After half a century confined in a psychiatric hospital, Matty has moved to a care home on the Cumbrian coast. Next year, she’ll be a hundred, and she intends to celebrate in style. Yet, before she can make the arrangements, her ‘maid’ goes missing.
Irene, a care assistant, aims to surprise Matty with a birthday visit from the child she gave up for adoption as a young woman. But, when lockdown shuts the care-home doors, all plans are put on hold.
But Matty won’t be beaten. At least not until the Black Lives Matter protests burst her bubble and buried secrets come to light.
Will she survive to a hundred? Will she see her ‘maid’ again? Will she meet her long-lost child? Rooted in injustice, balanced with humour, this is a bittersweet story of reckoning with hidden histories in cloistered times.
Lyrics for the Loved Ones is the stand-alone sequel to Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home.
Publication date
15th May 2023, Annecdotal Press
Here is the fabulous cover
‘A smartly constructed, engaging and compassionate story about family, humanity and ‘lost loss’ ALISON MOORE, Booker prize shortlisted author of The Lighthouse
‘One of the best books I’ve ever read … a very funny and a hugely emotional read’ ALEX CRAIGIE, author of Someone Close to Home
‘Vividly illuminates recent inequalities, with humour and humanity’ CAROLINE LODGE, Bookword
‘The author writes with intelligence, understanding and sensitivity’ ANNIE ELLIOTT, Left on the Shelf Book Blog
‘Runs the whole gamut of emotions … one of the most memorable and heart-wrenching protagonists I’ve met’ OLGA NÚŇEZ MIRET, psychiatrist, author and translator
‘A well written, chatty book, with great characters’ EMMABBOOKS
Preorder link
https://annegoodwin.co.uk/preorder/
About the Author
Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
Anne writes about the darkness that haunts her and is wary of artificial light. She makes stuff up to tell the truth about adversity, creating characters to care about and stories to make you think. She explores identity, mental health and social justice with compassion, humour and hope.
An award-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.
Building a unicorn company is the dream of every entrepreneur.
Inside Culture Unwrapped, the authors share the secrets of what Unicorn companies do differently, more specifically, how they attract great people, inspire them to do their best work and build passionate teams who drive the business forward.
Culture Up reveals what lies behind the success of their people. The authors have not just studied Unicorns, they were key players inside them. They were right there inside high growth startups as part of the early teams at Tesla, Lilium and other brand giants.
#CultureUp @Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour #extract
Let them show you how to:
- Become and inspirational leader
- Attract, recruit and retain the best talent
- Discover the secrets of company culture and how to nurture and develop it
- Crack the code of always overlooked internal communications
- Maintain a happy, motivated, effective and loyal team
- Create an EQ-driven, human-centric successful company
Here is a short extract from the book:
1.1 Getting Up and Running
Strategy as a Foundation
Arnnon Geshuri, the CHRO of Teladoc Health/Ex Tesla & Google, mentioned that founders or founding teams often struggle with recruitment if they haven’t hired before.
‘If you don’t focus on the culture, you may hire people who might even somehow get things done, but they don’t really fit into your company overall. You will find that eventually you will need to part ways with these people, which is a shame and a difficult thing to do because they ARE pushing for it and putting a lot of effort into their jobs. It is just not what your company culture needs. Founders often struggle with difficult team decisions like this, in the early days.
Recruiting correctly, starts with the founding team.
It is important to know yourself. What are you good at? Where do you need to supplement? Which skills are you really good at? What is your background? Be honest with yourself, be true to yourself. This will help you make a strong selection for your founding team and key hires for your company.
Most founders spend time interviewing every single person until the company has about 50-100 people. If people are one of your most important, successful drivers to business, why don’t you and your founding team get involved with final interviews for the first 300-600 hires or even your first thousand? Elon Musk does just that. And we know of others as well, so there are no excuses except maybe poor time management and lack of prioritization. It could be simply a thirty-minute call, or getting your interview team together and reviewing their feedback.
As a founder it’s an advantage to interview lots of people, to learn about a particular role or industry and understand the different types of people out there, to make the best possible hiring decisions, at any given time. You will meet people whom you may not recruit in the first six months, but you may recruit them one or two years later when they are a perfect fit.
As your company evolves so you will need different people with various backgrounds and abilities. But the core of the type of person you hire should be in line and should add to your company culture and leadership style.
The internet is full of resources, if you need them, from hiring plan templates to workforce planning tools, or use a simple excel sheet, but as mentioned previously, sit with your core team such as Sales and Product and have somebody in your meeting who looks after finance and understands how to build business plans.
Top Tip:
Ask yourself these questions:
What are your company goals for next year? Will you be increasing sales by 100% from last year, building an App or building a customer service team? Build a people plan to understand the cost.
Are you targeting to do business in the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK or other parts of the globe and if so, why is that important? What will it cost to hire these people and should they be full or part time? How can you get your candidate pool filled?
How much time and money do you need to set aside for training and education to ensure that you can build a resilient, engaged team?’
Many thanks to @zooloo2008 for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Authors
Margareta Sailer and Mareike Mutzberg met when they worked together during the
startup phase at Lilium, a unicorn aviation scale-up. Lilium’s all-electric vertical take-off
and landing passenger aircraft has made it one of the most exciting, highly capitalised,
game changing companies in Europe.
Mareike was employee number four at Lilium. Initially responsible for setting up and
implementing Lilium’s internal and external communications & marketing, she became
responsible for the culture and employee experience of its rapidly growing team.
Margareta Sailer was key to the people strategy at Tesla, of one of the boldest and most
successful brands of the 21st Century. As Head of Talent for Tesla in Europe, with just
one layer between her and legendary entrepreneur Elon Musk, she was responsible for
hiring and retaining great people and more recently becoming Global Head of
Recruitment at Lilium.
Their joint consultancy practice, advising founders and organisations on culture,
communication and people strategies helps their clients and readers to maximise their
potential and growth.
Follow Margareta at:
No Social media links
Follow Mareike at:
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/mareike.mutzberg/
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082277624983
Twitter : https://twitter.com/MareikeMutzberg
Buy Links – https://geni.us/cfho8k
+ abuse, crime fiction, dark humour, female friendship, fiction, friendship, kidnapping, lies, love, mental illness, murder, psychopath, review, secrets, serial killer, thriller, vigilante, writer
The Skull Keeper by Mariëtte Whitcomb
Best friends on social media, Allysa and Morgan share a love of three things: thriller novels, true crime, and keeping secrets from each other.
As soon as Allysa asks Morgan to be her plus one at a funeral, Morgan jumps on the first available flight. Burying the dead might unearth the truth about what happened to Allysa’s brother twenty years earlier. She’s never believed he simply left town without saying goodbye.
Once they learn he’s the last known victim of a serial killer, Allysa and Morgan decide to do what the police couldn’t – bring him to justice.
When the hunters become the hunted, only one question remains – do you know your friend well enough to save her life?
#TheSkullKeeper #MarietteWhitcomb FB @mariettewhitcombauthor IG @mariettewhitcomb TikTok @mariettewhitcomb
My Review
Concentrate! You’ll need to when you read The Skull Keeper, as it’s quite involved and intricately woven. The characters of Morgan (my favourite) and Allysa are well drawn and easy to love and respect. Especially if you have a morbid fascination with violent death and serial killers. They met on #bookstagram – Morgan is a crime writer – and are now best friends without having met in person. Until now, when Allysa asks Morgan to be her ‘plus one’ at a funeral.
The serial killer nicknamed The Skull Keeper, or TSK for short, is about as twisted and gruesome as they get. Not only do they kidnap young women, but they torture them in unimaginably grisly ways. I won’t go into details in case you are easily shocked. In which case I probably wouldn’t recommend reading the book.
It is written alternatively from the point of view of Morgan and Allysa, but also from that of The Skull Keeper, describing the torture in all its perverted glory. I said you need to concentrate. Occasionally I didn’t and had to go back to see who was narrating. Morgan is sassy and smart-mouthed. She doesn’t pull any punches. The way she talks to detective Will Boyle is crazy. Why does he tolerate it? He has his reasons but you’ll have to find out for yourself. She knows a lot more about Allysa than Allysa knows about her. She’s done her research.
Allysa is slightly less aggressive in her manner. She respects Morgan but is sometimes horrified at Morgan’s outbursts, especially when it puts them in danger. One of the reasons she is attending the funeral is to try and find out who killed her brother Sebastian twenty years ago. Not to mention all the others.
But all is not as it seems and both of them are lying. And then that ending. So clever and unexpected.
This is by far my favourite of all Mariette’s books. It’s brilliant. But excuse me for now, it’s time to check out my #bookstagram in case anyone is stalking me…other than the daily, ex-military, I love God, Trump, and my mom, in that order.
About the Author
Mariëtte Whitcomb studied Criminology and Psychology at the University of Pretoria. An avid reader of psychological thrillers and true crime books, writing allows her to pursue her childhood dream to hunt criminals, albeit fictional and born in the darkest corners of her imagination. When Mariëtte isn’t writing, she reads or spends time with her family, friends, and her two miniature schnauzers.
Social Media Links
Website/Newsletter: https://mariettewhitcomb.com
Email: mariette@mariettewhitcomb.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mariettewhitcombauthor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariettewhitcomb/
Tiktok: tiktok.com/@mariettewhitcomb
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/mariettewhitcomb
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/goodsreadscommariettewhitcomb
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/mariette-whitcomb
+ crime fiction, fiction, grief, journalist, lies, loss, murder, police corruption, police drama, police procedural, review, secrets, thriller
Eleven Liars by Robert Gold (Ben Harper Book 2)
Journalist Ben Harper is on his way home when he sees the flames in the churchyard. The derelict community centre is on fire. And somebody is trapped inside.
With Ben’s help the person escapes, only to flee the scene before they can be identified. Now the small town of Haddley is abuzz with rumours. Was this an accident, or arson?
Then a skeleton is found in the burnt-out foundations.
And when the identity of the victim is revealed, Ben is confronted with a crime that is terrifyingly close to home. As he uncovers a web of deceit and destruction that goes back decades, Ben quickly learns that in this small town, everybody has something to hide.
My Review
Once again we are back in the fictional town of Haddley, with investigative journalist Ben Harper. In the first book, Twelve Secrets, Ben is trying to uncover the truth behind his brother’s shocking murder at the hands of two 14-year-old girls. And also the death of his mother, who allegedly threw herself in front of a train.
Book two begins with a fire at the derelict community centre, a teenager trapped inside and the discovery of a body buried underneath. And a knife which has mysteriously disappeared.
But when the identity of the body is revealed, it opens up another mystery. Who was buried years ago in the victim’s grave?
We see the return of a number of characters from the first book. PC Dani Cash, daughter of much-loved and respected Inspector Jack Cash, old-school newspaperman Sam, father of Ben’s boss Madeline (who seems a lot nicer in book two) and Dani’s husband Mat Moore, who was stabbed at the end of book one and is now in a wheelchair.
But there are lots of new ones too. Seventy something Pamela was Dani’s next door neighbour when she was a small child. She lives alone and watches the schoolchildren who walk past her window every day. Rev Adrian Withers is the vicar of St Stephens and is married to long-suffering wife Emily. Then there is the Grace family, including teenager Archie, And many more – I won’t list them all.
How many of them are lying about the body under the community centre, the fire and everything else that has gone on in Haddley? Eleven presumably, though I won’t try and list them either. Usually when reading with online bookclub The Pigeonhole, we have our theories and try to work out whodunnit and who knows the truth. By about two thirds of the way through I gave up and decided to just go with the flow. I’d have needed a spreadsheet and a notebook.
A brilliant book, complicated at times – I’m glad I had my buddy readers with whom to exchange ideas and remind each other of who was who. I am so looking forward to book three when we can see Ben, Dani and co again.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, the author and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
About the Author
Originally from Harrogate in North Yorkshire, Robert Gold began his career as an intern at the American broadcaster CNN, based in Washington DC. He returned to Yorkshire to work for the retailer ASDA, becoming the chain’s nationwide book buyer. He now works in sales for a UK publishing company. Robert lives in Putney and his new hometown served as the inspiration for the fictional town of Haddley in Twelve Secrets. In 2016, he co-authored three titles in James Patterson’s Bookshots series.
He looks just like her husband. But who is he really? And what is he planning to do with her?
Emmeline Hopkins-Keller is in paradise, sharing a luxurious holiday on a tropical island with her husband Jeffrey and his family. But it’s hard to relax and enjoy it when she knows her marriage is in deep trouble.
One fateful night, a cataclysmic argument between Emmeline and Jeffrey sends him fleeing into the deep, dark forest. A day later he is still missing, leaving everyone shocked and bewildered.
#TheDoppelganger #ColeBaxter @inkubatorbooks @Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour
Then, a miracle. Jeffrey turns up unharmed and wants to reconcile. But something is horribly wrong. He looks and sounds like Jeffrey, but Emmeline is 100% sure he’s not the man she married. Even if everyone in his family is welcoming this stranger with open arms.
Which leaves her wondering, who exactly is this imposter? And how can he deceive everyone around him? And most of all – what are his plans for Emmeline?
Struggling to believe that everyone around her is lying, Emmeline begins to doubt herself, to lose her grip on reality. Only one thing is certain – when she finally uncovers the terrifying truth, her life will be changed forever.
My Review
That was quite a ride! And what a twisted ending.
For some bizarre reason I didn’t hate Emmeline as much as other people did. I know she’s truly awful, but I think maybe she’s a sandwich or two short of a picnic. The lights are on but there’s nobody at home. Her driveway doesn’t go all the way to the road. In other words she’s crazy and not very clever.
She thinks she’s highly intelligent, drop-dead gorgeous, trades on her looks, tells Jeffrey it’s fine to sleep around from time to time as it means nothing and that she’s a ‘modern’ woman, bullies him, and treats him appallingly. But she’s deluded. She’s an idiot. I even felt a bit sorry for her.
I certainly didn’t like Jeffrey’s ridiculously wealthy family or ‘fake’ Jeffrey as Emmeline calls him. Some of the things he does are reprehensible whatever his justification. His father Matthew is an alcoholic (allegedly), mother Odette is like an ageing film star on botox, sister Jessie Mae is a brat (at least Emmeline got that right), and even older sister Lynne is unlikeable. They own the whole island where they are on holiday, complete with bars, a restaurant and full staff. Oh and a private plane to get them there.
But Emmeline, instead of saying thank you very much and enjoying being stinking rich, can’t stay faithful or play nice. Jeffrey is kind and handsome and it’s not like he expects her to hand wash his underpants. We hear the story from Emmeline’s point of view and the ending is explosive.
Many thanks to @zooloo2008 for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
Cole Baxter loves writing psychological suspense thrillers. It’s all about that last reveal that he loves shocking readers with. He grew up in New York, where there crime was all around. He decided to turn that into something positive with his fiction. His stories will have you reading through the night—they are very addictive!
Follow him at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ColeBaxterAuthor/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/colebaxterauthor/
Goodreads – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/122782457-the-doppelganger
Buy Link – https://geni.us/adnA8el
+ alcoholism, childhood, dark humour, family, fiction, motherhood, music, relationships, review, thriller
Mother’s Day by Abigail Burdess
SHE GAVE YOU LIFE. WHAT IF SHE WANTS IT BACK?
The last thing Anna needs is a baby. Abandoned, adopted and living hand to mouth, she never dreamt of having a real family.
But when she meets her birth mother, everything changes – because the same day, she learns she’s going to be a mother too.
#MothersDay @AbigailBurdess @headlinepg @Wildfirebks #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour
Marlene is eccentric, generous with her considerable fortune and overjoyed to become a grandmother. Anna’s living the dream. But is it her dream, or someone else’s? Now she will have to decide what she’s willing to sacrifice for a real family – her future, her freedom, even her unborn child.
My Review
Get to the top of the list! This was totally bonkers and I loved it! It’s not even trying to be anything else (I hope I haven’t got that wrong). I’ve read a couple of reviews that said it rapidly spins out of control until it becomes utterly batshit crazy (latter are my words not theirs). I think that’s the whole point of the dark humour. To me it was perfect.
I read it in one sitting while I was off sick and my husband was at work, but I’d probably have taken the day off to finish it if I wasn’t (only joking work peeps).
Anna is so desperate to have a relationship with her ghastly mother Marlene, who left her in an orange handbag (yes a HAAANDBAAG – we get it) on a roundabout, that she is easily drawn into the madness that is Ma’s family. Ma wasn’t hard to find in the end and their ‘reunion’ just happens to coincide with Anna’s discovery that she’s pregnant.
Dermot is Anna’s boyfriend. Six foot five inches tall, Irish and scruffy, he’s a talented musician. Unfortunately he’s also an alcoholic. And I found him a bit dim (or maybe just too drunk to realise what’s going on). When Anna is in trouble he doesn’t rush to her aid. I wanted to scream at him. But he’s happy. Ma is stinking rich and some of it might just rub off.
Neil is Dermot’s fellow band musician. He is far too handsome for his own good and he has a bit of a thing for Anna. She knows it but doesn’t acknowledge the fact.
Marlene initially is all welcoming and generous with her fortune, but does she have her own agenda? Of course she does and Anna’s baby is central to it. But how accepting can Anna be about her mother’s plans for her?
Some readers may find some of the book quite shocking – her friend Layla’s cussing, graphic descriptions of rape and torture in war zones, intimate close ups of personal body parts (no pictures thank goodness), blood, gore and flying placentas – but don’t be put off. Keep an open mind – at times my mind was so open I thought my brain would flip out of the window.
It’s undoubtedly bizarre but it is officially now my favourite book of the year.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
Abigail Burdess has written for and acted in various comedy shows for the television, radio and stage. She also sometimes writes TV for kids, as well as plays and musicals. She lives in London with her husband, Robert Webb and their two children. Mother’s Day is her first novel. For book updates, follow Abigail online: @AbigailBurdess
+ abuse, family, fiction, grief, loss, love, marriage, motherhood, review, secrets, sisters, thriller
If She Lives (Harlow Series #3) by Erik Therme
Tess Parker knows tragedy better than most.
After surviving the death of her daughter and kidnapping of her nephew, Tess is ready to return to normal life.
#IfSheLives @ErikTherme @Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour
But her troubled past has other plans, and when an old threat reemerges, Tess must seek the help of an unlikely ally to set things right.
No matter what the cost.
My Review
It’s exactly a year since I read and reviewed If She Wakes, the second book in the series, a year after reading and reviewing the first book, If She Lives. I read it in one day, though I admit I was at home off sick. Again it’s a short book which moves at a fast pace.
In the first book we met Tess after her five year old daughter Lily was killed by a hit-and-run driver Brady Becker. Tess closes down emotionally and risks putting her marriage to Josh in jeopardy.
In the second book, Tess and her sister-in-law Torrie are in a car crash. Before Torrie slipped into coma, she asked Tess and her husband, Josh, to take care of her baby son Levi. Much of the book focuses around Torrie’s sisters, Jessie and Mia, and around a man called Gordon, brother of Tess’s old school friend Amy. It helps if you have read the first two books, but in case you haven’t I won’t give away any spoilers.
In book three, Tess and Josh are having a trial separation and Tess is living with Torrie and Levi, looking after Levi in the daytime while Torrie goes to work. Things are seemingly peaceful for a while until a past threat rears its ugly head and Tess must seek out an enemy and ask for her help. What could possibly go wrong?
A lot it would seem, Tess and her now-ally crossing state lines to escape the danger, while Torrie and Levi have their own itinerary, and Josh just won’t let go.
It’s exciting and fast moving and ties up a lot of loose ends. Except one. Who will take care of Echo the rescue cat? I’m still worried. I need resolution.
Many thanks to @zooloo2008 for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
Erik Therme has thrashed in garage bands, inadvertently harboured runaways, and met Darth Vader. When he’s not at his computer, he can be found cheering on his youngest daughter’s volleyball team, or watching horror movies with his oldest. He currently resides in Iowa City, Iowa—one of only twenty-eight places in the world that UNESCO has certified as a City of Literature. Join Erik’s mailing list to be notified of new releases and author giveaways: http://eepurl.com/cD1F8L
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ErikTherme
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ErikTherme.writer
Website: https://eriktherme.com/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/7831573.Erik_Therme
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Erik-Therme/e/B00IAS90UA/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
Goodreads – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62084348-if-she-lives
Buy Links – https://geni.us/7hMqchj
+ childhood, crime fiction, family, fiction, grief, jealousy, lies, loss, love, marriage, motherhood, murder, obsession, review, secrets, therapy, thriller
The Sleepwalker by LC George
Our dreams can be forgotten. But our nightmares will haunt us forever.
Sam Fulford is living a perfectly normal life, except for one little thing: a strange sleep condition that causes him to roam in the night and occasionally become violent.
So when Sam wakes one devastating morning to discover his wife dead beside him and his baby daughter missing, his whole world implodes. Did he accidentally kill his wife during a night time episode? If so, where is his baby?
#TheSleepwalker #LCGeorge @inkubatorbooks @Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour
Just as Sam begins to accept the possibility that he is guilty, he finds a photograph that makes him realise someone else may be involved, that he may be innocent and might yet find his missing daughter.
But there’s a complication. Sam has a dark secret that he just can’t allow to surface. And it’s soon made clear to him that if he presses on with his quest to find out what happened that terrible night, his secret will be revealed to the world.
Leaving Sam wondering whether it might be better to confess to a crime he’s not even certain he committed. Faced with an unimaginable dilemma, Sam begins to wonder: would it be better for everyone if he was guilty?
My Review
A book like no other – at least not for me. I have heard of parasomnia but never read a novel in which it featured. I do, however remember a case in 2009 when a husband was acquitted of his wife’s murder.
A “decent and devoted” husband who strangled his wife while he dreamt she was a intruder has been cleared of murder after the Crown Prosecution Service accepted he had not been in control of his actions but was not a danger to anyone else. (The Guardian)
There have been others.
Sam Fulford wakes one morning to discover his wife Tess dead in the bed next to him and baby Cora not in her cot. He searches frantically but she is nowhere to be found. He calls the police but they of course suspect him. It’s usually the husband or partner isn’t it? The trouble is, because of his parasomniac episodes, he can’t be sure that he didn’t kill her, but if so where is Cora? Sam could try therapy, but has always resisted in case his terrible childhood secret comes out. Now may be the time.
The book flips around various points of view, including Sam (now), his wife (going back to when they met until now) and another character who will become clear part way through. All three of these characters come to life in the author’s skilful hands (or should it be words), particularly the third one who becomes increasingly bonkers and delusional. I love a good she/he descended into madness in true Shakespearean fashion.
It’s highly entertaining and a great read. I learnt a lot about Sam’s condition, but that still wouldn’t prevent me from being scared to fall asleep in the same bed.
Many thanks to @zooloo2008 for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
After spending her working life searching unsuccessfully for a fulfilling career, Laura George found her passion for writing psychological thrillers whilst on maternity leave with her first child. She took a leap of faith and didn’t return to work, instead running with her dream of continuing to write.
Now a mum of two, she lives with her children, husband and springer spaniel, Dougie on the beautiful Devonshire coastline. In the little spare time she gets, she loves nothing more than writing twisty thriller novels for the reader to untangle.
She spends most of her days with her children, in soft plays, on the beach or jumping in puddles, grateful that no one can see inside the corners of her mind as she conjures up the next dark character and plots their fate.
Follow her at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100052597013465
Goodreads – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/84321337-the-sleepwalker
Buy Link – https://geni.us/L8WCsA
27-year-old Daphne Barlow escapes her parents’ ruthless expectations as the heir to their Fortune 10 organic food brand and finds a different kind of ruthlessness—the remote town of Sierra Ridge in the inhospitable Sierra Nevada Mountains of Northern California.
Daphne seeks out an idyllic Mayberry existence in a small town where residents might appreciate her personal brand of homeopathic techniques and herbal cures. When her favorite client—John Sharpe, an army veteran in his 70s—goes missing and no one in the town seems to care, Daphne is deeply concerned. He saved her life once and she is bound and determined to return the favor.
Pitting herself against the townspeople, who assure her that Sharpe is just on a bender despite all the evidence she finds to the contrary, Daphne is drawn deeper and deeper into trouble, all while a wildfire rages closer and closer to the town.
My Review
I loved this and I seemed to be in the minority in my book club, because I rather liked Daphne. She’s a naive, overprivileged, white, middle class, idealistic idiot in her late twenties, who wants the world to be all sweetness and light. A bit like me at her age (apart from the wealthy parents). I can relate and I’m still idealistic.
Unfortunately life isn’t like that. So when she escapes her domineering ‘parents’ ruthless expectations as the heir to their Fortune 10 organic food brand’, she hopes to find peace and tranquility in ‘the remote town of Sierra Ridge in the inhospitable Sierra Nevada Mountains of Northern California’. But Sierra Ridge opens up a whole new level of ruthlessness to poor Daphne.
She has set herself up as a homeopathic healer and while she has a few clients, most people are suspicious of her. Then her favourite client John Sharpe, a 70-year-old army veteran, goes missing. She is determined to seek out the truth. But no-one is interested, claiming he’s probably gone on a bender, and no-one seems to care, not even the police.
The whole town seems to be against her and soon she realises that it goes deeper than that. They are actively trying to prevent her from discovering the sinister truth, and all the while the wildfires are getting closer. The last part of the book was a race against time. It was heart-stopping. A five-star read for me.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, the author, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
About the Author
Amanda Traylor writes deliciously twisted mysteries and thrillers and has published eighteen works of fiction. She holds Bachelor of Arts in English and Journalism and a Master of Arts in Mass Communication Research. Before writing fiction full time, she spent ten years in the corporate game, but tries not to think about that except when crafting tales of horror. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area but now moves around the country like a nomad with her husband and toddler daughter. They currently call Colorado home where they live in a giant country house and begrudgingly battle snow.
+ alcoholism, brothers, crime fiction, family, fiction, friendship, jealousy, journalist, lies, marriage, motherhood, murder, politics, review, secrets, thriller
The Mother by TM Logan
Framed for murder. Now she’s free . . .
A woman attends a funeral, standing in the shadows and watching in agony as her sons grieve. But she is unable to comfort them – or reveal her secret.
#TheMother @TMLoganAuthor @Tr4cyF3nt0n #CompulsiveReaders #blogtour
A decade earlier, Heather gets her children ready for bed and awaits the return of her husband Liam, little realising that this is the last night they will spend together as a family. Because tomorrow she will be accused of Liam’s murder.
Ten years ago Heather lost everything. Now she will stop at nothing to clear her name – and to get her children back.
My Review
This is another of those ‘I couldn’t put it down’ books. It’s a cracking good read and it kept me up till one o’clock in the morning to finish it.
Heather has lost everything. Convicted of murdering her MP husband Liam, she was sentenced to 18 years. After nine years she is out on licence, but the rules are very strict. No contact with her family, including her two sons who she hasn’t seen since they were toddlers. No approaching anyone involved in the case, the police, the lawyers, no-one.
But Heather is determined to prove her innocence, whatever the cost. The trouble is, she can’t do it alone, but who can she trust?
Over the last nine years, there was someone, a journalist, the only sliver of light in the darkness. He believed that Liam was trying to uncover corruption in Parliament and was killed because of it. That the police missed the evidence, instead taking the easy route and arresting the wife for a crime of passion. He also tried to prove that people were being paid to keep quiet, but ended up in court for libel, losing everything including his career. His name is Owen Tanner and he’s nothing like Heather expected.
Can he help her and should she trust him? She also gets assistance from her roommate at the hostel where she has to live now she’s out, an ex-druggie and alcoholic called Jodie. Jodie understands how Heather feels, because she also lost her child when she was in prison – a daughter named Holly. And she knows how to break into houses and steal things when you need to.
It’s such an exciting book, I’m sure it will be on TV soon like The Holiday and The Catch. I certainly hope so.
Many thanks to @Tr4cyF3nt0n for inviting me to be part of the #CompulsiveReaders #blogtour
About the Author
T.M. Logan is a Sunday Times bestseller whose thrillers have sold more than 1 million copies in the UK and are published in 18 countries around the world. The Holiday was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick and has been a major TV drama. Formerly a national newspaper journalist, he now writes full time and lives in Nottinghamshire with his wife and two children. Follow him on Twitter @TMLoganAuthorFollow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
+ autism, childhood, coming-of-age, family, fiction, literature, love, motherhood, relationships, review
All The Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
I lived for and loved a bird-heart that summer; I only knew it afterwards.
Sunday Forrester lives with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Dolly, in the house she grew up in. She does things more carefully than most people. On quiet days, she must eat only white foods. Her etiquette handbook guides her through confusing social situations, and to escape, she turns to her treasury of Sicilian folklore. The one thing very much out of her control is Dolly – her clever, headstrong daughter, now on the cusp of leaving home.
#AllTheLittleBirdHearts #VictoriaLloydBarlow @headlinepg @TinderPress #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour
Into this carefully ordered world step Vita and Rollo, a couple who move in next door, disarm Sunday with their charm, and proceed to deliciously break just about every rule in Sunday’s book. Soon they are in and out of each others’ homes, and Sunday feels loved and accepted like never before. But beneath Vita and Rollo’s polish lies something else, something darker. For Sunday has precisely what Vita has always wanted for herself: a daughter of her own.
My Review
Poor Sunday! Unloved by her mother, blamed for her sister’s death and then rejected by her husband, whom she refers to as the King, none of them understood her or why she behaves the way she does. Except maybe David at the farm, where she works. David is deaf and Sunday signs with him. He is probably my second favourite character, after Sunday.
As for her new next-door neighbours, Vita and her husband Rollo, they made my skin crawl from day one. Vita with her pretensions, her affectations and an accent so posh it’s ‘almost a speech impediment’, as someone once joked to me. I hope that’s not too un-PC. But Sunday is entranced by their charm, as is her sixteen-year-old daughter Dolly. Vita calls Sunday ‘Wife’ – no idea why – Rollo is Rols and Dolly is Doll. It’s like those people who refer to rugby as rugger, ‘Oh did you play rugger when you were up at Oxford, what.’ I’m not even sure how to use it in a sentence.
Vita arrives one day on Sunday’s doorstep, invites herself in and breaks every rule in Sunday’s etiquette handbook. Sometimes Vita turns up in an evening gown, at other times she’s wearing Rollo’s pyjamas with no underwear. She brings her little dog called Beast, smokes incessantly and assumes everyone adores her. Well I didn’t.
Sunday and Dolly are invited to Vita and Rollo’s Friday night dinner every week, where they drink copious amounts of Champagne (Sunday will only drink fizzy drinks), red wine and port. The menu includes hare (I remember my father cooking jugged hare and it smelled disgusting) and steak Tartare (in other words raw mince). My dad ate the latter as well.
I’m too squeamish, I’m afraid, to eat anything so ‘adventurous’, if that’s what you call it. Dolly is becoming increasingly frustrated with her mum, who has days where she only eats white food, and loves how Vita and Rollo have no such ‘issues’. Sunday has autism (about which I know very little), but neither her mother nor husband understood, just considered her outspoken, annoying and difficult. To Dolly she is just boring, while to Vita, Sunday is simply a means to an end.
I loved All The Little Bird-Hearts. It’s like poetry. The language is beautiful and lyrical and the author’s understanding of Sunday’s autism is both personal and sympathetic. But then Viktoria is also autistic and can write from her own extensive experience.
Of course, nowadays, it’s easy to criticise the lack of understanding of autism and neurodivergence, when information is out there for everyone to investigate. Thirty-plus years ago, it was misunderstood and someone like Sunday was considered too different and often inappropriate in her behaviour.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Kent, and has extensive personal, professional, and academic experience relating to autism. Like her protagonist, Viktoria is autistic. She has presented her doctoral research internationally, most recently speaking at Harvard College on autism and literary narrative. Viktoria lives on the Margate coast with her husband and children.
Deirdre and Arthur are on the case again so you know this will be fun.
Cryptic crosswords are good for the brain Arthur. I saw a programme…
But why does Deirdre have to read the clues out loud? It helps me think Arthur.
Arthur is angry about some missing computer parts. And he’s hungry. Deirdre’s new diet is like rabbit food and it gives him wind.
But it’s Deirdre’s crosswords that help Arthur solve the clues.
I love these two!
Written by Barbara Jennings
Directed by @EBraefield
Helen Fullerton @HelenFullyActor as Diedre Meadowes
and
Jonathan Legg @Jondlegg as DI Arthur Meadowes
Produced by Cat on a Piano Productions
Music:
Smoke Jacket Blues by Tracktribe
Dusk ’til Dawn by Tracktribe
The Theatrephonic Theme tune was composed by Jackson Pentland
Performed by
Jackson Pentland
Mollie Fyfe Taylor
Emmeline Braefield
Cat on a Piano Productions produce and edit feature films, sketches and radio plays.
Their latest project is called @Theatrephonic, a podcast of standalone radio plays and short stories performed by professional actors. You can catch Theatrephonic on Spotify and other platforms.
For more information about the Theatrephonic Podcast, go to catonapiano.uk/theatrephonic, Tweet or Instagram @theatrephonic, or visit their Facebook page.
And if you really enjoyed this week’s episode, listen to Theatrephonic’s other plays and short stories and consider becoming a patron by clicking here…
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