Congratulations and happy release day to author M.K. Deoradhán!
Fans of The Mummy and Indiana Jones are going to love this one. Grab your copy of Bloodstone today!
Bloodstone (The Mythic Artifacts Book 1)
Release Date: May 5, 2026
Genre: Romantic Historical Adventure
Ancient magic amulet
Hot-headed archaeologist FMC
Tall, dark, and handsome brooding MMC
Forced proximity
Slow burn
Punching fascists
Hidden society
Banter
Chaotic good trio
Scientia potentia est. Knowledge is power.
The year is 1936, and twenty-two-year-old history student Amelia “Mel”Hawkins—who’s been tagging along on artifact-finding expeditions with her nonna since she could walk—can’t pass up the opportunity to retrieve the priceless Amulet of Amun, hidden inside the Temple of Seti the First. Especially when she’s getting paid to do it.
Armed only with her wits and her absentee-father’s switchblade, she finds out the hard way that the man claiming to be the emissary from the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities is actually a member of the Thule Society, known as the God Men, sent to kill her and take the amulet for the growing German Third Reich. When he fails, she’s forced to rely on the brilliant, brooding museum employee, Bes Belzoni, and his visually impaired cousin, Cecilio Giudice, to protect her and the amulet from the swarm of fascists hunting them down. Because it’s no coincidence her guide was one of the God Men, or that more are after her.
Thrown into a deadly world of secrets and spy games, the three of them travel to the Italian Alps, where they run into trouble from the God Men and Mussolini’s Blackshirts at every turn. But even her companions aren’t what they seem: she quickly discovers that they’re keeping secrets from her. Secrets so powerful they could change everything she thought she knew about her family, and uncover an ancient magic she never could’ve imagined.
With evil rising to power, Mel must make a choice: ignore the growing threat in the world and save herself, or take a stand against it before she loses everything she’s come to love.
When Caroline Alleyn inherits Wickham Grange, all she wants to do is sell up. There are bad memories there, linked to her childhood as the daughter of a single mother – and to all the other mothers she knew in that house.
But her grandmother Frances’s will means that it can’t be sold without the consent of five elderly women, and they all refuse. None of them will tell her why she has to keep a house she doesn’t want. Instead, she is given a stark warning: don’t look for Lizzie Sixpence.
Though Caroline has other worries. Someone is watching her; the house’s elderly tenants are lying to her; and an old man is hoarding mementoes of her past. Then she finds the bones. And Caroline is left with a choice: keep silent, or betray everything her grandmother stood for. Because there is one final secret to be revealed…
Zoe has worked in education services for nearly 25 years, but her heart has always been in writing. When she’s not working, she enjoys baking, collecting antiques, and gardening. She is also slowly decorating and furnishing a large dolls’ house. Originally from Medway, she has a grown-up son and now lives in London with her husband and their enormous dog.
My thoughts: Wickham Grange has been a place of refuge over the years, but now her grandmother has died, for Caroline it is a place of secrets. Planning to sell the building, she has to locate five women who her grandma’s will says she has to get the consent with before she can sell.
As Caroline attempts to unravel the past, she keeps being told to stay out of things, and not to look for the mysterious Lizzie Sixpence.
Caroline, however, is determined to get to the bottom of the secrets and mysteries of the past.
What she finds is shocking, a little heartbreaking and answers both her own and Caroline’s mother’s questions about their family.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
From USA Today bestselling author, and Bram Stoker nominee, Philip Fracassi, comes a historical horror novel where three brothers go AWOL during one of the most violent battles of the Civil War, but find something much worse waiting in the woods.
Choosing to risk execution rather than be killed in a losing war, three brothers desert their posts and begin a long, arduous journey back home. After weeks of dealing with rough terrain while evading bandits and home guard soldiers–starving, injured, and exhausted–the brothers find a miracle deep in the dark woods. A home.
Living in a remote cabin is a beautiful woman, Sarafina, and her young son, Titus. Sarafina takes the soldiers in, cares for them, feeds them, offers them a place to rest. But the youngest of the brothers is wary–something is not what it seems. After discovering a mysterious creek and a strange underground cavern, he gets a strong sense that the cabin, and the fertile land surrounding it, might be harboring something nefarious, terrifying, and dangerous.
What ensues is a nightmare beyond imagination, an escalation of horrors that the brothers must somehow fight to survive. With tensions high, the country divided, and loyalties put to the test, Sarafina will take readers on an epic journey of modern horror.
My thoughts: Three brothers flee the battlefield of the American Civil War, heading south to home and their sister Ellie. After several near misses, hungry and one of them injured, they stumble across what seems like paradise – a farm, home to Sarafina and her son Titus.
Unfortunately for them, Sarafina isn’t the kind farm wife she appears, she’s something much older and more terrifying. The youngest brother, Ethan, manages to escape and make it home to tell his twin everything that happened. With some help from the family’s priest, they prepare to return and rescue their brothers.
Things don’t go the way that Ethan hoped, and what happens will change the twins’ lives forever.
Creepy and chilling, with Biblical echoes, Sarafina is a dark fairytale (the brothers’ last name is Belle) full of horrors deep in the woods.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
January, 1942. London is dark – and not just because of the blackout.
The worst of the Blitz may be over, but still the city’s a treacherous place. Buses run without headlights. Bomb rubble lies underfoot. Looters and petty criminals roam the shattered streets. And somewhere in the ruins stalks a serial killer the papers have dubbed The Beast of the Blackout.
As a fear of death, delivered not from the sky but lurking in the bomb sites, grips South London, four unlikely allies are assembled by Civil Defence warden Albert, self-appointed shepherd patrolling his nightly patch. Edwin, Bette and Cat share nothing in common, except one extraordinary secret: each has killed an abuser and got away with it. Now, forged by trauma and driven to deliver retribution to those who hurt and harm, they come together to stop a monster the police have failed to catch.
What follows is a daring hunt through bombed streets and moral grey zones, as the mismatched murderers plot to save the Beast’s next victim, Violet and deliver their own brutal justice. But this is no simple vigilante tale. All brought here by their own harrowing journey, each comes uniquely equipped for the kill: Edwin with his knowledge of poisons, Bette her muscle, Cat her courage, while Albert will weave the net to catch the killer in.
Drawing on meticulous historical research, the novel explores the lurid world of Victorian poisons and poisoners; early silent films and the lasting damage left by the First World War on not just those who fought, but the people they came home to. While rooted in the past, the book also speaks urgently to the present, offering a reflection on what it means to be and feel ‘safe’, and how even now a woman may put herself in danger just walking home alone.
A gripping and morally daring novel, All Cats Are Grey offers a haunting portrait of wartime London, and a powerful meditation on justice, survival and the thin line between right and wrong.
My thoughts: I found this intense and fascinating. As the various characters find their way through the London blackouts, home from work or like Alby, off on his rounds as an ARP warden. However, somewhere in the dark lurks a killer, looking for a young woman to lure to her death.
Unfortunately he picks out the wrong ones this time as neither Bette or Cat are victims – rather they’re killers. Both have had to protect themselves and remove abusers from their lives permanently. Alby had planned to help Cat with this particular monster, but she’s smarter than he realises.
None of the people in this are perfect, far from it, but all of them did what they did for very clear reasons, and you sort of admire them for that.
The blackout helps hide various sins and crimes, there’s a theme of houses being blown up and burnt down, a way to bring an end to things. Every character is a survivor and while none of them are punished, in a way, they’ve already paid for what they did by their pasts.
A truly interesting read.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
In 1031, an Arab scientist, a Jewish astronomer and a Christian monk gather under the dome of an observatory in Spain.
A foretelling written on the blade of a knife tells of a new ruler, whose power will come from the knowledge in a centuries old book. As its guardians begin to covet this knowledge for themselves, the book is drawn into the conflict between the houses of Wessex and Godwin, and England’s destiny. It will carry a secret at the heart of the succession to the English throne.
But the book is in danger, from those who will use it for the wealth and power it can bring — or who want to destroy it.
From Spain to Normandy and England, The Book and the Knife: Thegn of Berewic is the story of the power of knowledge, of a generation—spanning blood feud, and of the struggle for control of England before the Norman invasion of 1066. A story of loyalty and treachery, love and hate.
Paul Cobb was born into a Yorkshire farming family and lives in Kent. A conservationist by profession and a historian by interest, he has lived and worked his whole life in the landscapes he writes about, and loves weaving his fictional characters around these as much as around the real figures from history.
Paul has also published poetry and is a former magazine columnist.
My thoughts: set before the Norman Conquest in 1066, which is a period I’m a bit hazy on history wise (at school it went Alfred the Great….Norman Conquest, which isn’t very helpful) during a time of struggle for the English throne between powerful families, this chronicles the events that lead to William, Duke of Normandy deciding to take the throne he was supposedly promised by force.
The characters know William, they’re in his orbit and some even serve him, but the power struggle for the seat of Berewic is beneath his notice, even though it’s important in how the future will play out, two young men’s destinies are tied to it.
The sacred book passes through several hands, some who would use its knowledge for their own gain, and some who would safeguard it for the future. It’s a bit like the Holy Grail or the Philosopher’s Stone (which is even in the book), powerful, dangerous and desired by many.
This is the first in a series and does a lot of world building, taking us back more than 900 years to a time when Westminster Cathedral is being built, when the Britain we live in today was very, very different. From Spain to France to England, the journey the book and it’s secrets go on leads to power and conflict.
Interesting and clearly well researched, with lots of detail to bring the period and the figures, real and imagined, to life.
Warwickshire, 1891. Recently orphaned and left destitute, Briar Monroe accepts the protection of Lord Danville and the shadowed sanctuary of Thornby Manor.
The great house looms above a mist-shrouded lake, its corridors heavy with secrets – not least the mysterious death of Lady Elizabeth Danville, and the unspoken tensions between her formidable widower and his magnetic son, Gabriel.
As Briar navigates the undercurrents of a household ruled by watchful servants and locked doors, she is drawn ever deeper into a web of suspicion, desire and fear.
Whispers in the night, figures at windows, and a constant sense of being watched leave her questioning not only the truth about Thornby, but her own safety within its walls.
Atmospheric, intoxicating and laced with peril, Thornby Manor is a gothic tale of betrayal, obsession and a house that never forgets.
Stephanie Bramwell-Lawes grew up in the historic city of Bath and studied History and Ancient History at Exeter University.
A lifelong love of literature led to a career in publishing in 2009, and her passion for books has only continued to grow ever since. Her favourite novels include Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, and anything by Tracy Chevalier.
She currently lives in a restored asylum in Warwickshire with her husband and a small feline dictator named Ruby. Thornby Manor is her debut novel.
My thoughts: This is a suitably atmospheric Gothic novel, set in a brooding house on the edge of a wood, where strange things have supposedly gone on. Just beyond the woods is the local asylum for the mentally ill, indigent and of course inconvenient wives.
When Briar Monroe’s aunt is taken ill and cannot meet her, Lord Danville, whose late wife was her aunt’s friend, offers her a place to stay at his family home, Thornby Manor, which she accepts, keen to keep the realities of her family’s accounts from her sister in London.
However, Lady Danville has recently died, the servants all dismissed and the rumours about the house and its inhabitants are not good. When Danville’s son Gabriel returns, determined to find out the truth about his mother’s last months, Briar finds herself drawn into the hunt for answers.
There’s a suitably weird Mrs Danvers-esque figure in the shape of Clara Marie, governess turned companion to Lady Danville, who now wears her clothes and acts as a cross between Lady of the house and housekeeper, as well as its spymaster, watching the servants and guests.
Gabriel has his mother’s journal, full of strange fears of being followed by a man in a green hat, he was not permitted to see her before she died, and his grief has him imagining terrible things.
Mental illness is handled sensitively, certainly more so than in the period the characters inhabit, where just being a bit different could see you locked away in the asylum. Briar’s doctor father was interested in psychiatry, and shared his passion with his daughter. She would have liked to follow in his footsteps, but that path was not permitted to her.
There’s a lot of tragedy here, Briar has recently lost both her parents, and Lady Danville’s passing still troubles the house and the residents. In striving to protect his wife’s privacy, Lord Danville has caused all sorts of nasty rumours to develop, and Briar must help Gabriel sort the truth from the rest so he can mourn his mother and be reconciled with his father.
Fascinating, sad, moving and a bit creepy, Thornby Manor must now give up its secrets.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
On a bleak autumn morning in 1555, Protestant Perotine wakes to find her husband packed to leave.
Catholicism has returned to Guernsey, and, fearing for his life, he abandons Perotine, her sister and mother to face increasing hostility alone.
The three women endure a challenging winter of rain, isolation, and poverty – until a dramatic series of events draws unwanted attention. When a local woman asks Perotine to hide stolen goods, what begins as a trial for theft spirals into accusations of heresy.
Secluded, steadfast, and terrified, the women face their plight with fortitude and prayers. Together.
But Perotine Massey holds a terrible secret. One that could bring a reprieve, or a fate worse than death. And she’ll do anything to keep that secret safe.
Author Bio – Dreena Collins is a multi-genre author. Her short fiction has been listed and placed in numerous writing competitions, such as The Bridport Prize and the Bath Flash Fiction Award. She is also the author of a suspense novel, And Then She Fell.
As Jane Harvey, Dreena writes commercially successful, feel-good fiction: The Hummingbird House series. Books one and two of the series both won the Eyelands International Awards, Published Novel of the Year (2021 and 2022).
‘Perotine’ is Dreena’s first full-length work of historical fiction, and a labour of love, retelling the powerful story of the Guernsey Martyrs of 1556. Shortlisted in the Flash 500 Novel Opening Competition, the manuscript was also a top ten finalist in the Marlowe and Christie prize.
She lives in Jersey with her spouse, a teenage son, and a grumpy white dog, where she also works as the Project Manager for a local charity.
My thoughts: I didn’t know about the tragic story of the Guernsey Martyrs, despite they’re being Protestants and having been raised in the Church of England – my CofE school never mentioned them, which is strange, as they loved stories like this.
It is really sad, the three women, mother Catherine and her daughters Guilleman and Perotine are punished by their community for not converting to Catholicism like their neighbours under the auspices of Mary I. It was a terrible time of religious persecution that saw maybe 300 executed for their “crime”.
Guernsey isn’t a very big place and probably was barely thought about, but even there, religion caused tragedy. Perotine and her family are victims of cruelty and ignorance. Whether they knew they were supposed to attend the Catholic Mass or not, as they were poor and uneducated and presumably didn’t understand it was a legal requirement.
Their death scene is genuinely shocking, all three burning alive after the rope that should have hung them broke, the author recreates that terrible scene with empathy.
A moving and fascinating account of the lives and deaths of three innocent women forgotten to history.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
1917 – At Cambridge University, American scholar Harry Turchin never expects to lose himself to desire. But Annie Mackenzie—soft-spoken, grieving, and luminous—claims his heart from their very first kiss. Their love is swift, fierce, and intoxicating. Married just days before Harry is sent to war, their passion is ripped apart when the trenches claim everything he knows, and Harry is thrown into a future that should not exist.
1967 – The free-spirited sixties are alive with rhythm, rebellion, and possibility. Harry awakens to a world he doesn’t recognise—and to Annalise Taylor, as bold and captivating as the era itself. Brilliant, independent, and achingly alive, she rouses a desire he thought belonged solely to the past.
Caught between the love he was ripped away from and the passion he cannot resist, Harry is torn between two women, two lives, and two versions of forever. Because time will not bend twice … Or will it?
Sweeping from the blood-soaked battlefields of World War One to the fevered nights of the swinging sixties, No More Tomorrows is a sensual time-slip romance about desire, devotion, and the devastating power of love that refuses to be bound by time.
Olivia Lockhart (Livvie to her friends) is an English author who can’t quite decide if she wants to write contemporary romance, historical romance, or paranormal romance. So she writes them all, because it HAS to be romance!
She loves to write about the underdog, the one who got away, the bits of love stories we can all relate to.
When not writing she can be found drinking wine, cuddling with her beloved pooch, or with her head in a book.
Giveaway to Win a signed copy of No More Tomorrows (Open to UK only)
My thoughts: When Harry wakes up in a field in France in 1967, despite having been on the battlefield in 1918, he’s utterly bewildered. He’s horrified by the fact his sweet wife, Annie, won’t have known what happened to him and that fifty years have passed.
Nursed back to health by a kindly French couple, he then makes his way back to England, hoping to find a trace of his family. Instead he meets physics student Annalise, who takes him in and helps him get sorted out. She believes his story and wants to help him, even as she falls for him.
It’s a bittersweet love affair, Harry determines that he must live in the present, not worry about what might have been. But Annalise fears he is forever comparing her with his lost love and really longs for the life he never got to live.
I really liked Harry and Annalise, and their lovely dog, who went from bomb detection to spoilt pet in one time travelling trip.
The story was really lovely and sad, Harry has been ripped from his life and thrust into a world he doesn’t recognise – the huge changes from 1918 to 1967 are a shock, and he initially struggles to adjust. But he does and it’s Annalise who then struggles to accept his love.
I also liked Annalise – she was very different and modern, perhaps even more so than most in the 60s, not believing in marriage and wanting to work for NASA. She’s clever and wants more from life than the traditional, and is determined to achieve even as her fellow (male) students denigrate her and mock the idea of female Cambridge students.
Their relationship might not be conventional, but it means a lot to both of them, even as something incredible happens that might tip their lives upside down forever. Have a tissue handy if you’re a crier, this one has its weepy moments.
*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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In a city rebuilding from war, truth can be the most dangerous weapon of all.
Berlin, 1930. Historian Archie Laverick, scarred mentally and physically by the Great War, travels to Berlin to research a famed Prussian general. His quiet study is shattered when he crosses paths with Esme Carmichael, a spirited young American intent on making her name as a foreign correspondent. When a shooting at a Saxon castle leaves a young Jewish woman accused of murder, Archie and Esme are drawn into a perilous hunt for the truth.
Their investigation cuts through the glittering façades and lingering scars of a nation still reeling from war – where resentment simmers, political alliances shift, and the first shadows of a new conflict fall across Europe. Amid whispers of blackmail and betrayal, the pair must navigate intrigue and danger to unmask a killer hiding in plain sight.
A tense, atmospheric mystery set in a world between wars – perfect for fans of Philip Kerr’s Berlin Trilogy, Robert Harris’s Fatherland, and Alan Furst’s spy novels.
Michael Ridpath is the bestselling author of over 20 crime novels and thrillers. His first novel, after a career in finance, was Free to Trade, a No 2 bestseller about the murky world of bond trading which was translated into over thirty languages. He is currently writing the Foreign Correspondent series of murder mysteries set in the capitals of Europe in the 1930s. He splits his time between London and Massachusetts.
My thoughts: I once wrote a very boring essay about the Weimar Republic of Germany between the wars, I am very glad to say this book was much better than my essay.
Sir Archie Laverick is in Berlin researching a general from the Napoleonic wars, the assistant he thought he was taking has bailed on him, but his cousin, on the ground in Germany, has found him a new one in the form of wannabe journalist, American Esme Carmichael. She’s enthusiastic and energetic, but Archie worries she might be a bit too much. Luckily they do get along and after she looks after him when he has a spell of shell shock, they bond.
When Esme’s friend is killed while weekending at a German baron’s home, and a young Austrian woman is arrested, Esme thinks the police have it wrong. She asks Archie to help her find the real killer.
But as the duo look into the case, Esme is threatened and it becomes apparent there’s more to the situation than a jealous lover.
This is a really interesting book, with a strong sense of historical time and place, interesting characters and an intriguing case at its centre.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Marske, 1361. Sir Ralph de Mandeville with his assistants Peter and Merek have recently come from Reeth to hold a court session in Marske but are pulled away at the news of a most heinous crime having been discovered further down the River Swale.
A boat has been found, floating down the river. Inside is a truly horrifying scene – the body of a nun, her wrists cut and her hands fixed in the sign of benediction… As Ralph uses his astute skills of inspection, his mind asks a most difficult question – is this self-murder or murder most foul? Were her last moments spent in benediction prayer… or malediction warning?
With both Marrick Priory and Easby Abbey within a stone’s throw of Marske, it appears something is not quite right in the house of God…
When the body of a priest is found mutilated as if by a wild animal, the villagers fear the nun’s body has opened the gates and let loose a monster from Hell… but Ralph starts to wonder if something much more human is at the root of these evils.
As he follows the grim clues, he fears he knows where this miserable sacrilegious journey will end.
The question is, can he catch the murderer and prevent more grisly deaths – his own included?
I was born in St Andrews and studied medicine at the University of Dundee in Scotland. I lived and worked in Wakefield in Yorkshire for 40 years, within arrow-shot of the ruins of a medieval castle, the base for a series of historical novels.
I am a retired GP, medical journalist and novelist, writing in several genres. As Keith Moray I write historical crime fiction in the medieval era and in ancient Egypt, The Inspector Torquil McKinnon crime novels set on the Outer Hebridean island of West Uist, and as Clay More I write westerns. Curiously, my medical background finds its way into most of my fiction writing.
In my spare time I enjoy the movies, theatre and making bread. I play golf and I run at carthorse speed. As a frustrated actor I have found occasional solace as a supporting artist, but enough said about that!
I now live in Stratford-upon with my wife Rachel and whichever of our children and grandchildren who happen to pop in.
Social Media Links – Facebook: @KeithMorayAuthor Twitter: @KeithMorayTales Instagram: @souterkeith Newsletter Bookbub profile: @dr_keithsouter
My thoughts: This was very good, a medieval murder mystery with the detectives in the form of the justice of the peace, Sir Ralph de Mandeville and his assistants, scribe Peter, and former archer Merek.
Carrying out the king’s work in Yorkshire, they become involved when the body of a young nun is found drifting in a boat on the river Swale. Did she kill herself or was she murdered? When the body of the parish priest is also found brutalised, Ralph suspects something rather nasty is going on. And when he and his assistants are attacked, he knows there’s something seriously wrong in the area.
As the case unfolds, Ralph, Peter and Merek are in danger too, they’re close to an answer and the killer wants them to stop looking. But they’re tougher than anyone realises and Ralph won’t give in to threats.
This is an engaging, clever and enjoyable read, I liked Ralph and his colleagues, they’re intelligent and thorough investigators, even with the limited knowledge of their age, willing to carry out thorough investigations, acting not only as detectives but also carrying out the roles that in modern cases would be scene of crime, and medical examiner.
*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 