In 1986, with Chernobyl smouldering on the news and the Cold War casting a deep shadow, Scott becomes convinced that nuclear conflict is inevitable. Sensitive, watchful, and haunted by personal grief, he immerses himself in post-apocalyptic stories and survival games, drawn to the clarity they offer when the future feels out of control.
Jodie is brilliant, abrasive, damaged. Fiercely determined to keep the world at arm’s length, she wears loneliness like armour, trusting her solitude to protect her.
Drawn together by their fears, Jodie and Scott form an uneasy, wary alliance. But as time passes, their shared vision of cataclysm becomes increasingly seductive.
The Glass Field is an intimate, quietly unsettling novel about what we cling to when the world feels close to breaking.
My thoughts: I was born in 1986 so I can’t really imagine how the Chernobyl explosion impacted on people in the UK, far enough away from the fall out zone but close enough for deadly dust to drift over. I asked my mum and she said that for some it wasn’t really a big deal, plenty of other things to worry about but there were those who did think the world was close to nuclear annihilation.
Scott and Jodie fall into this second group. Two young teenagers, with mostly absent parents, left alone with the news, Scott’s Judge Dread comics and knowing some older young people in CND and similar groups. They also live close to an army base and Jodie’s dad works on a top secret missile building project, that she both knows too much about and not enough.
They’re lonely and the long summer stretches ahead of them. Scott quits his summer job and they begin to prepare for nuclear fallout and the horrors Scott’s comics warn them of. Finding an abandoned WWII bunker, they buy what they think they will need for the coming amageddon.
It’s a sad story in many ways, they find joy in their friendship yes, but their parents are too busy, too wrapped up in their own lives to notice their children and both are only children so no siblings to question what they’re up to either. Neither have many other friends, Scott’s best friend moved away, Jodie is the weird kid.
But it was also a really good read, the relationship between Scott and Jodie, their hobbies and interests before they became so focused on the end of the world, the dinner party Scott throws, these are all delights within the darkness.
Scott is still grieving his mother, his father has become so lost in his pain, he can’t be there for his son. Jodie’s mother worries about her but in an overbearing way that Jodie pushes against, her dad is always at work. Neither fit in with the other local teens, and their sense of isolation feeds their paranoia.
I found this book fascinating and compelling, a portrait of outsiders who hopefully grew up to find things aren’t always as bleak as they feel at times.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Ingrid and her daughter Susan return to the Western Highlands of Scotland, staying at Strathbairn with Gertrude McCleod while their new home, a cottage by the loch, is redecorated. The very same day, the ghosts of Ingrid’s past return when Gertrude’s brother Miles arrives with his new bride and his friend Timothy.
When her former beau turned betrayer Hamish starts work on a barn conversion, Ingrid is desperate to leave Strathbairn. She rushes to move into the cottage only to find she is sharing her new home with a violent ghost.
Realising the haunting is somehow connected to Strathbairn and sensing that something at Willows Cottage must be returned, she makes every effort to discover what that it is.
While Hamish and Gertrude conspire to force Ingrid into marriage, Timothy becomes a regular caller with a romantic motive. With two suitors and two marriage proposals, who will she choose – and can she solve the haunting of Willows Cottage?
A gripping conclusion to a classic gothic mystery trilogy laced with dark family secrets.
Isobel Blackthorn is an award-winning author of immersive and inspiring fiction. She has penned over twenty-five books including a number of bestsellers. She majors in strong female leads and empowerment narratives.
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 has a background in Western Esotericism. She holds 1st Class Honours in Social Studies, and a PhD from the University of Western Sydney for her ground-breaking research on the works of Alice A. Bailey. Her doctoral thesis has been downloaded over 13,000 times.
Isobel’s first work, which she wrote in 2008, is Voltaire’s Garden. This memoir is set in the mid 2000s and tells the story of building a sustainable lifestyle B&B in Cobargo on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, which gained international attention when a firestorm razed the idyllic historic village on New Year’s Eve 2019.
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 in New 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.
My thoughts: Despite her experiences at Strathbairn previously, Ingrid returns there, hoping to soon be able to move into the cottage she inherited with her daughter Susan, and build a life in this quiet place.
Unfortunately it isn’t that easy, there’s a lot of work needing doing before the cottage is liveable and while the assistance of two kind and generous neighbours helps, she has to remain at Strathbairn, now a guesthouse, until it’s ready.
She finds it almost unbearable, more so when first Miles, and then Hamish, appear, neither of them men she wishes to have anything to do with. Miles’ friend Timothy, she at first is pleased to see, but she finds his behaviour confusing and as she learns more about him, she becomes less keen.
Daughter Susan continues her attachment to the cook at Strathbairn, refusing to do as her mother wishes and move to Willows Cottage. For some reason I thought of her as very young, but she is eleven, although she acts like she’s about six. Ingrid has struggled with her since her husband died, but with the help of her excellent new neighbour she might finally win her child over.
Finally there is the problem of a violent and aggressive presence in the cottage – hoping she’s left ghosts behind in Strathbairn, Ingrid finds one in her new home. What do they want and why are they so angry? A trip to Skye with Timothy gives her a potential clue, can Ingrid alleviate the ghost’s rage by repairing an old wrong?
Ingrid has dealt with unpleasant men and ghostly violence in every volume of this trilogy, and it’s often all because of the same people – the awful McCleod family, both living and dead. I don’t really know why she’s so keen to live near them, I’d sell the cottage and land and stay far away, it might be easier, but I suppose she’s made of sterner stuff.
There’s pleasing conclusions to some of Ingrid’s troubles, and a gruesome end to one unpleasant character too, as Ingrid attempts to build her new life and finally makes friends with some actual nice people, it looks like she might just achieve it.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
On the brink of war, one secret will tear a powerful family apart.
The Hartford sisters gather for one final night at Bonsall Hall, their once-grand family estate, on the eve of it being lost forever. The dinner is meant to mark an ending — a farewell to the house, the past, and the life they once knew. But before morning comes, everything changes.
Audrey, the youngest, is reckless and curious, always pushing against the rules that bind her. Katherine, the eldest, is controlled and calculating, fiercely protective of thefamily’s reputation at any cost. Beatrice clings to elegance and influence through her dangerous political connections, while Sophia’s radical beliefs place her on the opposite side of everything the family stands for.
When a guest disappears under suspicious circumstances, the fragile balance between the sisters begins to fracture. As Europe edges closer to war, their personal loyalties collide with their political convictions, and Audrey is drawn into a shadowy world of secrets, surveillance and power struggles that reach from country houses to intelligence offices.
With Britain racing to prepare for a conflict, the sisters must decide where they stand — with each other, with their country, or with their own beliefs. Because some truths could change the course of history… and some are deadly enough to destroy a family.
Of Sisters and Spitfires is a gripping historical thriller about family and the moral compromises made in the shadow of war, perfect for fans of Kate Atkinson and Robert Harris.
Frank Francis is a pseudonym for the combined work of George F. Brown and Guillaume Jest, known for their contributions to the historical thriller genre.
My thoughts: The Hartford sisters made me think of the Mitford sisters (probably intentionally), where they were on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Although they still had their parents and brother, and I think at least one of them was properly nuts.
The Hartfords struggle with their relationships, politics causing division, but they pull together when they have to. When a guest to the family home is killed mysteriously in the middle of the night, after visiting to bring them their brother’s journal, it seems there’s more to his visit than it first appears.
Youngest sister, Audrey, investigates with the help of a journalist friend, and is soon caught up in the huge changes sweeping Europe, especially in Germany, where she finds a cell of resistance fighters against the Nazi threat.
But what she soon learns is that things are much more complicated than it first appears, and her family secrets go deeper than she could imagine.
It’s a clever concept, a complex plot and reflects the real situation of the 1930s and 40s, as Europe headed to war.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
A man returning from war often expects to find something left behind, some piece of life waiting to be reclaimed. In The Devil’s Shadow series by Burt Tyson, Captain Robert Hester instead faces a reality where everything he once relied on has vanished, leaving him to confront what comes after loss.
For Captain Robert Hester, the end of the war does not bring closure. It leaves him wounded, hunted, and without direction in a world that has moved on without him. The structures that once defined his life have fallen away, replaced by a path shaped entirely by consequence and personal choice.
His story begins in The Shadow Appears, where he emerges from the war with his name placed on a Union kill list as the Confederacy collapses around him. Returning home offers no refuge. Instead, he is met with a devastating loss that erases everything he expected to find. What follows is no longer about causes or commands, but a deeply personal pursuit. Riding with his loyal sergeant through a fractured landscape, he confronts a world where survival often outweighs honor and former soldiers have become something harder and less certain.
Without that driving force, The Shadow Grows places Hester in unfamiliar land, moving forward without purpose and carrying the weight of what remains. A chance encounter with a wounded Apache elder draws him into a different way of living, one grounded in patience and discipline. When violence threatens those around him, he must decide whether to remain apart or step forward, knowing the choice will define his future.
Burt Tyson writes historical Western fiction rooted in the aftermath of the Civil War, where questions of honor, loss, and survival take center stage. Influenced by classic storytellers like Louis L’Amour, Larry McMurtry, and the Western television heroes he grew up watching, his work explores what happens when the fight is over and a man is left to decide who he is without it.
His Devil’s Shadow series follows Captain Robert Hester through a fractured post-war America and into the unforgiving frontier beyond.
Tyson lives in a small town in South Carolina, where the landscape is quiet—but the stories he tells are anything but. Visit Burt at his website.
The Shadow Appears
Chapter 1
The buzzing woke me. I opened my eyes. It was morning. I saw the blowfly on the sheet that covered my chest, staring at me through his two large eyes, his wings vibrating in the still air.
I didn’t even bother to shoo him away. It was a waste of time. There were too many of them. There shouldn’t have been. It was the last week of March in Richmond in 1865, and there should have been a few in sun-warmed windows and no more.
But this was the Chimborazo Hospital and blowflies were everywhere, along with the groans and cries of wounded men— many dying—and the ever-present stench of disease, gangrene, human waste, and blood.
We were a sad lot. Too little medicine. Too little food. Too little hope. Too much pain. Too much fear. And for many, too few limbs.
But it was far better than the field hospital where I had lain for a day after being shot. Or the jolting, painful wagon ride to Richmond.
I had been here since the middle of December. First, it was the wound and the blood loss. Then, the fever had come. And, now, it was just the weakness. I didn’t have the strength to get out of bed—a pretty pitiful sight for a cavalry officer.
I heard the click of cavalry boots on the wooden floor before I saw the figure. Captain Jonathan Washburn stood at the end of my bed. His left sleeve was folded up and pinned at the shoulder. I could never get used to seeing him without his arm.
“Well, Captain, I suppose you’ve malingered long enough. You have new orders. Get yourself dressed. We’re taking you out of all this.”
“I’m being released from this hell-hole? You mean that?”
“I do, indeed. Turley, front and center, man. Get yourself out here and help the captain.”
Sergeant Josiah Turley materialized as if out of thin air. A lean, wiry mountain boy, Turley was raw-boned, with a shock of red hair and a disposition to match.
It was Turley, more than anyone else, who had saved me.
The Shadow Grows
Chapter 1
I rode out of Parral with no sense of purpose, no mission. I was lost. I still had the dreams. Every night.
They began as they always did, with the bloody tears streaming from my mama’s portrait, the wraithlike figures of Aunt Callie, my daddy, my sister, and my fiancée swirling about me, asking why I hadn’t saved them. And then, after the fire and the blood of my home place, the faces of Ruth and Laurie and the bodies of Abby and Jacob. And then all of the loved ones in the dream swirled around me like tormented spirits. Their voices joined together in a single chorus. Though their mouths never moved, I heard their words.
You’ve failed us. Where is our vengeance? Where is our peace? What are we to do?
Their haunting bodies pressed around me, choking me with their presence.
And each night I would come awake, unable to breathe, my heart racing. It always felt like I would never regain my breath or still my heart. The oppression of sadness and pain and guilt never seemed to go away.
As I rode westward, riding the big gray stallion, Quicksilver Ghost, and leading three other horses, Lady Red, the bay I had given my sister, and two black geldings, I still carried the hope of revenge on George Stoneman for what his bummers had done to the ones I loved back in Virginia and North Carolina. But with the failure of Jo Shelby’s plans to regroup and reenter Texas to continue the fight against the Yankees, I had little left but despair. I rode the lonely wastes of Chihuahua State in Mexico, heading for the Copper Canyon. I had nothing else to do that mattered.
I decided I would enter the Barrancas del Cobre, the Copper Canyon, from the west and ride back toward Texas. I rode through the towns of La Noria, El Tule, San Pablo Balleza, La Loma, Yoquivo, Batopilas, La Bufa, and Cusarare. At each of the towns, I found a place for my horses and cared for them. I ate in whatever cantina the town had to offer and drank mescal.
At Cusarare, I rode east toward the canyon, descending into the most desolate country I had ever seen. And the most beautiful. From the high mountain ridges to the bottom of the canyon, I went from alpine peaks of pines and Douglas fir at almost eight thousand feet to huge figs and palm trees at the bottom of the canyon at just eighteen hundred feet above sea level.
For the next two weeks, I rode through the Copper Canyon. I marveled at the copper and green color of the canyon walls and the beauty and stillness of it. There was plentiful game, and I ate well while riding through this marvel of nature. I saw no one and no sign of anyone.
The peace and solitude felt good. I thought a lot. About my life for the past few years. And about what the Padre had said to me. But I still had the dreams.
Q & A
What’s a detail, theme, or clue in your book that most readers might miss on the first read but you secretly hope someone notices? That men, at least prior to current times, were never taught to deal with failure. And, yet, the loss of the War and the “Cause” carried with it, often, the loss of home, family, future and purpose. What better metaphor for failure than the Confederate soldier after the Civil War?
When did this story or idea “click” into place for you—was there a single moment you knew you had to write it? The issue of men and loss had been around since the mid-1980s when I was forced to close a business and my wife divorced me. Around 1990, I wrote a novel which would become the 5th novel in this series. After my 2nd wife died in 2016, I started writing again and wrote the 1st novel in the series which sets the tone and the themes for the rest of the series: loss, failure, guilt, despair…and, perhaps, redemption.
Which character or real-life person surprised you the most while writing this book, and why? The Mexican Padre (not a real-life person). His thoughts and questions surprised me as they were not ones I had had.
If your book had a soundtrack, which songs would be on it and what scenes or moments would they pair with? The Theme Song of the Gray Ghost TV series about John Singleton Mosby for the opening of the novel. “Lorena,” during and after the destruction of his home and the killing of his family and his fiance. “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” during the journey through the devastated South to rejoin Jeff Davis and then to reach Texas. “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” as Captain Hester, Sergeant Turly and Corporal Travis enter and ride through Texas. A Mexican song celebrating the Battle of Puebla (e.g., La Paloma Juarista), as a foretelling of the outcome of Shelby’s attempt to negotiate with Maximillian, to be played during the scene when Hester explains his break with Shelby. Mariachi music in the scene in the cantina with confrontation with Mexican vaquero. “Ave Maria instrumental” for the scenes with Padre Jose as Hester is recovering from wounds. The theme song for the movie The Outlaw Josie Wales for the final scene of the novel.
What’s one belief, question, or emotional truth you hope readers carry with them long after they finish your book? That the Cowboy Code endures…honor.,honesty, courage, knowing right from wrong.
Tell us about a moment during the writing process when the story (or message) took an unexpected turn. The introduction of Jim Dandy Travis and the events in Dogtown and on the Travis ranch.
If your protagonist (or central figure) could give the reader one piece of advice, what would it be? Fight for right and saddle up no matter how high the risk.
What real-world place, object, or memory helped shape a key element in your book? Jo Shelby’s retreat into Mexico.
What’s something you had to research, learn, or experience to write this book that genuinely surprised you? Almost everything. Civil war guns, post-war Natchez, Shelby’s march into Mexico, horses, etc.
If your book were invited to join a shelf with three other titles, which ones would make you happiest—and what would that shelf say about your story? Lonesome Dove, The Daybreakers, Kilkenny, Appaloosa That this is a Western about strong men with honor, fighting for a place to live and overcoming life’s circumstances.
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.
ramblingmads 