‘There’s a package on the porch,’ my husband calls as he leaves for work. I rip open the brown paper and find three books inside. I didn’t order them.
A week ago, my new neighbor was murdered in exactly the way described in the first book. Her name was Naomi Sheller. I’ll never forget the first time I saw her — frozen in the middle of the grocery store, eyes wide with terror. Days later, she’s found dead in the woods. Her husband, Eric, is led away in handcuffs.
The second book has another murder in it. And the victim sounds exactly like me. We moved here from New York City to raise our daughters somewhere safe. But now I think I made a terrible mistake. The police don’t believe me. My husband thinks I’m paranoid.
But I’m not.
Because whoever sent these books . . . knows exactly where I live.
T.J. Brearton is a bestselling novelist and screenwriter. He is the author of the novels Gone and Dead Gone, both of which have ranked among Amazon Kindle’s top 100. His Titan trilogy has been an international best-seller. With Ted Magee, Brearton wrote Bare Knuckle, a martial arts film, and wrote and directed Breathe, about amateur MMA fighter Lane Buzzell on an undefeated streak. He has written more than a dozen novels, mostly crime thrillers, including one paranormal mystery, and published short fiction in numerous literary journals. He lives in the Adirondack Mountains of New York with his wife and three children where he writes full time, takes out the trash, and competes with his kids for his wife’s attention.
A respectable septuagenarian steals a valuable painting and later tries to return it, with a little help from her friends.
Bored National Trust volunteer, Maureen, steals an obscure still life as a giant up-yours to all those who’ve discounted her. The novice fine art thief is rumbled by some fellow room guides, but snitches get stitches, camaraderie wins out and instead of grassing her up, they decide to help.
Often written off as an insipid old fart, Maureen has a darker side, challenging ingrained ideas of how senior citizens should behave. Her new set of friends make her feel alive again. No longer quite so invisible, can this unlikely pensioner gang return the now infamous painting without being caught by the Feds?
I wrote this after hearing a radio interview in which an art detective revealed how a stolen Titian was dumped at a bus stop outside Richmond station. In a red, white and blue plastic bag! I just couldn’t shake such a compelling image. I volunteered at Ham House for many years, and my passion for this Jacobean gem, together with the volunteers’ indomitable spirit, gave birth to my unlikely anti-hero.
With over five million members, the National Trust is a huge British institution. Yet, next to nothing has been written about it in terms of contemporary fiction. Until now.
While No Oil Painting explores themes of insignificance and loneliness in older age, particularly for women, it is mainly intended to entertain and offer a small haven in dark, uncertain times.
With a BA in English and Philosophy, Genevieve worked for eleven years at the Weekend FT, where she helped create and launch How To Spend It magazine.
She volunteered for years as a National Trust guide at Ham House. This became the setting for her debut art heist novel, No Oil Painting, which was listed for the inaugural Women’s Prize Trust and Curtis Brown Discoveries, and was published by Burton Mayers Books on 10th October 2025.
Her writing uses dark humour to probe the difference between our perception of people and their true selves. The gulf between what is said and what is meant. She considers people watching an essential skill for any writer; overheard snippets of conversation or a bonkers exchange at a bus stop are like gold nuggets. She’s been known to follow people to catch the end of a juicy conversation or argument. Women aged over fifty are essentially invisible anyhow and she views this as a kind of superpower.
Unlike her protagonist Maureen, she hasn’t used this to commit art theft. Yet.
Giveaway to Win National Trust chocolate, and a Ham House towel and fridge magnet (Open to UK Only)
My thoughts: This was a very funny and entertaining read, I loved Maureen and her careful planning of an art heist. She’s fed up of being invisible and overlooked. People seem to assume she’s not very clever, and that she’s not capable of anything as complex as stealing a painting in a busy and popular National Trust house, which it turns out, she absolutely is.
Some years ago I volunteered in a charity shop, most of the other volunteers were older women and they were fascinating, they’d all done interesting jobs and had lots of stories (my favourite was Carol – who used to work for a law firm which had celebrity clients, she met Julie Andrews and said she was very grand and a bit rude! I was shocked, she had great stories)
Maureen is very like those volunteers, she doesn’t want to just sit around at home and still has plenty to contribute. Her volunteering gives her something to do, and the National Trust, like many charitable organisations, relies on its volunteers. But even her fellow retired volunteers don’t think she’s quite as clever and cunning as she turns out to be.
I hope Maureen and her friends get up to more hijinks, maybe not too many crimes, but they certainly deserve adventures, and all sorts of things can happen at an old, possibly haunted, house!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
**Terms and Conditions –UK entries welcome. Please enter using the Gleam box below. The winner will be selected at random via Gleam from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.**
Durham Miners’ Gala suffers a bizarre disruption, and several high value artefacts are stolen.
When corpses begin turning up in abandoned County Durham coal mines, police detective Tony Milburn is pulled into a chilling mystery. All four dead within four days but can St Cuthbert’s ancient curse really be the cause?
Miles Hudson loves words and ideas.
He’s a physics teacher, surfer, author, hockey player, inventor, back packer and idler.
Born in Minneapolis, he has lived in Durham, North East England, for more than 35 years.
My thoughts: When two bodies are found in an old mine shaft, one a recent death, the other older, at first the police are puzzled, but when it happens again, in another mine shaft, it looks rather more sinister. Then there are the frogs, the fire, and thefts of artworks. Something much bigger is going on this summer, and what does it have to do with the missing treasures of St Cuthbert’s?
A clever and complex case emerges, who is behind the crime spree and are the deaths of the supposed treasure hunters connected? With the police spread thin investigating and attempting to safeguard the public, the annual miners’ gala taking over the town, it’s a hot, sweaty summer of chaos.
A really interesting, enjoyable crime novel, full of mystery and intrigue and a spate of terrible crimes that will keep both reader and characters guessing.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Tippy Chan is eleven years old, and she lives in a small town in a very quiet part of New Zealand– the town her Uncle Pike escaped as a teenager, the moment he got a chance. Now Pike is back with his new boyfriend Devon to look after Tippy while her mum is on a Christmas cruise.
Tippy can’t get enough of her uncle’s old Nancy Drew books. She wants to be Nancy and is desperate to solve a real mystery.
So, when her teacher’s body is found beside Riverstone’s only traffic light, it looks like Tippy’s moment has arrived. She and her minders form The Nancys, a secret detective club. But what starts as a bonding and sightseeing adventure quickly morphs into something far more dangerous.
A wrongful arrest, a close call with the murderer, and an intervention from Tippy’s mum all conspire against The Nancys. But regardless of their own safety, and despite the constant distraction of questionable fashion choices in the town that style forgot, The Nancys know only they can stop the killer from striking again. Whatever the cost…
R.W.R. McDonald (Rob) is an award-winning author, a Kiwi and Queer dad living in Melbourne with his two daughters and one HarryCat.
His debut novel, The Nancys, won Best First Novel in the 2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards, as well as being a finalist in the Best Novel category. It was shortlisted for Best First Novel in the 2020 Ned Kelly Awards, and Highly Commended for an Unpublished Manuscript in the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. His second novel, Nancy Business, was a finalist for Best Novel in the 2022 Ngaio Marsh Awards.
My thoughts: My aunt used to send me Nancy Drew books from America, but I never really got into them – tbf I was already reading Agatha Christie’s finest by ten, so maybe Nancy passed me by.
But for grieving eleven-year-old Tippy, the collection of Nancy Drews she’s grown up with, some of which were her grandmother’s and some her uncle’s are a source of inspiration and support. Her Uncle Pike has come to stay, bringing his boyfriend Devon and a huge sprinkle of glitter to the small New Zealand town he left as soon as he could.
Tippy’s mum has won a cruise, and has rather unwillingly agreed to leave her brother in charge of her home and daughter, hoping they can’t get into too much trouble while she’s gone.
Unfortunately for her, Tippy’s teacher is murdered, and with her Uncle Pike and Devon, Tippy has formed The Nancys, to investigate. It’s a small town, so the killer has to be someone she knows. The main suspect is an old friend of Pike’s, but the trio don’t think she’s guilty.
And while they’re solving this horrible crime, Tippy is still wondering what really happened to her dad, her mum won’t talk about him, and she’s worried she’s going to forget him.
This is such a bittersweet book, Tippy is grieving, only really has two friends, is stuck in a tiny town without really having many people around her. Her mum’s also wrapped in grief, burying herself in work, not able to talk to her daughter. Pike and Devon are kind but not very child friendly, their world in Sydney is very different from Riverstone, and they maybe aren’t making the best decisions in letting Tippy skip school and look for a murderer, but they’re loving and trying to find a way to help her.
I really liked it, and I think a lot of readers will embrace this curious crime solving team. I would say it’s suitable from about 10 upwards, but do bear in mind my wildly unsuitable reading material at that age!
*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 dead woman. A missing baby. A desperate race against time.
It’s a cold October dawn when Detective Lola gets the call. The body of a young woman has been found in the reeds at Darnley Glen park on the outskirts of Glasgow. There’s a vicious wound to her head.
She’s not been dead long. A shaken taxi driver insists he saw the victim just hours earlier, running through the darkness, clutching a newborn. But there’s no sign of the baby.
Then, a 999 call. A local businessman reports his ten-week-old son was kidnapped at gunpoint by a woman matching the victim’s description. But why did he wait so long to call the police? Lola’s instincts tell her he’s hiding something behind the walls of his plush suburban home.
Time is running out to find the missing child — but the truth is darker, and more twisted, than Lola could ever imagine.
Daniel Sellers is the author of the Kindle-bestselling Lola Harris Mysteries and is an obsessive fan of Agatha Christie. His crime thrillers are pacy and dark, with as much interest in whydunnit as who. He grew up in Yorkshire, and has lived and worked in Liverpool, Glasgow, Ireland and Finland. Sellers now lives in Argyll in Scotland.
My thoughts: Another cracking case for Lola and her team. A dead woman, a missing baby, and something deeply wrong going on. Why is the missing baby’s father being so difficult? Why does his story ring so hollow?
As Lola starts investigating, it seems something very wrong is going on a local university, with potential connections to her case.
This might be one of darkest, nastiest cases Lola has dealt with, and it has links to a senior officer in the force too, with implications for her job. But she’s determined to figure out what’s going on and why.
Another excellent, intelligent and gripping installment in this series.
*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 fatal fall. A duchess determined to uncover the truth. And barely any time for tea.
Fenshire, 1891. It was meant to be a birthday celebration weekend in the country— cucumber sandwiches, polite conversation, and maybe a waltz or two.
But when the Duke of Stortford is found dead in a crumpled heap at the foot of the stairs everything goes dreadfully sideways. The police declare it a tragic accident. His wife, Alice, has her doubts.
After all, only hours before, the Duke had promised to give up his mistress and make a go of their marriage. Now he’s inconveniently deceased.
Driven by a need for answers, and helped by her fiercely loyal maid Maud, her observant footman George, and her childhood friend Lord Rushton, Alice sets about uncovering the truth. But as she navigates a house full of secrets, simmering tensions, and more than one guest with murderously bad manners, her suspect pool grows to include those closest to her.
Can she piece together the truth? Or will her husband’s murderer get away with it after all?
The guests are leaving. The killer may be among them. Time is running out…
Helen Golden spins mysteries that are charmingly British, delightfully deadly, and served with a twist of humour.
With quirky characters, clever red herrings, and plots that keep the pages turning, she’s the author of the much-loved A Right Royal Cozy Investigation series, following Lady Beatrice and her friends— including one clever little dog—as they uncover secrets hidden in country houses and royal palaces.
Her new historical mystery series, The Duchess of Stortford Mysteries, is set in Victorian England and introduces an equally curious sleuth from Lady Beatrice’s own family tree—where murders are solved over cups of tea, whispered gossip, and overheard conversations in drawing rooms and grand estates.
Helen lives in a quintessential English village in Lincolnshire with her husband, stepdaughter, and a menagerie of pets—including a dog, several cats, a tortoise, and far too many fish.
If you love clever puzzles, charming settings, and sleuths with spark, her books are waiting for you.
My thoughts: Alice, Duchess of Stortford, is visiting her parents’ estate for her father’s birthday, it’s also a reunion with her erstwhile husband, and a chance for them to give their marriage another go, after leading rather separate lives. Unfortunately Alice’s cousin, who also happens to be her husband’s mistress, is also there, as well as a rather determined widow looking for her next assignation.
And things seem to be going in Alice’s favour, when tragedy strikes and her husband, Vance, is found dead at the bottom of the stairs. But did he fall or was he pushed? Alice launches into investigation mode, perhaps to stave off her grief, but the things she uncovers could get someone the rope.
Everyone’s a suspect, even Alice’s family, until she can rule them out, or in. Either way, this is not quite the jolly weekend anyone was expecting.
With her signature humour and clever quips, once Alice gets a canine or feline chum, this will be classic Helen Golden crime, and all the more enjoyable for it!
*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 problem: his billionaire boss actually winds up murdered. And the whole world thinks he did it.
When globetrotting tech billionaire Barron Fisk is found dead on the floor of his swanky Silicon Valley office, all evidence points to Alan.
Alan must venture into the glitzy, treacherous world of tech billionaires to clear his name by sorting through a long list of suspects with motive aplenty. If he can’t find the real culprit, Alan’s going down.
The clock is ticking.
Who killed Barron Fisk? The truth will shock— and change— the entire world.
Fans of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club series, Carl Hiaasen’s tales of high-stakes hijinx, or Ruth Ware’s page-turning mysteries will love Death of a Billionaire.
Tucker May was raised in southern Missouri. He attended Northwestern University where he was trained in acting and playwriting. He now lives in Pasadena, California with his wife Barbara and their cat Principal Spittle. He is an avid reader and longtime fan of the Los Angeles Rams and Geelong Cats. Death of a Billionaire is his debut novel.
My thoughts: Alan Benning is probably the least likely murderer in the world. A quiet unassuming man, happiest dealing with numbers (he is an accountant) and when his boss is found dead in his office, the police don’t seem that interested in looking further.
His fingerprints are in the office, his shoe print outside and there’s CCTV of him going up to the floor. But Alan knows he didn’t do it. Luckily so does Sharla, formerly PA to Barron Fisk, and she wants to find the real killer. The unlikely duo team up to solve the case and keep Alan out of prison.
Funny and entertaining, voiced by a rather condescending narrator (all will be revealed), this is very 21st century, tech mogul murder.
*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 last thing Penny Carmichael expected when she joined the local bellringing group was for her debut to be thwarted by the discovery of a body just yards from the belfry door.
As her husband and his loyal team painstakingly sift through the evidence and delve deep into the dead man’s past, it’s clear that solving Peter Mackenzie’s murder may prove a challenge, even for someone with DCI Carmichael’s renowned detective prowess.
What was a man who’d lived for decades in North London doing in Moulton Bank? Was his chequered past a factor? And what about the other members of Penny’s bellringing group. Did any of them have a reason to do Peter harm?
As the case unfolds, DCI Carmicheal and his trusty team seek answers to a complex puzzle which leads them along various paths and, at times, way outside the comfort zone of their rural Lancashire surroundings.
This fast-paced, cleverly crafted whodunit is the eleventh murder mystery in the gripping Carmichael series from the pen of Ian McFadyen.
Ian McFadyen was born in Liverpool and enjoyed a successful career in marketing before becoming a writer. Ian’s titles are available in Italian and Czech and, although the author isn’t totally convinced it’s true, he’s been favourably compared with Wilkie Collins and Colin Dexter. He lives in Hertfordshire with his wife but spends a great deal of his time writing in his bolthole retreat on the Norfolk / Suffolk border. The Corpse Bell is the eleventh in his series featuring DCI Carmichael.
FacebookWebsite Twitter / X : @ianMcFadyen1 Instagram : @ianwmcfadyen
My thoughts: The victim might have been murdered in Moulton Bank but he lived near me in North London, so that made me smile.
This is a cleverly plotted, slightly convoluted to keep the detectives on their toes, story, where incidents in the past come to matter a great deal. The deceased, Peter MacKenzie, wasn’t a very nice man, a convicted embezzler, he ran a heir finding business and returned to Moulton Bank, where he’d grown up, for reasons unknown.
Found outside the church bell tower by two bellringers, the police are puzzled, why was he there? Was he meeting someone, and if so, who? His wife thought he was in Yorkshire, at a conference, but clearly that wasn’t the case.
And when one of the bellringers who had found him is also murdered, the plot thickens. What was this man’s connection to it all?
As DCI Carmichael and his team look into the lives of both victims, they uncover some unpleasant things, and slowly piece together the puzzle of who killed them.
I love a carefully constructed, slow burn case, where the tiniest details help bring things together, where the police are looking for the mistakes the killer has made, the things they’ve overlooked, much as in this case.
Really enjoyable (can I really say that about murder? I think I can!) and peopled with interesting characters. That’s another series I now need to read all the backlist books for!
*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 DETECTIVE NICKI HARDCASTLE IN THIS GRIPPING SUFFOLK-BASED CRIME SERIES.
One broken body. Seven missing teeth. A killer who’s only just begun.
Detective Nicki Hardcastle is midway through painting her living room — she’s supposed to be off-duty — when the call comes in. ‘You might want to see this one, boss.’
Minutes later, she’s standing at the foot of a four-storey townhouse in the heart of Bury St Edmunds. A man lies impaled on a black iron spike, his body blood-soaked and broken.
It appears Jacob Towers took his own life. But the details don’t add up. Why was the dead man carrying seven of his own teeth in his pockets?
Then a chilling voicemail surfaces: ‘It’s time to pay for what you did.’
Two days later, there’s another death. Just as sudden. Just as brutal. And once again — seven teeth.
Someone is dealing out justice, one gruesome death at a time. And they’ve only just begun . .
Michelle Kidd is a crime fiction author best known for the DI Jack MacIntosh and DI Nicki Hardcastle series. Michelle qualified as a legal executive in the early 1990s, spending ten years practising civil and criminal litigation. But the dream to write was never far from her mind and in 2008 she began writing the first book in what would later become the DI Jack MacIntosh series. Michelle now works full time for the NHS and lives in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. She enjoys reading, wine and cats — not necessarily in that order.
My thoughts: I’m not a fan of teeth, I hate going to the dentist, I go but it really sets my anxiety levels to sky high. There was a task in the last series of Taskmaster involving teeth that made me feel sick. And there’s a very disturbing scene in this book that I really didn’t like.
Having said that, it’s a very clever case, the team are often completely stumped because there’s nothing the victims have in common, beyond the seven teeth.
Whoever is behind these deaths, that at first glance appear to be suicides or accidents, is clever, manipulative and possibly a sadist.
Their motive is so well hidden, and without a key piece of evidence, they might never get the answers. It’s very well done, with plenty of shocking moments and twists. Michelle Kidd really knows how to hook you and keep you hooked.
*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 conspiracy that will test Art Marvik to the limit.
Meet Art Marvik. A battle-hardened commando with the scars to prove it. He’s used to high-stakes operations. But nothing has prepared him for what awaits in the coastal town of Ballycotton, Ireland . . .
Marvik receives a disturbing call from the Garda. His friend and former comrade, Shaun Strathen, is missing. His yacht’s been found drifting in Ballyandreen Bay. But there’s no sign of Strathen.
A cryptic note is discovered onboard: Art, sorry it’s come to this. Look after things for me. Per Mare, Per Terram.
Marvik wastes no time. He heads straight for Ireland, determined to find his friend. His search leads him to a cottage by the sea. A decomposing body is discovered inside. It’s not Strathen.
If the body isn’t his comrade’s, then who is it? And where the hell is Strathen?
As Marvik digs deeper, the truth begins to unravel, but so do the dangers.
Can Marvik survive this lethal storm long enough to expose a network of criminal masterminds, and save his friend?
Adventure, mystery and heroes have always fascinated and thrilled Pauline, that and her love of the sea has led her to create her exciting and gripping range of crime novels.
Born and raised in the coastal city of Portsmouth in the UK, Pauline Rowson draws her inspiration for her crime novels from the area. When she isn’t writing (which isn’t often) she can be found walking the coastal paths on the Isle of Wight and around Langstone and Chichester Harbours looking for a good place to put a body!
Pauline is the author of twenty-four crime novels — sixteen featuring the rugged and flawed Portsmouth detective, Inspector Andy Horton; four in the mystery thriller series featuring Art Marvik, the troubled former Royal Marine Commando now an undercover investigator for the UK’s National Intelligence Marine Squad (NIMS); two standalone thrillers, the award-winning In Cold Daylight and In For the Kill, and the 1950 set mystery series featuring Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Alun Ryga, who makes his debut in Death in the Cove with his second investigation Death in the Harbour.
Her crime novels have been highly acclaimed in the UK, USA and Commonwealth and they have been translated into several languages. Multi-layered, fast-paced, and compelling, they are full of twists and turns and are played out against the dramatic and powerfully evocative British marine landscape of the south coast of England. Pauline is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association and the Society of Authors.
Before becoming a full-time writer, she was a renowned marketing and training guru, with a collection of ‘how to’ business books and a successful marketing, media and training career behind her.
My thoughts: Art Marvik finds himself in the middle of a complete nightmare situation after his friend Shaun goes missing in Ireland. His boat is at anchor in the bay, a strange thing to do if he really committed suicide. The clues lead Marvik to an old cottage and a dead body – which thankfully isn’t his friend.
But it all seems to be part of something much larger – a conspiracy that leads to murder, where Marvik can’t be sure who to trust, where a friend may not be quite who they seem to be.
A tangled web, full of dead ends, lies, and a knotty mess that Marvik must unravel before he ends up dead too.
*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 