Amelie has always been different.
Most high school students find life challenging, but 17-year old Amelie has a lot more to contend with than typical teenage angst. Ever since she turned 11, others have been irresistibly drawn to her—with tragic consequences. Her only escape is at night when she flies to different times and places through her “dreams”. Her life begins to change when, on one of her flights, she meets Clovis, an alluring and mysterious young man who hides a secret.
As Amelie finds herself increasingly drawn to him, she learns his story, how it intertwines with her own and finally discovers how to live her life in the real world. Until her own secrets are revealed to the wrong people and that world turns upside down.
Bright Midnights is the second in the Limerent Series and continues in the thought-provoking and beautiful style of the first as it considers different dimensions, different ways of looking at the world, and the transcendental power of love.
My Review
I read and loved Fanning Fireflies so it made sense that I read Bright Midnights as well, even though YA/fantasy is not my usual genre. But the author’s writing is beautiful and the characters are well written. As an aside, I didn’t realise that Bright Midnights came before Fanning Fireflies, though they are not really connected apart from Dante and Kara, who feature a lot more later.
The main character, Amelie, is delightful, if naive and at times rather selfish, but that’s teenagers for you! As for Clovis, the jury is still out. I didn’t trust him and still don’t. Amelie has powers that she struggles to control. Her family are an ignorant bunch, so fail to understand her. And her school friends are all horrible, apart from Hudson.
As we progress through the book, we find out more about Amelie’s powers, including her ability to fly in her dreams (which is how she meets Clovis), and how it affects her when she gets back. At school, she is considered an outsider, a bit weird – if only they knew how weird – and one of her teachers has a very unhealthy obsession with her, which makes her life even more difficult.
I have to read it from an objective point of view as I can’t identify with the subject matter or the characters, but I can still appreciate what a great book it is for young adults. And of course the author writes with confidence and authority. I’m really looking forward to reading more of Amelie’s adventures in Ghosting Academy.
Many thanks to @LiterallyPR for inviting me me to be part of the #BrightMidnights blog tour.
About the Author
Lexy Delorme was born in San Diego, California. After graduating from the University of North Carolina School of law, various internships and years working in risk, tax, family, and international law, she now classifies herself as a recovering attorney. With a father who served in the US Military, Lexy had a wandering lifestyle from her earliest days and in her time has been a pop musician, a science geek and a writer for magazines like Bonjour Paris and Playtimes. Throughout all of her different careers, her love of fiction has been a mainstay.
Within this eclectic life, she was also one of the first employees at 23andMe, a genomics and biotechnology company based in Mountain View, California and that experience influenced the genetic aspects of her Limerent Series, of which Caio is the first book.
For as long as she can remember she’s had characters in her head. As a child, these were the friends she wished to have. As a young woman, the lovers she wanted to find or the people she wanted to become. Writing fiction novels allows her the chance to give these characters a background, a story and a voice.
Having lived in in three continents, none US states, and 21 cities around the world, including London and Hong Kong, Lexy now lives in Paris with her French husband and two very cool sons. She is currently working on the next books in the Limerent Series.
Buy Links
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LS Delorme
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#BrightMidnights
After her daughter bleeds out from a miscarriage in Texas, Patricia Scott kills the doctor who had failed to perform a medically necessary abortion.
Her next target is the attorney who’d advised against the abortion out of personal ambition.
Lizzie Vaughn, an investigator with her own dark past, is hired by the doctor’s widow after police label her husband’s death a suicide.
#DeadlyChoice X/Twitter #sleemanning #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour #bookX #booktwitter
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Lizzie’s hunt for the killer becomes more complicated and dangerous when she is also tapped to find a young woman with a heart condition who has been kidnapped to prevent her from ending a life-threatening pregnancy and whose fate intertwines with Patricia’s plans for revenge.
Can Lizzie and Patricia set aside their individual quests to prevent another tragedy?
My Review
A couple of years ago I read A Spark Of Light by Jodi Picoult, which deals with the subject of abortion. At a women’s reproductive health services clinic, a gunman is holding staff and patients hostage, including his own daughter. It looks at the pros and cons of abortion from both sides. I found it very upsetting.
Deadly Choice is totally different, though it deals with the same subject. It’s a crime novel, set in Texas, where it’s now illegal to carry out an abortion unless the woman is in imminent danger of dying. The Combatants for the Unborn (an anti-abortion group) are portrayed as lunatics, especially John Peterson who would kill to prevent an abortion, but is happy to spread his seed amongst the women he picks up in bars. It made me very angry.
Any doctor deemed to have crossed the line can be prosecuted, as can anyone who helps the woman go to another state where the rules are less rigid. Who are these people who decide who lives and who dies? Who lets a mother die over her unborn foetus? This is about women’s rights over their own bodies.
I loved private investigator Lizzie, and her sidekick Murphy, but I hated Patricia initially. I think it’s because she has guns and goes hunting, but claims she loves animals. You can’t be both in my book. After her daughter dies she takes the law into her own hands. She has a list of those she blames, and she’s going to use it to seek them out and kill them. Everyone has a gun (it’s the US) and this feels very alien to us here in the UK.
The same goes for the draconian abortion laws in Texas, and the fanatical behaviour of the Combatants for the Unborn seems ridiculously far-fetched. But apparently it isn’t. I even asked my husband (he’s good on US politics). How can this be real? How can this be happening in the 21st century? But it is, right now.
In Deadly Choice there is no grey area. The pro-lifers are all portrayed as religious nutcases. We have no sympathy with any of them. Peterson I just don’t get (he’s a total hypocrite), Brenda Phillips will do anything to become a Senator (or even President), Georgina Crane is another fanatic, though she has a nice cat (probably her only redeeming feature). Dr Tom Martin put his career before his patient’s life.
Deadly Choice is a thriller with a serious message. It moves at a cracking pace and jumps from the narrative as seen through the eyes of the various main characters – Lizzie, Patricia, John, Brenda and Isabella who is trying to get out of state with her daughter, to terminate the pregnancy that will kill her. A brilliant read that will leave you thinking.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
AN AWARD-WINNING WRITER, S. LEE Manning is the author of international thrillers, Trojan Horse, Nerve Attack, and Bloody Soil. In 2023, Bloody Soil won the award for Best Genre Fiction Novel from Independent Publishers of New England. She spent two years as managing editor of Law Enforcement Communications before embarking on a subsequent career as an attorney that spanned from a first-tier New York law firm, to working for the State of New Jersey, to solo practice until retiring from law to write full-time.
Manning and her husband J. B. Manning—the award-winning author of Richter the Mighty—do talks, presentations, and YouTube videos as A Killing Couple and live in Vermont with their very vocal cats, Xiao and Dmitri. S. Lee Manning is currently working on her next Kolya Petrov thriller. For the latest updates on her novels, follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and visit
sleemanning.com.
+ family, fiction, forgiveness, grief, India, jealousy, loss, love, motherhood, murder, review, secrets, sisters
Missy by Raghav Rao
Madras, India: The orphaned girls of St Ursula’s convent are destined to be nuns or servants but seventeen-year-old Savi dreams of escape.
Responsible and good with languages, she’s taken on as governess for the wealthy Nandiyar family at their country estate.
The horrific events of a single night force Savi and her love, Ananda, into a dangerous journey, re-emerging in America under new identities, their homeland forever in their rearview.
But the past is never far away.
Forty years later, Savi, known to all as Missy, is the embodiment of the American dream – successful business owner in Chicago, pillar of the South Asian community, and mother to two brilliant, stubborn young women, Mansi and Shilpa.
Until Varun, a charming doctor, enters their lives, setting off a chain of events that puts Missy’s carefully constructed world in jeopardy with the revelation that you can never truly outrun your secrets…
My Review
What a wonderful book. It’s not only a tale of courage and resilience, it’s also a love story, an insight into India’s culture, and a philosophical tome. The poverty in India is extreme – poor people age faster than in the West – and the servants are often treated worse than the animals. But Savi, later known in America as Missy, is different, and her journey is miraculous.
We first meet Savi when she and her mother have been abandoned by Savi’s father, and then walk miles in bare feet to find a better life. But Savi’s mother dies and the orphaned Savi is taken into St Ursula’s convent. It is obvious she is clever and good at languages, so the nuns secure for her a position with the wealthy Nandiyar family at their country estate. She will be governess to their young son Aditya.
Though she knows she wants more, she is happy in her work, but one member of staff is always stalking her and making her life a misery. Then she meets Ananda – a talented sculptor from the nearby metalworks – and their secret romance begins. And that is where the story takes a more sinister turn.
Fast forward 40 years and Missy runs a successful driving school in America. She and Andy – they both had to change their names, having entered the country illegally – are separated. I felt very sorry for Andy, though I don’t really know why. He never had Missy’s courage or sass. They have two daughters Shilpa and Mansi. two strong women who are carving their own paths.
And all is well until Varun, a well respected young doctor from a wealthy family, turns up for driving lessons, and Missy’s life is about to be turned upside down.
I adored this book. The characters have such depth, the vivid descriptions of India put us right there, and the differences between life in America and India are brought firmly to the fore.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, the author, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
About the Author
Raghav Rao was born in Mumbai, India. He grew up in London, Los Angeles, and Southern India. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, Crime Writers of Color, and Sisters in Crime. He is active in the Chicago literary scene, hosting a twice-weekly cowrite, and attending monthly lit salons. A principal member of The Office of Modern Composition, Raghav hosts virtual and in-person meetups and workshops for their writing community with over 400 members
+ audio book, diary, fairies, fiction, folklore, Historical fiction, Ireland, love, magic, Magical realism, mythology, review, secrets, stories
The Story Collector by Evie Gaughan
In a quiet village in Ireland, a mysterious local myth is about to change everything…
One hundred years ago, Anna, a young farm girl, volunteers to help an intriguing American visitor translate fairy stories from Irish to English. But all is not as it seems and Anna soon finds herself at the heart of a mystery that threatens her very way of life.
In New York in the present day, Sarah Harper boards a plane bound for the West Coast of Ireland. But once there, she finds she has unearthed dark secrets – secrets that tread the line between the everyday and the otherworldly, the seen and the unseen.
With a taste for the magical in everyday life, Evie Gaughan’s latest novel is full of ordinary characters with extraordinary tales to tell.
My Review
The Lost Bookshop was one of my top five books of 2023 so it came as no surprise that I would love this one. And I did. It’s a dual timeline novel – Anna’s story set one hundred years ago, and Sara’s story set in modern times.
Anna is a young farm girl, her head turned by the son of the local landowner. But then she meets Harold, an American scholar studying at Oxford University, who is writing his thesis on the fairy stories that abound on the West Coast of Ireland. He needs someone who speaks the language to translate for him, and after much discussion, it is agreed that Anna is perfect for the task.
Sarah, also an American, has just left New York to return to her family in Boston. At the airport she suddenly decides to trace her roots to Ireland instead, where she arrives alone at Christmas, and rents a small cottage in the middle of nowhere, basically. And it’s here that she discovers Anna’s diary, makes new friends, finds herself, and the stories intertwine.
I loved this book. I listened to it everywhere – in the car, walking in the park, while getting dressed and doing my hair – every time I had a spare moment. I wanted to know what happened, but I didn’t want it to end. I miss them all, but especially Harold.
About the Author
Evie Woods is the pseudonym of Evie Gaughan, bestselling author of The Story Collector, The Heirloom and The Mysterious Bakery On Rue De Paris. Living on the West Coast of Ireland, Evie escapes the inclement weather by writing her stories in a converted attic, where she dreams of underfloor heating. Her books tread the intriguing line between the everyday and the otherworldly, revealing the magic that exists in our ordinary lives.
Glasgow, 1966: Stevie ‘Minto’ Milloy, former star footballer-turned-rookie reporter, finds himself trailing the story of a young Eastern European student whose body has been found on remote moorland outside the city.
How did she get there from her hostel at the Sovereign Grace Mission, and why does Stevie find obstacles at every turn?
Italy, 1943: As the Allies fight Mussolini’s troops, a group of young soldiers are separated from their platoon, and Glaswegian Jamesie Campbell, his newfound friend Michael McTavish at his side, finds himself free to make his own rules…
Glasgow, 1969: Courtroom sketch artist Donald ‘Doodle’ Malpas is shocked to discover that his new case involves the murder of a teenage Lithuanian girl he knows from the Sovereign Grace Mission. Why hasn’t the girl’s death been reported? And why is a young police constable suddenly so keen to join the mission?
No one seems willing to join the dots between the two cases, and how they link to Raskine House, the stately home in the Scottish countryside with a dark history and even darker present – the venue for the debauched parties held there by the rich and powerful of the city who call themselves ‘The Weekenders’.
Painting a picture of a 1960s Glasgow in the throes of a permissive society, pulled apart by religion, corruption, and a murderous Bible John stalking the streets, The Weekenders is a snapshot of an era of turmoil – and a terrifying insight into the mind of a ruthless criminal…
The Weekenders will be published on 13th February 2025.
AND HERE IS THE FAB COVER. SEE YOU INSIDE THE BOOK SOON!
Buy Links
Print – https://geni.us/AKo8Cz0
Ebook – https://geni.us/Ir9dR9s
David F Ross’ social media handles
Twitter: @Dfr10
Instagram: @DavidFRoss10
#TheWeekenders #NoirCrime #TheRaskineHouse #Glasgow
+ crime fiction, female friendship, friendship, lies, murder, police drama, police procedural, review, secrets
The Reunion by MJ Arlidge and Steph Broadribb
A skull looks up at Jennie from the trench, but it’s not the chalk-white bone and grimacing teeth that send her reeling.
It’s the heart-shaped gold pendant, its delicate chain snapped in two. The necklace Hannah never took off. It can’t be Hannah. But it is.
When Jennie Whitmore arrives at her school reunion, she immediately regrets her decision. Why would she choose to surround herself with people who were never nice to her? Who still aren’t, even now she’s a police officer? The only person who truly looked out for her all those years ago was charming, beautiful Hannah. Until the day she disappeared.
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Jennie is ready to finally put White Cross Academy behind her, the old school building demolished the morning after the party. But with the demolition comes a call: a teenage girl’s remains have been found on the grounds.
The instant drop in Jennie’s gut tells her that the remains might be Hannah’s, but when she’s called in to examine them, the truth becomes undeniable. Hannah didn’t run away and abandon Jenny thirty years ago; in fact, she never left White Cross at all.
Suddenly, Jennie has a murder to solve. The murder of her best friend. But can she do so before her colleagues discover just how closely connected she is to the victim? Before a mystery stalker makes good on his threats to silence her for good?
My Review
I have to admit that I got this so wrong. I had an idea, but I was way off the mark. I’d love to tell you what it was, but that would be a spoiler of sorts, as in ‘it wasn’t that or even close’.
Hannah was Jennie Whitmore’s best friend. They had planned to run away to London together, get away from her alcoholic mum and Hannah’s violent dad and start a new life. Hannah with her beautiful face and long legs was going to be a model. But Hannah never showed and Jennie was bereft. Where was Hannah and why had she let Jennie down?
Thirty years later and Jennie is a senior police officer in the town where they both lived. But the school they attended, White Cross Academy, is about to be demolished. Then a body is discovered in the school basement and Jennie fears it’s Hannah. But when her heart-shaped gold pendant is found near the remains, Jennie knows it’s her. She didn’t abandon her best friend. She was murdered.
And so we go back and forth as Jennie has to interview the other members of the sixth form darkroom group, Lottie, Elliott, Rob and Simon, the friends who met in the basement in their final year at the school. Jennie was a keen photographer, having inherited a camera from her late father. Elliott helped her learn how to use it and develop the pictures she took. It was her pictures that Hannah used in her modelling portfolio.
But in order to remain in charge of the case, Jennie has to hide the depth of her involvement and friendships within the group. And she has to treat her old friends as possible suspects in Hannah’s murder. There were two original suspects – Hannah’s violent father and the creepy art teacher. Jennie wants it to be one of them, but she can’t be biased.
It’s a shocking story of murder, betrayal and secrets. How can this group of old friends that were so important to her in her teens be responsible for the death of her best friend? But did she ever really know any of them, even Hannah? I flew through the book over a weekend, determined to get to the truth. It wasn’t at all what I expected.
Many thanks to @Tr4cyF3nt0n for inviting me to be part of the #CompulsiveReaders #blogtour and to NetGalley for an ARC.
About the Authors
MJ Arlidge has worked in television for the last twenty years, specialising in high-end drama production, including prime-time crime serials Silent Witness, Torn, The Little House and, most recently, the hit ITV show Innocent. In 2015 his audiobook exclusive Six Degrees of Assassination was a number-one bestseller. His debut thriller, Eeny Meeny, was the UK’s bestselling crime debut of 2014 and has been followed by ten more DI Helen Grace thrillers – all Sunday Times bestsellers.
Steph Broadribb was born in Birmingham and grew up in Buckinghamshire. Most of her working life has been spent between the UK and USA. As her alter ego – Crime Thriller Girl – she indulges her love of all things crime fiction by blogging at www.crimethrillergirl.com
Steph is an alumni of the MA in Creative Writing (Crime Fiction) at City University London, and she trained as a bounty hunter in California. She lives in Buckinghamshire surrounded by horses, cows and chickens.
Dr Ronnie Ackerman wakes up in bed alone.
Her boss, Nobel Prize- winner Professor Hasely Stone, and the man she got drunk with the night before, is downstairs in the sauna, brutally murdered.
Who did this, and why?
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Stone had been working with total dedication on the ultimate cure for all cancers. Was he killed because he failed, or because he succeeded? Ronnie panics, clears the house of all traces of her overnight stay, and then sets out on a mission to find out.
My Review
This book moves at such a cracking pace that I read it in two sittings. Not a word, sentence or paragraph is wasted. No extra padding, no stretching it out, it just rockets to a satisfying finish.
I often say that a lot of novels are too long and could easily be cut to shed the ‘dead wood’ or too much description. They sometimes refer to it as ‘murdering your darlings’. With Deadly Protocol there is no dead wood, though plenty of murdering, literally! What we do have is politics, intrigue, medicine and the elusive cure for cancer. It’s fast, intelligent and exciting. What more could you want from a thriller?
Dr Veronica Ackerman known as ‘Ronnie’ (I was also known as Ronnie at school), is our fabulous main character. She’s smart, sassy and extremely clever. OK, so waking up in her boss’s bed after a drunken night of ‘passion’ wasn’t very smart, but apart from that one mistake her behaviour is exemplary. Fleeing the scene of a murder and trying to cover her tracks isn’t very smart either, but she panicked. Who wouldn’t have? Me for one I believe, but then I’ve never found myself in either situation. I’ve certainly never found anyone being barbecued over a sauna.
But that’s only the beginning. Professor Hasely Stone is just the first in a series of grisly murders, but why would anyone want to kill the very person who has found the cure for our deadliest illness? It just doesn’t make any sense.
Ronnie teams up with journalist Daniel Plowright, Professor Stone’s brother Leon, his PA Laura and Sister Augustine in a race across the world to discover the secrets behind the killings. It’s a clever game of cat and mouse with some very cruel and violent adversaries, which rattles along at breakneck speed that will leave you breathless and wanting more. And you will get it, as this is the first of a new series featuring Dr Ackerman.
Many thanks to Overview Media for inviting me to be part of the #DeadlyProtocol blog tour.
About the Author
TV journalist Roger Corke has spent more years that he cares to remember travelling to all parts of the world, making investigative documentaries for series like the BBC’s Panorama, Channel 4’s Dispatches and ITV’s World In Action and Tonight. It was whilst he was on a filming trip to America that he came up with the plot of Deadly Protocol.
“I was talking to a scientist working there who told me that they had made great strides in cancer research over the past few years.” says Roger. “I asked him whether that meant a cure for cancer might come soon. His answered floored me. He said ‘they may have found a cure for cancer but a lot of people would have a lot to lose if it ever saw the light of day’. Straight away, the plot for a thriller jumped out at me.”
Deadly Protocol can now be ordered, ahead of the official publication date of September 10.
You can order it from Amazon by clicking onto:
www.amazon.co.uk
This is the link for the Kindle edition on Amazon
You can also order it from the publishers, Diamond Books, at:
Diamond Books where you can also find out more about Roger.
Stirling and Quebec, 1900
A tale of blackmail, kidnap and terrible secrets. Of children being sent abroad, and of women trying to do the right thing at a time when they were second class citizens.
How far will Jane Knight and Eliza Frew go to protect the ones they love … and save themselves?
Child rescue and migration are the backdrops to this historical drama that packs a punch.
An intelligent and emotionally rich story which is truly engaging.
Highly commended in the Pitlochry Quaich Historical Novel competition.
My Review
It’s very interesting to read about the children who were sent abroad to ‘better their lives’ in another country. In this case it was Canada, but the reality is that they were separated from their families, and while many of them did end up happy and successful, many didn’t. It was still exploitation of children, many of them ridiculously young and vulnerable.
In The Rescue Sisters, we have three main characters. Eliza Frew has given up any idea of marriage and a family to rescue children that would otherwise have ended up in the poor house or on the streets. She has her reasons. The children are taken in, cleaned up, given beds, food and an education. But only the girls could remain after a certain age, the boys being sent to Canada to work mainly on farms. This is what happens to Winnie and her brother at the beginning of the book.
Jane Knight is the niece of Alice Knight, her father’s sister, and following a family tragedy, she goes to stay with Alice who takes her to meet Eliza. It is here she first encounters Winnie, who makes her promise to come back and see her. But it’s a few years until this happens, and Winnie feels that Jane owes her, and asks for a favour that would be beyond most young women’s capabilities in those days. And that is how we end up in Canada, where something happens on the journey that will test Jane to her limits.
I was fond of Jane, Eliza not so much. Her constant quoting from the Bible grated on me (my having been to a Convent school in the late sixties), but by far my favourite character is Alice Knight. Like Eliza, she never married or became a mother, but she is feisty, intelligent, fearless and a believer in women’s rights. She’s like the ‘unsinkable Molly Brown’ in Titanic. I can imagine Alice standing for Parliament as an MP, though we are still almost 20 years too soon for that to happen.
If I had one criticism, it would be that it is all a bit too neat at times. It could have been a lot more harrowing and gritty, but then I would probably be saying now that it was too harrowing and realistic, and that it left me in floods of tears! I can definitely see it as a TV series in the future.
Many thanks to @lovebookstours for inviting me to be part of #TheRescueSisters blog tour.
About the Author
Elaine Whiteford is a Scottish writer of fiction and non-fiction. She is passionate about local history and women’s social history in late Victorian and Edwardian times. The Rescue Sisters is the first of her historical novels to be published. She has had extracts of two novels published in Gold Dust magazine and short fiction published by Stryvling Press. In non-fiction Elaine is the author of The Story of Stirling Golf Club, a contributor to Wild & Temperate Seas and has had photo articles about scuba diving and marine life published in a wide range of magazines.
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He won’t rest until he finds out the truth…
Cal Lovett is obsessed with finding justice for the families of missing people. His true crime podcast is his way of helping others, even if he can’t help himself.
His sister, Margot, disappeared when he was a child. Only one man seems to know something. But he’s behind bars and can’t be trusted.
So when the family of a missing Scottish woman begs for his help, he heads to Aberdeenshire in search of the truth.
Does Cal have what it takes to unearth the secrets hiding in the hills? And what if he finds something that leads him back to the heart of his own family’s past?
My Review
Unsolved is the first in the Cal Lovett Files. I read it with my online book club – The Pigeonhole – where we read a ‘stave’ a day – usually a stave is made up of a few chapters. It’s great for crime stories as we can play amatuer detective in our comments.
Cal loves uncovering secrets in his true crime podcast, but his popularity, like his marriage, is going down the pan. He needs a gritty story to resurrect his credibility. He’ll need more than that to save his relationship with his wife Allie.
There are three main strands to this story. Cal visits a notorious serial killer in prison. It’s going to be the subject of his next podcast. His wife wants him to give up the visits because they are taking their toll on Cal. But on his last visit, the killer, Marc Dubois, tells him something that will turn his world on its axis. But is it true, or is Dubois trying to vex him?
And that leads us to the second strand. Cal’s older sister Margot disappeared without trace when Cal was nine years old. He wants to know what happened, but it’s tearing him apart.
Finally we have Layla, who also vanished. The year was 1986. She had gone for a ride on Ruby, one of the horses from the stables where she helped out, but Ruby came back badly injured and Layla was never seen again. The locals believed it was her on-off boyfriend Stephen who killed her (no body was ever discovered), but could Dubois have been involved. Layla’s parents want closure, or do they?
We also have a separate story involving Cal’s teenage daughter Chrissie, who is going through her own trials and tribulations.
I loved this story and hope that the next in the series will also be available on The Pigeonhole. It’s not perfect – there are one or two things that could have been better – but altogether it deserves a hearty 5 stars.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, the author, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
About the Author
Heather Critchlow grew up in rural Aberdeenshire and trained as a business journalist after studying history and social science at the University of Cambridge. Her short stories have appeared in crime fiction anthologies Afraid of the Light, Afraid of the Christmas Lights and Afraid of the Shadows.
Meet Esme. The girl with two houses, but not because she is super rich, but because her parents are divorced.
Esme talks about growing up with her younger sister, juggling school, hobbies, pets and two very different parenting styles.
#EsmesLifeAsATenYearOld X(Twitter) #VickiBaxter@ZooloosBT #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour #BookX #booktwitter
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A funny and truthful story, sharing a roller coaster ride of the life of a ten-year-old.
My Review
Life through the eyes of a ten-year-old. That’s Esme! Her take on her family’s situation is funny, poignant and very well observed. There is no anger or bitterness – it is what it is. She is very philosophical for one so young.
Esme’s mother is stricter and more organised than her dad. No screens while eating (I wish – tell that to my ten-year-old granddaughter), regular bedtimes and up early (Mum is always early – dad is always late) and ready for school. But they have a rabbit called Muffin, so it’s all good! They have two guinea pigs too. Esme’s is Pancake and younger sister Hattie’s is called Syrup. We had a dog called Pancake, so I’m with Esme on the name choice.
Their dad is more disorganised. But while Esme and her sister love them both, her mum and dad were always going to clash. Different personalities – different parenting styles. When they lived together they were always arguing, though Hattie doesn’t remember as she’s too young. “Mum still gets irritated by the fact he stores his motorbike and surf boards in the lounge.” I’m not surprised!
“Dad’s house is always trashed, he says it is us and that we make all the mess, but it isn’t just that. Mum is always tidy and makes us sort our toys and bedroom out, so it is nice when we are at Dad’s because we just throw all our clothes on the floor and leave all our stuff out and he doesn’t care.”
There’s also a lot about school. The sex education class is very funny.
“The nurse asked us to volunteer to draw a boy’s private parts on the board and one of the boys did it so big, it was really funny. We were taught how to check our breasts for lumps, which can be caused by cancer. The lady had knitted boobs for that bit and was squeezing them, we were all laughing, she had lots of knitted body parts.”
If you have children of this age (or grandchildren), you’ll love this book. My younger son is divorced, though his children are much younger than Esme, and they don’t remember mum and dad living together. Children are very adaptable, particularly if separated parents don’t play one off against the other. Esme’s parents are pretty good at that side of things.
I just have one question. Who is Uncle Monkey? I know he’s Esme’s godfather, but please tell me why he’s called Uncle Monkey? Thank you.
Many thanks to @ZooloosBT for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
Vicki Baxter lives by the Cornish coast with her two daughters. Following her graduation with a Leisure Management and Sports degree, Vicki has experienced a varied career as a tennis coach, prison custody officer and sales representative in the confectionery market. Vicki works four days a week and enjoys using her day off writing, cold water sea swimming and exercising. Vicki’s previous publications include a rhyming picture and activity book called Our World and Me. A children’s fantasy story called The Hatteme Tales (illustrated by Caz Banks and narrated by Kate Stebbing-Allen). A book about her previous work experience called Incarcerated – A Young Offender
Institute Through the Eyes of an Officer, and a selection of poetry in various books.
Vicki’s inspiration to start writing came from composing poems for her friends at secondary school. This led to her Nan suggesting she enter one of them into a competition. The Perfect Wave was a success and was published in a poetry collection. Writing has become a passion and something to give to her daughters as they grow up and have their own families.
Vicki’s Social Media
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005574826507
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vicki.the.author
Blossom Spring Publishing’s Social Media
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Website: https://www.blossomspringpublishing.com/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216619999-esme-s-life-as-a-
ten-year-old
Purchase Link: https://mybook.to/esmeslife-zbt
I might be a grandmother. But I’m not some sweet, harmless old lady who people can push around.
Two little girls stand with their heads bowed in my living room. I’m told they’re my granddaughters. This is the first time I’ve met them since my daughter and I fell out after she married that waste of space, Vince. Daisy is nine, and Alice seven. Daisy is the spitting image of her mother.
They’ve come to live with me because their mother — my daughter — was murdered. In her own home while they slept close by.
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I think their father, Vince, killed my daughter. But the police can’t prove it. I’ve always known he was no good. He treated my daughter like dirt. I warned her he’d cheat on her — but she wouldn’t listen.
But then, most people have a dark side — and I’m no different.Now he wants his daughters back. Over my dead body. I finally have a family of my own. And nobody is going to take it away from me.
My Review
I had no idea when I started reading this how clever it would end up being. At first it was fairly straightforward – a bit ordinary to be honest. But don’t be deceived. Nothing is what it seems and no-one is telling the truth.
First of all we have the ‘grandmother’, Yvonne Castle. A nice little old lady (less of the old – she’s quite a bit younger than me), but at times we see her true colours. And maybe she’s not quite so nice. She has no experience of children, but when her estranged daughter Scarlet is murdered, she offers to take in her granddaughters – Daisy and Alice – their father Vince being a ‘useless unemployed slob’, with a snarling wolf tattoo on his neck and a nice sideline as a getaway driver.
He left Scarlet when she was at her most vulnerable for Leah, and together they have a baby called Saffy. Vince adores her. But Leah is a slob, with her dirty kitchen, her useless parenting, her grown out roots and her disgusting bubble gum. Vince is so sorry he left Scarlet and the girls, now that he can see Leah for the spiteful, nasty piece of work that she really is.
Alice takes to her granny really quickly, but Daisy is far more suspicious. And I don’t blame her. She loves her daddy, in spite of his many faults. But Yvonne hates him, believing him to have killed Scarlet. And nothing is going to stand in her way when it comes to keeping the girls.
It all sounds so simple, but believe me it isn’t. There’s a jaw-dropping twist part way through that turns the whole story on its head and we start questioning who really is the baddy and who can be saved. I really enjoyed it. And the story around Lucky the dog is my favourite part.
Many thanks to @ZooloosBT for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
Jane E. James is a bestselling author who likes to create chilling reads that appeal to fans of psychological suspense thrillers, mysteries, and dark fiction. Her novels are packed with plot twists and turns that keep the reader guessing. All of them are standalone novels. Jane is an animal lover and lives with her cat, Hero, in a small country village near Stamford, Lincolnshire in the UK, which is known for its quirky tea shops and cobbled streets. Rebecca, Carrie, The Woman in Black and Wuthering Heights are among some of Jane’s favourite reads.
Jane’s Social Media
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janeejamesauthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jane_e_james
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janeejamesauthor
Website: http://www.janeejames.com
Joffe Books’ Social Media
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joffebooks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/joffebooks
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joffebooks
Website: https://joffebooks.com/
Book Links
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216727227-the-grandmother
Purchase Link: https://mybook.to/grandmother-zbt
+ community, family, fiction, friendship, murder, review, secrets, sisterhood
I Died At Fallow Hall by Bonnie Burke-Patel
Anna Deerin moves to a remote Cotswold cottage to become a gardener, trying to strip away everything she’s spent all her life as a woman striving for, craving the anonymity and privacy her new off-grid life provides.
But when she clears the last vegetable bed and digs up not twigs but bones, the outside world is readmitted. With it comes Detective Inspector Hitesh Mistry, who has his own reasons for a new start in the village of Upper Magna.
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Drawn in spite of herself to this unknown woman from another time, Anna is determined to uncover her identity and gain recognition for her, if not justice.
As threats to Anna and her new life grow closer, she and DI MIstry will find that this murder is inextricably bound up with issues of gender, family, community, race and British identity itself – all as relevant in decades past as they are to Anna today.
My Review
I didn’t really know what to expect from this book apart from the fact that it’s set in Gloucestershire where I live, and Cirencester is about 15 miles down the road. Detective Inspector Hitesh Mistry has left London to take up a post there. I’m pretty sure that Upper Magna is fictitious, though there is one in Shropshire, while Chew Magna is a village in Somerset. From the Latin, ‘Magna’ just means big or great in village terms.
Anna Deerin moved to Upper Magna about 18 months previously, to become a gardener and live her life off-grid. She doesn’t even have a phone. With it comes a remote, rent-free, one-bed cottage, but she has to grow her own food, which she sells at the local market. It takes self-sufficiency to a whole new level.
The cottage is set in the grounds of Fallow Hall, so when she digs up a skeleton along with the carrots and turnips, she is certain that the dead woman – who she refers to as her ‘Fallow sister’ – had something to do with the hall. And she is not going to let it go. This anonymous woman deserves respect and recognition.
It’s at the market that she meets Hitesh and you can see that they are going to become friends and co-conspirators. They both have reasons to be here, away from the hustle and bustle of London.
There are a lot of other interesting characters, but I was particularly drawn to Reverend Watts, the vicar of the local church, and his Golden Retriever David (named after the Biblical king). I love a human name for an animal – I knew someone who called his Golden Retriever Elizabeth, and someone else whose cat was called Colin.
I can’t even begin to describe how much I loved this book. I just wanted to keep reading. I needed to know who the woman was, but I didn’t want it to finish. I kind of guessed who she probably was, and how, but I only got the last part half right.
I also better mention the deeper themes at play here – ‘of gender, family, community, race and British identity itself – all as relevant in decades past as they are to Anna today.’ And also to Hitesh of course.
But it’s the writing that will stay with me. The author has a unique voice and style that is overwhelmingly beautiful. It captured something in my very soul. I Died At Fallow Hall is one of my favourite books of the year so far.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
Born and raised in South Gloucestershire, Bonnie Burke-Patel studied History at Oxford. After working for half a decade in politics and policy, she changed careers and became a preschool teacher, before beginning to write full time. She lives with her husband, son, and needy cat in south east London, and is working on her next crime novel about fairy tales, desire, and the seaside.
Bookchatter@Cookiebiscuit 