+ child abuse, childhood, family, fiction, friendship, lies, love, motherhood, review, secrets, thriller
A Safe Place by Stephanie Carty
What happens when your home becomes your prison?
Twelve-year-old Cate has never left her village. She’s never had a friend. She’s never even hugged her mother.
Imogen, Cate’s mum, spent her youth travelling the country with her father. He believed she had a gift and used her for his own gain. With her innocence snatched away, Imogen vowed to build an idyllic and safe childhood for her daughter.
But Cate soon becomes curious about life outside their home, and Imogen begins to wonder if the decision to close them off from society was the right one. Then when Zach, Imogen’s enigmatic ex-lover, returns to the village, years of deception come to light.
Why has Imogen never touched her daughter? Is Zach responsible for a heinous crime? And what is Cate truly capable of?
A Safe Place is a chilling suspense novel about decades of secrets, lies and guilt.
My Review
I wasn’t sure what to think before I started reading A Safe Place and it wasn’t at all what I expected. It’s described as a thriller, but that is not how I saw it. A chilling suspense novel? Again I found it more creepy than chilling. But I loved every word of it.
The story takes place in two time-lines from the points of view of twelve-year-old Cate and her mother, Imogen. Imogen had a traumatic childhood, dragged around by her father on the Rounds, visiting old and sick people, because he believed Imogen had a ‘gift’ and could help heal them. Did she? I’m not sure. The placebo effect can be very powerful.
Cate is very bright, with a vivid imagination, but because her mother is keeping her away from the outside world, she has no point of reference for the things she believes. Her reality is totally skewed. Her mother is trying to protect her, so Cate doesn’t go to school, or meet any other children. She doesn’t watch TV or access the internet. I get why Imogen is doing what she does, but even though her heart may be in the right place, she is totally misguided. Maybe even a bit bonkers to be honest. And then Zach arrives and turns everything on its head.
I adored this book. It’s so different and original. I loved Cate, not sure about Imogen – she’s hard to understand. Is what she is doing to Cate born out of love, yet still a form of abuse? You’ll have to decide.
Many thanks to @lovebookstours for inviting me to be part of the #ASafePlace blog tour.
About the Author
Stephanie Carty is a writer and Consultant Clinical Psychologist / NHS Head of Psychology in the UK. Her short fiction is widely published. She has been placed and shortlisted for many competitions including the Bristol Short Story Prize, Bath Short Story Award, Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and Bridport Prize. Her novella-in-flash Three Sisters of Stone won Best Novella in the Saboteur Awards 2019 and her short fiction collection The Peculiarities of Yearning won its category in the Eyelands Book Prize.
Stephanie’s writers’ craft book Inside Fictional Minds: Tips from Psychology for Creating Characters was published in 2021 and a writers’ guide to analysing your own writing to better understand yourself The Writing Mirror was published early 2024.
Her debut psychological thriller Shattered was published in February 2023. A Safe Place is published in November 2024.
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+ Catholic Church, female friendship, fiction, friendship, Historical fiction, history, loss, love, review, secrets
Broken Madonna by Anna Lucia
Elena Ferrante meets Bernadette of Lourdes in a story of love, loss and belonging, spanning post WW2 Italy through to 90’s England
Italy 1949
At an orphanage in the poverty-stricken Apennine Mountains, 15-year-old Adelina has only one friend – enigmatic, fragile Elisabetta, 11.
When Elisabetta claims to see the Madonna by the river, Adelina has doubts. But after Elisabetta appears to heal a traumatised young soldier, Giulio, who starts to walk again without his stick, crowds flock to witness the mystery of Elisabetta’s miracles.
Adelina can no longer contain her misgivings and seeks out scheming priest, Padre Bosco. The secrets of the past begin to unravel, and Adelina, Elisabetta and Giulio each have to confront who or what to believe.
Soon they face a terrible reckoning which will cause deep ripples in all their lives, reaching across the years to 1990s England.
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Genre
Broken Madonna is upmarket historical/book club, for readers who have enjoyed bestsellers Go as a River by Shelley Read, Small Pleasures by Claire Chambers, The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak and The Wonder by Emma Donoghue.
Readers are also likely to enjoy the relationship themes and impact of religion in the writing of Isabel Allende, John Boyne and Colm Toibin.
Novel themes
Stolen and denied motherhood
Aftermath of war
Child abandonment
Cruelty
Betrayal
Belonging
Religion
Corruption
Strong women versus cruel, self-interested men
Mental health PTSD
Love
Friendship
Devotion
Honesty
Redemption
My Review
What an emotional read. From an orphanage in the poverty-stricken Apennine Mountains of Italy in 1949, to both Italy and England in 1999, this book will leave you in tears, at least it did me. Adelina, aged 15 and 11-year-old Elizabetta are best friends. Fragile and deeply religious, Elizabetta looks to Adelina for support.
When Elizabetta claims to see the Madonna by the River Mollarino, Adelina is sceptical. She thinks her friend is too easily overcome with emotion. But when injured soldier Giulio is ‘healed’, the whole town flocks to see her. She becomes known as The Barefoot Flower Girl of Atina. Her fame spreads and she becomes yet another child to have been ‘visited’ by the Virgin Mary. These appearances are known as the Marian Apparitions, the best known of which is probably Our Lady of Fatima.
You might find this a hard read if you are a committed Catholic. I attended a Convent school in the late 1960s, but quickly became disillusioned due to the attitude of the priests. A bit like Sister Beatrice who believed women were the way forward for the church. Our nuns, unfortunately, were not so forward thinking.
The power of the Church in Italy at that time was total, and many men of the cloth like Padre Bosco were giddy with power, yet repulsively obsequious in the company of their superiors. It’s quite disturbing to observe.
I adored this book and I loved Adelina and her enquiring mind. Elizabetta’s unquestioning faith is hard to stomach at times, and even though Sister Beatrice is a strong woman, she is still spiteful towards Adelina, rapping her over the knuckles with a ruler when she struggles to read. I became very invested in their lives.
I love the cover by the way.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
Born in England to older Italian immigrant parents, Anna Lucia spent long, hot summers in the Apennine mountain village they had left behind to escape poverty and lack of opportunity. In the local dialect, she listened to the stories of elderly relatives about a time, place and way of life that was far, far removed from 1970s and 1980s suburbia.
Those voices, particularly of strong women who led tough lives, never went away, neither did the echoes of Catholicism.
Anna has been awarded support for her writing from Arts Council England, and also writes short stories, flash fiction and poetry. She is Chair of Trustees of literature development agency, New Writing South.
Says Anna ‘I’m self-publishing the novel (as Fluency Publishing) to coincide with my 60th birthday in November 2024, with a birthday launch planned at the Duke of Yorks cinema in Brighton, with a showing of my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso.
‘For a little more about me, please see my website. Please note this is my work website – my author website annalucia.co.uk will be live soon.’
It’s been years since Amelie abandoned her home to become an elite agent of the Academy.
In its embrace she has found support and stability, but in return the Academy uses her gifts for destruction and control. For ten years, she has chosen to live only for the moment, neither questioning nor considering the motives of her employer.
But when Amelie and her pod of fellow agents, “graduate” into becoming strategic operatives, they are spirited off to an isolated island. Here they uncover a labyrinth of deception and lies far more sinister than any they ever imagined, including Verite, a new virtual reality game, in which time has no meaning and your blood holds the keys to your soul.
In the Ghosting Academy, consciousness is currency, morality is shackles and there is no death.
My Review
In Ghosting Academy, we have moved forward many years and Amelie is now working as an elite agent for the Academy. But all is not as it seems and there are some very sinister goings on there. Amelie and her friends have been taken to an island from which there is no escape.
Some of this is really quite scary – I actually found it scarier than Lexy’s other books. The beach scene in particular is very nasty, with the fish and what they do (this is mentioned more than once and it chilled my blood). One reason not to try and swim for it to get away.
I can’t pretend that I understood everything that was going on – Shells, Simulacra, Incubi and Cambion. It’s all very complicated and I was often out of my depth. Especially with the virtual reality game Verite, as I never graduated past The 7th Guest.
Apart from Amelie, we met some new characters – James, Majo and Widget from her ‘pod’, plus the ‘Director’, but we are also reintroduced to others like Lazlo and Veronica from Fanning Fireflies, Caio, Dante and Kara, and Clovis and Rose from Bright Midnights.
Somehow I don’t think this is the last we will see of Amelie and co. There is so much left unresolved, and we need answers. I really enjoyed Ghosting Academy, even though it is not my usual genre. It is probably my favourite of the three books by this author that I have read so far.
Many thanks to @LiterallyPR for inviting me me to be part of the #GhostingAcademy 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.
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+ crime fiction, fiction, folklore, gothic, gothic horror, Gothic mystery, loss, murder, murder mystery, mystery, mythology, obsession, review, Scandi noir, Sweden
Yule Island by Johana Gustawsson translated by David Warriner Paperback Tour
This brilliant book is now out in paperback.
Art expert Emma Lindhal is anxious when she’s asked to appraise the antiques in the infamous manor house of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families, on the island of Storholmen, where a young woman was murdered nine years earlier, her killer never found.
As she goes about her painstaking work and one shocking discovery yields clues that lead to another, Emma becomes determined to uncover the secrets of the house and its occupants.
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When the lifeless body of another young woman is found in the icy waters surrounding the island, Detective Karl Rosén arrives to investigate. Could this young woman’s tragic death somehow hold the key to the first?
Battling her own demons, Emma joins forces with Karl to embark upon a chilling investigation, plunging them into horrifying secrets from the past – Viking rites and tainted love – and Scandinavia’s deepest, darkest winter..
My Review
You often read a synopsis which says that the book is full of twists and turns. Except you guess most of them. Or an ending you won’t see coming, though you do. Well, what can I say! Yule Island is as twisty as they get and you really won’t see what’s coming.
At one point, about three quarters of the way through, I thought what the hell? What just happened? Then there’s another twist and then another, until the whole story is turned on its head. Because you made an assumption and it was wrong. And then another, which was also wrong. When you realise, you think ‘of course’. But the clues are so well hidden, like Gustav’s secret tunnel. We trust the characters we are supposed to trust and dislike others because we are led that way. It’s so cleverly done that I was really shocked.
The story is told from the point of view of three of the characters. Art expert Emma Lindahl is working alone at the manor house on Storholmen island to appraise the artefacts, antiques and paintings of one of Sweden’s richest families, the Gussmans. Detective Karl Rosén is the police officer who investigated the ‘hanging girl’ murder in the grounds of the house nine years ago. It was never solved and now another dead girl has been found in the ice, killed in a very similar fashion. Viktoria is a housekeeper for the family living there. She is worried about her daughter Josephine and her relationship with the teenage son of the owners. He is obsessed with mythology and folklore and ghosts coming out of the ground.
It’s very sinister and terrifying. Emma is amazingly brave to work in the house on her own. She is on a very strict schedule and is not supposed to visit at any other times, which also seems a bit bizarre as there is never anyone else around. The owner Niklas Gussman met her when she arrived and was rude and distant. But she makes friends with the residents of the island, like Anneli at the Ett Glas cafe, Lotta who brings people over on the boat, and Lotta’s husband Björn, who has worked at the manor as a handyman for decades.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
Born in Marseille, France, and with a degree in Political Science, Johana Gustawsson has worked as a journalist for the French and Spanish press and television. Her critically acclaimed Roy & Castells series, including Block 46, Keeper and Blood Song, has won the Plume d’Argent, Balai de la découverte, Balai d’Or and Prix Marseillais du Polar awards, and is now published in 28 countries. A TV adaptation is currently underway in a French, Swedish and UK co-production. The Bleeding – number one bestseller in France and the first in a new series – will be published in 2022. Johana lives on the west coast of Sweden with her Swedish husband and their three sons.
About Orenda Books
Orenda Books is a small independent publishing company specialising in literary fiction with a heavy emphasis on crime/thrillers, and approximately half the list in translation. They’ve been twice shortlisted for the Nick Robinson Best Newcomer Award at the IPG awards, and publisher and owner Karen Sullivan was a Bookseller Rising Star in 2016. In 2018, they were awarded a prestigious Creative Europe grant for their translated books programme. Three authors, including Agnes Ravatn, Matt Wesolowski and Amanda Jennings have been WHSmith Fresh Talent picks, and Ravatn’s The Bird Tribunal was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award, won an English PEN Translation Award, and adapted for BBC Radio Four ’s Book at Bedtime. Six titles have been short- or long-listed for the CWA Daggers. Launched in 2014 with a mission to bring more international literature to the UK market, Orenda Books publishes a host of debuts, many of which have gone on to sell millions worldwide, and looks for fresh, exciting new voices that push the genre in new directions. Bestselling authors include Ragnar Jonasson, Antti Tuomainen, Gunnar Staalesen, Michael J. Malone, Kjell Ola Dahl, Louise Beech, Johana Gustawsson, Lilja Sigurðardóttir and Sarah Stovell.
Solving their own murders is the least of their problems…and the beginning of Stone & Steele, a reluctant yet surprisingly skilled investigative team.
The Golden Age of Hollywood, 1938. Vivian Steele moved to California to start a new life. She opened a fashion boutique in Beverly Hills, befriended Carole Lombard, the actress, and married a successful banker. But when her husband is murdered, Vivian discovers she isn’t the only one hiding a few secrets.
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An anonymous phone call lures Vivian to a plush hotel room where she stumbles upon the dead body of a beautiful young actress – her husband’s mistress. To add fuel to the fire, she’s not alone.
Preston Stone, Hollywood’s beloved playboy and Vivian’s nemesis, is standing beside her. Suspiciously, they part ways only to find themselves alone again at a movie premiere two days later, and the message becomes brutally clear. They’re both the next targets of a cold-blooded killer.
Together, Vivian and Preston are thrown into a deadly race to find a missing collection of valuable coins and stop a vicious killer before they become the next murder victims. But first, they need to stop pointing their fingers at each other.
A Perilous Premiere is the first book in this exciting new 1930s murder mystery series starring a great cast of characters ranging from the rich and famous to Bella, a Boston Terrier, her new friend, Boris, a Saint Bernard, and a few other endearing folks.
My Review
Two brand new protagonists and the first book in an exciting new series. No, not Stone and Steele! It’s Bella, the Boston Terrier and her friend, Boris, the giant Saint Bernard.
I jest. The dogs aren’t very good at solving crimes, but Preston Stone and Vivian Steele are. It’s just that they hate each other, and constantly bicker. It’s a shame, because they are actually very good at working together, but it does make the story more entertaining.
Vivian Steele moved to California to begin a new life. She owns a fashion boutique and designs all the clothes herself. She’s beautiful and talented, and counts the famous actress Carol Lombard amongst her best friends. Then her husband George is murdered and she finds herself in grave danger.
Preston Steele is a rich, handsome playboy, with a string of broken hearts behind him, including Vivian’s sister Patricia. He’s also caught up in the same dangerous game as Vivian, but can they put their differences behind them and work together?
Well we’ll have to see, but by the end of the book. it looks a bit more promising. It’s going to be a cracker of a series I feel, with our intrepid investigators at the helm, two cute dogs, Nora at the boutique, Preston’s sidekick Nick, and lots of others from the world of Hollywood glamour.
Many thanks to @ZooloosBT for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
Award-winning author Gail Meath writes historical romance novels that will whisk you away to another time and place in history where you will meet fascinating characters, both fictional and real, who will capture your heart and soul. Meath loves writing about little or unknown people, places and events in history, rather than relying on the typical stories and settings.
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Website: https://www.gailmeath.com
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220301814-a-perilous-premiere
Purchase Link: https://mybook.to/perilouspremiere-zbt
+ crime fiction, Detective novel, fiction, kidnapping, loss, murder, Nordic noir, police drama, review, Scandi noir, thriller
Victim by Jorn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger Translated by Megan Turney (Alexander Blix Book #5)
Two years ago, Alexander Blix was the lead investigator in a missing person’s case where a young mother, Elisabeth Eie, was kidnapped. The case was never solved.
Blix’s career in law enforcement is now over, but her kidnapper is back, leaving evidence of Elisabeth’s murder in Blix’s mailbox, as well as hints that there are other victims.
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At the same time, Emma Ramm has been contacted by a teenage girl, whose stepfather has been arrested on suspicion of killing a childhood friend. But there is no body. Nor are there any other suspects…
Blix and Ramm can rely only on each other, and when Blix’s fingerprints are found on a child’s drawing at a crime scene, the present comes uncomfortably close to the past.
A past where a victim has found their own, shocking form of therapy.
And someone is watching…
My Review
It’s nearly two years since I read Unhinged, so I’m quickly going to repeat why I love Scandi Noir. I particularly like Nordic Noir, but as I couldn’t explain my reasons at the time, I looked it up and this is what I found:
- A strong plot, with multiple complex threads and a few twists. Tick
- Brutal crimes, often in quiet and/or safe communities. Tick
- A bleak setting, whether on city streets or a remote fjord. Tick
- A tortured protagonist, typically a detective with a mysterious or painful past. Definitely tick
Now on to the story and it’s a corker. Two years ago, Alexander Blix faced unimaginable tragedy and heartache, which resulted in his taking the law into his own hands. He lost his job, went to prison and even though he was eventually acquitted, he can no longer be a serving police officer.
So when a cold case – the kidnapping of young mum Elisabeth Eie – suddenly appears relevant again, Blix can’t leave it alone. It’s all he was ever good at – solving crimes. He knows he can help, but the police don’t want him near it – or them.
In the meantime, ex-journalist Emma Ramm, with whom Blix worked on many occasions, has been contacted by 15-year-old Carmen about her stepfather’s arrest for murder. She believes he is innocent and needs Emma’s help to prove it.
Victim is such an exciting read by two of Norway’s bestselling authors. There are a number of threads which ultimately come together in a most satisfying, if sinister, way. I read it in two sittings, finishing ten minutes before our plane landed. I’d have remained on the aircraft if I hadn’t!
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Authors
Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger are both internationally bestselling Norwegian authors. Jørn Lier Horst first rose to literary fame with his no. 1 bestselling William Wisting series. A former Detective Chief Investigator in the Norwegian police, Horst imbues all his works with an unparalleled realism and suspense.
Thomas Enger is the journalist-turned-author behind the acclaimed Henning Juul series. Enger’s trademark is his dark, gritty voice paired with key social messages and tight plotting. Besides writing fiction for both adults and young adults, Enger also works as a music composer. Death Deserved, the first book in the Blix & Ramm series, was Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger’s first co-written thriller,
Orenda Books is a small independent publishing company specialising in literary fiction with a heavy emphasis on crime/thrillers, and approximately half the list in translation. They’ve been twice shortlisted for the Nick Robinson Best Newcomer Award at the IPG awards, and publisher and owner Karen Sullivan was a Bookseller Rising Star in 2016. In 2018, they were awarded a prestigious Creative Europe grant for their translated books programme. Three authors, including Agnes Ravatn, Matt Wesolowski and Amanda Jennings have been WHSmith Fresh Talent picks, and Ravatn’s The Bird Tribunal was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award, won an English PEN Translation Award, and adapted for BBC Radio Four ’s Book at Bedtime. Six titles have been short- or long-listed for the CWA Daggers. Launched in 2014 with a mission to bring more international literature to the UK market, Orenda Books publishes a host of debuts, many of which have gone on to sell millions worldwide, and looks for fresh, exciting new voices that push the genre in new directions. Bestselling authors include Ragnar Jonasson, Antti Tuomainen, Gunnar Staalesen, Michael J. Malone, Kjell Ola Dahl, Louise Beech, Johana Gustawsson, Lilja Sigurðardóttir and Sarah Stovell.
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.
