Tag: historical fiction

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: I Am You – Victoria Redel

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A mesmerising historical novel, I Am You is a meditation on gender, an ode to artistic creation, and an unforgettable love story that reimagines the life of renowned painter Maria van Oosterwijck during the Dutch Golden Age.

At eight years old, Gerta Pieters is forced to disguise herself as a boy and sent to work for a genteel family. When their daughter Maria sees through Gerta’s ruse, she insists Gerta accompany her to Amsterdam and help her enter the elite, maledominated art world.

While Maria rises in the ranks of society as a painting prodigy, Gerta makes herself invaluable in every way: confidante, muse, lover. But as Gerta steps into her own talents, their relationship fractures into a complex web of obsession and rivalry, until the secrets they keep threaten to unravel everything.

Victoria Redel is a first-generation American poet and novelist. Her work has been widely anthologized, awarded, and translated in ten languages. Her debut novel, Loverboy (2001) was adapted for feature film directed by Kevin Bacon. Redel’s short stories, poetry and essays have appeared in Granta, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Bomb, One Story, Salmagundi, O and NOON. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment forthe Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center. Victoria is a professor in the graduate and undergraduate Creative Writing programs at Sarah Lawrence College.

My thoughts: I actually found this a very sad book in many ways, Gerta is often unhappy and mistreated by her mistress Maria, who mocks her in public and is hot and cold with her in private.

The two women live a strange life, Maria is feted by society for her artworks but the men of the art world are dismissive of her talent, because she’s not a man, while also hoping to make her their wife or mistress. 

She and Gerta become a couple, but must keep it secret from everyone. And as Gerta learns to paint and assist Maria, who suffers from what I think is Parkinson’s, unable to use her hands unless the tremors she suffers become apparent, their relationship changes.

Gerta narrates the story, and we see her pain and misery first hand. From being forced to dress and behave like a boy, to being raped by Maria’s horrible nephew. She finds little love in her life, often rejected by Maria, who toys with her and ultimately she is forced to make a decision that will affect them both.

Powerful, compelling and fascinating, this story of women in a man’s world, creative and cruel (Maria) and incredibly loving (Greta) is moving and intriguing, recreating a vanished world in Amsterdam.

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

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BBNYA Blog Tour: Miss Bennet’s Dragon – M. Verant

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Miss Bennet’s Dragon is the 10th place BBNYA 2025 finalist!
About BBNYA

BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 (17 in 2025) 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.

War threatens England, but Elizabeth Bennet’s battles are closer to home. She’s managing the family estate for her ailing father. Insufferable gentlemen keep bursting in to propose marriage. And most dangerous of all, she’s hiding a forbidden skill. Elizabeth can speak to draca, the small, fire-breathing dragons kept by gentry as frivolous status symbols.

When Napoleon’s spies attempt to steal draca, the distant war threatens even cozy Hertfordshire. Elizabeth seeks the aid of Mr. Darcy, the proud man whose proposal she once scorned. Amid the breathtaking halls of Pemberley, she discovers the truth: she is not the first woman to speak with draca. But with her secret revealed, the dark history of Pemberley tears her and Mr. Darcy apart.

One hope remains: her dangerous affinity to draca. But does she dare to trust legends and lost songs? And when a terrible betrayal threatens the man she loves, does she have a choice?

Miss Bennet’s Dragon is the first book in the award-winning Jane Austen Fantasy trilogy. For fans of Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and of course Jane Austen.

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M. Verant writes noblebright fantasy and sci-fi that’s exciting, romantic, and celebrates diversity and empowerment. His latest work is Emma’s Dragon, book 2 in the award-winning Jane Austen Fantasy series. Dragons of the Great Wyves, book 3 of the trilogy, is next, followed by Tiger Seed, a contemporary fantasy rooted in ancient Indus history. He collects Jane Austen paraphernalia and two-legged dragons while dodging wild turkeys in the San Francisco Bay Area. Follow him on Bluesky @mverant.com.

My thoughts: This was a lot of fun, it’s Pride & Prejudice & Dragons (not Zombies) and since I enjoy both the work of Miss Austen and dragons, right up my street, or should I say, in my library!

Lizzy Bennet discovers she can communicate with the small forms of draca that live in England, no true dragons exist, or so she believes (maybe St George put them off?) but married couples of her social class can bond with a variety of the smaller types, on their wedding night. A lot of the lore is shrouded in mystery, the church rather disapproves and not everyone can make it happen (like Mr Collins and poor Charlotte).

Mr & Mrs Bennet have a firedrake, a dog sized draca that Mrs B is somewhat afraid of, but Lizzy, and to some extent her sisters, are not. Which is handy when Lizzy starts to realise she can talk to them, and some of them talk back.

Most of the plot is familiar to fans of P&P but there are changes, the war against Napoleon is more important to this version than the original, and indeed a certain Arthur Wellesley shows up, turns out he and Darcy are old friends. There’s also a rather horrible change in one of the Bennet sisters, but Lizzy is still a remarkable, funny, intelligent heroine.

I really enjoyed this and now I’m off to read book two, which features a Miss Emma Woodhouse….

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

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Blog Tour: First of December – Karen Jennings

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On the 1st December 1838, all slaves were finally freed on South Africa, four years after slavery had officially been abolished.

First of December follows three people during the week of November 1838: James and Caroline Kendrick, and an unnamed runaway slave making her way to Cape Town along the coast, desperate to reach it by midnight on the 31st November.

Caroline is trapped in an unhappy marriage, in a place she hates, always longing to go home; bored, lonely, without purpose or any sense of belonging. James is forever on the move, desperate for success after a lifetime of failure and humiliation, seeing South Africa as his last great hope, preparing for the climax of his work, a bank to serve the city. Each resents the other, feeling trapped and unloved, yet with a wish for it all to change.

Meanwhile the slave-apprentice, fearful of being caught before the deadline, meets others living on the coast, at the edge of society, yet always remaining alone, without any clear idea of what to expect in Cape Town.

My thoughts: This is a slender book that packs some serious thought-provoking heft. As the true freedom for South Africa’s slaves approaches, the British settlers fuss and worry about whether they will be murdered in their beds (maybe you should have treated your slaves better) when the 1st of December arrives. 

Caroline is miserable, her husband never comes anywhere near her after her battle with typhus, she doesn’t really have any friends and she misses her family back home. Lonely and frustrated, she relies on Leah, her maid, who she thinks will stay with her once she is free.

Caroline’s husband James is worrying about his standing, he doesn’t think much about his wife and her feelings, scared that his business plans will all fall apart, that his bank will fail and he will be forced to return to England in disgrace. He’s broke and keeping it hidden is causing terrible stress.

The unnamed slave heading for the city, looking for a new start, a fresh page, the safety of anonymity. She’s terrified as she travels alone through potentially dangerous places, unsure of what she will find in the city, but certain anything has to be better than where she’s left.

All three characters stand on the cusp of huge changes, in their personal lives, in their society and country. The British like James and Caroline might have to adjust to life without staff, or at least to paying their servants.

But the freed slaves, embodied by the Everygirl making her way to the city, face uncertainty too. Will they be able to find paid employment, will they be able to find safe places to live, feed their families, reunite with their families who have been sent elsewhere?

Thoughtful and quietly moving, the shift comes quietly with the new day, not with the violence the military believes they will have to quell, but with a slow understanding that things will be, must be, different from now 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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Blog Tour: Secrets Taken to the Grave – Isobel Blackthorn

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The Scottish Highlands, 1893.

Ingrid Barker arrives back at Strathbairn to attend the funeral of her old employer, Charles McCleod.

Every bone in Ingrid’s body screams for her to leave, and as she walks from the graveside, she can’t shake the suspicion that Charles was murdered. As she hurries to uncover the truth and get away from Strathbairn, another murder takes place – one that traps her in the very place she is desperate to escape from.

Running out of time and clues, can Ingrid evade the truth of that terrible night up at the abbey the last time she was here, and can she solve the mystery of Charles’ death before his ghost does away with her?

An unputdownable gothic mystery laced with dark family secrets, SECRETS TAKEN TO THE GRAVE is the second book in the Strathbrain Trilogy series of historical mystery novels by Isobel Blackthorn.

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Isobel Blackthorn is an award-winning author of immersive and inspiring fiction. She has penned over twenty-five books including a number of bestsellers.

Among her credits, Isobel’s biographical short story ‘Nothing to Declare’, which forms the first chapter of her biographical novel Emma’s Tapestry, was shortlisted for the Ada Cambridge Prose Prize 2019. One of her Canary Islands novels, A Prison in the Sun, was shortlisted in the LGBTQ
category of the Readers’ Favorite Book Awards 2020 and the International Book Awards 2021. The Cabin Sessions was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award 2018 and the Ditmar Awards 2018.
And The Unlikely Occultist: A biographical novel of Alice A. Bailey received an Honorable Mention in the 2021 Reader’s Favorite Book Awards.

Blackthorn is the author of the world’s only biography of Theosophist and mother of the New Age movement Alice Bailey – Alice A. Bailey: Life & Legacy. Isobel’s writing has appeared in journals and
websites around the world, including Esoteric Quarterly, New Dawn Magazine, Paranoia, Mused Literary Review, Trip Fiction, Backhand Stories, Fictive Dream and On Line Opinion. Isobel was a judge
for the Australasian Shadow Awards 2020 long fiction category. Her book reviews have appeared inNew Dawn Magazine, Esoteric Quarterly, Shiny New Books, Sisters in Crime, Australian Women Writers, Trip Fiction and Newtown Review of Books.

Isobel’s interests are many and varied. She has a long-standing association with the Canary Islands, having lived in Lanzarote in the late 1980s. A humanitarian and campaigner for social justice, in 1999
Isobel founded the internationally acclaimed Ghana Link, uniting two high schools, one a relatively  privileged state school located in the heart of England, the other a materially impoverished school in
a remote part of the Upper Volta region of Ghana, West Africa. After working as a teacher, market  trader and PA to a literary agent, she arrived at writing in her forties, and her stories are as diverse and intriguing as her life has been.

Isobel has performed her literary works at events in a range of settings and given workshops in  creative writing.

British by birth, Isobel entered this world in Farnborough, Kent, UK. She has lived in England, Australia, Spain and the Canary Islands. She now lives and writes in Spain. She is currently at work on two novels composed in Spanish.

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My thoughts: Ingrid returns to Strathbrain for the funeral of her former employer, despite misgivings. What she learns there is that his supposed natural death wasn’t.

And there’s more – she finds a history of the McCleod family that details the bloody history of the members. Generations of them with murder on their minds. It makes her even more concerned about staying there as Miles is behaving strangely. Is he the one Charles’ ghost wants her to identify as his killer?

Her daughter, Susan, is happily settled in with the house’s staff, baking with the cook, helping the maid clean the fireplaces. It makes it harder for Ingrid to insist on returning to Winchester soon. She also learns some things about her own family, but these are happier. Until bones are found in the old Abbey and bring up more recent history and could change everything. 

Haunted and sinister, Strathbrain is not a friendly house, but by putting its ghosts to bed, things might finally change. And as Christmas approaches, putting the past behind them and starting the new year fresh is something Ingrid really wants.

The plot zigs and zags, every time Ingrid thinks she might escape, something happens to keep her there. All the twists kept me wondering what might happen next, were Ingrid and Susan at risk? Hopefully the darkness is behind them and when Ingrid next returns to Scotland it’s for happier reasons. But probably not!

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

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Blog Tour: Book of Forbidden Words – Louise Fein

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“What power lay there in words on a page. And with that thought, Charlotte knew she would not rest until she had seen what was in the manuscript that Lysbette so desperately wanted to preserve in print.”

1552, Paris: Against a backdrop of turmoil, suspicion, and paranoia, the printing press is quickly spreading new ideas across Europe, threatening the power of church and state and unleashing a wave of book burning and heretic hunting. When frightened ex-nun Lysbette Angiers arrives one day at Charlotte Guillard’s famous printing shop with her manuscript, neither woman knows just how far the powerful elite will go to prevent the spread of Lysbette’s audacious ideas.

1952, New York: Milly Bennett, lonely and unmoored, is a seemingly ordinary housewife with a secretive past. Balancing the day-to-day boredom of keeping house and struggling to find her way with the mothers at her children’s school, she finds her life taking an unexpected turn as conspiracies spread amidst the paranoid clamors of McCarthy’s America. When a relic from her past presents her with a 400-year-old manuscript to decipher, she is reluctantly pulled into a vortex of danger that threatens to shatter her world.

From the risky backstreets of sixteenth-century Paris to the unpredictable suburbs of midtwentieth century New York, the stakes couldn’t be higher when, 400 years apart, Milly, Lysbette, and Charlotte each face a reality where the spread of ideas are feared and every effort is made to suppress them.

Dramatic and affecting, and inspired by the real-life encrypted Voynich manuscript, Book of Forbidden Words is both an engrossing story about a timeless struggle that echoes through the ages and a testament to the indomitable spirit of those who dare to let their words be heard.

Louise Fein is the author of Daughter of the Reich, which has been published in thirteen territories, the international bestseller The Hidden Child, and The London Bookshop Affair. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from St Mary’s University. She lives in Surrey, UK, with her family.

My thoughts: I really enjoyed this book, it wove a fascinating story through the lives of three women whose lives are affected by the manuscript.

Lysbette was a ward of Thomas More, who inspired by his Utopia she creates her incredible document, offering a proto-feminist idyll, a world where women are not at the whims of men.

Charlotte, based on a real life historical figure, is the person Lysbette entrusts her manuscript to, asking for it to be printed shortly before she is tragically murdered.

Finally the manuscript resurfaces 400 years later and is given to Milly, who once worked at Bletchley Park, with the request that she attempt to decode it and find out what is contained within. She was once a bit of an expert in Ancient Greek and Latin, before the war and her marriage. Her language skills come back to her as she attempts to interpret the secrets hidden in Lysbette’s work. 

All three women face adversity and are overlooked and poorly treated by the men around them. Each is ahead of her time in so many ways.

Lysbette’s incredible writing was too much for her own time, but could have been seen as incendiary in the tense religious and political environment she lives in. As a practicing Catholic and former nun in newly Protestant England, she runs a terrible risk. Forced into an unwanted marriage with a violent man, she takes a risk in taking the manuscript to Charlotte.

Charlotte in her turn is already on the list of subversives for publishing books that the church disapproves of. Her printers is raided following a supposed tip off that she’s once again printing illegal works. But her decision to produce a singular copy of Lysbette’s text, encoded in the hope that one day the world will be ready for it, is still incredibly brave and surprising.

Milly was probably my favourite character. Having worked at Bletchley Park decoding the messages of the Nazi war machine, and with an unfinished degree in Classics, she’s a bored and frustrated 50s housewife, trapped in America’s new suburbia.

Being given the mysterious manuscript by her former boss changes everything. It’s the height of McCarthyism and the world is filled with conspiracies and neighbours watching each other. Milly already doesn’t fit in, and her preoccupation with the manuscript looks suspicious to the paranoid residents of the town.

Her only real friends, librarian Susan and editor Myra, are also under investigation as ‘subversives’. Because anyone, especially women, who don’t fit into the mould, can’t be trusted.

There is plenty to make me angry, because it doesn’t feel like much has changed sometimes, and it’s so frustrating that even today, something like Lysbette’s incredible manuscript would still be considered questionable. All the progress we’ve made so far, and a women led Utopia would still be seen as too much.

It’s a really, really good book, and I am fascinated by the inspiration for it, the as yet unencrypted Voynich manuscript, which might also be written by a woman or women, and might even contain something as incredible as the one in this book.

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

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Blog Tour: A Dowager is Done In – Helen Golden

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A mysterious summons. A fatal hot chocolate. And a duchess who never expected mourning to be this dreadfully dull.

Hampshire, 1891. Six months into widowhood, Alice, Duchess of Stortford, is restless. Black gowns and seclusion in the country have their limits, so when Clarissa, Dowager Countess of Romley, sends a personal summons asking for her discreet assistance with a troubling matter at Lawrence House, Alice seizes the excuse for a change of scene.

But what begins as a family gathering to welcome home the Dowager’s once-disgraced son ends in shock. Clarissa is discovered dead, her passing swiftly dismissed as a heart attack. Alice knows better.

The Dowager had been afraid — and had trusted her to uncover the truth. Someone silenced her, but why? Was it to do with the announcement she made over dinner, or something even more dangerous?

Now everyone in the house is a suspect: the resentful heir, the returning prodigal, the mysterious guest with a too-familiar face. With her sharp-witted maid Maud, steadfast footman George, and her
reluctant ally Lord Rushton at her side, Alice must act quickly. If the Dowager was murdered to keep her secrets buried, the killer will not hesitate to strike again.

The Dowager is dead. The clock is ticking. And the duchess is about to discover that country house parties can be murder.

Full of clever twists and a heroine who won’t give up until she finds out the truth, A Dowager is Done-in is the perfect escape for fans of historical mysteries wrapped in wit and warmth.

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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.

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My thoughts: Alice, Duchess of Stortford has been invited to the home of the Dowager Countess of Romley by the lady herself, she needs Alice’s help, but before she can explain why, she is murdered.

And so, Alice and her band of assistants, maid Maud, footman George and friends Fee and Baxter (and her reluctant brother Duncan) must find out who killed the Dowager and why. Was it her recently returned prodigal son? But if it is over the will of the Countess or something else? Alice must get to the bottom of the family’s troubles and find a murderer before it is too late.

I really like this series, Alice is clever and quick, her servants are excellent sidekicks and even chatty, scatty Fee comes in very useful in getting information on their suspects.

It’s another clever and satisfying read from Helen Golden.

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

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Blog Tour: The Stolen Sister – Jan Baynham

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Lost letters. A secret Greek love affair. A daughter’s search for the truth.

Crete, 1963. Young artist Greta Ellis arrives at the sun-soaked port of Fáros Limáni,
ready to paint and explore the beautiful Greek island.
When she meets passionate local Andreas Papadakis, she is swept up in a world of
colour, freedom and forbidden love. But when tragedy strikes, Greta is forced to make an impossible choice that will echo for decades.

Wales, 1984. After her mother Greta’s death, silversmith Zoë Carter receives a sealed letter that upends everything she thought she knew. Greta’s dying wish is for her ashes to be scattered in Crete, a place precious to her . . . but somewhere she had never spoken of.

Searching through her mother’s belongings, Zoë uncovers a series of letters. Written in Greek and dated the year before she was born, they reveal a passionate love affair. And a tragedy that tore it apart.

Determined to know the truth, Zoë travels to Crete to follow the trail left behind in her mother’s letters. Through the olive groves and whitewashed villages of Crete, she begins to piece together a story of love, betrayal and loss — and discovers that her
family was never what it seemed.

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Fascinated by family secrets and ‘skeletons lurking in cupboards’, Jan’s dual narrative,
dual timeline novels explore how decisions and actions made by family members from one generation impact on the lives of the next. Her first three novels look at the bond between mothers and daughters as well as forbidden love.

Setting and a sense of place plays an important part in all Jan’s stories and as well as her native mid-Wales, there is
always a contrasting location – Greece, Sicily and northern France. Her next books will involve secrets and sibling relationships; the first set in 1943 and 1968 takes the reader back to beautiful Sicily where two sisters work together to prove their father’s innocence of a wrongdoing.

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My thoughts: Have the tissues handy! This is a bittersweet story of family, loss and love that takes us from green Wales to sunny Crete and back in time to the 1960s, when young artist Greta found love and heartbreak on the island.

Twenty odd years later, her daughter Zoë follows in her footsteps to honour Greta’s last request and scatter her mother’s ashes on the island. Why? Zoë has no idea. Her mum never spoke of the place.

What Zoë uncovers will change everything she thought she knew about her parentage, her family and her life.

I really enjoyed this book, which tugs on the heartstrings and is truly one of those books where the sad parts and the happy parts co-exist and blend together beautifully.

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

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Blog Tour: The Other Moctezuma Girls –  Sofia Robleda

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Tenochtitlan, 1551. Thirty years after the Spanish Conquest destroyed everything she loved, the last Aztec empress has passed and left behind a pristine yet tenuous legacy for her children. As her last will and testament is read out, her daughter Isabel suspects that another account of her mother’s life may exist, hidden away, chapter by chapter, in the Valley of Mexico. Following each clue, Isabel is determined to find out who her mother really was and to discover the secrets she buried in order to survive.

Joined by her siblings and a handsome young cook named Juan, Isabel embarks on a perilous journey to piece together the past–a journey that will force the party to brave the brutal viceroyal court, face fearsome legends in mystical chinampas, and trek through desert, fire, and snow. As Isabel’s feelings for Juan grow, she confronts everything she thought she knew about her Spanish father, her empress mother, and herself. Facing everything from the tunnels of ancient pyramids to the summit of an active volcano, Isabel will meet every challenge to fulfill an epic quest for the truth.

Sofia Robleda is a Mexican writer and author of Daughter of Fire. She spent her childhood and adolescence in Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore, and completed her undergraduate and doctorate degrees in psychology at the University of Queensland, Australia. She currently lives in the UK with her husband and son, and splits her time between writing, raising her son, and working as a psychologist, supporting people with brain injuries and neurological conditions. For more information, visit sofiarobleda.com or follow @sofiarobleda on Instagram.

My thoughts: This was a really interesting and enjoyable book. The only things I know about Mexican history have been filtered through a European lens, so to read something written by someone determined to preserve pre-Conquest history and culture was really good.

Plus it’s a terrific story. The daughters of the last Mexica empress, Isabel and Catina, go on an epic quest across the country seeking out the chapters of their late mother’s memoir, revealing the events of the Spanish conquest, of the terrible slaughter, plague and destruction that followed, which killed thousands of innocent natives and allowed the Spanish to seize control of the country.

Although the girls are pledged to become nuns and stay out of men’s hands, they are putting off that destiny to uncover their mother’s story, and their true inheritance. Pursued by their own older, cruel, brothers and facing danger at every turn, they are brave and resourceful.

I genuinely really enjoyed reading this book, I loved Isabel and Catina, the rebellious girl and the gentle girl, who adore each other but still fight as all sisters sometimes do. Their personalities are very different but they need each other to survive. They take along a young cook, Juan, who is himself of noble birth as the viceroy’s illegitimate son, and for a time, their brother. But this is the girls’ story, and that of their mother. Stories that get lost in a world ruled by men.

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

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Blog Tour: A Thorn in the Rose – Samantha Lee Howe

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Secrets bloom where the roses die – and Mel Greenway is digging up the truth. In post-war Britain, Avonby estate is a crumbling relic hiding deadly secrets.

Lady Melinda ‘Mel’ Greenway, a former army mechanic and the family’s poor relation, seeks solace in its overgrown gardens – until she unearths a body beneath the roses. The discovery drags Mel into a tangled web of lies, resentments, and buried truths, forcing her to clash with Inspector Derrin Bradley, her wartime lover turned investigator.

As Derrin digs into the dark web of secrets entangling Avonby’s privileged residents and its resentful staff, Mel is determined to solve the mystery herself. As sparks fly and old wounds resurface, Mel’s relentless pursuit of the truth puts her at odds with both her family and Derrin, while making her a target for a killer desperate to keep the past buried.

A tale of resilience, forbidden romance, and suspense, A Thorn in the Rose is a richly atmospheric mystery that will keep you guessing until the very last page.

Samantha Lee Howe began her professional writing career in 2007 and has been working as a freelance writer for small, medium and large publishers ever since. She is a multi-award winning screenwriter and a USA Today Bestselling author.

Samantha’s breakaway debut psychological thriller, The Stranger In Our Bed, was released in February 2020 with Harper Collins imprint, One More Chapter. The book rapidly became a USA Today bestseller, and has now been turned into a feature film for USA, Canada, China, the UK, and various countries in Europe. It won Best Thriller at the National Film Awards.

Samantha lives in South Yorkshire with her husband, Historian, Writer and publisher, David J Howe and their cat Skye. She is the proud mother of a lovely daughter called Linzi.

My thoughts: I really liked Mel, the loss of her parents and brother is awful, but she manages to survive the tragedy and become a mechanic in the women’s volunteer corps (as did Elizabeth II). There’s also some things she can’t talk about due to the Official Secrets Act, and the reappearance of Derrin, now a police inspector, brings a lot of things up that she thought she’d buried.

A body in the rose beds brings the police to her home, where she’s stuck somewhere between staff and family. Her cousin is quite nice but his wife is pretty ghastly. If her father or brother had survived, they would have inherited, which makes things complicated.

Mel and Derrin’s history is complicated and as they work together to solve the case, they’re forced to deal with the messy end of their relationship and whether there’s anything still between them.

It’s a really enjoyable read and the characters are well rounded and interesting. I hope there’s more to come from Mel and Derrin.

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

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Blog Tour: The Case of the Christie Curse – Kelly Oliver

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Mesopotamia, 1930: When Agatha Christie invites fellow members of the Detection Club to witness the famous excavations at the ruins of Ur, Dorothy L. Sayers, her quick-witted assistant Eliza Baker, and Theo Sharp expect ancient wonders – not fresh corpses.

But when an archaeologist is found dead in the sand, whispers of a deadly curse sweep through the camp. Eliza suspects something far more dangerous than superstition. Amid glittering artifacts and
fragile alliances, every guest harbors secrets: the Woolleys, whose marriage is shadowed by tragedy; a journalist hungry for scandal; even academic Max Mallowan, whose loyalties are not what they seem.

As theft, forgery, and coded messages surface, the line between archaeology and espionage blurs.

And when Eliza and Theo find themselves in danger, they must face not only the truth about the murder – but also the truths they’ve long denied about each other. Can they uncover the killer before the desert claims another victim? Or will this dig unearth secrets too dangerous to survive?

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Kelly Oliver is the award-winning, bestselling author of three mysteries series: The Jessica James Mysteries, The Pet Detective Mysteries, and the historical cozies The Fiona Figg Mysteries, set in WW1. She is also the Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

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My thoughts: Agatha Christie is on a dig in the Iraqi desert, with a certain Max Mallowen (who would become her second husband), and has contacted the Detection Club for help. There have been several accidents, thefts and other incidents that have the local employees claiming it’s due to a curse.

Dorothy Sayers, along with her assistant, Eliza and writer Theo, along with Eliza’s beloved beagle Queenie, head out to help Agatha. The dig is being run by Leonard Woolley and his wife, on behalf of the British Museum, which has caused some argument with local archaeologists, who don’t want all their antiquities lost to another country.

But whoever, or whatever has caused all the problems is still at it. And now one of the junior archaeologists has been murdered. Thankfully Eliza and Theo are on the case.

Will they survive their trip to the desert? And will the case bring them closer?

This series is a lot of fun, and Kelly Oliver has used Agatha’s own autobiography about her archaeological adventures, Come Tell Me How You Live, as a resource. I know that the author loved her time on digs and her marriage to Mallowen was happy, much happier than her first one. 

There are some moments of real peril for Eliza and Theo, and I really like them as characters (and obviously Queenie). This installment of the Detection Club adventures brings out more of their personalities and builds their relationship to a new level.

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