Tag: books

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Gilded Cage on the Bosphorus – Ayşe Osmanoğlu*

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Brothers bound by blood but fated to be enemies. Can their Empire survive or will it crumble into myth?

Istanbul, 1903. Since his younger brother usurped the Imperial throne, Sultan Murad V has been imprisoned with his family for nearly thirty years.
The new century heralds immense change. Anarchy and revolution threaten the established order.
Powerful enemies plot the fall of the once mighty Ottoman Empire. Only death will bring freedom to the enlightened former sultan. But the waters of the Bosphorus run deep: assassins lurk in shadows,
intrigue abounds, and scandal in the family threatens to bring destruction of all that he holds dear…

For over six hundred years the history of the Turks and their vast and powerful Empire has been
inextricably linked to the Ottoman dynasty. Can this extraordinary family, and the Empire they built,
survive into the new century?

Set against the magnificent backdrop of Imperial Istanbul,The Gilded Cage on the Bosphorus is a spellbinding tale of love, duty and sacrifice.
Evocative and utterly beguiling,The Gilded Cage on the Bosphorus is perfect for fans of Colin Falconer, Kate Morton and Philippa Gregory.

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Ayşe Osmanoğlu is a member of the Imperial Ottoman family, being descended from Sultan Murad V through her grandfather and from Sultan Mehmed V (Mehmed Reşad) through her grandmother. After reading History and Politics at the University of Exeter, she then obtained an M.A. in Turkish Studies at SOAS, University of London, specialising in Ottoman History. She lives in the UK with her husband and five children.

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My thoughts: this was really fascinating, a partly fictionalised account of the lives of the deposed Sultan Murad V and his family, who lived under house arrest after his brother seized the throne.

Written by a descendant of the family, it obviously has a slight bias towards the real life figures in it, but that’s understandable and I think if I were to write about my ancestors, I’d probably do the same. Saladuddin in particular was a really interesting, intelligent man, the son of the former sultan, he had lots of ideas about reforming the Ottoman Empire and bringing it into the 20th Century, but his paranoid and mistrustful uncle would never have listened.

It is at times very sad, the whole family, four generations at one point, were trapped in an admittedly luxurious Palace, but unable to see any of their other relatives, of which there were many, or even know what was going on outside the walls, unless from the newspapers and loyal servants’ gossip. After Murad’s death, they are finally allowed on restricted outings and Prince Nurid doesn’t even realise that the four legged creatures on the streets are dogs, that’s how isolated and forgotten they were.

It’s an incredibly moving and deeply interesting read – seeing world history through their eyes, as opposed to the Western European one I learnt at school was especially intriguing.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: A Cut for a Cut – Carol Wyer*

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Read my review of An Eye For An Eye

DI Kate Young can’t trust anybody. Not even herself.

In the bleak countryside around Blithfield Reservoir, a serial murderer and rapist is leaving a trail of bloodshed. His savage calling card: the word ‘MINE’ carved into each of his victims.

DI Kate Young struggles to get the case moving—even when one of the team’s own investigators is found dead in a dumpster. But Kate is battling her own demons. Obsessed with exposing Superintendent John Dickson and convinced there’s a conspiracy running deep in the force, she no longer knows who to trust. Kate’s crusade has already cost her dearly. What will she lose next?

When her stepsister spills a long-buried secret, Kate realises she’s found the missing link—now she must prove it before the killer strikes again. With enemies closing in on all sides, she’s prepared to do whatever it takes to bring them down. But time is running out, and Kate’s past has pushed her to the very edge. Can she stop herself from falling?

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USA Today bestselling author and winner of The People’s Book Prize Award, Carol Wyer writes feel-good comedies and gripping crime fiction. 

A move from humour to the ‘dark side’ in 2017, saw the introduction of popular DI Robyn Carter in LITTLE GIRL LOST and demonstrated that stand-up comedian Carol had found her true niche.

To date, her crime novels have sold over 750,000 copies and been translated for various overseas markets.

Carol has been interviewed on numerous radio shows discussing ”Irritable Male Syndrome’ and ‘Ageing Disgracefully’ and on BBC Breakfast television. She has had articles published in national magazines ‘Woman’s Weekly’, featured in ‘Take A Break’, ‘Choice’, ‘Yours’ and ‘Woman’s Own’ magazines and the Huffington Post.

She currently lives on a windy hill in rural Staffordshire with her husband Mr Grumpy… who is very, very grumpy.

When she is not plotting devious murders, she can be found performing her comedy routine, Smile While You Still Have Teeth.

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My thoughts: I really like this series, Kate feels understandable and realistic, I liked seeing her relationship with her stepsister Tilly, in this book, it made her less isolated and threw her troubles into a different light. She’s still searching for answers about her husband’s death but this new case leads her in different directions, looking for a serial rapist and killer – especially as one of his victims was a police officer.

The crimes are awful, obviously, and the evidence limited but Kate and her team are determined to find the killer. During the investigation she discovers a few new leads for her own case, and starts to gather the evidence she needs.

The writing is gripping and the plot zips along, there are a few false starts and its only when Tilly says something to Kate that it all starts to come together. The team work hard but the fact that the victims offer up little evidence doesn’t help. It was good to learn a bit more about the other officers too – I like Emma, the martial arts expert, who offers a calmer perspective than Kate’s. This series is shaping up to be really good and I’m looking forward to book three.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Rule – David Jackson*

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Read my review of The Resident

MY DAD SAYS BAD THINGS
HAPPEN WHEN I BREAK IT…

Daniel is looking forward to his birthday. He wants fish and chips, a big chocolate cake, and a comic book starring his favourite superhero. And as long as he follows The Rule, nothing bad will happen. But Daniel has no idea that he’s about to kill a stranger.

Daniel’s parents know that their beloved and vulnerable son will be taken away. They know that Daniel didn’t mean to hurt anyone, he just doesn’t know his own strength. They dispose of the body. Isn’t that what any loving parent would do? But as forces on both sides of the law begin to close in on them, they realise they have no option but to finish what they started. Even if it means that others will have to die…

Because they’ll do anything to protect Daniel. Even murder.

David Jackson is the author of nine crime novels, including the bestseller Cry Baby and the standalone The Resident. When not murdering fictional people, David spends his days as a university academic in his home city of Liverpool. He lives on the Wirral with his wife and two daughters. Twitter

My thoughts: I wasn’t sure what to expect from the author of the creepiest book I read last year but it wasn’t this. A tale of ordinary people who get caught up in crime and chaos entirely by accident.

I completely understood Daniel, having grown up with and worked with people like him, with learning disabilities and who are childlike even as adults. I felt for his parents, who love him and just want to keep him safe. The nightmare the family become embroiled in is something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, no one deserves to be this frightened in their own home.

It was honestly an excellent book but a little heartbreaking too.

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

blog tour, books

Book Blitz: Where Are We Tomorrow? – Tavi Taylor Black

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<p style=”text-align: center;”><strong><img class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-12381″ src=”https://rrbooktoursblog.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/wherearewetomorrow.jpg&#8221; alt=”wherearewetomorrow” width=”851″ height=”315″ /></strong></p>

<strong>I am so happy to share this novel with you all today. It’s called <span style=”color: #003366;”>Where Are We Tomorrow</span> by Tavi Taylor Black. Read on for more details!</strong>

<strong>Copies of Where Are We Tomorrow are available in exchange for honest reviews until October. Book reviewers can request a copy <span style=”color: #003366;”><a style=”color: #003366;” href=”https://rrbooktours.com/contact-shannon-r-r-book-tours/&#8221; target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>here</a> </span>or in comments!</strong>

<strong><img class=”size-full wp-image-12299 alignleft” src=”https://rrbooktoursblog.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/56929822._sy475_.jpg&#8221; alt=”56929822._SY475_” width=”317″ height=”475″ />Where We Are Tomorrow</strong>

<strong>Publication Date:</strong> May 31st, 2021

<strong>Genre:</strong> Contemporary Fiction/ Women’s Fiction

<strong>Publisher:</strong> TouchPoint Press

Alex Evans, a thirty-six year old touring electrician, discovers through an accidental pregnancy and then the pain of miscarriage that she truly wants a family. But to attempt another pregnancy, she’ll have to change both her career and her relationship; her partner Connor, ten years her senior, isn’t prepared to become a father again.

When Alex is implicated in an accident involving the female pop star she works for, she and three other women on tour rent a house together in Tuscany. While the tour regroups, confessions are made, secrets are spilled: the guitar tech conceals a forbidden love, the production assistant’s ambition knows no limits, and the personal assistant battles mental issues.

Through arguments and accidents, combating drug use and religion, the women help each other look back on the choices they’ve made, eventually buoying each other, offering up strength to face tough decisions ahead.

<strong>TRIGGER WARNING: MISCARRIAGE/ ADDICTION/ GRIEF </strong>

<strong>Add to<span style=”color: #003366;”> <a style=”color: #003366;” href=”https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56929822-where-are-we-tomorrow&#8221; target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Goodreads</a></span></strong>

<p style=”text-align: center;”><strong>Excerpt</strong></p>

<blockquote>

<p style=”text-align: left;”><em>Inside the concrete arena, programmed lights whirred and spun in rhythm; eleven thousand fans watched, mesmerized, as vibrant magenta and violet beams sliced through midnight black. On stage, the band regurgitated the same set as the night before, and the night before that. They’d performed the set in Mexico City and Guadalajara. As far south as Santiago and Lima. The road crew for Sadie Estrada’s Home Remedy tour knew each dip in volume, each drop in the beat. They knew exactly, down to the second, how much time it required to step outside and suck down a Marlboro. These time-zone travelers planned bathroom breaks by the songs’ measures; no one missed a cue to mute the stage mics, to hand out room-temp bottled water for set breaks, to pull up house lights.</em></p>

<p style=”text-align: left;”><em>Behind heavy velvet curtains, separated from the frenzied pace of the show, Alex unscrewed the cover of a moving light to expose the core: circuit boards and capacitors, motors connected to color wheels. Deep bass, feedback, and the fevered pitch of collective voices penetrated the curtain, the familiar, almost comforting reverberations of life on the road. Alex continued her diagnosis, removing the light harness as a mother removes a soiled diaper— routinely, with a touch of tenderness. While she located and replaced the broken part, she kept an ear to the music, alert to the final measure of the set, ready to repack her multi-wheeled toolbox, move on to the next city, set up again.</em></p>

<p style=”text-align: left;”><em>Alex ran the light through all its functions, testing and retesting once she’d replaced the gobo wheel. The body of the light panned and tilted, working fine. A small victory.</em></p>

<p style=”text-align: left;”><em>“Sure you know what you’re doing, little lady?” Alex turned at the familiar voice of the tour’s production manager.</em></p>

<p style=”text-align: left;”><em>“Funny,” she said. “Very original. For that, you get to help me put it away.” Alex waited for another barb, one about her not being able to lift the seventy pounds by herself, but Joe simply helped her flip and crate the unit, a harder task for him at 5’2” than it was for Alex, a good five inches taller.</em></p>

<p style=”text-align: left;”><em>The arena crackled in anticipation of the show’s climax. Thousands of voices swelled and surged, a unified congregation. The body of the moving light settled into the carved Styrofoam, and Alex tucked its tail inside the handle. As she slammed the case shut, Joe’s laminate got caught inside the box, and he was jerked down by the lanyard around his neck. He freed the latches and yanked it clear, smoothing the wrinkles from the photo of his two young children, a wallet-sized clipping he’d taped behind his backstage pass. Joe caught Alex eyeing the photo.</em></p>

<p style=”text-align: left;”><em>“When are you gonna give in and pop out a few yourself?” Joe asked.</em></p>

<p style=”text-align: left;”><em>Alex breathed slowly, letting a brief sadness settle into her body, though her face wore a practiced, blank expression. She gestured into the smothering dark, into the roar of the crowd and sweat-filled air. “And give up all this?”</em></p>

</blockquote>

<strong>Available on <span style=”color: #003366;”><a style=”color: #003366;” href=”https://www.amazon.com/dp/195281636X/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&amp;keywords=Where+are+we+tomorrow%3F+Tavi+Black&amp;qid=1612297720&amp;sr=8-3&#8243; target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Amazon</a></span>, <span style=”color: #003366;”><a style=”color: #003366;” href=”https://bookshop.org/books/where-are-we-tomorrow/9781952816369&#8243; target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Bookshop</a></span> and <span style=”color: #003366;”><a style=”color: #003366;” href=”https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781952816369&#8243; target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>IndieBound</a></span>!</strong>

<strong>About the Author</strong>

<img class=”alignnone  wp-image-12296″ src=”https://rrbooktoursblog.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/igp6937.png&#8221; alt=”_IGP6937″ width=”218″ height=”273″ />

<b>Tavi Black</b> lives on an island near Seattle where she designs sets for the ballet, works as the tour manager for a musical mantra group, and has founded an anti-domestic violence non-profit organization. Before earning an MFA from Lesley University, Tavi spent 14 years touring with rock bands. Several of Tavi’s short stories have been shortlisted for prizes, including Aesthetica Magazine’s Competition, and the Donald Barthelme Prize for Short Prose.

<p style=”text-align: center;”><span style=”color: #003366;”><strong><a style=”color: #003366;” href=”http://www.taviblack.com/&#8221; target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Tavi Taylor Black</a> | <a style=”color: #003366;” href=”https://www.instagram.com/tavitaylorblack/&#8221; target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Instagram</a> | <a style=”color: #003366;” href=”https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/tavi-taylor-black/where-are-we-tomorrow/&#8221; target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Kirkus Reviews</a> | </strong><strong><a style=”color: #003366;” href=”https://indiereader.com/book_review/where-are-we-tomorrow/#review&#8221; target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Indie Reader</a></strong></span></p>

<strong>Book Blitz Organized By: </strong>

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<span style=”color: #333333;”><strong><a style=”color: #333333;” href=”http://rrbooktours.com&#8221; target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>R&amp;R Book Tours</a></strong></span>

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Lost Girls – Heather Young*

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In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family’s vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys the family – her father commits suicide, and her mother and two older sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house, keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child. Sixty years later, Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person who might care: her grandniece, Justine. For Justine, the lake house offers freedom and stability – a way to escape her manipulative boyfriend and give her daughters the home she never had. But the long Minnesota winter is just beginning. The house is cold and dilapidated. The dark, silent lake is isolated and eerie. Her only neighbor is a strange old man who seems to know more about the summer of 1935 than he’s telling. Soon Justine’s troubled oldest daughter becomes obsessed with Emily’s disappearance, her mother arrives to steal her inheritance, and the man she left launches a dangerous plan to get her back. In a house haunted by the sorrows of the women who came before her, Justine must overcome their tragic legacy if she hopes to save herself and her children.

HEATHER YOUNG is the author of two novels. Her debut, The Lost Girls, won the Strand Award for Best First Novel and was nominated for an Edgar Award. The Distant Dead has also been nominated for the 2021 Edgar Award for Best Novel. A former antitrust and intellectual property litigator, she traded the legal world for the literary one and earned her MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars in 2011. She lives in Mill Valley, California, where she writes, bikes, hikes, and reads books by other people that she wishes she’d written. Website Twitter

My thoughts: this was really enjoyable, combining a family murder mystery with later generations attempting to move on. Justine returns to her great-aunt’s house, left to her in the will, with her two daughters. She’s running from a life she no longer wants and hopes to begin again in this small town. But the town is full of people who know her family, and know about her missing great-aunt, who never got to grow up.

As she sorts through the remnants of her aunt’s life, and her mother comes to stay, she finds herself drawn into the mystery and secrets of the past.

Alternating between Justine’s present and Lucy’s past, slowly the truth is revealed. It’s very artfully done and very enjoyable too. I felt for Justine – sleepwalking through your own life is no fun, and I understood her worries. She was trying to do the best for her children but stuck due to things like money. Her mother was a bit of a nightmare and Justine’s determination to be different meant she couldn’t be happy.

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

books

Book Blitz: Call Me a Woman: On Our Way to Equality and Peace – Laurie Levin

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CallmeaWoman

I’m thrilled to share Call Me a Woman: On Our Way to Equality and Peace by Laurie Levin. Read on for book details and enter the giveaway for a chance to win a $25 Amazon e-gift card!

41nPrBkiXqSCall Me a Woman: On Our Way To Equality and Peace

Publication Date: April 30th, 2021

Genre: Non-Fiction/ Gender Studies

It’s time to raise the bar.

When we give women the same respect and opportunities as men, we give the world its best chance for peace, prosperity, and survival.

Angry about sexism and misogyny and what you personally have endured? Afraid the world won’t get its act together in time to save itself?

Call Me A Woman combines Levin’s personal story, years of research, global studies, and activism.

Inside you’ll discover

  • The most important thing parents can do to change the world
  • Our unconscious habits that perpetuate inequality
  • Inspiring stories to shift resentment to empathy, hope, and action
  • The 7 Habits of Equality to speed our way to gender equality and peace
  • Inner peace and freedom as you become the solution

Personal interviews with: Lynn Povich, first woman senior editor Newsweek magazine; Maxine Clark, founder Build-A-Bear Workshop; Gloria Feldt, former CEO and President Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NY Times Best-Selling Author; Mark Levin, biotech industry leader, founder, and CEO; Zaron Burnett III, investigative journalist and writer.

If you are ready to become part of the solution, it is time to read

Call Me A Woman: On Our Way to Equality and Peace.

Purchase on Amazon

About the Author

Laurie Levin Headshot

Laurie Levin has been a human rights advocate her entire adult life. Early in her 20’s, she headed the reproductive rights efforts for NOW-St. Louis. She was the Missouri Coordinator for a Department of Peace working alongside Marianne Williamson. She was the Missouri co-chair of Room To Read—a global non-profit that focuses on girls’ education and children’s literacy in Asia and Africa. She was co-chair of the Missouri Executive Women for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2016 Presidential campaign.

Laurie refers to herself as a Transformation Coach as she helps others transform and master their own wellbeing. She specializes in optimal nutrition, healthy weight loss, and the leading HeartMath® stress reduction techniques. She has been a featured speaker on each of these topics at corporations, wellness events and retreats, schools and universities, hospitals, ex-convict re-entry programs, and cancer support organizations.

She has an MBA, is a Certified Coach, and HeartMath® Certified Coach, supporting clients globally to achieve their health and well-being goals.

Laurie spent 25 years in corporate America, leaving as a Vice President of one of the largest U.S. national research companies. She went on to start her own business in the health field in 200l.

Call Me a Woman | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

International Giveaway: $25 Amazon e-Gift Card

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Book Blitz Organized By:

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Book Review: The Jasmine Throne – Tasha Suri

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One is a vengeful princess seeking to depose her brother from his throne.
The other is a priestess searching for her family.
Together, they will change the fate of an empire.

Imprisoned by her dictator brother, Malini spends her days in isolation in the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once the source of powerful magic – but is now little more than a decaying ruin.

Priya is a maidservant, one of several who make the treacherous journey to the top of the Hirana every night to attend Malini’s chambers. She is happy to be an anonymous drudge, as long as it keeps anyone from guessing the dangerous secret she hides. But when Malini accidentally bears witness to Priya’s true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled . . .

My thoughts:

This was so, so good. All of the women in this book are heroes in different ways; Priya, Malini and Bhumika all want to stop the emperor and save their people, but even the servants like Sima or the rebels like Kritika have their roles to play. All of them want to be strong, to survive in a world where they’ve been held back by tradition and rules.

Priya has to remember her past, and use it to find the sacred living waters hidden inside the Hirana, the temple where she was raised, to access her gifts. Malini has to become something more than the emperor’s hated sister, drugged into delirium and abandoned to her fate. They learn to trust one another and together begin to unite all those who oppose Chandra’s cruelty and liberate themselves.

The plot crackles as it carries you along, slowly developing the characters so you find yourself cheering them on, willing them to succeed, to stay alive, to fight. And the bond between them grows, like the plants of the forest. I really enjoyed the author’s previous books and I can’t wait for the next one in this series – as they come into their power and grow stronger, begin the fight back.

**I was sent an arc of this book by the publisher and a finished copy was in my May Illumicrate box, but all opinions are my own.**

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: This Fragile Earth – Susannah Wise*

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Not long from now, in a recognisable yet changed London, Signy and Matthew lead a dull, difficult life. They’ve only really stayed together for the sake of their six year old son, Jed. But they’re surviving, just about. Until the day the technology that runs their world stops working. Unable to use their phones or pay for anything, Matthew assumes that this is just a momentary glitch in the computers that now run the world.But then the electricity and gas are cut off. Even the water stops running. And the pollination drones – vital to the world, ever since the bees all died – are behaving oddly. People are going missing. Soldiers are on the streets. London is no longer safe.A shocking incident sends Signy and Jed on the run, desperate to flee London and escape to the small village where Signy grew up. Determined to protect her son, Signy will do almost anything to survive as the world falls apart around them. But she has no idea what is waiting for them outside the city…

SUSUSANNAH WISE is an actor and writer who grew up in London and the Midlands. The death of her father in 2015 was the catalyst for THIS FRAGILE EARTH. His preoccupation with astronomy and the beauty of the night sky formed the jumping-off point for the story. Susannah studied at the Faber Academy, graduating in September 2018, during which time she wrote a second, more peculiar novel. Both books have been longlisted for the Mslexia prize. She lives in London with her partner and son.

My thoughts: this was a really interesting take on the end of the world fiction. Suddenly all the power has gone out and the robots we’ve outsourced so much to have started behaving weirdly. Society breaks down, because people, and Signy decides to flee London with her son. They have some encounters along the way, some frightening, some not, but the eerie feeling remains, what are the robots up to?

I felt for Signy, determined to be the best she could in a terrifying reality but I found Jed and his irritating know it all stance annoying – the way he talked to his mother like she was stupid sometimes grated. You’re alone with these two characters a lot of the time as a reader, and you do root for them to survive, the horror they’ve left behind and the way Signy’s fear gets her to cycle all the way to Northamptonshire is incredible. There is, like Pandora’s box, hope in the end thankfully. I’ve read a lot of apocalypse fiction recently (must be something in the air) and the lack of hope can be a struggle.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Pug Actually – Matt Dunn*

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Not all heroes wear capes. Some of them wear collars.

A Dog’s Purpose meets The Happy Ever After Playlist in this charming, pitch-perfect take on relationships as seen through the eyes of a wise pug named Doug, who is determined to play cupid to fix his owner’s love life with his own four paws.

Doug wants his rescuer, Julie, to be happy. He is loyal and loves her unconditionally—two things that can’t be said about Julie’s married boss and lover, Luke. Yet Julie is reluctant to break up, afraid to end up like her eccentric cat-owning neighbor. It’s a prospect that horrifies Doug, too.

Newly divorced Tom, on the other hand, is perfect for Julie. Everyone can see it—except for Julie and Tom. Doug is confident that with his help they will get over their initial animosity toward each other.

As Doug humorously navigates the quirks of human relationships, he knows he can’t give up on Julie—after all, being a “rescue” works both ways.

My thoughts: this was a very fun and funny book as Doug the pug (yes, he knows) attempts to sort out owner Julie’s love life, steering her away from bad decisions and into the arms of Tom the V-E-T.

A dog’s eye view of the world, complete with that weird snorting breathing pugs have, drool and trips to the park, Doug risks everything, including assault by Alsatian, to bring these two humans together. It’s very, very silly and made me laugh quite a bit as Doug struggles to understand humans and why they can’t just get on with it, like uncomplicated dogs.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Whisper of the Runes – Christina Courtenay*

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Read my review of The Whisper of the Runes

Time is no barrier for a love that is destined to be.
She couldn’t be sure that she had travelled through time … but deep down she just knew.
And her only way back had just disappeared.
When jewellery designer Sara Mattsson is propelled back to the ninth century, after cutting herself on
a Viking knife she uncovers at an archaeological dig, she is quick to accept what has happened to her.
For this is not the first Sara has heard of time travel.
Although acutely aware of the danger she faces when she loses the knife – and with it her way to return to her own time – this is also the opportunity of a lifetime. What better way to add authenticity to the Viking and Anglo-Saxon motifs used in her designs?
As luck has it, the first person Sara encounters is Rurik Eskilsson, a fellow silversmith, who is also no
stranger to the concept of time travel. Agreeing that Sara can accompany him to Jorvik, they embark on a journey even more perilous than one through time. But Fate has brought these two kindred spirits together across the ages for a reason…

Amazon UK
Amazon US


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). Whispers of the Runes (time travel published by Headline 24th June 2021) is her latest novel. Christina is a keen amateur genealogist and loves history and archaeology (the armchair variety).

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Giveaway to Win a signed copy of Whispers of the Runes plus a pair of silver Viking style
earrings (Open INT)

My thoughts: this was really enjoyable, Sara was friends with Linnea, the protagonist of The Whisper of the Runes, so she isn’t too frightened when she finds herself in the past with a hunky Norseman. They travel to Jorvik, modern day York, with a bunch of raiders, not that they’re given much choice. Together they plan to return to Sara’s time but in the meantime they begin to build a life.

I really like these books, they’re a fun blend of romance and history, the writing draws you in to the story and the characters keep you engaged. The plot was interesting and I like the way the characters have to adapt to living in different centuries – I’m not sure I could do it with such ease.

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

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