A murder shocks the small town of Walden. And it’s only the beginning… Walden, 1921. Local reporter Iris Woodmore is determined to save her beloved lake, Waldenmere, from destruction. After a bloody and expensive war, the British Army can’t afford to keep the lake and build a convalescent home on its shores yet they still battle with Walden Council and a railway company for ownership. But an old mansion used as an officer training academy stands where the railway company plans to build a lakeside hotel. It belongs to General Cheverton – and he won’t leave his home. When the General is found murdered, it appears someone will stop at nothing to win the fight for Waldenmere. Iris thinks she can take on the might of the railway company and find the killer. But nothing prepares her for the devastation that’s to come… Purchase
Michelle Salter is a historical crime fiction writer based in northeast Hampshire. Many local locations appear in her mystery novels. She’s also a copywriter and has written features for national magazines. When she’s not writing, Michelle can be found knee-deep in mud at her local nature reserve. She enjoys working with a team of volunteers undertaking conservation activities.
My thoughts: Iris is back in Walden and trying to help preserve the local mere, a beautiful nature spot and not something the locals want to see turned into a hotel or railway line. But they’re up against it, if the army sells their part of the land they can build a convalescent home, which is more popular.
Thankfully the owner of one section of land, General Cheverton, isn’t budging and he’s messing up the unpopular plans. Then he’s murdered. Iris thinks it must be linked to the proposed development but would the railway boss get his own hands dirty?
While all this is going on, she’s also having a great time with her pals, wandering the local lanes and enjoying the summer weather. But the case keeps nagging at her, so with the support of her boss at the paper, she starts digging. What she finds will be heartbreaking.
I really like this series, and Iris, although maybe her next case could hit a little further from home as so far it hasn’t been very happy for her.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Happy publication day to Cynthia Hilston and congratulations on the release of The Rock at the Bottom! Read on for more details!
The Rock at the Bottom (Lorna & Tristan Series Book 3)
Publication Date: March 22nd, 2023
Genre: Historical Romance/ Prohibition Era/ Clean Romance A big dreamer and successful novelist carries the sins of his father and a secret that leaves him wondering if he is the author or killer of love.
Stephen feels he is marked from day one to lose the ones he loves. His mother dies giving birth to him, and his alcoholic father makes sure Stephen never forgets it. To block out his father’s hate, fists, and belt, young Stephen loses himself in his imagination. Stories become his closest companions and barricades against a family that never wanted him. Once he can look his father in the eye, Stephen swears he will never be the monster his old man is. He vows he will become a published author, if for no other reason than to prove his father wrong.
While his dreams of being a bestselling novelist and falling in love come true, Stephen has much to prove to himself before he can write his own happy ending. Set against the backdrop of Prohibition-era Cleveland, Stephen fights the same alcoholic demons that plagued his father as he tries to begin a life free from his family. He meets equally headstrong Julie and is smitten, but their marriage is as fractured as his career is solid. He can find ten ways to write about being in love, but he has a hard time translating love on the page to love in real life. Julie slips between his fingers like sand, and Stephen sees his father staring back when he looks in the mirror.
Try as he might to rewrite his life, even going so far as to change his name, he has to wonder if he is the author or the killer of love.
Cynthia Hilston is a stay-at-home mom of three young kids, happily married, and lives in the Cleveland, Ohio, area. Writing has always been like another child to her. After twenty years of waltzing in the world of fan fiction, she stepped away to do her debut dance with original works of fiction, although she still dabbles in fan fiction.
In her spare time – what spare time? – she devours books, shamelessly watches Hallmark movies and When Calls the Heart, pets her orange and black kitties, looks at the stars, drinks wine or coffee with good friends, and dreams of what other stories she wishes to tell.
New South Wales, 1972. Following the death of her beloved Aunt Hilda, widow Clare Barclay inherits Bellevue, an historic property in the Blue Mountains township of Numballa, Australia. Giving up her teaching job to move to the mountains, Clare plans to restore the house to its original glory. She also hopes to track down a box of missing documents that may shed light on why husband Jack secretly second-mortgaged their former home. Clare makes friends with the locals, including a young boy, Joe, and soon hears of plans to redevelop Numbulla and to exploit the land bordering the protected wilderness area. As she joins the protest against the rezoning, it’s clear someone doesn’t want her there and they’ll do anything to stop her…
Written from Clare’s and Joe’s perspectives, Bellevue highlights cross-generational bonds that grow between them as they struggle, individually and together, towards an acceptance of the losses each has sustained.
Born in Australia, Alison Booth gained a degree in architecture before transferring to economics. She is Professor Emeritus of Economics with a PhD from the London School of Economics and spent over two decades living and working in the UK before returning to Australia. She wrote her first novel at the age of nine, before other distractions set in.
Alison’s seventh published novel, Bellevue, will be out in March 2023. Her previous novels were published by Penguin and RedDoor. Her fiction has been translated into French and her short stories have appeared in international publications including Antipodes and New Writing. Awards include a Varuna Longlines Fellowship from the Eleanor Dark Foundation and the Highly Commended Award in the 2011 ACT Book of the Year Award. Her novels are: Stillwater Creek, The Indigo Sky, A Distant Land, A Perfect Marriage, The Philosopher’s Daughters and The Painting. For more information visit: https://www.alisonbooth.net/home
My thoughts: this was a really interesting book about community, friendship, outsiders and the environment. Clare inherits her late husband’s aunt’s house Bellevue in the small New South Wales town of Numballa. Hoping to build a new life and a permanent home for herself there, she finds that all is not well. Silent phone calls, vague threats, a car accident that probably isn’t an accident. Someone is trying to drive her away.
As the battle for the wilderness at the edge of her land heats up, she finds that she’s not alone. Other members of the local conservation group are also being harassed and frightened but Clare won’t give up.
She also meets Joe, a young boy with a love of birds, who draws beautiful pictures of them. Befriending him and offering him a safe space to work on his art, Clare expands her new world again.
Joe is struggling, after his mother’s death, left with an often absent older brother and a father who drinks too much, he’s a sensitive, artistic soul. Afraid to tell anyone except the local librarian of his passion, he’s sneaking into Clare’s hayloft to draw. Their unlikely friendship is a delight to read about. As Joe comes out of his shell, things seem to look up for his family too.
There’s a lot of heart in this book, and as Clare finds her place in Numballa, making friends and campaigning to save the wilderness, she slowly comes back to life after years in survival mode.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Edinburgh 1896 Amy Alardyce’s once-perfect life is in tatters. Her eldest son, Robert, has come of age, become the master of his own home, and married his childhood love Jane. But with maturity has come a terrible legacy, and the dark desires Robert inherited from his evil father Matthew, are fighting to get loose. Whilst Jane is working hard to get her and Robert accepted into fashionable society, poor women are being hunted on the streets of Edinburgh, and Amy fears her son is to blame. And once the infamous Inspector Murphy takes up the case, Amy has to face a stark choice – denounce her son as a monster or risk her own safety to protect him from the consequences of his lethal actions. Purchase
Heather Atkinson is the author of over fifty books – predominantly in the crime fiction genre. Although Lancashire born and bred she now lives with her family, including twin teenage daughters, on the beautiful west coast of Scotland. Her gangland series for Boldwood, set on the fictional Gallowburn estate in Glasgow begins with the title Blood Brothers.
My thoughts: Amy and Henry Alardyce are just too nice, they keep trying to save Robert from himself, from the darkness he’s inherited from his monstrous father, and in this installment of the Alardyces’ story, he’s actually trying as well. Married to the lovely Jane, father to a new baby daughter, he wants to change, to not bring the cruelty and violence within him home. But it keeps breaking out, and people are getting hurt.
I kept waiting for his Mr Hyde side to pop out and it did, learning to box leads him to almost kill a man, and his attacks on women continue. Now that the police, in the form of Inspector Murphy are on his tail, he’s running out of places to hide and his parents must decide what to do. Can Amy and Henry protect him anymore? And should they? I feel sorry for Jane, the Robert she knows isn’t all of him, and the part she doesn’t see is terrible. The village witch Magda (I love Magda) warns him that he will have to leave his family to protect it. Staying will have terrible consequences. More please!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
We’re celebrating the release of The Last Saxon King by Andrew Varga! Read on for more details!
The Last Saxon King (A Jump in Time #1)
Publication Date: March 7th, 2023
Genre: MG Fantasy/ Historical Fantasy
One jump to save all time.
When Dan Renfrew is accidentally transported to England in the year 1066, he also learns a startling fact. He’s a time jumper, descended from a long line of secret heroes who protect the present by traveling to the past to fix breaks and glitches in the time stream. To get home alive, Dan must try to restore history, but he soon discovers even bigger challenges than suspicious Anglo-Saxons, marauding Vikings, and invading Normans. A band of malicious time jumpers is threatening the very future of the universe.
Ever since his mother told him he was descended from Vikings, Andrew Varga has had a fascination for history. He’s read hundreds of history books, watched countless historical movies, and earned a BA from the University of Toronto with a specialist in history and a major in English.
Andrew has traveled extensively across Europe, where he toured some of the most famous castles, museums, and historical sites that Europe has to offer. During his travels he accumulated a collection of swords, shields, and other medieval weapons that now adorn his personal library. He is skilled in fencing and Kendo—the Japanese art of sword fighting. He has also used both longbows and crossbows, built a miniature working trebuchet, knit his own shirt of chain mail, and earned a black belt in karate.
Andrew currently lives in the greater Toronto area with his wife Pam, their three children, and their mini-zoo of two dogs, two cats, a turtle, and some fish. It was his children’s love of reading, particularly historical and fantasy stories, that inspired Andrew to write this series. In his spare time, when he isn’t writing or editing, Andrew reads history books, jams on guitar, or plays beach volleyball.
An Edwardian-era story of superstition, scandal, faith, and family, inspired by the real lives of the remarkable Mackenzie sisters of Castle Leod
We are pleased to share the book trailer for Sisters of Castle Leod by Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard. If you enjoyed the Outlander series, you would love this!
Sisters of Castle Leod: A Novel
Publication Date: January 19th, 2023
Genre: Historical Fiction
A family tragedy, a forgotten legend, and two sisters locked in a bitter feud…
“Heartbreaking and redemptive…a thoroughly engrossing story that will have readers quickly turning the pages.” –Megan Chance, bestselling author of A Splendid Ruin
Millions are fans of Diana Gabaldon’s popular Outlander books and television series, but few know that Gabaldon’s fictional Castle Leoch was inspired by a real Scottish castle, Castle Leod. The two sisters who lived there at the turn of the twentieth century were among the most fascinating and talked-about women of their era.
Lady Sibell Mackenzie is a spiritualist, a believer in reincarnation, and a popular author of mystical romances. Petite and proper, she values tradition and duty. Her younger sister Lady Constance, swimming champion and big game hunter, is a statuesque beauty who scandalizes British society with her public displays of Greek-style barefoot dancing. The differences between the sisters escalate into conflict after Sibell inherits their late father’s vast estates and the title 3rd Countess of Cromartie. But it is the birth of Sibell’s daughter that sets in motion a series of bizarre and tragic events, pitting sister against sister and propelling Sibell on a desperate mission to challenge the power of fate.
Sisters of Castle Leod, by award-winning author Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard, is the emotionally charged story of two sisters torn apart by jealousy and superstition, and the impossible leap of faith that could finally bring them together.
Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard is an award-winning author of historical fiction. Her books have been finalists for the prestigious Eric Hoffer Book Award, American Writing Awards, National Indie Excellence Awards, and Arizona Literary Contest; they have earned many 5-star ratings, including from Readers’ Favorite, Discovering Diamonds, and Book Readers Appreciation Group.
From the author of the modern classic The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets comes a feel-good novel about hope, love, and the powerful bond between sisters.
It’s 1990. The Happy Mondays are in the charts, a fifteen-year-old called Kate Moss is on the cover of the Face magazine, and Julia Roberts wears thigh-boots for the poster of a new movie called Pretty Woman.
February Kingdom is nineteen years old when she is knocked sideways by family tragedy. Then one evening in May, she finds an escaped canary in her kitchen and it sparks a glimmer of hope in her. With the help of the bird called Yellow, Feb starts to feel her way out of her own private darkness, just as her aunt embarks on a passionate and all-consuming affair with a married American drama teacher.
THIS COULD BE EVERYTHING is a coming-of-age story with its roots under the pavements of a pre-Richard-Curtis-era Notting Hill that has all but vanished. It’s about what happens when you start looking after something more important than you, and the hope a yellow bird can bring . .
Eva Rice has written 5 novels and is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets – a post-war coming-of-age story that was runner-up in the 2006 Richard and Judy Book of the Year. It is currently being developed by Fudge Park (creators of The Inbetweeners) and Moonage Pictures (Pursuit of Love) as a major new TV series.
Eva has toured with bands since her early twenties. She has written the music and lyrics for Harriet a musical based on an early Jilly Cooper novel due to open in 2023. She has a geek-like fascination with pop music, and her party trick is recalling chart positions. Follow her on twitter @EvaRiceAuthor.
My thoughts: I really felt for February, and not just because that’s a horrible name. She’s lost her parents and then her twin sister Diana, she’s drowning in grief and guilt, and thisclose to giving up completely. She’s got a place at a university in Texas, where she lived as a child, but doesn’t think she can go. The agoraphobia that’s engulfed her since Diana’s death in a car crash makes it hard to leave the house, so she doesn’t. Her aunt and uncle are kind and try to understand, but they’ve got issues of their own.
A canary finds his way into the kitchen, which leads to a boy called Theo, a musician who goes by Plato, finally leaving the house and realising she might just be able to survive after all.
Theres a luminescent quality to the writing, maybe it’s nostalgia, I was a kid in the 90s, maybe it’s the glow of Feb and Theo falling in love, the summer sun glinting off the pavement, the sticky heat we’re all familiar with. I don’t know, but it adds to the vividness of Feb’s slow reawakening.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Set during the partition of British India in 1947, a time when neighbor was pitted against neighbor and families were torn apart, award-winning author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel brings to life the sweeping story of three sisters caught up in events beyond their control, their unbreakable bond, and their incredible struggle against powerful odds.
India, 1947.
In a rural village in Bengal live three sisters, daughters of a well-respected doctor.
Priya: intelligent and idealistic, resolved to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a doctor, though society frowns on it.
Deepa: the beauty, determined to make a marriage that will bring her family joy and status.
Jamini: devout, sharp-eyed, and a talented quiltmaker, with deeper passions than she reveals.
Theirs is a home of love and safety, a refuge from the violent events taking shape in the nation. Then their father is killed during a riot, and even their neighbors turn against them, bringing the events of their country closer to home.
As Priya determinedly pursues her career goal, Deepa falls deeply in love with a Muslim, causing her to break with her family. And Jamini attempts to hold her family together, even as she secretly longs for her sister’s fiancè
When the partition of India is officially decided, a drastic—and dangerous—change is in the air. India is now for Hindus, Pakistan for Muslims. The sisters find themselves separated from one another, each on different paths. They fear for what will happen to not just themselves, but each other.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni outdoes herself with this deeply moving story of sisterhood and friendship, painting an account of India’s independence simultaneously exhilarating and devastating, that will make any reader—new or old—a devoted fan.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is the award-winning author of 18 books. Her themes include the Indian experience, contemporary America, women, immigration, history, myth, and the joys and challenges of living in a multicultural world. Her work has been published in over 100 magazines and anthologies and translated into 29 languages, including Dutch, Hebrew, Hindi and Japanese. She has won numerous awards, including an American
Book Award and the internation Premio Scanno Prize. Divakaruni also writes for children and young adults.
Her latest novel is Oleander Girl (Simon and Schuster, 2013). Her upcoming novel is Before We Visit the Goddess (about 3 generations of women– grandmother, mother and daughter– who each examine the question “what does it mean to be a successful woman.” April 2016, Simon & Schuster.)
Two of her books, The Mistress of Spices and Sister of My Heart, have been made into movies. Her novels One Amazing Thing and Palace of Illusions have been optioned. Her collection of stories, Arranged Marriage has been made into a play.
She was born in India and came to the United States to continue her education, receiving a Master’s degree from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
She currently teaches in the nationally ranked Creative Writing program at the Univ. of Houston. She serves on the Advisory board of Maitri in the San Francisco Bay Area and Daya in Houston, organizations that help South Asian or South Asian American women in abusive situations. She is also closely involved with Pratham, an organization that helps educate children (especially those living in urban slums) in India.
She has judged several prestigious awards, such as the National Book Award and the PEN Faulkner Award.
She lives in Houston with her husband Murthy and has two sons, Anand and Abhay (whose names she has used in her children’s novels).
My thoughts: this feels like a very timely novel as the current political situation in India stirs up old enmity between Hindus and Muslims. Partition, born out of the long struggle for independence from Britain, pitted neighbour against neighbour, families who had lived alongside one another for generations were suddenly at odds. Thousands died. More were displaced. There are still echoes of it now, years later.
But the independence of the book’s title isn’t only that of India and the newly created Pakistan, but also of three sisters. Priya, Deepa and Jamini. Their doctor father and seamstress mother love them but have different ideas about their futures. Bina wants her daughters married and settled, the traditional way of life. But her daughters have ideas of their own.
Priya longs to be a doctor, like her father, and will do whatever it takes to succeed, even leave India. Deepa has fallen in love with a Muslim, and mixed marriages are heavily frowned upon, from both sides. Jamini wants Amit, but Amit loves Priya. These strong willed and determined sisters will do what it takes to achieve their dreams.
Their bond is deep and strong and even in betrayal, they cannot be separated. There is heartbreak and danger, tragedy and love. As India births itself into an independent nation, through violence and division, these three young women will also strive to become.
Powerful and striking, this is a beautifully written and heartbreaking book about the different kinds of independence and also about family, and why sometimes you need more than just yourself.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Sisters Olivia and Clara rehearse with Ninette de Valois at the recently opened Sadler’s Wells. Disciplined and dedicated, Olivia is the perfect ballerina. But no matter how hard she works, she can never match up to identical twin Clara’s charm.
I would kill to be with her.
As rehearsals intensify for the ballet Coppélia, the girls feel increasingly as if they are being watched. And as infatuation threatens to become obsession, the fragile perfection of their lives starts to unravel.
LUCY ASHE trained at the Royal Ballet School for eight years, first as a Junior Associate and then at White Lodge. She has a diploma in dance teaching with the British Ballet Organisation. She decided to go to university to read English Literature at St Hugh’s College, Oxford (MA Oxon), while continuing to dance and perform. She then took a PGCE teaching qualification and became a teacher. She currently teaches English at Harrow School, an all-boys boarding school in North London. Her poetry and short stories have been published in a number of literary journals and she was shortlisted for the 2020 Impress Prize for New Writers. She also reviews theatre, in particular ballet, writing for the website Playstosee.com.
Lucy writes:
‘I have a great love of ballet and am fascinated by its history. I was lucky enough to meet many of the great dancers of the Royal Ballet, even Dame Ninette de Valois when she came to White Lodge to celebrate her 100th birthday. I have performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and learnt the repertoire for many of the classical ballets.
My novel is closely researched, re-creating the early years of the Vic-Wells company at Sadler’s Wells, and the story is immersed in ballet history featuring characters such as Ninette de Valois, Lydia Lopokova, Constant Lambert, Alicia Markova and Nicholas Sergeyev. Frederick and Dora Freed and their pointe shoe workshop play a key role, as does the history of Sadler’s Wells theatre itself. In a book shop on Cecil Court, I found beautifully preserved theatre programmes from the 1932-33 season at Sadler’s Wells and it was magical to imagine my characters holding those pages.
One major inspiration for me was my twin sister. We spent the first part of our lives doing everything together: first day of school, first ballet class, first piano lesson. We were a unit, referred to simply as the twins, and we had a very special connection. That connection remains even though our lives are so entirely different now. And so, in my novel, I have been inspired by the connectedness and the bond of twins, Olivia and Clara staying so close despite their lives starting to take them in different directions.’
My thoughts: when I was little I wanted to be a ballerina, turns out I have great feet, turnout but the wrong attitude. It didn’t stop me, however, becoming a huge ballet fan. I adore going to see the incredible dancers and of course Sadler’s Wells, the home of British ballet, is a theatre I know well. So this book was very, very much up my street.
Set during the period when British ballet was coming into its own, after being dominated by the French and then the Russians, and featuring some of the greats of the time, this very well researched book takes you right into the heart of Sadler’s Wells and the ballet classes attended by twin dancers Olivia and Clara.
Ballet is a small world at this point, and quite insular, so obsession is perfectly possible and it is obsession – almost mirrored in the production of Coppelia being rehearsed, that we find. Two men, a pianist and a cobbler, in love with the twins, but not in a necessarily healthy way. Then there is the twins’ own obsession with ballet, with their performance, their career. One is a purist, the other wants to be a star. This is post Pavlova, pre Fonteyn (although a very young Margot makes a tiny cameo) and there’s maybe a gap for a star dancer in the company. Could Olivia or Clara fill it?
It’s also, ultimately, a love story. Between the sisters, who share their lives with each other almost to the exclusion of others, and with ballet. One I can definitely appreciate, I may never have become a dancer, but sitting in the audience, watching the incredible performers, the hours of work and the honed, perfect bodies, you can fully see that love and obsession that still draws young dancers to it today. A brilliant, highly enjoyable book.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
A seaside party at a Cornish mansion with plenty of fizz, what could be more perfect? But something fishy is afoot… a killer lurks among the guests, and only Cressida Fawcett can stop them.
When Cressida Fawcett is invited to stay at Penbeagle House on the Cornish coast for a fancy-dress ball, she is looking forward to sipping rum cocktails clad as a pirate, watching the red-sailed boats go by and relaxing in the sea air with her good friend Dotty. But before they can raise their glasses to toast Cressida’s former flame Lord Canterbury’s engagement, he drops dead in front of the horrified guests.
The local doctor determines that Lord Canterbury was poisoned, and soon Detective Chief Inspector Andrews is on his way from Scotland Yard. But Cressida is dismayed by the murder of the intrepid explorer who once asked for her hand in marriage, and she cannot simply leave the case to the police. Together with Dotty and her little pug Ruby, Cressida searches for clues only to discover that many of the guests have a motive for murder. Did an irate journalist or a bitter fellow explorer send Lord Canterbury on his untimely final journey?
And when a young maid is found dead, floating in the shimmering waters of the cove, Cressida knows time is running out to catch the killer. Could aclue hidden among some rather pungent crab sandwiches help her solve the case before there is another murder?
A witty and totally addictive cozy mystery packed with intrigue and glamour. Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, T.E. Kinsey and Lee Strauss.
Fliss Chester lives in Surrey with her husband and writes historical cozy crime. When she is not killing people off in her 1940s whodunnits, she helps her husband, who is a wine merchant, run their business. Never far from a decent glass of something, Fliss also loves cooking (and writing up her favourite recipes on her blog), enjoying the beautiful Surrey and West Sussex countryside and having a good natter.
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My thoughts: this was so much fun, starting at a roaring 20s fancy dress party in a Cornish mansion, Cressida, Dotty and pug Ruby roar up in Cressida’s car dressed as pirates (Ruby’s a parrot – love it!) where a terrible event happens, Cressida’s ex fiancé Lord Canterbury, newly engaged to the host’s daughter, collapses. Poisoned. But who did it and why? There’s plenty of hijinks as Cressida investigates, despite detective Armstrong from Scotland Yard being on the case. There’s secrets, smuggling, another terrible murder and more.
This series just keeps getting better, I love Cressida, Dotty and Ruby. Ruby finds squirrels and clues, Dotty’s a real brick and Cressida is always dashing about, rooting out the truth. Marvellous stuff.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 