He always said she was just a friend… What if she’d kill for more?
Sophie is perfect. She has blonde hair and blue eyes and when she smiles her teeth sparkle. And she cares; she’s passionate. Everybody loves her. So would I, except she’s my husband Mike’s best friend, and sometimes they seem a little too close for comfort.
This summer, Sophie is renting the grand house next door, bringing over fancy wine, offering to babysit our beautiful three-year-old daughter. It’s nice, actually. She’s smart and funny. Maybe the way she is with Mike – squeezing his arm, tilting her head when she laughs at his jokes – is just how she is with everybody.
But then she says something that sends a shiver down my spine – does she know something about me she shouldn’t?
And when her new husband arrives, looking slightly too familiar, I realise my time is running out. My baby girl and I are in terrible danger.
Sophie really is perfect. She has me perfectly trapped. And as my world begins to crumble, I start to wonder: does Sophie just want to steal my husband, or has she planned the perfect murder?
A completely unputdownable psychological thriller that will keep you flicking through your Kindle late into the night. Perfect for fans of The Housemaid, The Guest List and anything by Louise Candlish, Erin Kelly or TM Logan.
Author Bio – I’m the working mum of a bossy little girl and a bossier cat called Pesto. We live in the southwest of England and escape to the beach whenever we can. I’ve never stopped writing my whole life but this is the first time I’ve published a book!
When Teddy Colne arrives in the small town of Rye, he believes he will be able to settle down and leave his past behind him. Little does he know that fear blisters through the streets like a fever. The locals tell him to stay away from an establishment known only as Berry & Vincent, that those who rub too closely to its proprietor risk a bad end.
Despite their warnings, Teddy is desperate to understand why Rye has come to fear this one man, and to see what really hides behind the doors of his shop.
Ada moved to Rye with her young son to escape a damaged childhood and years of never fitting in, but she’s lonely, and ostracised by the community. Ada is ripe for affection and friendship, and everyone knows it.
As old secrets bleed out into this town, so too will a mystery about a family who vanished fifty years earlier, and a community living on a knife-edge.
Teddy looks for answers, thinking he is safe, but some truths are better left undisturbed, and his past will find him here, just as it always has. And before long, it will find Ada too.
Ronnie Turner grew up in Cornwall, the youngest in a large family. At an early age, she discovered a love of literature and dreamed of being a published author. Ronnie now lives in the South West with her family and three dogs. In her spare time, she reviews books on her blog and enjoys long walks on the coast. Ronnie is a Waterstones Senior Bookseller and a barista, and her youth belies her exceptional, highly unusual talent.
My thoughts: this was really good, it got creepy very quickly and I really felt for Ada and Albie, terrified and trapped in Rye. With Teddy and the really disturbing Mr Vincent (he never speaks and collects really odd things). Teddy claims to want to escape the shadow of his father but proves to be more like him as the book goes on.
There is something a bit creepy about seaside towns, especially out of season, something sad and haunted about them. I don’t know Rye itself but it serves as the perfect setting for this tale of obsession and loneliness.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
They hired an assistant to help them. But she has other plans.
High-flying duo Goldie and Braun Delucci run a major film production company. But recently their gilded lives were touched by tragedy when one of their leading actors, Ally, died in a car crash.
What the Deluccis don’t realise is that their newly hired private assistant is actually Ally’s sister. Simone is convinced Ally’s death was suspicious and she is determined to find out what happened on that terrible night.
Simone’s new job puts her at the heart of a rich, dysfunctional family. As she digs for the truth about Ally’s death, she realises someone is watching her. And they want her gone.
That just makes Simone more determined to discover whatever terrible secret the Deluccis are hiding. But she doesn’t understand she is about to uncover something so dark, so shocking that her own life may never be the same again.
Miranda Rijks is a writer of psychological thrillers and suspense novels. She has an eclectic background ranging from law to running a garden centre. She’s been writing all of her life and has a Masters in writing. A couple of years ago she decided to ditch the business plans and press releases and now she’s living the dream, writing suspense novels full time. She lives in Sussex, England with her Dutch husband, musician daughter and black Labrador.
My thoughts: this was a clever premise and paid off nicely. Simone goes undercover with her sister’s former employers to find out what really happened to her and gets caught up in a messed up family and a terrible situation.
No one is particularly honest about things, apart from maybe the children, though not teenager Rose, who’s hiding all sorts of nasty little secrets. But her dad isn’t very truthful either and his secrets put people in harm’s way.
Simone finds that her sister, far from the drug addicted car thief the media are spinning her as, was, as expected, an innocent caught up in something bigger than her and with someone who can’t be trusted.
I felt for Simone but she took things incredibly far, pretending to be someone else and her niece almost paid the price. Honesty tends to be the better policy. Luckily Goldie was a really nice person and not to blame and able to forgive the deception, of Simone at least.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Missing without trace… When local woman Deborah goes missing, her colleagues Adrian, Yvonne and Merriel are all left in shock. Gossip around the office begins to swirl – what could have happened to Deborah? Is she dead or alive? And who could be responsible for her disappearance? Everyone is terrified that they could be next…except the one person who has all the answers. The last person people expect. Because Deborah is being held captive by a monster, a psychopath. But not a stranger… it’s someone she knows all too well… Purchase
J. A. Baker is a successful psychological thriller writer of numerous books, previously published by Bloodhound. Born and brought up in Middlesbrough, she still lives in the North East, which inspires the settings for her books. Her first title for Boldwood will be published in December 2022.
My thoughts: I enjoyed this, I liked the switching between different characters so you see what they think about each other and recent events. You don’t know who to trust because they all seem to be hiding something. Even Deborah, who ask the kidnapped victim, you’d think would be the most honest.
I had no idea who the kidnapper was. There were too many suspects, too many messed up families. So it was a huge surprise and yet there were definitely questions at the end that still needed answers.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Bella has the perfect life with her husband Jack and their two children – until the ex who stalked her years ago is released from prison.
A tragic past that haunts her Now Bella is convinced he’s back to hurt her, and sees him everywhere – but no one else can see that anything is wrong.
One last chance to put it behind her With her family away for the weekend, Bella determines to leave the past in the past – but she’s about to discover the danger is closer to home than she ever imagined…
My thoughts: traumatised and haunted by a terrible experience with a stalker, Bella is reliving it and seeing him everywhere after he’s released from prison. Her husband Jack is worried about her, more so when she insists on spending the weekend alone while the kids are away.
But all is not as it seems, and this time the monster terrorising Bella is a lot closer to home. I was genuinely thrown when their identity was revealed, as it chucks the preceding narrative up in the air and you have to reevaluate everything that’s gone before.
I was really glad that Bella had a true friend in Jazz, someone who had her back even when Bella didn’t realise it. And that her stalker got to redeem himself along the way. Clever and twisted, this stays with you.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
At a bleak boys’ boarding school in Cornwall in the eighties when bullying is rife, Will and his best friend, Luke, are involved in a horrific incident that results in Luke leaving.
Twenty-five years later their paths cross again and memories of a painful childhood come flooding back to haunt them both.
Will’s wife, Harmony, is struggling after a miscarriage that has hit her hard, and wishes Will would open up about what happened. But as Will withdraws further, she finds herself drawn to the charismatic stranger from her husband’s past, Luke, and soon all three are caught in a tangled web of guilt and desire . . .
My thoughts: childhood trauma is never completely left in the past in this thriller. Luke inviegles his way into old friend Will’s adult life, and slowly forces his way between Will and Harmony. The problems in their marriage mean there’s a weakness, they’re not as rock solid as they like to think. And Luke is happy to manipulate that. He’s had years to plan his revenge.
None of the characters are hugely likeable and they all do pretty mean things to each other but Luke is so damaged and takes everything to an extreme in his desire to avenge his child self. He’s twisted things in his mind for so long, his childhood was awful, his parents absent but it doesn’t excuse the monster he becomes. Therapy would probably have been more help. Creepy and sinister, perhaps looking up old friends on Facebook needs to stop. Just in case.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Paris, 2037. Alexandre Lamarque of the French external security service is hunting for eco-terrorists. Experience has taught him there is no one he can trust – not his secretive lover Mariam, not even his old mentor, Professor Fayard, the man at the centre of the web. He is ready to give up. But he can’t.
In search of the truth, Alex must follow the trail through an ominous spiral of events, from a string of brutal child murders to a chaotic coup in North Africa. He rapidly finds himself in a heart-thumping race against chaos and destruction. He could be the world’s only hope of preventing THE COMING DARKNESS . . .
My thoughts: this was a really interesting, thought provoking geopolitical thriller set in the near future. Some countries have pursued isolationist policies, but others, in this case, France among them, are more connected than ever, sharing resources, energy (mostly renewable) and battling enemies that mean to bring them down from the inside.
Cyrenia is a breakaway new country, formerly part of Libya. They are very close to France politically and it is a French intelligence agent who puts the pieces together. Connecting the opening of a new satellite base in the desert near the border with the isolationist Egypt, to a conspiracy involving murdered children and corpses tattooed with a sequence of letters in several locations across France.
Alex is a brilliant agent, but in hunting the people behind this conspiracy he is hampered by someone interfering with his comms, by not seeing all the details and by his mother being ill. People close to him are both involved and at risk, and time is running out.
Absolutely gripping and intelligent, this sends a shiver down the spine at the thought of what a terrorist group with this kind of reach could do – they could completely destroy what we know and bring in the coming darkness. Hopefully a real Alex could stop them in time!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Looking to read a new and exciting medical thriller? How about The Panacea Project by Catherine Devore Johnson?
Read on for details and pre-order a copy today!
The Panacea Project
Expected Publication Date: February 28th, 2023
Genre: Medical Thriller
A timely exploration of bodily autonomy set in a classic medical thriller
Calla Hammond has always been a loner―a product of the foster system and avoided by others because of a skin condition. When doctors discover her immune system holds the key to curing cancer, she struggles to advance lifesaving research in a world that sees her only as a means to an end. Yet along the way, Calla gains the one thing she has always longed for: a chosen family.
When a group of unscrupulous people join forces to sell Calla’s blood to the highest bidder, she digs deep to find the strength to retake control of her life, her body, and her story.
The Panacea Project is a layered examination of self-sacrifice, implicit bias, and the juxtaposition of bodily autonomy with high-stakes capitalism―for those who love fiercely strong characters and deep themes infused with heartwarming moments of love and humor.
Catherine Devore Johnson is a former attorney turned writer. Her work has won or placed in competitions held by the Houston Writer’s Guild and the Writer’s League of Texas, and she has published an essay in The Houston Chronicle about caring for her mother after two strokes. She works as a writer and editor at a children’s hospital and lives in Houston with her husband and two children. The Panacea Project is her first novel.
A uniquely amusing and page-turning mystery novel set in January 2003, the eve of the Iraq War.
On sabbatical at Oxford University, Scottish teacher Judith Fraser is horrified to find a professor dead, a student missing and eccentric housemates who are not as they claim.
Whom can she trust? Is she being followed? And what is the relevance of ancient text fragments appearing from Iraq?
Aided by personable DCI Steadman and spirited Rhodes Scholar, Abbie Goldman, Judith unravels mysteries of locked doors, missing computers, cat’s collars and Reuter’s reports. Traumatized to the hilt by the kidnapping of her medical student daughter Sophie, Judith reappraises what’s important in life, learns not to trust first impressions, and finds power, sex and politics have changed little in three millennia.
Throw in the CIA, Saddam Hussein’s ancient king obsession, a glimpse of an Oxford underbelly and a hint of romance, to find a cross-genre novel for lovers of Helen Fielding, Lucy Foley, Agatha Christie and Dan Brown. Buy a copy
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Anne Pettigrew was a family doctor for 31 years and also has a degree in Medical Anthropology from Oxford. She wrote extensively in the national medical and lay press until retirement when she turned to penning novels about women doctors, discrimination, and crime. She was a Bloody Scotland Crime Fiction Festival 2019 Spotlight Author – ‘one to watch.’ Member of several writers’ groups and multiple short story competition winner, she lives in Ayrshire and enjoys good books, good wine, and good company.
Past novels: Apart from containing crime, Not The Life Imagined and Not The Deaths Imagined follow Dr Beth Slater’s career and challenges from the 1960s to the ‘80s. This latest stand-alone novel, The Carnelian Tree, charts the tribulations of Scots teacher Judith Fraser on sabbatical in Oxford at the time of the Iraq War.
My thoughts: I remember 2003, I was a teenager and the news was full of the threat of war in the Middle East and Bush and Blair’s fear-mongering.
This is set then, and a Stop the War protest even takes place in the later part of the book. It’s very interesting as some of the characters, like Jared, are caught up in things much bigger than them and related to what was happening in Iraq.
Judith is taking a sabbatical and doing an MA in Education – I’ve done an MA and they’re hard work so I appreciate that she has to keep rushing to finish her assignments, despite the murder and then the kidnapping of her daughter. I’m glad mine was less dramatic.
All of the terrible events are linked to some ancient clay tablets, smuggled out of Iraq, and an obsession with ancient kings like Gilgamesh and Nebuchadnezzar. The murdered professor was an expert in ancient history and was writing a new translation of Gilgamesh based on the clay tablets.
The book has lots of twists and turns, some characters turn out to be better than you expect and some very dodgy. I liked DCI Steadman, he was a nice and kind man as well as being an excellent copper. His fledgling romance with Judith was lovely.
I liked Judith and her friends too, Abbie gets really into investigating their suspicious housemate Guy and then starts branching out. If they decide teaching isn’t for them, she and Judith could easily open a PI agency!
Funny, clever and with plenty of strange occurrences, kidnappings, strange postal deliveries and spies, conspiracies and broken hearts to keep us all going. Really great read.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Five years ago, Helen lost her husband. Now she may lose her life.
Five years ago, Helen’s husband Paul went missing while skiing in the Swiss Alps. His body was never found, but he is presumed dead because no-one could have survived a night on that freezing mountainside.
It took Helen a long time to get over her loss, but now she has pulled her life back together – she is an acclaimed interior designer in a loving relationship with a new man.
Even better, Helen has just been offered her dream project, renovating a luxurious chalet in an idyllic location. There’s only one catch – it’s right next to the resort where Paul went missing.
She decides to take the job anyway, convincing herself that a visit to the scene of her great tragedy will actually be good for her, that it will give her a chance to lay old demons to rest.
But soon after she arrives, she makes an utterly shocking discovery and finds herself caught up in a nightmarish web of treachery and deceit where nothing is as it seems.
Only one thing is certain – the mountains want to claim another body… Buy Links
Miranda Rijks is a writer of psychological thrillers and suspense novels. She has an eclectic background ranging from law to running a garden centre. She’s been writing all of her life and has a Masters in writing. A couple of years ago she decided to ditch the business plans and press releases and now she’s living the dream, writing suspense novels full time. She lives in Sussex, England with her Dutch husband, musician daughter and black Labrador.
My thoughts: this was cleverly done, at first it seems like Helen’s tale of terror was going to be about the creepy cabin she’s staying in or maybe hostile locals who don’t like the chalet renovation. But no, it’s much more personal.
Her presumed dead husband, who vanished just after a young girl was killed on the Swiss Alps, leaving a trail of questions in his wake – did he knock that child down in the snow? Is he dead? What’s going on?
Bringing her daughter Emily over to stay with her introduces more jeopardy, Emily has a secret friend, buying her toys. Helen is understandably freaked out. But the neighbours keep reassuring her that everyone in the area is so friendly.
Not being one for skiing, too cold, and I’m way too clumsy, I’ve never got the appeal, but some people love it. However the Alps are beautiful and I can see how it can seem idyllic. Until it isn’t. There’s a creepy sense of menace in the mountains, which Helen certainly picks up on.
It’s also a bit sad, so many people dealing with loss, and not always in a healthy way. Helen is desperate for the seven years to be up and Paul declared legally dead so she can move on with her life. Her new neighbours are also grieving but in a different way. Past and present collide, and damage will be done but can amends be made?
Click the image for more of the blog tour
*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 