+ adoption, brothers, child abuse, childhood, crime fiction, cult, family, fiction, kidnapping, murder, mystery, private investigator, review, satanism, secrets, thriller
The Advocates Conviction by Teresa Burrell
Sabre Orin Brown’s clients keep disappearing.
With seemingly no connection between the cases, Sabre enlists the help of her southern PI friend, JP, and her best friend, Bob, to find each of them–before it’s too late. In her race against the clock, Sabre must determine whether contemporary horrors are being buried in the shadow of dark traditions–or if it’s something else at work.
Genre: Thriller | Mystery
Pages: 327
Publisher: Silent Thunder Publishing
A conspiracy years in the making, secrets hidden for decades, and the twisted work of a mysterious society have all come together in the ultimate test of the strength of Sabre’s conviction.
My Review
Sabre Orin Brown is a Child Advocate Attorney, working with the courts. She has a lot going on, but in this story, the third in the series, we concentrate on two particular families.
Bailey is 14 years old and her home life is a nightmare. Her mother Karen is constantly high on some drug or other, while her mother’s boyfriend Scott is a total scumbag, who supplies her. Bailey is removed from the family home and sent to stay with a foster family. Cole is the eldest of the five Johnson children, but when their mother finds herself with problems, the children are split up and put into care.
Sabre’s problems begin when both Bailey and Cole run away, particularly Cole as he is only eight years old. He could be in serious danger.
Sabre has two colleagues to help her find the children – Bob who is also a Child Advocate Attorney and JP Torn, a Texan ex-police officer turned private investigator. JP is by far my favourite character with his ‘sayings’ and his stetson, because people are more likely to trust a cowboy.
But the issues with the missing children are just the tip of the iceberg, because something far more sinister is going on. The so-called ‘Devil House’ has been all over the news, complete with a pentagram drawn in blood and various other indications of satanism. But are Bailey and Cole somehow involved? Or is this just mass hysteria, whipped up by the media?
This is a very fast-paced book, which can easily be read as a standalone, with three likeable main protagonists and plenty of intrigue and suspense. I really enjoyed it.
Many thanks to @lovebookstours for inviting me to be part of the #TheAdvocatesConviction #BlogTour.
About the Author
Teresa Burrell has dedicated her life to helping children and their families in both the courtroom and the classroom. She taught elementary school in the San Bernardino School District for twelve years before going to law school. As an attorney in San Diego, Burrell maintained a private law practice for twelve years, which specialized in domestic, criminal, and civil cases. Her work in juvenile court focused on representing abused minors and juvenile delinquents. Burrell has received several awards and special recognition from the San Diego Volunteer Lawyers for her countless hours of pro bono work with children and their families.
Burrell has also enjoyed a satisfying career as a teacher. She has taught children of all ages with diverse backgrounds and special needs. After creating an after-school program that kept kids off the street, she received a community service award.Now in semi-retirement in California, Burrell continues to educate groups about social issues impacting children and write novels, many of which are inspired by actual legal cases. She is the author of The Advocate Series which now contains fourteen novels all listed above. Teresa has a second series with a character named Tuper from The Advocate’s Felony. She has four books in that series. She also co-authored a legal-suspense novel with L.J. Sellers called NO CONSENT. Burrell has three children’s books in her Gaspar series that are fun for the whole family. Teresa’s favorite part of this profession is meeting her readers at events. She is available for speaking events such as book clubs, women’s groups, retired teachers, book events of all sorts, conferences, and anywhere that readers go. Please contact her if you’re interested.
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Lonely heart Barry thought Gina might be too good to be true. He was right.
Gina preys on vulnerable older men through online dating sites. She lures them in, uses them to set up a financial scam and then vanishes without trace.
But when an angry victim of her fraudulent scheme comes looking for Gina, Barry is drawn into deadly danger. He faces having to kill – or be killed.
The 23-Day Girlfriend will be published on Tuesday June 18. Here is the fabulous cover:
About the Author
Mark Eklid was an award-winning regional newspaper sports journalist before switching from cricket to crime thrillers.
The 23-Day Girlfriend is his sixth. His first novel was Sunbeam in 2019, followed by Family Business and Catalyst. The Murder of Miss Perfect and Blood on Shakespeare’s Typewriter were published through SpellBound Books.
All six are fast-moving, plot-twisting crime thrillers set in the city of his birth, Sheffield. Mark lives in Derby with his partner, Sue. They have two adult sons and have been adopted by a cat.
Website: markeklid.com
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A witty, fast-paced thriller, with a dash of mathematics and a large dose of danger.
Tom Winscombe and his ex-girlfriend Dorothy Chan are on a mission to crack a code – a code embedded in a chip inside two alpacas that used to belong to the famed dead mathematical geniuses, the Vavasor twins.
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Their search leads them to a secretive mathematical retreat at a country house. While there, various members of the party succumb to a succession of bizarre fatal accidents. Will Tom and Dorothy succeed in their mission – and get out alive?
Join Tom and a cast of disreputable and downright dangerous characters in this witty thriller set in a murky world of murder, mystery and complex equations.
My Review
“She dies from food poisoning and leaves everything to her cat…”
“What happened to the cat?” I said.
“….someone stole her just after Mrs Standage died.”
“Right,” said Dorothy. “But what if the cat were to turn up again?”
“I’m sure that won’t be a problem,” said Munt. “She was a very old cat.”
“But what about any kittens she might have had?” said Dorothy.
Munt was temporarily lost for words. At this point, so was I. I knew this book was going to be good.
Fast-paced and often shocking, The Code Of The Vavasors is a hilarious romp into mathematics and murder. A strange combination, I know. This is actually the sixth book in the Vavasors series, but a lot of the previous goings on are briefly alluded to throughout the story, so it’s relatively easy to keep up.
Apart from the cat (which we don’t really hear much about later on), the book also includes two alpacas – Stephen and Dolores – who appear to have some kind of chip inside them, plus a bluetooth-enabled alpaca figurine, and an Angora rabbit called Mr Snuffletrousers. The figurine is up for auction, and our two main protagonists – Tom and Dorothy – try to buy it, because it is highly collectible by Vavasor fans. This is after they try to break into a cottage previously owned by the Vavasor twins where they find a dead body. The first of many I hasten to add. I may be getting confused here, but hopefully you are getting the gist.
Eventually they succeed in inveigling themselves into a mathematics-themed Vavasports weekend on a remote island, owned by a collector of Vavasor memorabilia, where hopefully they can recover the alpaca. The body count rises and it’s touch and go whether our intrepid heroes can get away with their deception. I’m exhausted just thinking about it, I probably need to go and lie down. Brilliant book – enjoy!
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
Jonathan Pinnock is the author of Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens, the Scott Prize-winning short story collection Dot Dash, the memoir Take it Cool and the poetry collection Love and Loss and Other Important Stuff.
Northern California, end of summer. Fire Hazard Severity Zone: Very High.
A mysterious death.
On the anniversary of her mother’s death, CEO-in-waiting Robyn Sandoval goes for a morning run. She knows her father – a local fire fighting hero – is desperate to speak to her, to tell her something he wants her to know before she starts her new job leading the corporation that owns most of their Northern Californian town of Destino. But when Robyn arrives, she finds him dead.
A devastating fire.
Meanwhile, after months of drought, a freak forest fire ignites on the mountain ridge looming over the town. Destino has never burned; its unique position protected by the seemingly insurmountable barrier of the ridge, a favourable wind direction, and a belief long held by the community that they are categorically safe.
A life split in two.
Robyn is shaken to the core by her father’s death, and her life is shattered in two, the fabric of her reality shorn by the sheer force of her grief.
The next time she wakes, everything is different: her father is alive, and there’s no sign of the fire on the ridge.
To understand what is happening, she has to confront not only the secrets of her past but both versions of her present. Because back in her world, the fire is spreading and the time to find answers is running out…
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SALVATION HAS A PRICE.
An enthralling murder mystery with a vividly realised future world, forcing readers to grapple hard hitting questions about the climate crisis, our relationship with Artificial Intelligence and the price we would be willing to pay, as a species, to be saved. Perfect for fans of Blake Crouch, Neal Stephenson, Philip K Dick, Kim Stanley Robinson and RR Haywood.
Genre: Crime | Thriller | Mystery
Pages: 386
Publisher: Chainmaker Press
It’s 2050, a decade after a heatwave that killed four hundred million across the Persian Gulf, including journalist Marcus Tully’s wife. Now he must uncover the truth: was the disaster natural? Or is the weather now a weapon of genocide?
A whistleblower pulls Tully into a murder investigation at the centre of an election battle for a global dictator, with a mandate to prevent a climate apocalypse. A former US President campaigns against the first AI politician of the position, but someone is trying to sway the outcome.
Tully must convince the world to face the truth and make hard choices about the future of the species. But will humanity ultimately choose salvation over freedom, whatever the cost?
My Review
This brilliant book is now out in paperback!
I’m a huge fan of crime fiction and mysteries, but I don’t usually read techno thrillers. However, this one revolves around the climate crisis and what might happen if we don’t tackle it now. And that is something I am very interested in.
I don’t know anything about AI though and I found some of the concepts like ‘egospace’ and NR (Neuro Reality) a bit beyond me. Someone I was chatting to tried to explain that it’s like a TV series I’d never heard of and a bit like those virtual reality headsets. Well, I’m still none the wiser, but I think I get the egospace. It’s your own personal space, like the desktop on your computer before you go into the apps.
But back to the plot. Basically, it’s 2050 and a heatwave has killed four hundred million people across the Persian Gulf. Journalist Marcus Tully believes that it wasn’t inevitable – it was ‘pushed’ there from the US – and he has a vested interest in uncovering the truth. His wife Zainab died, carrying their unborn child. Were scientists and politicians using the weather as a weapon of mass destruction?
By now, the world will be governed by a single dictatorship, with just one leader. But who will it be? There are two candidates left from the original twenty – the former US president Lawrence G. Lockwood and Soloman, a highly sophisticated ‘artilect’, the first AI politician in the world. Which one would you trust? Imagine Lockwood was Donald Trump or Boris Johnson, but your only other choice is basically a machine, a robot to you and me, however cleverly put together.
I’d love to say this is total fiction, but it could really happen if we don’t address the climate crisis now. Instead of nations and religions fighting against each other, we all need to work together. But do we need a single dictator in charge of our salvation, or is that too high a price to pay? I’m not sure any price is too high if the alternative is the end of our species. Or is it?
For fans of technology, there’s a lot to get excited about, but whether they happen or not, they are just a distraction. The real crux of the story is the climate crisis. Followed by Artificial Intelligence (because it does have a good side), and the loss of our freedoms (will they be taken away if we keep making bad decisions). This book will certainly make you think.
Many thanks to @LiterallyPR for inviting me me to be part of the #ArtificialWisdom paperback blog tour.
About the Author
“I write stories about tomorrow to help make sense of today. My debut novel, Artificial Wisdom, launches in the UK in October 2023. Aside from writing, I’m a tech entrepreneur. My last startup was acquired by Just Eat Takeaway; my new one is still in stealth but backed by a major Silicon Valley tech accelerator.”
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+ art, choir, disability, family, fiction, journalist, love, music, relationships, review, sisters, twins
Amateurs by Gill Oliver
Beth Collier, up-and-coming composer, is shamed into acting as accompanist for her mum’s amateur choir.
And yes, they have a lot to teach her. There’s no monopoly on talent, though; Alice, her brain-injured twin, has quite a voice, and leads her own band. But as the truth about the sisters’ upbringing unfolds, Beth confronts big questions about her own identity.
Genre: Contemporary | Humour | Disability Fiction
Publisher: Ah But Books
Set in the months before lockdown, against the backdrop of the bars and church halls of a great musical city – where everyone makes art and joking is a serious business – this novel takes you back to where the music started. In the heart.
With amateurs and professionals from formal and informal musical traditions, the playlist ranges from Rachmaninov to Mersey Beat. Alongside music, there’s the word, and Beth will have to overcome some issues there… The thrills and spills of language – loved, shared, sometimes lost, often misunderstood, but never owned – are constant themes, as a wide range of characters from different cultural tribes stumble around in search of what connects them.
My Review
Maybe it’s because I’m not a professional musician (or any sort of musician), that I find Beth’s constant negativity and wittering quite annoying. I wish I had her talent. She’s envious of her disabled sister, snobby about working with amateurs, but too full of self-doubt to put herself out there.
Beth is not a performer, she’s a composer, but when she doesn’t win a competition everyone thought she had in the bag, she starts to question her life. Then her mother asks her to play the piano for her community choir, the Lyceum Singers, and she reluctantly agrees. She’s known most of the singers all her life, they are lovely, but they are still ‘amateurs’, and she’s not too keen on the conductor. Until he leaves and is replaced by Theo. Then everything changes. Her ‘proper’ job is working for renowned composer Petra Laing at the university.
When Beth and Alice were five years old, Alice had a terrible accident which left her in a wheelchair, but also with a degree of brain damage. She’s much feistier than Beth and never turns down an opportunity. Alice would say, ‘Go for it, who cares about the rules.’ She says yes to everything. Good on you Alice. That’s my girl. Beth would be ‘Ah, but what if?’ Alice has her own band called Sky Blue Pink. They play covers and busk on the street. Alice is a brilliant singer. Beth is afraid of ‘words’. She likes her music ‘pure’.
As an aside, her ex Jaz Ander (I call him Jazz Hander) moved out after they tried living together for two weeks. She couldn’t stand him in her ‘space’ and constantly going on about the book he was writing. He found her annoyingly obsessive about her ‘space’. Then he wrote a piece for the Echo (he’s a journalist) about her relationship with her mother, which became known as the ‘Tiger Mother’ article and they both went ape. I don’t blame them.
Being a ‘Southerner’, the Liverpudlianisms (is that even a word?) went a bit over my head (there’s even a reference to people from the South of England at one point), as did a lot of the musical references, but don’t let any of that put you off. Amateurs is warm, funny and entertaining, and should be savoured over coffee (or tea) and biscuits. With friends, or even by joining a community choir (I did – just avoid the elitist chamber music) and sing your heart out to something like Les Mis or Phantom of the Opera. And if your choir needs a ‘kick up the butt’ (mine definitely didn’t), let them know discreetly by introducing new ideas.
Many thanks to @lovebookstours for inviting me to be part of the #Amateurs blog tour
About the Author
“I was born in Liverpool, so I grew up with the belief that you could laugh at just about anything, starting with yourself. My earliest attempts at fiction were bedtime stories for my brothers and sister, which carried on long after they’d fallen asleep. Too much Chekhov at an early age meant I ended up studying Modern Languages instead of Eng Lit. I had to earn a living and found I loved teaching. I’ve worked in the Midlands, Essex and Dorset in a variety of roles, publishing teaching materials along the way.
“In fiction, I’m drawn to issues that trouble, inspire or amuse me. And I love language, so I might just play with that. I feel a responsibility to reflect the way we live now, rather than leaving it to some future historian. It’s not just a question of ‘writing what you know’ – in fact, it’s a good idea to write about what you want to know. But I have this delusion that in reflecting on the present, we help shape the future. It’s hard to find an art form which is better adapted than the novel to examining the light and shade of human experience, and taking us beyond events into the thoughts and feelings of others.
“I’m interested in real people, who find themselves in real situations. Pace, surprise, emotion, humour, crisp description – these are all things I aim to create. And to have fun doing it.”
Author’s Website: gilloliverauthor.com
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Will the stag escape the hunters? Did the lion eat the mouse? And why exactly did the fox invite the stork round to share a meal?
Find your own answers to these questions as you engage with the stories retold here by Leon Conrad in the rich oral storytelling tradition.
The layout of this book is specially designed to encourage reading aloud. The fables are perfectly complemented by Alessandro Scafi’s charming illustrations. Leon’s virtuosic readings of the poems are also available as an audio book.
So awaken your mind and lend me an ear –
Come, free your senses. I’ll take you to where
There’s a magical place, filled with creatures with flair –
A country of wolf, sheep, of crow, stork and bear,
Of talking trees, rabbits, the fox in his lair …
The power of these stories will take us right there.
My Review
So why is it that fables always seem to revolve around lions, foxes, wolves, and crows, with the occasional mule (or donkey), mouse and dog thrown in? Is it because they are crafty? Or brave? Apart from the mule that is. I wasn’t sure about the dog. So I hope the author won’t mind that before reviewing the book, I wanted to do some research.
It appears that certain animals are the most often represented in fables and each has its own meaning. Lions are strong, proud and fearless. In Christian symbolism the wolf may represent the devil. The mule is stupid and foolish. The mouse is clever and cunning, like in the story of The Lion and the Mouse.
“Please let me go. Please let me go and play.
You never know – I might be useful to you one day.“
Foxes are clever, but we knew that. They are also used to getting what they want, like in The Fox and The Grapes
“WANT them!
WANT those grapes.
DIG those grapes
And their groovy shapes.“
The dog is loyal and selfless. However in this poem, Wild Dog Dingo’s Winter, the dingo is a wild dog, so he has no-one to be loyal to.
“And so, the seasons flow –
Even though here I must leave
Our story and that little,
Shivering, curled up ball of fur
Which is our wild dog Dingo.”
The crow, like the wolf, often represents evil and is the harbinger of death, but I dispute this, as I am a bit obsessed with Corvids in literature and feel they are misunderstood. They are patient and intelligent, and in The Fox and the Crow, the crow manages to outwit the fox, and in the end, they learn to respect each other. I love how the fox tricks the crow into dropping the cheese, but the crow gets wise and when they next meet, he hides the cheese first so he doesn’t lose it. At their final meeting, when they are both old, the fox breaks the cheese in half and they share. Now if there isn’t a moral in there somewhere, I’ll be damned. Or maybe we should just call it a guide for life.
“Now you won’t find one moral printed here in this book
And it just doesn’t matter how hard you look.
I’m sorry if you think I’ve taken them away –
I haven’t. It’s how Aesop told them way back in his day.
He wanted to help people think matters through
For themselves.…”
I really loved these verses. The most famous fables are all here, but with added humour. They are written in a way that begs to be read aloud to children of all ages. Adults will enjoy the nostalgia if you remember these from your own childhood. Hopefully you remember them with fondness (unlike my earliest experiences of Struwwelpeter, which terrified the life out of me and still does). And I must also say that the illustrations are beautiful.
I didn’t want to attempt an academic study of the place of fables in the modern world or ‘criticise’ the structure of the poetry, as that would be ridiculously arrogant of me. I just loved the verses for their beauty and simple storytelling.
Many thanks to @LiterallyPR for inviting me to be part of the #AesopTheStoryteller blog tour.
About the Author
Leon Conrad is a multi-award-winning, traditionally published author and storyteller. He has been a regular columnist, had articles published in journals and magazines, written theatre shows, and contributed to radio programmes. He teaches creative writing and is a meticulous and collaborative editor and story structure consultant to both fiction and non-fiction writers, ‘plotters’ and ‘pantsers’ alike.
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+ abuse, adoption, audio book, audio drama, child abduction, child abuse, childhood, family, fiction, friendship, kidnapping, lies, loneliness, mental health, obsession, piano, psychiatrist, relationships, review, secrets
Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent
Jessica Regan (Narrator) Stephen Hogan (Narrator) Sara Lynam (Narrator)
Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died.
Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and worried police, but also a sinister voice from a past she has no memory of. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, recluse Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, finding independence, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say.
But when messages start arriving from a stranger who knows far more about her past than she knows herself, Sally’s life will be thrown into chaos once again . . .
My Review
My husband’s late granddad used to say ‘When I go, stick me in a bin bag Paul… (his daughter), and put me out with the rubbish.’ Of course we knew he was joking and wouldn’t have dreamt of doing it. But Sally takes things literally, so she does. When her father dies, she attempts a DIY cremation. Which attracts the attention of the guards, and the media. And that’s where the story begins.
Initially I found Sally intriguing, sad, often humorous, and I couldn’t stop listening (I had an audio version from Borrowbox). Then after a bit I wanted more – where was the story going – and I certainly got it. We moved from Sally to Peter and to be honest, I found his parts the more interesting of the two. If you think Sally’s childhood is dark, it pales into comparison with Peter’s. Because just when you think things couldn’t get any darker, they do. And then darker still.
Sally has social and behavioural issues and she doesn’t remember anything before she was seven years old, when she was adopted. She is 42 at the beginning of the book. She has trouble with anger management, but can relax when she plays the piano, and she’s very good.
Peter lives with his father, and never goes out, His father tells him he has a terrible, rare disease that means he can’t be touched by anyone who isn’t family or he will die a horrible, painful death. Peter is seven and believes every word. A bright child, he is homeschooled, but he is lonely and has no friends. He’s already quite creepy.
I have given the book 5 stars, but I have to admit that I would have preferred a slightly different ending. One of the outcomes was not unexpected, but it did drag something very different, kicking and screaming, into the world of mainstream commercialism. The other was depressing. Anyway, enough said. No spoilers etc. A brilliant read, one of my favourite books of the year, and the narration on audio made it even better.
About the Author
Liz Nugent worked as a stage manager in theatres in Ireland and toured internationally before writing extensively for radio and television drama.
Unravelling Oliver was published in 2014, hit the number 1 spot for several weeks and won Crime Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards.
Lying in Wait, published in 2016, went straight to number 1 and was chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club. It won the Radio 1 Ryan Tubridy Listeners Choice Award at the Irish Book Awards.
In October 2017, Liz won the Irish Tatler Woman of the Year Award in Literature.
Skin Deep was published in 2018. It also went straight to number 1 in the bestsellers charts and scooped two awards at the An Post Irish Book Awards in Nov ’18: Crime Novel of the Year AND the Radio 1 Ryan Tubridy Listener’s Choice Award.
Little Cruelties (Our Little Cruelties) was published in 2020. Another number 1 bestseller, it topped the charts for fifteen weeks, was nominated for Crime Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, long listed for a CWA award at Theakston Crime Festival at Harrogate. It was listed as one of the most recommended thrillers of the Year by the New York Times.
Liz was presented with the James Joyce Medal for Literature (via Zoom!) in February 21 and was a Guest of Honour at Iceland Noir in November 21.
It’s 1989 – the so-called Second Summer of Love. The days are endlessly hot, and ravers are riding on a hedonistic wave of Acid House and MDMA.
It’s the biggest youth movement since the 60’s and it’s out of control.
Rave organisers mix with underworld gangsters who don’t care about the devastating consequences.
Genres: Thriller / Crime / Mystery
Pages: 305
But when ravers start dying, undercover cops are sent to infiltrate the chaotic, deadly scene. Little did anyone know that their actions in those heady days would come back to haunt them nearly a decade later.
Was it really the Second Summer of Love, or a deadly Summer of Death? And can the instigators be caught twice?
About the Author
Catherine Yaffe is the author of crime thrillers that readers and reviewers frequently describe as compulsively readable. A graduate of Curtis Brown Creative academy, Catherine wrote her first crime thriller, The Lie She Told in 2020 whilst the UK was in Lockdown. On its release it debuted in the top 10 hot new releases on Amazon and to date has accrued hundreds of five-star reviews
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Marceline Baldwin is a shy and mild-mannered pastor’s daughter. Then she meets the charismatic Jim Jones. She falls madly in love.
They have a mutual desire to change the world and quickly become inseparable. In the midst of 1950s segregated America, Jim and Marceline Baldwin Jones made headlines for being the first white family in Indiana to adopt a black child. They adopt five other non- white children and called themselves ‘the rainbow family’.
Jones’ following begins to grow and becomes The People’s Temple, welcoming people from all walks of life and giving hope to the disenfranchised. They build a commune in the jungle of British Guyana on the ideals of equality and brotherly love, but the reality is very different. Jim Jones is a dangerous egotist and when things start to fall apart, he plans his mass-murder suicide mission. If he’s going to die, he will take his followers with him…
On November 18th 1978, nine hundred and nine people died in the jungle in British Guyana.
Published on the 45th anniversary, Paradise Undone explores the tragedy through the voices of four protagonists – Marceline Baldwin Jones and three other members of the Peoples’ Temple. Drawing on extensive research and interviews, Annie Dawid blends fact and fiction, using real and composite characters to tell a story about the greatest single loss of US civilian lives in the 20th century.
My Review
There were times this book made me cry, at others it made me cross. Often at night I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The babies and children who were murdered (yes murdered because they didn’t have any choice), but also about Christine, held down by four men and injected with the poison. That was the worst kind of murder if there is such a thing. It was very hard to read. The sedatives were supposed to help alleviate the suffering, but they took 15 minutes to work, by which time it was far too late – the victims were already dead, having suffered excruciating pain and convulsions.
By the end I hoped I would understand why they would follow a drug-crazed lunatic (which is what pastor Jim Jones became by the end). I would try to understand the power of brainwashing. For some of the very poor, any life was better than what they knew. Many had been drug addicts, and the African Americans had been racially abused all their lives. But what about the white middle classes? How were they taken in by him?
Initially the The People’s Temple was all about uniting everyone together in true socialism, where everyone was equal regardless of colour, nationality or creed. Children were adopted into ‘rainbow families’. Charismatic leader Jim and his quiet wife Marceline became the Mother and Father of the temple. But some of his quotes are unbelievable – he saw himself as the only means to salvation. He talks as if he is God.
I AM PEACE
I AM JUSTICE
I AM EQUALITY
I AM FREEDOM
I AM GOD
Once they had moved to Guyana and set up Jonestown, Jim had become paranoid about the authorities coming after them, with snipers to take them out. He told everyone that the children would be taken and killed. Now I am not sure whether he actually believed any of it, but it was certainly a way to stop people defecting. Those who did were the traitors, the ones who would eventually lead to the ultimate White Night “the term…used to denote a crisis within Peoples Temple and the possibility of mass death during or as a result of the crisis*”. It had been well rehearsed.
On that fateful night, everyone was to take a drink of Fla-Vor-Aid which contained cyanide and sedatives. If they were too young to swallow it, or were reluctant, they were injected instead, often by force. Jim Jones himself was shot in the head, whether self-inflicted or by someone else, we’ll never know.
Strangely, I don’t remember the Jonestown massacre in 1978 (even though I was in my twenties at the time). Maybe it wasn’t widely reported in the UK. But some years later, when TV loved to promote the most dramatic events, Waco made the national news here, and similarities were drawn with Jonestown. Another 15 years on and I studied cults as part of my OU degree, and we looked at Jonestown, Waco and others, though not in great detail. I am still interested in the idea of brainwashing.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, the author Annie Dawid, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
*https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=35371
About the Author
Annie Dawid has published five books, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry and essays. She teaches at the University of Denver, University College master’s program in creative writing online from her home in very rural Colorado. Her fifth book, Put Off My Sackcloth, was published last year by The Humble Essayist Press. It was a runner up in the Los Angeles Book Festival 2021 autobiography category and a finalist in the 2022 Memoir category from Book Excellence and in non-fiction, Rubery International Book Award 2022. Paradise Undone: A Novel of Jonestown won the 2022 Screencraft Cinematic Book Contest.
Sometimes the greatest spectacle hides the darkest secrets . . .
In an alternate London, the city’s Theatre District is a walled area south of the river where an immersive production – the Show – has been running for centuries, growing ever bigger, more sprawling and lavish. The Show is open to anyone who can afford a ticket but the District itself is a closed world; even the police have no jurisdiction within its walls.
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Juliet’s mother died when she was a baby. Brought up by her emotionally distant father and even more distant stepmother, she has never felt wanted. It’s only when her father passes away that Juliet – now nineteen – learns her birth was registered in the District. Desperate to belong somewhere at last, she travels to London where she hopes to unearth the truth about her identity, her mother’s death and her father’s years of silence – and claim her birthright.
But in the District, there is only one central truth: the Show must go on. And in a world where illusions abound, and powerful men control the narrative, Juliet has no idea of just how far some will go to ensure certain stories are never told . . .
My Review
When Juliet’s father died, his last words were ‘Madeleine, Mad…e…liene’. Juliet’s stepmother asked her, ‘What’s going on? Did he say something?’ ‘No. I mean it didn’t make sense,’ says Juliet.
Juliet never really connected emotionally with her distant father and her stepmother Clare treated her like an outsider. Her half sisters were always ‘the girls’, never ‘your sisters’. And who was Madeleine? Obviously Clare knew, but she didn’t say anything.
Juliet wanted to be a dancer, but Clare had taken her away from Miss Abbeline’s ballet school, so she could go to secretarial college. Juliet though has other ideas, especially when she discovers that her birth was registered in the Theatre District. I am not going to try and explain this because at times I didn’t really understand. I felt as though I was reading in an alternative reality, but that’s the whole point. The Theatre District is an alternative reality, an alternative London, where the police have no jurisdiction and the show must go on. And it does, in a loop, and performers are queuing up to be part of it. Punters must enter a ballot to secure a ticket, or pay a fortune to buy one.
In the meantime, a girl’s body has been found floating in the river. But is she connected to the District? There have been others, all young women, but the police have been unable to find any definitive links. The truth is not what I imagined – it’s even more sinister. But what is the truth? Because no-one seems to be telling the truth.
The story introduces us to some memorable characters apart from Juliet and Miss Abbeline. There is the Moonshine Girl who died or did she, the Girl in the Silver Shoes who trod the high wire, charismatic Ethan the Shadow Man, DC Lambert, Eugene whom Juliet befriends, and the director Conrad Danes.
There’s a bit of The Night Circus here, a little bit of Neil Gaiman. At times it was quite dark. It took a while to get going, but then it was magical, dangerous and intriguing. It’s beautifully written, drawn from the author’s vivid imagination. A classic in the making.
Many thanks to @Tr4cyF3nt0n for inviting me to be part of the #CompulsiveReaders #blogtour and to NetGalley for an ARC.
About the Author
Anne is originally from the north-east, but somehow slid down the map and finished up in a small village near Bath, where she lives with her partner and three sons. She has an MA in English Language and Linguistics from Edinburgh University, and an MSt in Linguistics from Oxford University. During her postgraduate studies, she worked as an etymologist and proofreader for a dictionary, carrying out research at the Bodleian Library.
Armed with her linguistics-related degrees and work experience, Anne took the somewhat illogical next step and became a criminal lawyer. In 2011, after several years spent working in the London courts and police stations, Anne remembered that she’d actually planned to be a writer, and commenced work on her first novel. This was slightly unfortunate timing, given that she was right in the middle of relocating to Somerset with her family, who seemed to feel that a little less novel-writing and a little more packing might be warranted. They probably had a point.
Over the next couple of years Anne fitted writing work around her day job as a solicitor. Her writing has appeared in various newspapers, magazines and anthologies, and has won various awards.
In 2016, The Space Between the Stars was published by Pan Macmillan in the UK and Random House in the US. She wrote most of this novel while studying for a Creative Writing MA at Bath Spa University. Her second novel, The Theatre of Glass and Shadows, will be published in May 2024 by Bonnier.
Anne enjoys working with other writers, through editing, mentoring and teaching.
Maria Grayson has sworn off relationships and love, focusing instead on her double life. During the day she works in the family business and lives as a socialite.
At night she dons a mask and assumes the identity of Balestra to fight crime on the streets of New York. She balances her two lives as best as she can, but that balance is threatened when a new drug floods the streets of New York…and Tomas Dorrance walks into her life.
Genre: Crime / Thriller / Romance
Tomas Dorrance arrives in New York on a business trip with his father and twin sister and finds that he’s immediately captivated by Maria. After spending one passionate night with her, Tomas is obsessed and wants more time with her. The more he sees her, the more he wants something more than casual sex.
As Balestra, Maria must stop the spread of a new drug and find and destroy the source. As Maria, she must resist falling for Tomas, who is doing his best to change her mind about love and relationships. Her two lives are on a head-on collision course and Maria doesn’t know if she’ll come out alive or with her heart intact.
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