blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Rule – David Jackson*

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, reviews

Blog Tour: The Lost Girls – Heather Young*

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.

blog tour, books, reviews

Book Blitz: The Perfect Murder – Kat Martin

ThePerfectMurder

Congratulations to Kat Martin on the release of The Perfect Murder! A romantic suspense perfect for the beach or pool! Read on for details and a chance to win a $20 Amazon e-gift card and a digital copy of The Ultimate Betrayal!

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The Perfect Murder

Publication Date: Today 🎉

Publisher: HQN

New York Times bestselling author Kat Martin is back with her most thrilling novel yet in the Maximum Security series—The Perfect Murder.

The eldest of the three wealthy Garrett brothers, Reese Garrett is in the middle of a major purchase for his multimillion-dollar oil and gas company, Garrett Resources. The Poseidon offshore drilling platform venture will greatly enhance the company’s value.

But when Reese is on a trip out to see the rig, his helicopter crashes, leaving him hospitalized and two men dead. It’s discovered the chopper was sabotaged, and Reese is determined to find out who’s behind the crash—and whether he was the intended target. Then, when his lover, Kenzie, is accused of her ex-husband’s murder—a man with a vested interest in the Poseidon deal—clues start pointing to a connection that puts Reese, Kenzie and her young son in the sights of a killer.

From the Texas heat to the Louisiana bayous, Reese and his brothers must track down the truth before the body count gets any higher.

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Chapter One

Galveston, Texas: Last Day of July

Seconds after the chopper lifted off the pad, Reese felt the odd vibration.  Along with the pilot and co-pilot and five members of the crew, the Eurocopter EC135 was headed for the Poseidon offshore drilling platform. 

For a moment, the ride leveled out and Reese relaxed against his seat.  As CEO of Garrett Resources, the billion-dollar oil and gas company he owned with his brothers, he was always searching for the right investment to expand company holdings, the reason he was flying out to the platform.

For months he’d been working with Sea Titan Drilling, the owner of the offshore rig, to complete the five-hundred-million-dollar purchase, an extremely good value when the average price of a similar rig was around six-fifty. 

The vibration returned and with it came a grinding noise that put Reese on alert.  The men in the cabin began to glance back and forth and shift nervously in their seats.  A sharp jolt, then the chopper seemed to fall out of the sky.  It climbed again, began to dip and sway, dropped then climbed as the pilot fought for control.

The pilot’s deep voice rumbled through the headset.  “We’ve got a problem.  I don’t want you to panic, but we need to find a place to set down.” 

There was definitely a problem, Reese thought, as the vibration continued to worsen.  The chopper was out of control and the whole cabin was shaking as if it would break apart any minute.  His pulse was hammering, his adrenalin pumping.

 Along with the men in the crew who rode back and forth from the rig every few weeks, he stared out the window toward the ground.  They were no longer above the heliport.  Clearly the pilot was looking for an open space big enough to handle the thirty-six-foot blade span.  All Reese could see were the rooftops of warehouses and metal commercial buildings.

The chopper kept shaking.  The crew was grim-faced but resigned.  The pilot did something to take the pitch out of the rotors and the chopper started falling.

“No need to worry,” the pilot said.  “We’ll auto-rotate down.  I’ve done it a dozen times.”

Auto rotate down.  Reese knew the concept, the technique helicopter pilots used to land when the engine failed.  The trick was to find a safe place to hit the ground. 

Both engines went silent.  The blades were flat now, the wind whistling through them, tying his stomach into a knot.

“Brace for impact,” the pilot said.  Below them, Reese spotted an open flat slab of asphalt in the yard of a small trucking firm–the only possible landing site anywhere around.  Trouble was it didn’t look wide enough to handle the blades. 

At the last second, the pilot flared the helicopter in an effort to slow the descent, then the ground rushed up and the chopper hit with a jolt that wracked Reese’s whole body.

For an instant, he thought they were going to make it.  Then one of the spinning rotor blades hit the corner of a building and tore free.  The Plexiglas bubble shattered as the long metal blades exploded into a hundred deadly pieces, careening like knives through the air, slicing into buildings and the cabin of the helicopter. 

Reese didn’t feel the impact.  One moment he was conscious, then the world suddenly went black.

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About the Author

Kat Martin head shot (high res)

New York Times Bestselling author Kat Martin, a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara, currently resides in Missoula, Montana with Western-author husband, L. J. Martin.  More than seventeen million copies of Kat’s books are in print, and she has been published in twenty foreign countries.  Fifteen of her recent novels have taken top-ten spots on the New York Times Bestseller List, and her novel, BEYOND REASON, was recently optioned for a feature film.

Kat Martin | FacebookTwitter | BookBub | Instagram

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blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Five Things – Beth Merwood*

For nine-year-old Wendy, the summer of 1969 will never be forgotten.
Local kids have always told stories about the eerie wood on the outskirts of the village, and Wendy knows for sure that some of them are true. Now the school holidays have started and she’s going to the wood again with Anna and Sam, but they soon become convinced that someone is trying to frighten them off.
When a terrible event rocks the coastal community, the young friends can’t help thinking there must be a connection between the incident, the tales they’ve heard, and the strange
happenings they’ve begun to witness. As glimpses of a darker world threaten their carefree existence, they feel compelled to search out the underlying truth.

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Beth Merwood is from the south of England. The Five Things is her debut novel.

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My thoughts: this is a sweet and sad story about childhood and the death of a young boy. Wendy narrates the events of the summer of 1974, when her friend’s younger brother went missing. It shatters a lot of the innocence of simple summer pleasures and forces the children to grow up quickly – darkness forcing its way into their lives.

As she grows up, what happened to Tommy stays with her, as do The Five Things – the key points she and her friends felt were not fully investigated and could explain what led to Tommy’s death. Their beliefs may ultimately be wrong, but they attempt to find answers anyway.

A bittersweet tale of childhood’s end, when summer becomes darker and the real world intrudes.

*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: Phosphate Rocks – Fiona Erskine*

During the demolition of a factory, a shocking discovery is made: a mummified corpse encased in a carapace of hardened dust – phosphate rock – surrounded by ten objects that provide tantalising clues as to its identity…

A professional engineer with forty years of international manufacturing experience, Fiona Erskine’s first graduate job was in the factory described in Phosphate Rocks. Born in Edinburgh, Fiona grew up riding motorbikes and jumping into cold water. After studying chemical engineering at university, she learned to weld, cast and machine with apprentices in Paisley. As a professional engineer she has worked and travelled internationally and is now based in the North East of England. Her first novel, The Chemical Detective, which was shortlisted for the Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award 2020, was followed by The Chemical Reaction.

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My thoughts: this was really interesting in several different ways. As well as solving the death and putting a name to the body found beneath the old chemical factory, each object becomes the story of the men and women who worked there, of the chemicals they processed and the machines they used. It was utterly fascinating and so well written that even the science bits were absorbing (I’m not always very good with chemistry).

Inspired by the factory the author started her career in, and the real working men and women of Leith, this is an ode to a different time and the people who lived in it. Bits are very sad and shocking, but I found it utterly engaging and wanted to hear more stories of the various characters who could be found inside the factory gates.

*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 – 20/20 – Carl Goodman*

Can you see a killer before it’s too late?

On the first day of her new job, D.I. Eva Harris is called to the scene of a brutal murder at the heart of Surrey society. A shocking crime by a meticulous killer – who escaped with the victim’s eyes.

With the body drained of blood and no forensic evidence left at the scene, Harris’ efforts to find the killer becomes desperate. But as her investigation is complicated by corruption at the heart of the police, she doesn’t know who to trust on her own team.

As the pressure mounts, Eva realises the murder is even more horrific than it seems, and her own dreadful history threatens to be drawn out with it…

A dark and compulsive detective novel, for fans of Chris Carter and M.W Craven.

Carl Goodman is from Surrey and 20/20 is his first crime thriller. It introduces Eva Harris, a newly promoted DI with a computer science background, thrown in at the deep end with an especially gruesome murder. Carl likes hard-hitting, contemporary stories with dark and unusual themes and is currently working on more DI Eva Harris novels.

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My thoughts: this is a grisly one and no mistake. I could picture the exact scene in Le Chien Andalou as soon as it was mentioned. I think all the crime fiction I read means I’m not very squeamish but I know eyes are where some people (including Mr Mads) draw the line. It grosses them out too much. And I do get it. But it just doesn’t bother me. However, someone is killing innocent people and stealing their eyes, which is super weird and there might actually be two killers here.

I liked Eva, I felt a bit sorry for her as she was being manipulated by a particularly nasty boss, trying to solve two sets of murders, and not die because someone keeps trying to kill her. But she’s tough, holds her ground and does her job, even when, as a cyber specialist, she feels completely out of her depth. Her team are pretty capable too, and she comes to rely on them, building a strong relationship especially with Becka Flynn. I can’t wait to see what other cases await this crack team in leafy Surrey.

I related to the area too, my grandparents live not far from Kingston and I went there a lot as a teenager and student, so I know it well. Always entertaining seeing your old haunts through new eyes as it were!

I really enjoyed this book, I’d been in a bit of a slump and turns out what I needed was a series of truly brutal killings to get me out of it. Not entirely sure what that says about me though…

*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: Castle Shade – Laurie R. King*

A queen, a castle, a dark and ageless threat–all await Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes in this chilling new adventure.

The queen is Marie of Roumania: the doubly royal granddaughter of Victoria, Empress of the British Empire, and Alexander II, Tsar of Russia. A famous beauty who was married at seventeen into Roumania’s young dynasty, Marie had beguiled the Paris Peace Conference into returning her adopted country’s long-lost provinces, singlehandedly transforming Roumania from a backwater into a force.

The castle is Bran: a tall, quirky, ancient structure perched on high rocks overlooking the border between Roumania and its newly regained territory of Transylvania. The castle was a gift to Queen Marie, a thank-you from her people, and she loves it as she loves her own children.

The threat is . . . well, that is less clear. Shadowy figures, vague whispers, the fears of girls, dangers that may be only accidents. But this is a land of long memory and hidden corners, a land that had known Vlad the Impaler, a land from whose churchyards the shades creep.

When Queen Marie calls, Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are as dubious as they are reluctant. But a young girl is involved, and a beautiful queen. Surely it won’t take long to shine light on this unlikely case of what would seem to be strigoi?

Or, as they are known in the West . . . vampires.

Laurie R King giveaway! There’s a great giveaway on the Allison & Busby website at the moment, it’s open to everyone and closes on June 30th. (Please let me win it!!)  

Order a copy of this book for £15, get a signed bookplate. Use code share15 and get free P&P too!

Listen to the author reading from Castle Shade on YouTube.

My thoughts: this was a really enjoyable edition to the Russell and Holmes series – one I’ve dipped in an out of but haven’t quite managed to read all of them yet. Mind you it took me a while to read all of the original Sherlock Holmes stories too.

An older Holmes and his spirited young wife and partner Mary Russell, head off to Romania at the request of its Queen Marie – granddaughter of Queen Victoria and one of the real figures in this series.

She is worried about a threat against her youngest daughter’s life and their happiness in Castle Bran (which may have inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula) is damaged by her fears. Holmes and Russell investigate the spate of strange incidents that have occurred during the queen’s visits.

There’s lots of adventure and derring do in the nighttime countryside as the pair attempt to keep watch over the village and identify the culprit – then things escalate.

A really fun, slightly silly romp through 1920s history – royalty, the looming threat of the Bolsheviks in Russia (Queen Marie was Nicholas II’s cousin), hysteria, folklore and bitterness. Mary Russell is a tremendous character, a perfect modern female foil to Holmes’ slightly old fashioned ways and a lot quicker on the ball than dear Dr Watson back at home in London.

*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: Not In My Name – Michael Coolwood*

Private Eye meets Agatha Christie
What if the British people had been given a vote about invading Iraq in 2003. And the referendum split the nation with a 52% to 48% yes vote. A young activist is beaten to death after an anti-war demonstration. The police say her murder was random. It wasn’t. More activists will be murdered.
The activists only trust each other. Maybe that trust has already been betrayed. Witty, political and
provocative, this New Adult mystery is based on real events, and keeps the reader guessing to the very end.

Amazon UK (paperback)
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Amazon US (e-book)
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Michael Coolwood writes feminist cosy mysteries. His work is deeply political and his characters are
driven by a desire to make the world a better place. This is partly due to a respect for passionate, caring people, and partly because cuts to the health service in the UK have ensured he can barely leave the house due to his swamp of health problems. Read about his books and ongoing crises at
coolwoodbooks.com

Michael Coolwood

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Giveaway to Win a Paperback of Not in My Name by Michael Coolwood (UK Only) a Rafflecopter giveaway rules below.

My thoughts: this was a really interesting book, both in premise and in execution. The idea that a referendum on the Iraq War could be as aggressive and divisive as Brexit is very intriguing – and in this instance leads to shocking violence and tragedy.

It also draws on real events that were only brought to light in the early 2000s – and does so in a clever and compelling way. No spoilers here but I will say I am impressed with how it is done, reminding readers that there is injustice that still hasn’t been addressed.

The investigation that Phoebe and Sefu carry out among their fellow activists on the farm and how they learn the truth about Cassie’s death has an element of the Agatha Christie country house it-must-be-one-of-us stories, but the conclusion is both more shocking and sadder than anything Poirot could have found. A decision is made that will change some of the characters lives forever. I really enjoyed this thought provoking novel, its humour and pathos were engaging and entertaining while leaving plenty to ruminate on.

*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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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.**

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Out of Sight – Paul Gitsham*

His biggest mistake was trusting someone he shouldn’t have…

When a body is found abandoned under a bridge, teeth and fingerprints removed, DCI Warren Jones and his team have little to go on. And once they finally identify the victim, the case doesn’t get any easier.

Estranged from his family but desperate to reconnect, the victim led a solitary life – apart from secretive liaisons with a series of partners he met online. Could one of them be guilty of his murder? Or does the truth lie closer to home?

The more Warren digs, the murkier the picture becomes – re-written family wills, sabotaged CCTV footage and black-market deals are just the beginning. Only one thing is for sure: whoever was behind the brutal murder, they carefully won the trust of their victim before ending his life…

My thoughts: a complex and clever case, where nothing is straightforward and there are more than a few suspects.

DCI Jones digs into the victim’s life as he hunts for a killer, finding a broken and bitter family with plenty of secrets and a double life that led to murder. Obsessed with spy films and living beyond his means, a desperately lonely man who didn’t have much in the way of friends or happiness, trying to keep his life from his unpleasant father and find a way to please him. There’s a knotty web to untangle to get to the truth and some other criminal activity comes to light as the case unfolds.

In a way the victim is very present throughout the story, despite it beginning with his death, Warren and his team have to dismantle all his carefully built secrets, the hotel room, hire car, credit cards that lead them to finally solving a case. It would help if the various suspects would just tell the truth, but that would make quite a dull story!

*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: Preacher Boy – Gwyn GB*

IT’S TIME FOR A NEW CRIME MYSTERY HERO

Dr Harrison Lane is everything you wouldn’t expect from a man with a psychology doctorate. For victims, he’s everything they need.
They look, but they don’t see…

As Head of the Metropolitan Police’s Ritualistic Behavioural Crimes Unit, Dr Harrison Lane knows his Voodoo from his Aum Shinrikyo and a Satanist from a Shaman.
Harrison had an unusual childhood, raised by a bohemian mother and one of the native American Shadow Wolves – the elite tracking squad that works with US Drug enforcers. After his mother’s murder, he dedicated his life to tracking down those who hide behind spiritualism and religion to do
evil.
Following the discovery of a missing boy’s body in what looks like a Satanic killing, Harrison is called in to help detectives. When a second boy is snatched, it becomes a race against time to save him, and sees Harrison come face-to-face with some dark secrets from his own childhood.
Preacher Boy is the first book in a gripping new crime mystery series from Amazon Top 20 bestselling
author, Gwyn GB. Perfect for fans of LJ Ross, JD Kirk, J.R. Ellis, J M Dalgliesh, Rachel Abbott, Joy Ellis and David Blake.

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Gwyn is an Amazon Top 20 bestselling author. She’s a former UK national TV newscaster and presenter, and journalist for national newspapers and magazines. Gwyn became a journalist because all she wanted to do was write and has finally realised her dream of being a full-time fiction author.
Born in the UK, Gwyn now lives in the Channel Islands with her family, including a rescue dog and 17-year-old goldfish.

Gwyn launched her debut novel, Islands as Gwyn Garfield-Bennett in 2016, the romantic suspense book rose quickly into the Amazon top 20. Her first crime mystery series, featuring DI Falle, launched with Lonely Hearts in 2017.
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My thoughts: this was a fast paced and clever police thriller, with a missing boy’s life at stake. The killer has a disturbing religious bent to his beliefs that he’s recreating in his crimes. Can Dr Harrison Lane decipher the clues and find the child in time?

Tense and gripping, the writing was so good I was completely hooked, this was a “can’t put it down” read.

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