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Cover Reveal: The Bone Mother – Suzy Apsley

ramblingmads

Martha Strangeways has settled into a quiet life in Strathbran, after the horrific events that traumatised the village a year earlier. But all this is turned upside down when her friend at Glasgow CID, DI Derek Summers, calls on her to help with a disturbing case: a human ear, with an unusual Celtic earring, has been found next to a railway line in the Highlands. And when the body of a young woman wearing matching jewellery turns up at a landmark church shortly after, the mystery deepens. Why has she been laid out in a ritualistic fashion? Does her trek along the little-known Cailleach Way have anything to do with her death? And who is running the Facebook Group where she posted details of her journey to the shrine of the Bone Mother goddess? As Martha tries to unpick the threads, she finds herself entwined with a ghost from her own past, and in conflict with the owner of a project that threatens to destroy the goddess’s sacred land. With Halloween approaching, and someone determined to protect the goddess at all costs, can Martha and Summers catch the killer before they strike again – and this time much closer to home…?

About Suzy Apsley

Originally from the north-east of England, former journalist Suzy Aspley has lived in Scotland for almost thirty years. She writes crime and short stories, often inspired by the strange things she sees in the landscape around her. She won Bloody Scotland’s Pitch Perfect in 2019 with the original idea for her debut novel and was shortlisted for the Capital Crime New Voices Award. In 2020, she was mentored by Jo Dickinson as part of the Hachette future bookshelf initiative. Crow Moon was longlisted for the Caledonia Novel Award, and shortlisted for the Val McDermid Debut Award and the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize. When she’s not writing, she’s either got her nose buried in a book, or is outside with her dogs dreaming up more dark stories. She lives in Stirlingshire with her family.

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Blog Tour: Sharks – Simone Buchholz, translated by Rachel Ward

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In Wilhelmsburg, Hamburg’s so-called ‘problem area’, an American couple is found brutally murdered in a derelict house. Prosecutor Chastity Riley is assigned the case and quickly finds herself waist-deep in a murky tangle of city planners, shady investors and vanishing officials.

The gentrification machine is rolling on, and someone is sending a very clear message. As November fog settles over the city, Chastity is coughing up blood, her personal life is a slow-motion disaster, and her former colleague, Faller, won’t stop interfering.

But nothing’s going to stop her from cutting through the lies – not even the sharks circling ever closer…

Simone Buchholz was born in Hanau. At university, she studied Philosophy and Literature, worked as a waitress and a columnist, and trained to be a journalist at the prestigious HenriNannen-School.

In 2016, Simone Buchholz was awarded the Crime Cologne Award as well as runner-up in the German Crime Fiction Prize for Blue Night, which was number one on the KrimiZEIT Best of Crime List for months. The critically acclaimed Beton Rouge, Mexico Street, Hotel Cartagena (winner of the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger) and River Clyde all followed suit, with 2023’s The Acapulco and 2024’s The Kitchen reloading the series.

She is on the board of PEN Berlin, and is at the forefront of the lobbying movement for fair pay for authors. She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her son.

My thoughts: Chastity Riley has a nasty virus she can’t shake, and a nasty case too. Two elderly Americans who have lived in Hamburg for decades, have been murdered in their homes.

As the team investigate, they discover a mess of planning applications, permits, foreign investment and no one wants to answer her questions. There’s a niece who has hired a retired Faller, who has started working as a PI, but her story seems a bit off.

Faller’s replacement has started, and causes more than a ripple in Chastity’s personal life too. She needs to get some rest, but she can’t shake this case.

Another clever and twisty turny story of Hamburg’s seedy underbelly and opaque bureaucracy. Chastity gets more complicated, and the changes to her team of detectives throws up complications. I’m really glad this series is back, the writing is always excellent and compelling, really enjoyable.

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

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Blog Tour: Tombstoning – Doug Johnstone

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Your best mate just fell off a cliff in mysterious circumstances. You were the last person to see him alive. What do you do? If you’re David Lindsay from Arbroath, you leg it – and don’t go back.

Not for fifteen years. Then Nicola Cruickshank – yes, that Nicola, the girl you always fancied but never had the guts to speak to – gets in touch. She wants you back for a school reunion. At the very place it happened. Of course you say yes. Not to lay ghosts to rest, but because you still fancy Nicola.

The thing is, if you are David Lindsay, then returning to Arbroath isn’t going to bring closure. Because when someone else tumbles off the cliffs – an act the locals now call tombstoning – David has a choice: run away again, or finally find out why people around him keep dying…

Doug Johnstone is the author of nineteen novels, many of which have been bestsellers. The Space Between Us was chosen for BBC Two’s Between the Covers, while six of his books have been shortlisted or longlisted for the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year or the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year.

Doug has taught creative writing or been writer in residence at universities, schools, writing retreats, festivals, prisons and a funeral directors. He’s also been an arts journalist for twenty-five years. He is a songwriter and musician with ten albums released, and drummer for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers. He’s also co-founder of the Scotland Writers Football Club.

My thoughts: I love Doug’s books (#skelfaholic) so I was excited to read this, the re-issue of his very first book. And I wasn’t disappointed. It doesn’t read like a debut, it’s as assured and clever as his most recent, this is an author who knows what he’s doing.

The story is full of twists and gets pretty dark at one point, but had me completely gripped. I could not put it down.

David and Nicola are very ordinary people, but when things get nasty, they’re also brave and resourceful. Tracing the last steps of David’s old friends before their shocking deaths, he comes to the conclusion that it doesn’t add up. It never has.

The police are looking at him, but they haven’t thought of the last member of their foursome – Neil. If David can track him down, maybe he might get some answers, or at least an idea for why two of his old pals, fifteen years apart, appear to have chucked themselves off the cliffs. When they had plenty to live for.

So begins David and Nicola’s quest. Find Neil, get some answers, hopefully lay this to rest. But of course, it’s not straightforward. And chaos ensues.

Absolutely brilliant stuff, you should get a copy and enjoy.

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

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Blog Tour: Catherine – Essie Fox

ramblingmads

With a nature as wild as the moors she loves to roam, Catherine Earnshaw grows up alongside Heathcliff, a foundling her father rescued from the streets of Liverpool. Their fierce, untamed bond deepens as they grow – until Mr Earnshaw’s death leaves Hindley, Catherine’s brutal brother, in control and Heathcliff reduced to servitude.

Desperate to protect him, Catherine turns to Edgar Linton, the handsome heir to Thrushcross Grange. She believes his wealth might free Heathcliff from cruelty – but her choice is fatally misunderstood, and their lives spiral into a storm of passion, jealousy and revenge. Now, eighteen years later, Catherine rises from her grave to tell her story – and to seek redemption.

Essie Fox’s Catherine reimagines Wuthering Heights with beauty and intensity – a haunting, atmospheric retelling that brings new life to a timeless classic and lays bare the dark heart of an immortal love

Essie Fox is the Sunday Times bestselling author of seven historical novels, including The Somnambulist, shortlisted for the National Book Awards, and The Fascination, an instant Sunday Times bestseller. Her work has twice been selected as The Times Historical Book of the Month, most recently for her gothic mystery Dangerous. She appears regularly at literary festivals and cultural institutions and is the host of the podcast Talking the Gothic. She lives in Windsor.

My thoughts: Essie Fox’s reinagining of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights narrated by the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw-Linton after her death in childbirth, offers a different perspective than that of the narrators of the original novel – housekeeper Nelly Dean and Lockwood, who doesn’t feature in this version, set as it is before his arrival.

Catherine feels deep affection for Heathcliffe but doesn’t excuse his horrible behaviour, the cruel and vicious revenge he spends his adult life inflicting on the next generation. 

Fox’s version makes it clear that Heathcliffe and Cathy have the same father, who tries to prevent their relationship getting too complicated, shall we say. Although the next generation, who are all cousins, no one seems so worried about.

While I have complicated feelings about Emily Bronte’s novel (I had to study it, write essays and sit an exam about it, tends to make it far from beloved), and get really fed up with people who think an incestuous relationship between two truly awful, spoilt and narcissistic people is romantic, I actually really liked this reimagining.

Essie Fox has a keen understanding of the Gothic and gives Cathy her voice back, she’s a passive character in WH, what with being dead, but here, she’s the all-seeing godlike narrator, who wishes she could intervene and change the situation for her family, messy and complicated as it all becomes.

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

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Blog Tour: Into the Dark – Ørjan Karlsson, translated by Ian Giles

ramblingmads

When a mutilated body rises from the icy waters off the jetty in Kjerringøy, it shocks the quiet coastal village – and stirs something darker beneath. Not long after, a young woman is found dead in a drab apartment. Suicide, perhaps. Or something far more sinister. Detective Jakob Weber and former national investigator Noora Yun Sande are drawn into both cases.

Then a hiker has a terrifying encounter in the nearby wilderness: a solitary cabin … and a man without a face. As the investigation deepens, the clues grow more disturbing – and the wild, wintry landscape closes in. Kjerringøy’s beautiful wilderness conceals a heart of darkness, and Jakob is certain of only one thing: if they don’t find the killer soon, he’ll strike again.…

Ørjan Karlsson (b. 1970) grew up in Bodø, in the far north of Norway. A sociologist by education, he received officer training in the army and has taken part in many missions overseas. He has worked at the Ministry of Defence and is now head of department in the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection. He has written a wide range of thrillers, sci-fi novels and crime fiction, and been shortlisted for or won numerous awards, with a number of his books currently in production for the screen. He lives in Nordland, where the Jakob Weber crime series is set.

My thoughts: This starts with two shocking deaths – a body dumped in a bay, its eyes missing, and a young woman, whose apparent suicide seems suspicious to the crime scene tech processing it. Was it the scumbag boyfriend or someone else?

The body turns out to be an artist, missing for a while, whose girlfriend thought he’d just left her. The connection with a mysterious rehab unit nearby makes the detectives suspicious, the place only has three clients and the owner’s methods are suspect too. How is it keeping afloat and why does it seem to have no staff?

As the investigation intensifies, and a witness is also killed, the focus on the rehab centre grows, there’s not much else around and there appears to be a connection between it and the supposed suicide too. 

Twists, turns, and sinister things on the mountain, this is dark and powerful, it kept me up all night. 

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

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Blog Tour: Blackwater – Sarah Sultoon

ramblingmads

London, Christmas 1999. The world is on edge. With the new millennium just days away, fears of the Millennium Bug are spiralling– warnings of computer failures, market crashes, even global catastrophe.

But fifty miles east, on the frozen Blackwater Island, a different kind of mystery unfolds. A child’s body is discovered on the bracken, untouched by footprints, with no sign of how he died. And no one has come forward to claim him. At the International Tribune, reporter Jonny Murphy senses something is off. Police are appealing for relatives, not suspects. An anonymous call led officers to the scene, but no one knows who made it.

While the world fixates on a digital apocalypse, Jonny sees the real disaster unfolding closer to home. With just twenty-hour hours before the century turns, he heads to Blackwater– driven by curiosity, desperation, and the sting of rejection from his colleague Paloma. But Blackwater has secrets buried deep in the frozen ground. More victims– some dead, others still paying for past sins. And when Paloma catches up to him, they stumble onto something far bigger than either of them imagined. Something that could change everything.

The millennium is coming. The clock is ticking.

Can Jonny stop it? Should he?

And what if Y2K wasn’t a hoax, but a warning…?

Sarah Sultoon is an award-winning journalist and writer, whose work as an international news executive with CNN and for Channel 4 News has taken her all over the world, from the seats of power in both Westminster and Washington to the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan. Her debut thriller, The Source, was a Capital Crime Book Club pick, won the Crime Fiction Lover Best Debut Award, was nominated for the CWA’s New Blood Dagger, was a number one bestseller on Kindle and is currently in production with Lime Pictures. It was followed by the critically acclaimed The Shot, Dirt and Death Flight.

My thoughts: a new book by Sarah Sultoon is pretty much a guaranteed stay-up-all-night-totally-gripped read. And so this one is.

Set in 1999, when I was 13, the eve of the Millennium, when Y2K was a paranoid fear, when computers weren’t as prevalent as they are today but still heavily relied on, people genuinely thought aeroplanes might fall out of the sky. But everyone was also geared up for a massive party with fireworks and the Millennium Dome (now the O2 Arena) was a huge tourist draw.

However, in a quiet Essex backwater, on an island designated a Special Scientific area of Study and therefore off limits, things are happening of a different nature. A young boy’s body is found on the island, he’s dressed in strange clothes and seems to have come from nowhere. No one is that bothered, and the only police officer in the area can’t do much.

Reporter Johnny has been sent to find out more, his editor desperate for something other than the Millennium to fill the pages of the newspaper. Finding the tiny village with its pub and not much else is one thing, getting anyone to talk about the island is another.

But out there in the marshes is a story bigger than anything Johnny has covered before, if he survives long enough to file it. 

Intelligent, engaging and utterly brilliant, this is a book that will not only keep you up all night but leave you gasping and utterly hooked. Clear your calendar. 

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

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Blog Tour: Scars of Silence – Johana Gustawsson, translated by David Warriner

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Twenty-three years ago, a young woman was murdered on the Swedish island of Lidingö.

The island has kept its silence.

Until now…

As autumn deepens into darkness in Lidingö, on the Stockholm archipelago, the island is plunged into chaos: in the space of a week, two teenaged boys are murdered. Their bodies are left deep in the forest, dressed in white tunics with crowns of candles on their heads, like offerings to Saint Lucia.

Maïa Rehn has fled Paris for Lidingö after a family tragedy. But when the murders shake the island community, the former police commissioner is drawn into the heart of the investigation, joining Commissioner Aleksander Storm to unravel a mystery as chilling as the Nordic winter.

As they dig deeper, it becomes clear that a wind of vengeance is blowing through the archipelago, unearthing secrets that are as scandalous as they are inhuman.

But what if the victims weren’t who they seemed? What if those long silenced have finally found a way to strike back?

How far would they go to make their tormentors pay?

And you – how far would you go?

Born in Marseille, France, and with a degree in Political Science, Johana Gustawsson has worked as a journalist for the French and Spanish press and Her critically acclaimed Roy & Castells series, including Block 46, Keeper and Blood Song, has won the Plume d’Argent, Balai de la découverte, Balai d’Or and Prix Marseillais du Polar awards, and is now published in nineteen countries. A TV adaptation is currently under way in a French, Swedish and UK co-production. The Bleeding was a number-one bestseller in France and is the first in a new series. Johana lives in Sweden with her Swedish husband and their three sons.

My thoughts: This was so good, shocking and horrible, and totally gripping. There’s something very haunting, and deeply twisted, about dressing the victims as Saint Lucia, in her white dress and crown of light. But the killer is making a statement. It just takes a while for Commissioner Aleks Storm to join the pieces and work out the connection between the victims. 

Aided by French detective Maïa Rehn, asked by the grandmother of the convicted killer from twenty-three years ago to take another look at that case, Storm must find the person who has decided to take terrible revenge on those who have gone unpunished. They have bided their time and held onto their grief for so long. The deaths and what they represent will tear the community apart and destroy lives.

Dark, haunted by the past, and full of righteous anger at the slow change of the law (which is the same everywhere, society fast outpaces the justice system), this is another absolutely brilliant read from Johana Gustawsson, an incredibly skilled writer, who draws you into her world and never really let’s you go.

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

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Blog Tour: Black as Death – Lilja Sigurđardóttir, translated by Lorenza Garcia

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The haunting final chapter to an award-winning series… And a final reckoning…

With the fate of her missing sister, Ísafold, finally uncovered, Áróra feels a fragile relief as the search that consumed her life draws to a close. But when Ísafold’s boyfriend – the prime suspect in her disappearance – is found dead at the same site where Ísafold’s body was discovered, Áróra’s grip on reality starts to unravel … and the mystery remains far from solved.

To distract herself, she dives headfirst into a money-laundering case that her friend Daníel is investigating. But she soon finds that there is more than meets the eye and, once again, all leads point towards Engihjalli, the street where Ísafold lived and died, and a series of shocking secrets that could both explain and endanger everything…

Icelandic crime writer Lilja Sigurðardóttir was born in the town of Akranes in 1972 and raised in Mexico, Sweden, Spain and Iceland. An award-winning playwright, Lilja has written eleven crime novels, including Snare, Trap and Cage, making up the Reykjavík Noir trilogy, and her standalone thriller Betrayal, all of which have hit bestseller lists worldwide.

Snare was longlisted for the CWA International Dagger, Cage won Best Icelandic Crime Novel of the Year and was a Guardian Book of the Year, and Betrayal was shortlisted for the prestigious Glass Key Award and won Icelandic Crime Novel of the Year. The film rights for the Reykjavík Noir trilogy have been bought by Glassriver.

Cold as Hell, the first book in the An Áróra Investigation series, was published in the UK in 2021 and was followed by Red as Blood, White as Snow and Dark as Night. TV rights to the series have been bought by Studio Zentral in Germany.

Lilja lives in Reykjavík with her partner and a brood of chickens.

My thoughts: The police are still investigating the deaths of Áróra’s sister and her abusive partner, now that their bodies have been found. The theory that Bjorn killed her and then fled to Canada has been destroyed and now they need to find out what really happened.

Daniel asks Áróra to help with his latest case, hoping to distract her, he’s looking into a chain of coffee shops that seem to be making money that doesn’t entirely add up in terms of their customer numbers.

The police discover a link between Bjorn and a known local drug dealer and thug. Will this lead to answers about Isafold’s death?

Another gripping instalment in this series, and Áróra might finally get some closure around her sister’s tragic end.

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

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Blog Tour: The Winter Job – Antti Tuomainen, translated by David Hackston

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Helsinki, 1982. Recently divorced postal worker Ilmari Nieminen has promised his daughter a piano for Christmas, but with six days to go – and no money – he’s desperate. A last-minute job offers a solution: transport a valuable antique sofa to Kilpisjärvi, the northernmost town in Finland.

With the sofa secured in the back of his van, Ilmari stops at a gas station, and an old friend turns up, offering to fix his faulty wipers, on the condition that he tags along. Soon after, a persistent Saab 96 appears in the rearview mirror. And then a bright-yellow Lada. That’s when Ilmari realises that he is transporting something truly special. And that’s when Ilmari realises he might be in serious trouble…

Finnish Antti Tuomainen was an award-winning copywriter when he made his literary debut in 2007 as a suspense author. In 2011, Tuomainen’s third novel, The Healer, was awarded the Clue Award for Best Finnish Crime Novel and was shortlisted for the Glass Key Award. In 2013, the Finnish press crowned Tuomainen the ‘King of Helsinki Noir’ when Dark as My Heart was published.

Tuomainen was one of the first to challenge the Scandinavian crime-genre formula, and his poignant, dark and hilarious The Man Who Died became an international bestseller, shortlisting for the Petrona and Last Laugh Awards. Palm Beach, Finland (2018) was an immense success, with The Times calling Tuomainen ‘the funniest writer in Europe’, and Little Siberia (2019) was shortlisted for the Capital Crime/Amazon Publishing Readers Awards, the Last Laugh Award and the CWA International Dagger, and won the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel. It was released as a Netflix film in 2025.

The Rabbit Factor, the first book in a trilogy that includes The Moose Paradox and The Beaver Theory, is now in production for TV with Amazon Studios, starring Steve Carell. The Moose Paradox was a Literary Review and Guardian Book of the Year and shortlisted for CrimeFest’s Last Laugh Award. The trilogy was followed in 2024 by The Burning Stones. Antti lives in Helsinki with his wife.

My thoughts: Taking a last minute delivery job that turns out to be a complete nightmare, Ilmari the postman is determined to buy a piano for his daughter for Christmas.

The dodgy van he’s given guzzles fuel and isn’t exactly designed for driving through the snow. He picks up an old friend, and some unwanted followers  – a Lada and a Saab, both want the sofa in the back of the van and are prepared to do almost anything to get it.

This blackly comic tale of a desperate drive across Finland to deliver a sofa and the unpleasant surprise they find inside it, made me laugh, it’s quite silly and weird, which is very Tuomainen, whose books I really enjoy. The stakes are pretty high and the ending is rewarding, definitely worth a re-read, maybe at Christmas!

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

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Blog Tour: Deadman’s Pool – Kate Rhodes

ramblingmads

The islands’ secrets run deeper than the sea…

Winter storms lash the Isles of Scilly, when DI Ben Kitto ferries the islands’ priest to St Helen’s. Father Michael intends to live as a pilgrim in the ruins of an ancient church on the uninhabited island, but an ugly secret is buried among the rocks. Digging frantically in the sand, Ben’s dog, Shadow, unearths the emaciated remains of a young woman.

The discovery chills Ben to the core. The victim is Vietnamese, with no clear link to the community – and her killer has made sure that no one will find her easily. The storm intensifies as the investigation gathers pace.

Soon Scilly is cut off by bad weather, with no help available from the mainland. Ben is certain the killer is hiding in plain sight. He knows they are waiting to kill again – and at unimaginable cost.

Kate Rhodes is an acclaimed crime novelist and an award-winning poet, selected for Val McDermid’s New Blood panel at Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival for her debut, Crossbones Yard. She has been nominated twice for the prestigious CWA Dagger in the Library award, and is one of the founders of the Killer Women writing group. She lives in Cambridge with her husband, the writer and film-maker Dave Pescod, and visited the Scilly Isles every year as a child, which gave her the idea for the critically acclaimed Isles of Scilly Mysteries series.

My thoughts: I really like this series, and I have a deep love for Cornwall, but have never visited the Scillies, and considering how many murders there are, I don’t know if I would!

Ben Kitto and Shadow find the remains of a young woman buried in a shallow grave on the uninhabited (unless you’re a sea bird) island of St Helens. She’s a victim of people trafficking, and there might be another young woman out there.

The story is full of shocking twists, and big changes are coming for the islands’ police force, and Ben has to keep the team focused even as they worry about their colleague. The outcome of this case might also have implications for Ben’s private life. It’s a real game-changer of a book, reshaping what we know about this version of the Scillies.

I was totally hooked, especially as the weather worsened and events went from bad to worse, it all seemed hopeless and there were still shocks to come. Absolutely cracking.

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