Tag: #teamorenda

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Thirty Days of Darkness – Jenny Lund Madsen, translated by Megan E. Turney 

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To celebrate the paperback release of Thirty Days of Darkness, I’m re-sharing my review from last year’s hardback tour. Read on for more info and to see what I thought the first time I read this book.

It’s also now available in Sainsbury’s  – so pop a copy in your trolley!

Buy online

A snobbish Danish literary author is challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days, travelling to a small village in Iceland for inspiration, and then a body appears … an atmospheric, darkly funny, twisty debut thriller, first in an addictive new series.

Copenhagen author Hannah is the darling of the literary community and her novels have achieved massive critical acclaim. But nobody actually reads them, and frustrated by writer`s block, Hannah has the feeling that she`s doing something wrong.
When she expresses her contempt for genre fiction, Hanna is publicly challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days. Scared that she will lose face, she accepts, and her editor sends her to HÚ safjÖ ð ur – a quiet, tight-knit village in Iceland, filled with colourful local characters – for inspiration.
But two days after her arrival, the body of a fisherman´ s young son is pulled from the water … and what begins as a search for plot material quickly turns into a messy and dangerous investigation that threatens to uncover secrets that put everything at risk … including Hannah…
Atmospheric, dramatic and full of nerve-jangling twists and turns, Thirty Days of Darkness is a darkly funny, unsettling debut Nordic Noir thriller that marks the start of a breath-taking new series.

Jenny Lund Madsen is one of Denmark’s most acclaimed scriptwriters (including the international hits Rita and Follow the Money) and is known as an advocate for better representation for sexual and ethnic minorities in Danish TV and film. She recently made her debut as a playwright with the critically acclaimed Audition (Aarhus Teater) and her debut literary thriller, Thirty Days of Darkness, first in an addictive new series, won the Harald Mogensen Prize for Best Danish Crime Novel of the year and was shortlisted for the coveted Glass Key Award.

My thoughts: come with me to an Icelandic village in the middle of nowhere, in winter, where writer Hannah is attempting to write a crime novel in 30 days to win a bet. When there’s a murder, which she gets involved in and puts her safety at risk. She doesn’t speak the language, forcing others to have to speak English or Danish, she doesn’t know the people, but she’s pretty sure she can catch the killer. As you do.

I found Hannah a bit grating, she pushes her way into people’s lives and business with little regard for their feelings and clearly thinks very highly of herself. Her career is stalling as not many people seem that keen on her literary fiction – preferring crime writers like her nemesis Jørn. Which is why she boasts she can write a whole crime novel in a month. This tickled me, I do love it when writers poke fun at the industry and their own genre.

Especially when the book is so good, like this one. Jenny Lund Madsen has written a cracking crime thriller, with all the good ingredients – remote location, nosey outsider, secrets that have been buried for years, lots of possible suspects, a conflicted community, a lone policeman, and winter closing in. Iceland’s unique geography and the fact that the sun isn’t in evidence for much of the winter adds to the sinister atmosphere – snow bound crimes are always a bit more macabre than sunny ones. The winter darkness adds to the sense of claustrophobia and paranoia, someone here is a killer. They can’t leave, but neither can anyone else.

Full of suspense, intrigue and horror, this dark and twisted tale of murder and tragedy is absolutely perfect for a dark and stormy night’s reading. Or not, if you don’t want to stay 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.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Kitchen – Simone Buchholz, translated by Rachel Ward

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When neatly packed male body parts wash up by the River Elbe, Hamburg
State Prosecutor Chastity Riley and her colleagues begin a perplexing
investigation.

As the murdered men are identified, it becomes clear that they all had a history
of abuse towards women, leading Riley to wonder if it would actually be in
society’s best interests to catch the killers.
But when her best friend Carla is attacked, and the police show little interest in
tracking down the offender, Chastity takes matters into her own hands and as a
link between the two cases emerges, horrifying revelations threaten Chastity’s
own moral compass … and put everything at risk.

The award-winning, critically acclaimed Chastity Riley series returns with a slick,
hard-boiled, darkly funny thriller that tackles issues of violence and the
difference between law and justice with devastating insight, and an ending you
will never see coming…

Simone Buchholz was born in Hanau in 1972. At university, she studied
Philosophy and Literature, worked as a waitress and a columnist, and trained to
be a journalist at the prestigious Henri-Nannen-School in Hamburg.

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 and River Clyde all followed in the Chastity Riley series. Hotel Cartagena won the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger in 2022. The
Acapulco (2023) marked the beginning of the Chastity Reloaded series, with The
Kitchen out in 2024.

She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her husband and son.

My thoughts: Chastity is prepping a case for court when she gets a call about body parts being found all neatly packaged up, just the hands, feet and head. It’s weird and when a second package is found, the team think they might be looking for a serial killer.

At the same time Carla, Chastity’s best friend, is the victim of a horrific assault which leaves her reeling, and Chastity at a loss as to how to help, the police aren’t getting far with their investigation and Carla doesn’t want to talk about it.

So Chastity focuses on the case, trying to find the link between the victims, and perhaps lead to the killer. After meeting a new friend of Carla and spending an evening at a fancy restaurant, she’s putting the dots together, in a really quite gross solution that’s pretty shocking too.

Chastity is still pretty bad at the personal life stuff, keeping people at arms length, even when she knows deep down that she needs them. I still really like her, even though she is deeply dysfunctional and a bit messed up.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Crow Moon – Suzy Aspley

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When the crow moon rises, the darkness is unleashed…


Martha Strangeways is struggling to find purpose in her life, after giving up her career as an investigative reporter when her young twins died in a house fire.
Overwhelmed by guilt and grief, her life changes when she stumbles across the body of a missing teenager – a tragedy that
turns even more sinister when a poem about crows is discovered inked onto his back…


When another teenager goes missing in the remote landscape, Martha is drawn into the investigation, teaming up with DI Derek Summers, as malevolent rumours begin to spread and paranoia grows.
As darkness descends on the village of Strathbran, it soon becomes clear that no one is safe, including Martha…

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 also longlisted for the Caledonia Novel Award. She’s currently working on the second book in the series, and 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.

My thoughts: this was so good, creepy, weird, gripping, well written and from an exciting new writer in crime fiction.

When a teenage boy goes missing in the small community of Strathban and his body is found with a verse from an old poem about a witch inked on his body, Martha, a grieving journalist and mother of the dead boy’s best friend, who found the body, is drawn into the investigation.

The Scottish poem is sinister and creepy, embedded in the local landscape and the killer is definitely a local and obsessed with it. Martha suspects the parish priest, who is rather intense and knows all the young people who get dragged into the case, including her son.

There’s a terrible hidden tragedy that comes to light as the case races to it’s end, and there’s more as a fire takes hold of the kirk, and Martha has to confront her own personal losses.

I really liked Martha, she has incredible instincts and even wrapped in grief and pain, she has compassion for others and determination to help, even when DI Summers tells her to back of, but it’s such a personal case, she can’t. She thinks the police have the wrong suspect and that proves to be true.

This book had me absolutely hooked from the start and I cannot wait for the next book, I want to see more of Martha and how her next investigation goes.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Collapsing Wave – Doug Johnstone

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Six months since the earth-shattering events of The Space Between Us, the revelatory hope of the aliens’ visit has turned to dust and the creatures have disappeared into waters off Scotland’s west coast.
Teenager Lennox and grieving mother Heather are being held in New Broom, a makeshift US military base, the subject of
experiments, alongside the Enceladons who have been captured by the authorities.
Ava, who has given birth, is awaiting the jury verdict at her trial for the murder of her husband. And MI7 agent Oscar Fellowes, who has been sidelined by the US military, is beginning to think he might be on the wrong side of history.
When alien Sandy makes contact, Lennox and Heather make a plan to escape with Ava. All three of them are heading for a profound confrontation between the worst of humanity and a possible brighter future, as the stakes get higher for the alien Enceladons and the entire human race…

Doug Johnstone is the author of 16 previous novels, most recently The Opposite of Lonely (2023) and The Space Between Us (2023). The Big Chill (2020) was longlisted for Theakston Crime Novel of the Year, Black Hearts was shortlisted for the same award. Three of his books, A Dark Matter (2020), Breakers (2019) and The Jump (2015), have been shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year. He’s taught creative writing and been writer in residence at various institutions over the last decade, and has been an arts journalist for over twenty years. Doug is a songwriter and musician with six albums and three EPs released, and he plays drums for the Fun
Lovin’ Crime Writers. He’s also co-founder of the Scotland Writers Football Club, and has a PhD in nuclear physics.

My thoughts: Sandy and his friends, human and alien are back, but things are not good. The Americans have swept in, built a base and the UK government have just let them. They’re conducting experiments on Lennox, Heather and the Enceladons they’ve managed to capture in the Scottish waters.

After Ava’s trial, she and baby Chloe are brought to this base too, and the experiments intensify, Chloe at the heart of them in some of the most disturbing scenes in the book.

The Enceladons came here as refugees and this is like the government’s moronic “hostile environment” policy on steroids. They are torturing the alien creatures, referring to them as “illegals”, refusing to believe that they’re gentle, friendly creatures who don’t even understand violence.

Obviously the humans who have connected to Sandy, Xander and the other Enceladons are determined to escape and take their tentacled friends with them. They’ve also made some new human friends locally, who will do anything to help, even storm the compound and fight the armed soldiers inside.

There’s lots of quite shocking moments, and it’s a lot darker than The Space Between Us, though there is still hope there, a chance for humanity and the Enceladons to live in harmony, it’s just more complicated and harder.

I don’t know how Doug Johnstone does it, has me howling with laughter at the misadventures of the Skelfs in their books and then has me whispering “no!” at the terrible things that happened here.

Sandy and his kin have such big hearts and are full of love and then there’s us, not trusting and unwilling to believe that anyone, even beings from another world, could be that good and have no ulterior motive.

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

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Descent – Paul Hardistry

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Kweku Ashworth is a child of the cataclysm, born on a sailboat to parents
fleeing the devastation in search for a refuge in the Southern Ocean. Growing
up in a world forever changed, his only connection to the events that set the
world on its course to disaster were the stories his step-father, now long-dead,
recorded in his manuscript, The Forcing.

But there are huge gaps in the story that his mother, still alive but old and frail,
steadfastly refuses to speak of, even thirty years later. When he discovers
evidence that his mother has tried to cover up the truth, he knows that it is time
to find out for himself.

Determined to learn what really happened during his mother’s escape from the
concentration camp to which she and Kweku’s father were banished, and their
subsequent journey halfway around the world, Kweku and his young family set
out on a perilous voyage across a devastated planet. What they find will
challenge not only their faith in humanity, but their ability to stay alive.

Canadian Paul E Hardisty has spent 25 years working all over the world as an
engineer, hydrologist and environmental scientist. He has roughnecked on oil rigs in
Texas, explored for gold in the Arctic, mapped geology in Eastern Turkey (where he was befriended by PKK rebels), and rehabilitated water wells in the wilds of Africa.

He was in Ethiopia in 1991 as the Mengistu regime fell, and was bumped from one of the last flights out of Addis Ababa by bureaucrats and their families fleeing the rebels. In 1993 he survived a bomb blast in a café in Sana’a.

Paul is a university professor and CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). The first four novels in his Claymore Straker series, The Abrupt Physics of Dying, The Evolution of Fear, Reconciliation for the Dead and Absolution all received great critical acclaim and The Abrupt Physics of Dying was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and Telegraph Thriller of the Year. The Forcing (2023) was a SciFi Now Book of the Month, with The Descent out in 2024.

Paul is a sailor, a private pilot, keen outdoorsman, and lives in Western Australia.

My thoughts: The Forcing was a heck of a book and I thought a tough act to follow, but The Descent is incredible. Chronicling not only a sequel featuring Teacher’s step-son, but also exploring how a cabal of wealthy and powerful men helped destroy the world, this is timely, powerful and moving writing.

After the safety of their home is violated, his mother, brother and sister-in-law murdered and their toddler daughter kidnapped; Kewku, his wife and son board Providence, the boat that brought his family to Australia, and head out in search of answers.

Retracing elements of his family’s journey to safety, Kweku hopes to find members of his biological father’s family still alive and rescue his stolen niece. Fuelled by the mysterious Sparkplug’s dispatches from the past, and Teacher’s own account of the terrible climate catastrophe and war, Kweku creates his own narrative of this second voyage of hope.

Sparkplug was the assistant and sometime mistress of Derek Argent, one of the rich, morally corrupt men who orchestrated the  events that have so divided the remnants of humanity. Kweku, Juliette and Leo will risk their lives, their family and their souls on this voyage into the unknown. There are dangers they could never have imagined lurking on the edges of what remains, desperate people and manipulative leaders, many of whom seem to offer much.

Kweku is reading an old copy of The Odyssey, and being a mythology nerd who studied that book, I can see the echoes of some of Odysseus’ misadventures in Kweku’s. As well as those of Teacher and his family in The Forcing. I could probably write whole essays on the similarities and comparisons in these three books, but here is not the place.

There isn’t a lot of hope for humanity here, stripped down to our basest instincts, it’s all murder and sex and violence and greed. Which is a little depressing. But when they return to Australia and the Aboriginal community there, amongst descendants of one of the oldest communities in the world, is hope for a better future. And there’s something incredibly powerful in that. This is a book that deserves to be on the bestseller lists and in readers’ minds for a long time.

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

books

Cover Reveal: Boys Who Hurt – Eva Björg Ægisdottir

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Boys Who Hurt – Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, translated by Victoria Cribb out 18th July Link

Fresh from maternity leave, Detective Elma finds herself confronted with a complex case, when a man is found murdered in a holiday cottage in the depths of the Icelandic countryside – the victim of a frenzied knife attack, with a shocking message scrawled on the wall above him.

 At home with their baby daughter, Sævar is finding it hard to let go of work, until the chance discovery in a discarded box provides him with a distraction. Could the diary of a young boy, detailing the events of a long-ago summer have a bearing on Elma’s case?

 Once again, the team at West Iceland CID have to contend with local secrets in the small town of Akranes, where someone has a vested interest in preventing the truth from coming to light. And Sævar has secrets of his own that threaten to destroy his and Elma’s newfound happiness.

Tense, twisty and shocking, Boys Who Hurt is the next, addictive instalment in the award-winning Forbidden Iceland series, as dark events from the past endanger everything…

books

Cover Reveal: One Grand Summer – Ewald Arenz

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One Grand Summer – Ewald Arenz, translated by Rachel Ward out 4th July Link

Sixteen-year-old Frieder’s plans for the summer are shattered when he fails two subjects. To be able to move up to the next year in the Autumn, he needs to resit his exams. So instead of going on holiday with his family, he now faces the daunting and boring prospect of staying at his grandparents’ house, studying with his strict and formal step-grandfather.

 On the bright side, he’ll spend time with his grandmother Nana, his sister Alma and his best friend Johann. And he meets Beate, the girl in the beautiful green swimsuit…

 The next few weeks will bring friendship, fear and first love – one grand summer that will change and shape his entire life.

 A number-one bestseller in Germany and winner of the German Booksellers Prize, One Grand Summer is a moving, beautiful and profound novel about relationships and respect that captures those exquisite and painful moments that make us who we are…

books

Cover Reveal: Happy is the One – Katie Allen

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Happy is the One – Katie Allen out 23rd May  Link 

Imagine you knew exactly when you were going to die…

 Robin Edmund Blake is halfway through his life.

 Born in 1986, when Halley’s Comet crossed the sky, he is destined to go out with it, when it returns in 2061. Until that day, he can’t die. He has proof.

 With his future mapped out in minute detail, a lucrative but increasingly dull job in the City of London, and Gemma to share his life with, Robin has a plan to be remembered forever.

 But when Robin’s sick father has one accident too many, the plan starts to unravel. Robin must return home to the tiny seaside town of Eastgate, learn to care for the man who never really cared for him, and face the childhood ghosts he fled decades ago.

 Desperate to get his life back on schedule, he connects with fellow outsider Astrid. Brutally direct, sharp-witted and a professor at a nearby university, she’s unlike anyone he’s ever met. But Astrid is hiding something and someone from Robin and he’s hiding even more from her.

 A warmly funny, poignant and exquisite novel about coming home and letting go, Happy Is the One asks what is truly important in a chaotic, unpredictable world…

books

Cover Reveal: Shatter Creek – Rod Reynolds

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Shatter Creek – Rod Reynolds out 25th April Link 

Fresh from the scandal at Hampstead County PD, Detective Sergeant Casey Wray works a complex double-homicide that points to a killer on a murderous rampage and a shattering series of discoveries that could end her career … The shocking sequel to the addictive, twisty, bestselling Black Reed Bay…

Hampstead County Police Department is embroiled in scandal after corruption at the top of the force was exposed. Cleared of involvement and returned to active duty, Detective Sergeant Casey Wray nonetheless finds herself at a crossroads when it becomes clear not everyone believes she’s innocent.

Partnered with rookie Billy Drocker, Casey works a shocking daytime double-homicide in downtown Rockport with the two victims seemingly unknown to one another. And when a third victim is gunned down on her doorstep shortly after, it appears an abusive ex-boyfriend holds the key to the killings.

With powerful figures demanding answers, Casey and Billy search for the suspect, fearing he’s on a murderous rampage. But when a key witness goes missing, and new evidence just won’t fit, the case begins to unravel. With her career in jeopardy, Casey makes a shattering discovery that threatens to expose the true darkness at the heart of the murders… with a killer still on the loose…

books

Cover Reveal: The Kitchen – Simone Buchholz

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The Kitchen – Simone Buchholz, translated by Rachel Ward out 11th April Link

Hamburg State Prosecutor Chastity Riley and her colleagues investigate the murders of men with a history of abuse towards women … as a startling, horrifying series of revelations emerge.

 When neatly packed male body parts wash up by the River Elbe, Hamburg State Prosecutor Chastity Riley and her colleagues begin a perplexing investigation.

 As the murdered men are identified, it becomes clear that they all had a history of abuse towards women, leading Riley to wonder if it would actually be in society’s best interests to catch the killers.

 But when her best friend Carla is attacked, and the police show little interest in tracking down the offender, Chastity takes matters into her own hands and as a link between the two cases emerges, horrifying revelations threaten Chastity’s own moral compass … and put everything at risk.

 The award-winning, critically acclaimed Chastity Riley series returns with a slick, hard-boiled, darkly funny thriller that tackles issues of violence and the difference between law and justice with devastating insight, and an ending you will never see coming…