Twelve murderous mysteries to read.
Nineteen perplexing puzzles to solve.
One mystifying murder to crack…
Mastermind Puzzlemaster Sarah Dunnakey cordially invites you to crack the code of who
killed Edward Luddenham.
It’s the first anniversary of the mysterious death of Edward Luddenham, found dead at his
home on the Yorkshire moors one frosty Christmas Eve.
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Now twelve people gather at his manor house for the reading of the Will. Each has their own motivations for coming: curiosity, duty, unrequited love, desperation, greed.
They have been instructed to bring a “festive mystery story” to share.
But all you need is a pencil.
Safe from the biting cold and the relentless snowfall outside, settle in with your favourite
tipple in hand, as the storytelling begins.
Though you’ll need to keep your wits about you – for among the guests is Edward’s killer…
Can you work out the puzzles and unmask the murderer before they strike again?
My Review
If you love murder mysteries and puzzles, then this is for you. You can do it all at once (like I did mostly) or dip in and out. Some of the puzzles are harder than the others, but that probably depends on your strengths and weaknesses. Anything maths related is my least favourite. I’m quite good at anagrams though.
I like the ones where you have to find out who or what is the answer from eg which bear likes her porridge this temperature and eats it out of this bowl, with this added, while another bear likes his so many degrees cooler than the second hottest etc. You get my drift. Good job I’m not setting the questions!!
The book is made up of a series of short stories, each one told by one of the guests (including the dog). There are puzzles at the end of each story – you may have to look back to find the answers (harder on my Kindle than with a physical book), which are just for fun. Then there will be one where the answer will form part of the overall mystery ie who killed Edward Luddenham. Phew! I’m exhausted already! And I have a notebook full of scribbles and working outs.
The stories are all great, each one a mini whodunnit. My favourite is probably Helena’s story, but I really liked the puzzles at the end of the first one.
If you have a friend who likes solving puzzles, The 12 Murders of Christmas would make a perfect stocking filler.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
When she’s not writing fiction, Sarah writes and verifies questions and answers for a variety of TV quiz shows including Mastermind, University Challenge and Pointless. She has an honours degree in History and has previously worked as a librarian, an education officer in a Victorian cemetery and an oral history interviewer. Sarah has won or been shortlisted in several short story competitions and her work has been published in anthologies and broadcast on Radio 4. She won a Northern Writer’s Award, from New Writing North for her debut novel The Companion, and the NWA Arvon Award in 2019. She lives in West Yorkshire on the edge of the Pennine Moors.
Baezy is born in 2069, the centennial of the legendary Woodstock Music and Art Fair.
Everything peace, love, and flower power is celebrated that year in a wave of nostalgia that takes over fashion, music, and the public’s imagination.
She grows up listening to and loving the artists of that time, dreaming of witnessing everyone from Joan Baez to Santana in person. When presented with the opportunity to time-travel, Baezy immediately chooses Woodstock as her destination.
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She plans to enjoy a glorious weekend of vibrant sights and sounds; her bell bottoms and a peasant blouse are packed for the adventure and she’s excited to surprise her great-great-great-grandmother, Kelly Adams.
While Baezy’s certainly not a typical Woodstock attendee, Kelly isn’t either. She is at the very beginning of a stellar career researching artificial intelligence in the 1960s, and will later develop much of what will lead to the utopian society Baezy lives in.
Kelly’s future family is immensely proud of her historic accomplishments.
The contrast between Baezy’s 2101 and 1969 is stunning from her first moment.
Woodstock exceeds her wildest expectations, but holds far more than an introduction to her distant grandmother. Baezy quickly finds herself in life-altering situations she could never have anticipated.
Part sci-fi, part historical fiction, and all heart, Anywhen is an intriguing concoction sure to delight readers. Imagine it as Cloud Cuckoo Land meets Back to the Future meets The Woodstock Music and Art Fair of 1969. This is a must-read for fans of The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, The Time Traveler’s Wife, and The Midnight Library.
My Review
I hope the author won’t mind, but I am going to approach this review in a slightly different fashion. There will be thousands of reviews in the future, so here goes with mine, based on some of Beth’s bookclub discussion topics.
But firstly, I’d better quickly comment on the book! I loved it, especially Sarah and Jack. Kelly irritated me from her time in 1969, right up to 2024. Her treatment of Sarah was appalling, as was that of her friends. Not very love and peace, was it? ‘Prickly’, the author calls her. Damn right!
I am in the UK, so I obviously didn’t attend Woodstock in 1969 (I was 16 and had just finished my O levels). I did, however go to the Isle of Wight Festival where Bob Dylan was the headline act, along with The Who. Memories of the toilets are the same as Woodstock, disgusting and overflowing. I can’t believe we were allowed to go when we were so young.
‘There’s no need to be vulgar or start that women’s lib crap with me, Kelly,’ Dr Lawton says in 1969. Have we achieved female equality yet? I don’t think so. I’m not going to give examples. You know what I’m talking about.
2069 is about Unity and G-HOP, the Genetic Homogenization and Optimization Project, that essentially eliminated racial characteristics in Baezy’s society. I think this goes against everything I believe in and hope for the future. We should accept people for their differences, not by making them all the same. No falling in love, just a modern version of an ‘arranged marriage’ to ensure the perfection of the species? Nothing changes in the end does it. No hunger, war or disease and a life expectancy of 150. But no chocolate or pizza or peanut butter – everything is optimised in a Nourish Cube. I’d die of boredom.
Would I like to time travel? Not really. While every period of history looks interesting or better than the one we live in, for all their beauty, peace and love, the sixties and seventies were filled with hatred, racism, and judgement.
What do I think of Jack’s decision to avoid the draft by going to Canada? I support him wholeheartedly. Why should men have had to fight in a war that had nothing to do with them? No disrespect to veterans, but if more people stood up to the ‘rulers’, then maybe wars could be stopped in their tracks. I’m not talking about defending your country against an aggressor, just getting involved in things that are not our business and we often don’t understand. ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ Like object to being used as cannon fodder.
There is a saying, which was also the title of a book I read many years ago (None To Make You Laugh) None To Make You Cry. Without tragedy, there would be no laughter. Without despair, there would be no hope. Without adversity, there would be no resilience. It’s what makes us human, and we must strive to succeed without ‘homogenization’.
My AI glitch animal would be a cat, hopefully (I am getting vibes of Philip Pullman’s daemons in His Dark Materials. My dog nicknamed Pancake – now gone three years – was named after Lyra’s daemon Pantalaimon.
Finally, I went to see Joan Baez live at Wembley in 1973. She was wonderful!
Many thanks to @ZooloosBT for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
Beth Duke is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author and the recipient of numerous honors for her fiction on two continents. She is eyeing the other five.
Her book Tapestry was the Bronze Medal Winner in Southern Fiction in Publishers’ Weekly’s 2020 Readers Choice Awards, an Award-Winning Finalist in the 2020 International Book Awards, and a Five Star Readers’ Favorite Award Winner. Country music superstar Randy Owen said, “Beth Duke’s works are as real as grits and gravy in The South, and her usage of her Southern English has the taste of Mama’s biscuits.”
Beth lives in the mountains of her native Alabama with her husband, Jay, and an assortment of dogs including a recently-rescued coonhound named Daisy who has stolen her heart. Beth is the adoring and proud mother of Jason and Savannah. She is a constant reader, travel aficionado, and likes to pretend she’s in baking competitions.
She also finds great joy in joining book clubs for discussion (usually via Zoom). If your group would like to schedule a date, please email beth@bethduke.com.
Her books DELANEY’S PEOPLE, DON’T SHOOT YOUR MULE, IT ALL COMES BACK TO YOU, TAPESTRY, and DARK ENOUGH TO SEE THE STARS are all love letters to her home state.
Please visit bethduke.com for more information, to request a book club visit, and to see photos of the most beautiful readers in the world!
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+ cosy mystery, crime fiction, dementia, family, fiction, love, revenge, review
Cemetery Lodge by Paula Hillman
Not all secrets remain buried forever…
Archaeologist Cherie Hope makes a gruesome discovery in the grounds of a local cemetery. She’s desperate to know more, and wonders why caretaker Ash Black is being so guarded.
Delving deeper, and liaising with the police, Cherie is drawn into a story that spans back fifty years. Entangled in a web of deceit, she soon uncovers a missing person, an inherited heirloom and hidden cemetery logbooks.
The lodge has been in Ash’s family for generations, but his elderly father’s dementia means unlocking the truth of what really happened all those years ago will be a challenge.
Is the caretaker really protecting his father, or is he worried about what his father is hiding?
My Review
Recently divorced archaeologist Cherie Hope has a new job. She is going to look at an old church and the surrounding cemetery grounds and take lots of pictures. She will have to work from the cemetery lodge, where Ash Black is the caretaker. He seems OK but he can be very prickly and not good around women. In fact he expected the archaeologist to be a man. Here we go again thinks Cherie – her ex-husband struggled with her ‘superior intellect’ or that it was the way she saw herself. In fact Cherie is lovely and never comes across that way to me, though she can be a bit tactless at times.
As well as being the caretaker of the cemetery, Ash looks after his father Hal, who has dementia, though he can be left on his own for short periods of time. Hal was the caretaker before Ash and his father before him.
Initially they all toddle along quite happily together, in fact Hal seems comfortable with Cherie’s company, but then Cherie and Ash make a gruesome discovery in the old church, which starts the ball rolling on a fifty-year-old mystery. Ash is being guarded about it, while Cherie is desperate to discover the truth. That’s her job after all, uncovering historical mysteries.
But is it because Ash is worried what Hal knows about it? Hal can’t remember, but the police aren’t going to let that stop them.
It’s a very clever story, with some really likeable characters. I became very fond of Cherie, her boss Will, Hal and even Ash – he grows on you after a while.
Many thanks to @lovebookstours for inviting me to be part of the #CemeteryLodge blog tour.
About the Author
“I live in Cumbria, in Barrow-in-Furness, which is on the coast near the foothills of The Lakes. I studied science at college and specialised in it for my Bachelor’s teaching degree, but my heart has always been tied up with books and reading. I walked away from a long teaching career because I wanted to write. I am married to a photographer and have two children- a thirty-nine-year-old daughter, and a twenty-two-year-old son, who is still at home with us. I am a passionate advocate for local communities- Barrow has a deep Victorian heritage and a Cistercian Abbey- and I have studied these in depth for my own interest and within my teaching career. Barrow people are community driven and welcoming, and their character is unique in so many ways. I want to capture all of this in the books I write. I’ve got a master’s degree in Creative Writing, and a post graduate diploma in regional and local history. I have six novels published with Bloodhound Books: Seaview House; The Cottage; Blackthorn Wood; Chapel Field; Halfmoon Lane and Cemetery Lodge.”
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+ crime fiction, family, fiction, friendship, humour fiction, murder, police corruption, review, thriller
The Price of Dormice by Steve Lunn
When Mick’s life is almost ended by Oxford’s influential chief planner Conrad, the near-miss and ensuing violence awaken his sense of justice.
Conrad, deeply embedded in Oxford’s elite, colludes with venerable St Mark’s College in their sale of a 650-acre farm for development.
Strategically located in the OxCam Growth Arc, the development will involve bulldozing a nature reserve and its dormice.
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Mick joins fellow ordinary people in protest. Meanwhile Conrad’s wife Kimberley demands a divorce and extends a helping hand to Mick.
Tragedy strikes when two people, believed to be Conrad and Kimberly, die in a suspected arson attack on their home.
Mick becomes prime suspect. Unable to prove his innocence, he realises truth hardly matters in this game of privileged versus powerless.
The privileged set the rules, forcing Mick and friends to resort to blackmail and guerrilla tactics.
Amidst murders, romance blooms, yet the fate of the dormice hangs in the balance.
My Review
Another book set in a part of the country I know pretty well. I live in Cheltenham, which is mentioned a couple of times in the story. We often visit Oxford, taking the granddaughters to the ‘Nat Hist’ as our accidental hero Mick Jarvis calls it, and the Pitt Rivers with its shrunken heads.
But The Price of Dormice isn’t about the past. It’s about the future, and the price we pay for allowing green belt land to be turned into a massive housing development. The natural world is shrinking thanks to us, and a group of unscrupulous developers are going to make loads of money from it. And I mean LOADS.
So what has this got to do with dormice, I hear you ask? The story centres around the compulsory purchase of Glebe Farm, which has been farmed by Tom and Linda for years, and there just happens to be a nature reserve nearby with its colonies of dormice, about six or seven of the furry little creatures in total. If the purchase goes through and the development is approved, the farm will be flattened and the dormice…..you’ll have to use your imagination.
Naomi and Andrea are not having it. They both feel passionately about stopping this travesty, while Mick has his own agenda, as does Gail. Mick has fallen out, shall we say, with nasty Conrad over his wife Kimberly (I won’t try and explain), while Gail believes Conrad hastened the death of her mother by causing her injury in an accident that was his fault. Together with Tom and Linda and dog Friday, they form a protest group to see if they can stop the development. Except they don’t really know who and what they are up against.
It’s exciting and very funny, extremely well-written, and has environmental issues and corruption at its heart. And you just have to love Mick and his gang of protesters. And of course Friday and Lovelump.
Many thanks to @ZooloosBT for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
Raised in a pit village in Derbyshire, Steve Lunn now lives in Oxford, where his debut novel, The Price of Dormice, is set. He worked on hill farms and in software design and education, and co-founded Southern England’s first community-owned wind farm.
Steve campaigns on environmental issues and actively engages in conservation and re-wilding. He shares his life with artist Imogen Rigden, their extended family, and a young dog.
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+ depression, female friendship, fiction, fifties, gay, gothic, grief, journal, loss, love, marriage, mental health, mental illness, murder, obsession, psychiatrist, psychologist, review, secrets
The Night Counsellor by L K Pang
When silence dawns, only dusk will break it.
In the shadowy corridors of The Beaumont, a mental hospital haunted by its dark history as an asylum, a disturbing mystery unfolds when in 1953, a woman is found mute, naked, and drenched in blood on the outskirts of West Yorkshire. With no memory of her past and no one to claim her, she is dubbed Patient A and placed under the care of the institution’s staff.
Counsellor Jane Galloway, is drawn to Patient A’s case with a resolve to restore her ability to speak, no matter how unorthodox her methods appear to be. However, her efforts to penetrate the silence meet with stark opposition from the hospital’s rigid hierarchy. The situation takes a spine-chilling turn when whispers in the night link Patient A to a recently discovered corpse.
As Jane edges closer to unravelling the eerie connection between her patient and the mysterious death, she must challenge a web of institutional resistance and hidden agendas. With time running against them, Jane’s quest to help Patient A reclaim her voice grows desperate. But in the harrowing halls of The Beaumont, speaking up can be deadly.
Will Patient A find her voice before the shadows of her past come to silence her forever?
My Review
Some parts of this book were very personal for me, so I found it harrowing to read at times. I apologise as I’ve alluded to this before, but my Jewish mother (who I now believe was suffering from PTSD following a traumatic escape from Vienna in 1938, and the death of my sister from tubercular meningitis in 1951) was sent to one of these places. She was given electric shock treatment – I can never read about the patients being tied down and a piece of wood put in their mouths to stop them from screaming without flinching – and finally she had a lobotomy.
Women suffering from depression and chronic anxiety disorder were described as having ‘neurotic melancholia’. Sir Alexander Feyman (head of the Beaumont in the story) believed that EST and a lobotomy were the only ways forward. Patients supposedly became calmer like Cleo. Lobotomies were often performed on gay men to ‘cure’ their homosexuality. Shocking to think that this was what they still did in my lifetime.
The Night Counsellor opens in 1953 where Counsellor Jane Galloway, has been hired by the Beaumont lunatic asylum (they still used that term) to try and help Patient ‘A’ to regain her speech. But Jane is getting nowhere and time is running out as the police believe Patient ‘A’ is linked to the death of another woman, whose body was found nearby. They don’t know who either of the women are.
Then we go back to 1952 and Georgina is married to Charles who takes her away from London to live in his huge house in Yorkshire. It’s right next door to his mother Lillian, who comes and goes as she pleases with her own key. They have tried to start a family, but she miscarries every time and she soon finds herself severely depressed. She self-harms and becomes anorexic, and this is where Charles brings in Alexander to ‘help’, while he swans around Europe selling luxury cigars, allegedly.
While a lot of the treatment in these mental hospitals seems barbaric by today’s standards, the author makes it clear that The Night Counsellor is a work of fiction. I’m sure most hospitals believed they were helping patients using the limited knowledge and expertise of their time, not carrying out experimental procedures that resulted in patients being buried in unmarked graves. Science has moved on thank goodness.
I really enjoyed reading The Night Counsellor, particularly from Jane’s point of view. The last quarter of the book really ramps up the tension as the truths and secrets are revealed, much of which was shocking and unexpected. I also adored the Gothic feel of the book, as Gothic is probably in my top three genres at the moment.
Many thanks to @lovebookstours for inviting me to be part of #TheNightCounsellor blog tour.
About the Author
L. K. Pang’s love of the great gothic love stories have been ingrained in her since her teenage years and ever since watching the school production of Jane Eyre on stage, she has been imagining life immersed in a Victorian world of big dresses, wild moorland, large country mansions and handsome, enigmatic men. Of course, being of Chinese ethnicity growing up in 1980s England, this gothic world was far from reach – until now. Her debut novel, Moat Hill Hall, is the amalgamation of these desires.
Since being published, she has continued with novel writing, enjoying the telling of mysteries, blurring the boundaries of suspenseful thrillers and tales of love with a gothic edge. Her second novel, The Night Counsellor, continues on with this theme and embraces the harsh truths of mental hospitals and women in society during the 1950s.
L. K. Pang is also an artist and lives in Yorkshire with her family.
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THEY CAME TO MAKE A MOVIE…
THEY GOT A MURDER INSTEAD.
Mack Banner hasn’t made a movie in fifteen years. He’s been laying low, raising his daughter, hoping not to be recognized.
When a hot young screenwriter writes a script for him to star in, he’s drawn out of hiding to a remote island off the coast of Maine where part of the film will shoot.
Only, the screenwriter, on location for some last-minute rewrites, is suddenly missing. And as the crew spreads out to search for her, a storm brews on the horizon.
Soon they’ll be trapped, and people are starting to turn up dead…
Part Agatha Christie, part action thriller, DEADLY SHOOT by bestseller TJ Brearton will have you on the edge of your seat figuring out “who done it” as Mack races to keep his friends and loved ones safe and to stop a brutal killer before it’s too late.
My Review
i was a beta reader for this book last year and I really enjoyed it. I’ve read quite a few of this author’s books – seven or eight I think at the last count – and loved them all, but I think this is now my third favourite after Rough Country and Gone. I’d definitely recommend it. I’m glad to say I haven’t read anything similar in crime fiction at all, which is great. Nothing that takes place on a movie set. Or on an island. In a storm (which adds to the claustrophobic atmosphere).
I really liked Mack Banner. He’s unusual as a main protagonist. He’s not a cop, or a private detective or an author, or an amateur sleuth. He’s a faded movie star. I feel that there is still stuff we don’t know about him in spite of the flashbacks – maybe he is going to be part of a series? I’d like that. And I love his daughter Ava.
There is a trend in the UK at the moment for crime thrillers to be set in a large, dingy town or city, often in the Midlands or the North, occasionally in London. A detective is usually the main character, divorced, in need of anger management, drinks too much – you know the type. So it’s great to have Mack Banner as the main character – a bit of a have-a-go, but flawed hero with a past (yes he also drinks too much). Like Miss Marple on steroids.
Initially there were so many characters with different roles in the movie that I only remembered the main ones. I had to work hard at times to recall who was who and what they did. This slowed down the first half a bit, but once I got into it, the second half flew along. Then it really picked up and I had my heart in my mouth at the end when the excitement ratcheted up even higher. I can say no more. I loved it.
About the Author
T.J. Brearton’s books have reached half a million readers around the world and have topped the Amazon charts in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. A graduate of the New York Film Academy in Manhattan, Brearton first worked in film before focusing on novels. His books are visually descriptive with sharp dialogue and underdog heroes. When not writing, Brearton does whatever his wife and three children tell him to do. They live happily in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Yes, there are bears in the Adirondacks. But it’s really quite beautiful when you’re not running for your life.
And you thought burning the turkey was the worst that could happen…
Christmas is all about lists. To do lists. Shopping lists. Lists to bloody Santa. And doesn’t Anna Johnson know it. Waking up on Christmas Eve after the annual Johnson party, she’s hungover, exhausted and really sick and tired of Christmas already.
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All she wants is to tick the last things off her endless list and sit down with the world’s biggest glass of wine. But apparently that’s not going to happen any time soon because now her list looks like this:
1. Wrap the presents
2. Peel the potatoes
3. Stuff the turkey
4. Get rid of the dead body
A mysterious death in her home really is the last thing she has time for right now, but with police officers who could double as the Chuckle Brothers and a husband and two kids intent on watching Christmas films, it looks like it’s up to her to find out what the hell’s gone on.
Oh – and figure out what to do with the body before her in-laws arrive.
Happy bloody Christmas indeed.
My Review
This was hilarious. At times the body in the larder was almost incidental. Who killed Colin was largely irrelevant – he was a smarmy d*”k anyway – except that it gave Anna, husband Oli and best friend Jennie something to focus on apart from the potatoes and the tablescape (whatever that is). The book is often just Anna’s rant against all things Christmas, her snooty, judgemental mother-in-law, ridiculously high expectations, and many other things.
I’m not Anna’s generation. I’m the mother-in-law, the grandmother and the babysitter, but there was still so much I could identify with. I’m a list maker, obsessively so. I think the more times I make a list and write it down, the more chance I will remember what’s on it and even do stuff without referring to it. Fat chance. Luckily I’ve never had to make a list of potential murder suspects.
As far as Christmas is concerned, I am happy for you to invite me to lunch. I don’t care if you have a tablescape off Pinterest, the chairs don’t match, the plates are chipped, you had to borrow next door’s cutlery and there’s a body in the….. (well maybe the last one). It’s about family and friends, plenty of food (I’m vegetarian remember if you’re asking, but I’m happy with the cauliflower cheese) and a glass or two of vino. Prosecco is just as good as real Champagne and I’ll bring the Baileys. It’s a lesson Anna will learn by the end of the book, as she realises what’s important.
Her attempts (with help from Oli, Jennie and teenage son Ben) to solve the murder is like The Thursday Murder Club for millennials. Or Agatha Christie’s The Body In The Library – who has a library in their house nowadays anyway – but this time it’s The Body In The Larder. Come to think of it who has a walk-in larder? Jennie finds it useful, but that’s for another reason.
Happy Bloody Christmas is an entertaining, easy read – just don’t get so involved you burn the turkey.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
Jo Middleton lives in Somerset with her daughter, a disobedient golden retriever and three cats, all named after fictional detectives. Jo has a passion for mysteries, loves escape rooms, and longs to capture a cave full of smugglers. She is also a blogger, author, copywriter and one half of the It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere podcast.
A gripping and Gothic new historical mystery. Can she unlock the secrets of The House of Fever?
1935, Hedoné House, a luxurious sanatorium for the creative elite dedicated to the groundbreaking treatment of tuberculosis. As the doctor’s new wife, Agnes Templeton has pledged her life to a house of fever.
But Hedoné is no ordinary hospital. High society rubs shoulders with artists, poets and musicians. No expense is spared on the comfort of the guests, and champagne flows freely. It’s a world away from everything Agnes knows.
Her husband’s methods are unusual. There are whisperings about past patients and even a cure. Hedoné’s secrets draw Agnes in, revealing truths she could never anticipate, and soon she is caught between a past she is desperate to escape and a future she may forever regret.
My Review
The Unravelling (the author’s second novel) is probably one of my favourite books of all time, certainly of the decade. Therefore once again I had high expectations for The House of Fever and I was not disappointed.
Following the death of Agnes Templeton’s father from tuberculosis, Agnes and her mother have fallen on hard times. But while in France, Agnes meets the enigmatic Dr Christian Fairhaven and after a whirlwind romance, they marry. Christian is the owner of Hedoné, an exclusive sanatorium for TB patients who are either every rich like Juno Harrington, or very talented like Sippie and Georgie.
Christian brings Agnes and her mother, who is now very sick with TB over to England, promising to cure her mother with his revolutionary methods. Christian’s first wife also died of the disease and their young daughter Isobel needs a new mother.
But all is not as it seems at Hedoné where the champagne flows freely and the parties carry on through the night, and while the first half of the book is a bit of a slow burn (especially as an audio book), the secrets start to emerge. Towards the end they become more and more shocking and the ending is a triumphant masterpiece of intrigue and suspense.
I adored this book and look forward to the next one from Polly Crosby.
As an aside, both my parents had TB. My father was ill after the war (and a spell in a prisoner-of-war camp in Northern Russia) and was never totally cured. When he was ill in 2000, it returned. My mother had it years later and was ‘cured’ quickly with the drug streptomycin. I had to have a chest X-ray every six months – can’t remember for how long – even though I had had the BCG vaccination.
About the Author
Polly Crosby grew up on the Suffolk coast, and now lives with her husband and son in the heart of Norfolk.
In 2018, Polly won Curtis Brown Creative’s Yesterday Scholarship, enabling her to write her debut novel, The Illustrated Child. Later the same year, she was awarded runner-up in the Bridport Prize’s Peggy Chapman Andrews Award for a First Novel, and she received the Annabel Abbs Creative Writing Scholarship for the prestigious MA at the University of East Anglia.
Polly’s first book for Young Adults, This Tale is Forbidden, came out in January. Her fourth historical mystery, The House of Fever, was published in August 2024.
Dr. Keira Stetson is at the forefront of a technological revolution, driven by her dual passions: ethical artificial intelligence — AI with a conscience — and creating technology that enhances children’s lives.
Trapped in an earthquake-flattened building with a half-dozen panicked five-year-olds, she fears the worst. When billionaire Roy Brandt leverages his mysterious nanite technology to rescue them, she’s both grateful and intrigued.
Impressed by his prototype technology but alarmed at its potential for exploitation, Keira makes a fateful decision to merge her company with Brandt’s. This strategic move not only grants Keira the much-needed funds for her own tech development, but also gives her access to Brandt’s powerful minuscule robots. In a bold move, she and her AI assistant, Elly, embed Keira’s trademark Moral Operating System in Brandt’s nanite SmartDust to ensure its ethical use.
Yet, Brandt’s groundbreaking technology has been shrouded in secrecy for a reason. Despite his noble intentions to enhance life, others have darker plans. Corporate raiders and the military seek to weaponize Brandt’s nanites, putting everything Keira has worked for in jeopardy. Exposed to the darker side of humanity, she and Elly must now navigate a perilous path to use this newfound tech for good and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands…before it’s too late.
My Review
I’m not a SciFi fan but Moral Code has nothing to do with Star Trek, Star Wars or rockets going into outer space and finding other solar systems. Thank goodness. I think it needs its own genre.
Even if you know nothing about artificial intelligence, robotics, nanites or moral operating systems, you will still enjoy this book. It asks so many questions. I’ve been on the ‘readalong’ where we’ve attempted to answer some of them. Can an AI replace human interaction? The jury’s still out. Just because we can build something, should we? Think atomic bomb or cloning humans? No. Cloning my beloved Jack Russell (we lost her three years ago) would be tempting – where’s the harm? Because one thing leads to another and we’ll be cloning humans next.
What about legality versus ethics. Dr Keira Stetson believes that ethics should drive the law, not the other way round and I agree. Just because something is legal (some crop sprays for instance or trophy hunting) doesn’t make it ethical. And it will always be nationwide, because we can’t control the rest of the world.
Keira has merged her company with Roy Brandt’s Searcher Technologies. Keira and her AI assistant, Elly, have embedded Keira’s trademark Moral Operating System into Brandt’s nanite SmartDust to ensure its ethical use. He needs her MoralOS and she needs his financial backing. She trusts Roy, but there are others who want to get their hands on the SmartDust in order to weaponise its use. People like tech raider Mickey Temming, who wouldn’t know the meaning of the word ethical if it smacked him in the face.
In the meantime, Keira and Elly are using the nanite technology to help children in danger, even though their methods may not be entirely legal. But if it stops the cycle of abuse then it’s justified surely. I’ve never believed that the end justifies the means (back to the atomic bomb, Hiroshima etc) but in this case, I think it does. They are not killing thousands of innocent people, they are simply ignoring ‘due process’. A bit like smashing into someone’s car to rescue an overheated dog. By the time you’ve called the police, the dog will be dead. And what if it was a child?
The ending of Moral Code was nothing like I expected, but I am not going to give anything away. I just hope it opens the door for a sequel as I miss Elly already. I need an Elly in my life, but I want one that chooses to take on any shape like a slinky cat or a funny little dog as well as a human.
Many thanks to @lovebookstours for inviting me to be part of the #MoralCode readalong.
About the Author
Moral Code is not the first collaboration for Lois and Ross Melbourne. Side-by-side, they grew their software business to a global award-winning organization, as CEO and Chief Technology Officer, respectively. Now Lois’ storytelling brings to life Ross’ deep understanding of the possibilities within artificial intelligence and robotics. Parenting and marriage have been the easy part of this equation.
Lois is now writing books, having published two children’s books about exploring careers. Moral Code is her first but not her last novel. You can learn more about Lois at www.loismelbourne.com. Ross’ current work includes artificial intelligence and robotics. You can learn more about him at www.rossmelbourne.com. And for more about them and the book, you can visit, www.MoralCodeTheBook.com.
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The Funeral Portrait by Vincent Viñas
Guy doesn’t smile easily. He could be described as fundamentally glum.
Tallulah doesn’t die easily. She could be described as annoyingly immortal.
What if you wanted to die but were unable to? Such is the case with Guy Edwards and Tallulah Leigh, who want to end their miserable lives for different reasons. The only problem is, she’s been stricken with an unexplained (and unwelcome) case of immortality while he lacks that final, sorrowful piece of inspiration he needs to effectively do himself in.
Genre: Dark Humour
Pages: 270 pages
Publisher: Ink Smith Publishing
What better way to solve this dilemma than to help kill each other. However, a bigger problem has emerged–one of them is falling in love with the other. They’ll now have to decide what is a more frightening option–dying or taking one last shot at happiness? The Funeral Portrait is a very dark and comedic (but often horrific) tale about two lost souls who find each other and soon realize the only thing that may be worse than death is commitment.
My Review
I’m still gobsmacked after reading this. It’s not like anything I’ve ever read before (not even Will Carver’s Suicide Thursday). It’s even darker and while there is a lot of humour, I sometimes struggled to find anything funny.
Guy Edwards is annoyingly miserable. His girlfriend of five months, Constance, packed him in and he still can’t get over her, even to the point of stalking her at work. He’s suffering from clinical depression, though I’m not sure he really is. All he wants to do is throw himself off the roof of the glass works factory. And find an excuse not to, and write about it to his parents and brother Bruno in letters. The book is written like a journal. I’m not going to judge, because I can’t pretend to understand him. And then he meets Tallulah Leigh, who can’t die, no matter how hard she tries to end it.
Guy works at a funeral home, where he prepares the bodies and we get a graphic description at one point of what that entails, mainly the embalming for open coffin viewings. He seems to enjoy his job (if you can enjoy cleaning blood, and sewing up and stuffing dead people), as far as he enjoys anything at all. I’m a glass half full kind of person, so Guy’s totally empty glass outlook on life can grate. Old Mr Friar, the peach seller, has the answers.
At one point, the letters are written by others including Tallulah, Bruno, even Constance, and Guy’s psychiatrist. These were all very interesting, especially Tallulah, whose early life was devastatingly sad and you can understand why she wants Guy to help her die. Though I would prefer to see that there is always hope.
Bruno keeps lots of animals as pets (I get that), but he also keeps throwing pies in Guy’s face. If there is something deep and meaningful about that, I didn’t get it.
Did I like Guy – not so much – but I adored Tallulah. She’s funny, warm and exciting. I just wish she could have found a way back from all the trauma.
I don’t know what else to write. It’s easy to think that Guy’s life is not that bad, no abusive childhood, bullying or rapes, so he needs to be thankful, stop feeling sorry for himself, and move on (like Bruno keeps telling him to). But that’s easy for us to say, when it’s not us going through it. Tallulah’s life on the other hand, has been so traumatic that she can’t cope any longer. I cried for her, I really did.
PS As an aside, there is a very well-known book/film called Me Before You by JoJo Moyes. It was loved by many, but also criticised for treating disabled people as those with no hope or future. Critics worried that it would impact children who felt that being disabled made life not worth living. The ending was the worst. This kept popping into my head while reading The Funeral Portrait because Tallulah’s extreme PTSD is a form of disability and asking Guy to help her kill herself becomes the only way out. It’s very upsetting.
Many thanks to @lovebookstours for inviting me to be part of #TheFuneralPortrait blog tour.
About the Author
Born and raised in New York City, Vincent Viñas, has been forcing friends and family to read his writing for years. He did the same thing with his short films and whenever his old band played a show. His collaborative film efforts had the honor of bewildering unsuspecting theater-goers before midnight screenings of the cult classic, Donnie Darko. As a musician, Vincent was lucky enough to take the stage at the famed CBGB’s and considered trashing his drum set to spice things up. However, the drummer in the previous band trashed his drums during their performance and having two consecutive drummers behave in such a manner is just silly.
A short story Vincent wrote once earned him a cheese and wine movie party at Sony’s private screening room for him and fifty friends, which Sony executives no doubt regretted as free alcohol and bad movies don’t make for a civilized theater experience.
Some of his many influences include Stephen King, Rod Serling, George A. Romero, Chuck Palahniuk, Stanley Kubrick, Christopher Moore, Edward D. Wood, Jr. and Alfred Hitchcock.
He currently lives in the mystical realm of New York with his wife, Megan, and their small cat who thinks she’s in charge.
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The truth can be a bitter pill . . .
Michelle can’t believe this is her life. That she’s escaped her dreary 9-to-5 in London and landed a PR job here. In the towering headquarters of Kimia Pharmaceuticals in Reykjavik, Iceland.
It’s too bad her coworkers don’t want to be friends. They’re all young, beautiful — and determined to freeze Michelle out of their whispered conversations.
But researcher Lars isn’t like the others . . .
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Michelle steps into the elevator with him and is struck by the hunted look on his face. The doors close — and seconds later, they judder to a sickening halt.
That’s when it happens. Lars locks eyes with Michelle. Thrusts a folder into her hands.
This is evidence. Hide it . . . I discovered something and I’ll be silenced because of it.
Michelle’s already run from her past. This time, she’ll be running for her life . . .
My Review
Imagine this happening to you. There you are, minding your own business, when someone thrusts a folder into your hands and tells you to hide it. Or give it to someone in the media. He gives you their card. Sorry it has to be you, he says. It will probably change your life forever, may even get you killed, but hey ho, I had no choice. Then he disappears. His name was Lars, that’s all you know.
It’s not a prank. It’s for real. What do you do? You’re just an ordinary middle aged woman with no experience of industrial espionage or secrets or whatever this is. At this point I may have given it to someone else and said ‘you deal with it. I’ve only been here five minutes and I’m just covering maternity leave.’
But you don’t, because you know that what he just told you could endanger the lives of thousands of people – maybe millions. And you have to weigh that up against your own safety.
Michelle doesn’t know what to do. She only tells one person. They are horrified. They tell her to hand it in to the company. We could both be at risk for even discussing it, lose our jobs, be arrested. Explain what happened. But her conscience won’t allow it.
So she calls the name on the card and asks his advice. And the game is on, except it’s not a game. The book then becomes a race against time. It’s just the two of them initially, then someone else joins them. But what about Lars? Can they keep him safe?
I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Poor Michelle. If only she’d known she probably would have stayed at home, trying to get over her failed marriage, her loneliness and her attempts to look younger (her ex went off with a woman half his age. Of course he did).
This was so fast paced and exciting that I read it in one day – I’m lucky enough to have been on holiday at the time.
Many thanks to @ZooloosBT for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
Thriller writer Susanna is fascinated by human relationships. She can be found people-watching wherever she goes, finding material for her writing. Despite the writer’s life, she has an adventurous streak and has swum with whale sharks in Australia, fallen down a crevasse in the French Alps and walked through the sewers of Brighton – not in that order. Her passions include animals — particularly her dogs — wildlife and tennis, which clears her brain of pretty much everything.
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Purchase Link: https://mybook.to/wonderdrug-zbt
When Ryan’s dying father gives him a sealed shoebox with instructions to open once he’s passed, Ryan can only speculate on what’s inside.
The last thing he expects is for his father to shoot himself immediately afterward, or for the shoebox to contain ten thousand dollars cash.
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But the money isn’t for Ryan; it’s for someone named Jamie Norton. When Ryan learns Jamie is an old friend of the family with a shady past, he looks to his mother for answers.
But he isn’t the only one looking.
Ryan thought he knew his parents. But the deeper he digs, the more he learns that some families will do whatever it takes to keep their secrets buried—no matter what the cost.
My Review
I felt so sorry for poor Ryan. His father appears to dislike him and his mother is cold and uncaring. Or that’s how it seems. But His Last Lie is far more complicated than just poor family relations. Thank goodness he has Rachel, who loves him unequivocally.
The story starts with a bang – literally – when Ryan and Rachel visit Ryan’s father Lou. They are not welcome. However, Lou gives Ryan a sealed shoe box, which he says Ryan shouldn’t open till after Lou’s death. Little does he know that would be imminent. No sooner have they left the flat, when there is a loud bang and it turns out that Lou has shot himself.
The box contains ten thousand dollars and a sealed envelope addressed to someone called Jamie Norton. A lot of time is spent with Ryan and Rachel speculating on where the money has come from and what they should do. Their banter is actually very witty and well written, and they are both likable characters. Secretly I always thought Rachel might do a bunk with the loot – maybe she does – we’ll have to wait and see.
I have to be honest, I would have simply found Jamie and handed over the money. I wouldn’t care where it came from, in fact it wouldn’t have occurred to me that it was dishonestly come by, and I’m not really sure why it mattered so much. On the other hand, if I was Ryan I would be furious that Lou had left him nothing, his only child.
But Jamie Norton isn’t that easy to find. Ryan has an address of sorts but not the apartment number, Ryan’s mum says she has no idea who Jamie is, and the only other person who might know is his uncle Floyd, but he’s banged up for armed robbery. That leaves only one option – pay a visit to his cousin Daryl, who lives alone in a trailer in the middle of nowhere, shooting his own dinner and skinning it. It’s all getting a bit Grizzly Adams.
There’s also a character called ‘Knuckles’, a huge man-mountain covered in tattoos – you couldn’t make him up (actually the author just did). Ryan is so out of his depth.
The twists and surprises start coming in thick and fast. The pace picks up round about now and everyone seems to be lying or hiding something. His mum never lies – Ryan you are so naive – of course she does. Ryan and Rachel have so many theories, but they are all wrong. I had no idea and the outcome was nothing like I imagined. So well plotted – I read it in one sitting.
Many thanks to @ZooloosBT for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
Erik Therme has thrashed in garage bands, inadvertently harboured runaways, and met Darth Vader. When he’s not at his computer, he can be found cheering on his youngest daughter’s volleyball team, or watching horror movies with his oldest. He currently resides in Iowa City, Iowa—one of only twenty-eight places in the world that UNESCO has certified as a City of Literature. Join Erik’s mailing list to be notified of new releases and author giveaways: http://eepurl.com/cD1F8L
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Book Links
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