmas at the Vicarage and Christmas on the Coast as well as the bestselling writer of Home for Winter, The Christmas Forest and Christmas by the Lighthouse, in respect of which she was nominated for the Romantic Novel Awards in 2020. She is also the author of Christmas at the Farmhouse and her popular short story, A Winter’s Day. 

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BBNYA Semi-finalists: Broken Sky – Morgan K. Bell

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Dorian Valmont is the sorriest excuse for an aeronaut the crew of skyship Phoenix has ever seen.

Forced to flee his home to protect his magical inheritance from the machinations of his ambitious stepfather, awkward misfit Dorian finds himself poorly suited to the rigors of life in the sky. But when an exiled dragon finds him, injured and desperate for help, Dorian learns it’s not enough merely to run away. Dorian must learn to fight back.

Caught between forces that seek to use or destroy him, Dorian must train and adapt if he wants to survive. But if he can, he might just hold the key to restoring the world’s faltering magic — or destroying it once and for all.

Amazon: Canada USA UK

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Drawn to fantastical worlds since the earliest days of their childhood, Morgan K. Bell has written stories since they were first old enough to hold a pencil. When not writing, Morgan enjoys craft beer, lifting weights, and dabbling in digital art and game development. Morgan has worked as a software developer, science lab assistant, and cashier at a quite-possibly-haunted tourist destination, but their first passion has always been bringing their pretend worlds and imaginary friends to life. Morgan lives in Washington state with their partner, child, and an enthusiastic corgi.

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BBNYA Semi-finalists: Awakening – Lucy A. McLaren

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

The Kingdom of Septima is ruled in all but name by the Commune, a ruthless cult that seeks control of an ancient power that has taken root in unsuspecting children in Septima. To maintain their hold on the kingdom, the Commune will stop at nothing to capture children who show signs of this power, to be weaponised or eliminated. Eighteen-year-old Evelyn Folksman is in hiding. Taken in by a tavern-owner, she is haunted by the horrific events that drove her from her home years before.

Evelyn is forced to face her past when two wayward children, Raif and Rose Huntsman, arrive at the tavern, pursued by Commune soldiers. The children fall under Evelyn’s reluctant care as the trio narrowly escape a raid. Relentlessly hunted by Commander Jonah Sulemon and Commune agent Lord Eirik Torrant, Evelyn and Raif cannot fathom why they pose such a threat to the Commune, until six-year-old Rose unwittingly reveals a terrible secret: she possesses powers more fearsome than any the Commune has unearthed in decades. There are only two options: to be captured and imprisoned, or to run for the rest of their lives.

Amazon: UK USA Canada

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Blog Tour: Out of Sight – Anna Legat


On the morning after his thirtieth wedding anniversary Stewart Harding is found dead. He was an arrogant and thoroughly unpleasant man and there is no shortage of suspects, but all of them have firm alibis. In any case, everything points towards it being an opportunistic killing linked to a robbery.
Newly promoted DI Mark Webber is assigned as the SIO with Gillian Marsh overseeing the investigation. However, when her mother dies, she takes leave of absence and lets Webber continue on his own.
Webber is making good progress until his colleague – and secret lover – DC Erin Macfadyen disappears without trace. Webber’s world falls apart.
DCI Marsh cuts her bereavement leave short to take over the investigation into Stewart Harding’s death and to track down her missing officer.
There is no doubt that she will find Harding’s killer, but will she find Erin and are the two cases connected?

Amazon UK

Anna Legat is a Wiltshire-based author, best known for her DI Gillian Marsh murder mysteries. Murder isn’t the only thing on her mind. She dabbles in a wide variety of genres, ranging from dark humour, through magic realism to dystopia. A globe-trotter and Jack-of-all-trades, Anna has been an attorney, legal adviser, a silver-service waitress, a school teacher and a librarian. She has lived in far-flung places all over the world where she delighted in people-watching and collecting precious life experiences for her stories. Anna writes, reads, lives and breathes books and can no longer tell the difference between fact and fiction.
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My thoughts: another gripping case for DI (now DCI) Gillian Marsh and her team. When a man is found dead in somewhat strange circumstances the day after celebrating his thirtieth wedding anniversary, the team start to dig. His family don’t seem too upset, especially his wife.

But with two likely suspects first on the scene – was it a burglary gone wrong or something else?

Then Erin goes missing and the team set aside everything else, the case, Gillian’s mother’s sudden death, to look for her. Is it connected to their case or something personal? As time runs down, will they find the DC alive?

I was hooked from the start, although it can be hard to feel sorry for such an unpleasant victim, especially when he behaves so awfully just before he’s killed.

There was a lot going on in the team’s personal lives too – Webber finally got custody of his children, Gillian’s mother dies very suddenly, not that she seems too emotional to the upset of her family, Erin has a secret. This really moved the story along, and it was interesting to see how they juggle their professional and personal situations, especially when one of their own is at risk.

*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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Book Trailer: Finney and the Secret Tunnel – Jamie Lane Barber

We have something smart, and cute to share with you all today! Check out the book trailer for Finney and the Secret Tunnel by Jamie Lane Barber!

Finney and the Secret Tunner (A Finney and the Mathmysterians Adventure)

Expected Publication Date: November 14, 2023

Genre: MG Mystery/ STEM

Booby-trapped tunnels. Secret societies. Puzzles. A buried secret.

Finney’s sixth-grade math teacher might hand out too many worksheets and have a weird hang-toothed smile, but there’s something sincere about her that nudges Finney to follow her trail when she goes missing. Making her way through secret tunnels beneath the school, Finney’s now wrapped up in a secret society rivalry. In a race to solve puzzles and dodge dangerous boobytraps, can Finney uncover a world-changing secret left by one of the world’s greatest geniuses?

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About the Author

 Jamie Lane Barber grew up in the southern California sun but enjoysher days now on the east coast in Virginia Beach. On top of writing and running a digital marketing agency, Jamie fills her time with shuttling her children between activities. Her kids and two crazy dogs help keep Jamie on her toes and always busy. Jamie enjoys karaoke nights with her husband, musical theatre, escape rooms, a tasty red wine, and, of course, reading.

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Book Blitz: A Cranberry for Christmas – Charlie Dean


Alisha Jones, or Princess Christmas as she is affectionately known, is joint heir to her Grandpa Frost’s family fortune, but being third behind an older sister and brother means she has to work three times as hard to prove herself.
Marsha Underwood, her Grandpa’s PA and ever-present thorn in her side, is determined to undermine her at every turn and Alisha finds herself powerless to prevent this.
An encounter with a fortune teller at the Frost Christmas Ball leads to a bewildering dream of the future; and the added complication of Tom Walker, the son of Frost’s new business partner leads to
a tumultuous year.
With her friends by her side, will she be able to turn things around? And what exactly does the strange dream mean?
A story of family, friendship and love at first sight with a sprinkle of Christmas magic.
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Cover Reveal: Her Last Summer – Emily Freud

A twenty-year-old cold case unearths dark secrets in the scorching-hot destination thriller from Emily Freud.

Twenty years ago, Mari vanished while backpacking through Thailand with her boyfriend, Luke. He was accused of murder, but has always insisted he’s innocent. Besides, her body was never found.

Now, he’s finally ready to talk. And filmmaker Cassidy Chambers wants to be the one to uncover what really happened, back then, in the dark of the jungle.

But as she delves deeper into the past, Cassidy begins to fear what lies ahead, and the secrets buried along the way.

Publication Date: 11th April 2024

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Emily Freud is the author of My Best Friend’s Secret and What She Left Behind. She has worked on Emmy and BAFTA award winning television series including Educating Yorkshire and First Dates. Emily lives in North London, with her husband and two children. She is currently working on her next novel.

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BBNYA Semi-finalists: Are You Okay, Elliot Hart? – Kate S. Martin

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.
If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

You keep it on the inside because it’s the safest place to hide.

Fifteen-year-old Elliot ‘Matchstick’ Hart spends his days caring for his mum and hiding from the school bully.

Fifteen-year-old Josh McBride spends his days tormenting Elliot and avoiding his abusive stepdad.

Inspired by a picture in an old newspaper, Elliot embarks on an adventure to the city. Little does he know that Josh has decided to join him. On their journey, strangers and surprises force them to look at each other in a different light.

As secrets are uncovered, can the boys bury their differences or will it tear them further apart?

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Kate S. Martin is a high school English teacher and Young Adult author. She likes to write ‘gritty’ stories that tackle tough issues whilst also encouraging empathy and hope. When she isn’t spending time her family, she can often be found going on long dog walks with Jessie, the miniature schnauzer. She can be found on Twitter @katemartin100 and Instagram @katemartin100.