+ fantasy, fiction, healing, literature, love, magic, marriage, paranormal, review, supernatural
Painted Fire by Mark Fowler
Actress Kate Tolle falls victim to an illness that baffles the medical world.
In desperation her husband Ben appeals to the public, and an anonymous benefactor comes forward. Soon the couple find themselves on a flight bound for San Francisco. Where the enigmatic Merle is waiting.
#PaintedFire @MFowlerAuthor @SpellBoundBks @Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour
Kate’s health appears to improve as people around her die horrifically. Merle tells Ben that healing comes at a price and questions what he’s willing to pay.
But what does Merle want? And what is the chilling truth waiting out in the desert … in Las Vegas and beyond?
My Review
This was a very bizarre book. It’s kind of a thriller, but then again it’s not. It’s a murder mystery, but only in as much as people get murdered. It’s fantasy, but only if you believe in Merle. I was very slightly reminded of Mr Wednesday in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, and the way Ben and Kate just follow Merle from California to Nevada and meet his ‘friends’. Everywhere they go, everyone seems to know him.
But back to the beginning. Kate has fallen victim to a mysterious illness and no-one in the UK knows what is wrong with her or how to cure it. She has terrible, dark nightmares and is getting weaker all the time. Then they get an offer from an anonymous benefactor to go to America and soon become celebrity news. So off they go to San Francisco to meet the person who is going to help Kate.
While staying in a very expensive hotel, paid for of course by the benefactor, Ben leaves Kate for a few minutes to go and get a drink in the bar. And it’s there that he meets Merle for the first time. A tiny figure (again I visualise Neil Gaiman’s leprechaun) though this one is dressed in a white suit, with a buttonhole and bow tie. The latter appear to change colour every time Ben sees him, but the white suit never does.
‘The buttonhole and bow tie alone continued to defy expectations, now becoming a blue so deep and dark that it threatened at any moment to proclaim itself midnight.’
So is Merle a kind person trying to help Ben and Kate or does he have a more sinister agenda? And does he really have the power he claims?
‘Was this man unhinged, dangerous, or just having fun at the expense of some innocent abroad?’
That’s for me to know and you to find out, as they say. Painted Fire is a superbly written book and the author has a wonderful way with words. This has to be one of my favourite examples.
‘The place hummed with death, was alive with death.’ What a great phrase that is!
Many thanks to @zooloo2008 for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
Mark writes detective crime fiction, and psychological and supernatural thrillers. He is the author of the popular Tyler & Mills detective crime series set in Staffordshire. RED IS THE COLOUR was shortlisted for the 2018 Arnold Bennett Prize and begins with the grim discovery of a schoolboy who disappeared thirty years earlier. BLUE MURDER involves a missing singer and a murdered guitarist, elevating an obscure band to sudden fame and fortune. THE DEVIL WORE BLACK unveils the mystery of a crucified priest. The latest book in the series, THE SMELL OF COPPER, finds Tyler out on a limb as the detectives uncover high level police corruption. All the books can be read as standalone crime novels.
Other detective mysteries include THE BATHROOM MURDERS. A series of women are found hacked to death while taking a shower. This is the first in a new series set in Manchester, featuring female detective Charlie Reed. TWIST has the eponymous private investigator returning, against his better judgement, to the city of nightmares to look into the strange case of a dead philosophy student. THE MAN UPSTAIRS introduces hard boiled Frank Miller, discovering he’s a fictional detective and that his author is plotting to kill him.
Mark also writes psychological and supernatural thrillers. SILVER finds journalist and crime writer Nick Slater obsessed with an unpublished manuscript that a best-selling author was working on when she was murdered, and which her family refuse to publish. SEXTET explores the twisted rivalry between twin sisters, the weird games they played as children, and the rising murder rate in a small English town. COFFIN MAKER is a gothic tale. Death is sent two apprentices amid warnings from an out-of-favour priest that the devil has arrived on Earth. Mark’s latest book PAINTED FIRE finds a writer travelling to America’s West Coast in a desperate bid to find a cure for a baffling illness afflicting his wife. An anonymous benefactor has offered to help, but at what price?
Follow him at:
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/marklfowlerauthor
Twitter : https://twitter.com/MFowlerAuthor
Instagram :https://www.instagram.com/markfowler8780/
Buy Links – https://geni.us/Yfqb
The irresistible debut novel from celebrity TV chef Rosemary Shrager where cosy crime and cookery collide!
When an old television rival, Deirdre Shaw, is found dead at the Cotswolds manor house where she was catering for a prestigious shooting weekend, Prudence is asked to step into the breach. Prudence is only too happy to take up the position and soon she is working in the kitchens of Farleigh Manor.
But Farleigh Manor is the home to secrets, both old and new. The site of a famous unsolved murder from the nineteenth century, Farleigh Manor has never quite shaken off its sensationalist past. It’s about to get a sensational present too. Because, the more she scratches beneath the surface of this manor and its guests, the more Prudence becomes certain that Deirdre Shaw’s death was no accident. She’s staring in the face of a very modern murder. .
My Review
It’s all a bit too cosy for me – I prefer my crime to be really dark and grisly – but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Probably more so because I was reading with my online book club and we had a laugh exchanging comments. Nothing really original here, but entertaining nonetheless.
First the negatives and then I’ll move on to the positives and there were a lot. As a vegetarian, I found the food they were serving at the manor really stomach-churning. Sorry, but that’s just me and I know many people who would love to chomp down on raw venison and hung pheasant, accompanied by heart-attack inducing sauces. But I’ll have the raspberry roulade for dessert please. And the recipe.
Then there is Prudence herself. I hate it when sixty-somethings are always made out to be IT dinosaurs. I’m slightly younger than Rosemary and older than Prudence and I can still give many of my colleagues a run for their money on the computers at work. ‘Ask Veronika to show you how to use the new software – she’s the expert,’ my colleague was told by the 30-year old in support. How refreshing it would be for Prudence to say to Suki, ‘move over, let the ‘expert’ check it out on the iPad, mobile phone (why is it always an overpriced iPhone?). We all became experts when we found out many years ago that we could order shoes online.
Then there’s granddaughter Suki, giving the reader the impression that all teenagers do is get drunk and stay in bed till lunchtime….OK, maybe I’ll park that one for now.
And Numbers. Irritating name, irritating way of speaking – just irritating all round. In fact I probably preferred the guests and that’s really saying something.
So to the positives. it’s fun, it’s entertaining, it had some clever twists and some ghastly, well-written characters amongst the guests. It’s set in the beautiful Cotswolds, where I live (though a reference or two to a town I recognise is always fun). It’s a great choice for a book club or to read on the plane. It’s a quick read and not taxing on the brain. It’s just a bit formulaic. Would I read the next book in the series? Maybe. Would I watch it on TV? Definitely. Just get Prudence to do a crash course in computers at a local community centre first.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, the author, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
About the Author
National treasure Rosemary Shrager endeared herself to the nation when she took part in I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! where she proved she could cook just about anything, anywhere. Her most recent tv appearances have been equally well received – Netflix’s Best Leftovers Ever!, Cooking with the Stars, where Rosemary mentored Johnny Vegas throughout the series , and Fishing Scotland’s Lochs and Rivers for Channel 5.
First and foremost Rosemary is a talented and versatile chef who loves talking about food almost as much as she loves cooking. During lockdown she began her own online demonstrations on Facebook and YouTube, and she has now begun her own virtual cookery school, details for which are on http://www.rosemaryshrager.com.
When not teaching and cooking, Rosemary avidly reads and watches crime fiction, so much so that she wondered whether she had it in her to write a book in which crime and cookery collide… and The Last Supper is the winning result, introducing Rosemary to a new crime readership who in turn will be treated to several more outings with retired celebrity chef Prudence Bulstrode over the coming years.
An emotional, heart-wrenching and uplifting debut about friendship, love and sacrifice, perfect for fans of David Nicholls and Holly Miller.
One moment in time can change everything…
The day Scarlett dies should have been one of the most important of her life. It doesn’t feel fair that she’ll never have the chance to fulfil her dreams. And now, she’s still … here … somehow, watching the ripple effect of her death on the lives of those she loved the most and unable to do anything about it.
@Bookish_Becky (Twitter) and @beckyhunterbooks (Instagram)
@CorvusBooks (Twitter) and @atlanticbooks (Instagram)
#RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours
Scarlett’s best friend Evie cannot contemplate her life without Scarlett, and she certainly cannot forgive Nate, the man she blames for her best friend’s death. But Nate keeps popping up when she least expects him to, catapulting Evie’s life in directions she’d never let herself imagine possible. Ways, perhaps, even those closest to her had long since given up on.
If you could go back, knowing everything that happens after, everything that happens because of that one moment in time, would you change the course of history or would you do it all again?
Here is the fabulous cover. The book is published by Atlantic / Corvus on 2 March 2023
Becky Hunter worked for many years in London in the publishing industry, before taking a career break in Mozambique, where she volunteered with horses and decided to give writing a go. She now works as a freelance book publicist. One Moment is her debut novel.
+ crime fiction, Detective novel, fiction, friendship, murder, murder mystery, police drama, police procedural, rape, review, stalker
Broken Screams by Sally Rigby
Scream all you want, no one can hear you….
When an attempted murder is linked to a string of unsolved sexual attacks, Detective Chief Inspector Whitney Walker is incensed. All those women who still have sleepless nights because the man who terrorises their dreams is still on the loose.
#BrokenScreams @SallyRigby4 #CavendishandWalker Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour
Calling on forensic psychologist Dr Georgina Cavendish to help, they follow the clues and are alarmed to discover the victims all had one thing in common. Their birthdays were on the 29th February. The same date as a female officer on Whitney’s team.
As the clock ticks down and they’re no nearer to finding the truth, can they stop the villain before he makes sure his next victim will never scream again.
Broken Screams is the twelfth book in the acclaimed Cavendish & Walker series.
My Review
This will be my fifth Sally Rigby blog tour! Sally is one of my favourite crime fiction authors featuring one of my favourite duos – Cavendish and Walker. As I’ve said before, you know it’s going to be short, sharp, pacy detective fiction at its best.
This time we have a serious sexual assault in the park. The victim was not only raped, she was punched in the face, threatened and a leather glove pushed over her mouth. She also had marks around her neck as if someone had attempted to strangle her. She managed to get away, but the next victim might not be so lucky.
It turns out though, that she was one of a string of victims, over a period of eighteen months, each one getting more violent. All of them were born on the 29th February, the only link between them. Will the rapist strike again and who will be the next victim? Police Officer Meena Singh, who recently joined Whitney’s team, shares the same birthday. Could she be on his ‘list’?
Detective Chief Inspector Whitney Walker and forensic psychologist Dr Georgina Cavendish could have only days before the killer strikes again, but where do they even start. No witnesses, no motive and no DNA. It’s going to be a nightmare to solve but that has never stopped them in the past.
Another rollicking good ride from this author, hopefully there will be lots more to come. And when are we going to see them on TV please?
Many thanks to @zooloo2008 for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
Sally Rigby was born in Northampton, in the UK. She has always had the travel bug, and after living in both Manchester and London, eventually moved overseas. From 2001 she has lived with her family in New Zealand (apart from five years in Australia), which she considers to be the most beautiful place in the world.
After writing young adult fiction for many years, under a pen name, Sally decided to move into crime fiction. Her Cavendish & Walker series brings together two headstrong, and very different, women – DCI Whitney Walker, and forensic psychologist Dr Georgina Cavendish. Sally has a background in education, and has always loved crime fiction books, films and TV programmes. She has a particular fascination with the psychology of serial killers.
Follow her at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sally-Rigby-131414630527848
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sally.rigby.author/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SallyRigby4
Buy Links – https://geni.us/Bik4k
+ fiction, Ghost story, grief, haunting, loss, love, mental illness, motherhood, Northumberland, review, schizophrenia, supernatural
Don’t Leave by Pru Heathcote
JANE is a young woman grieving for her child, who is taken to a remote holiday cottage on the Northumberland coast.
From the moment she arrives at the cottage with her much older and over-protective husband, Peter, Jane keeps catching glimpses of a little girl and hearing a child crying.
#DontLeave #PruHeathcote @RedDragonbooks @Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour
Peter is convinced these are hallucinations, as Jane has been diagnosed with schizophrenia – a diagnosis she doesn’t agree with.
She sets out to discover who or what the child could be.
A ghost?
A real child?
Or something else?
My Review
I loved this book. I read it in about three sittings and would have read it in one go if I had been on holiday. And I would NEVER have guessed the reality of what was happening in a million years.
Following the tragic death of Jane and Peter’s young daughter Angela, Peter decides that it would do Jane good to give up work for a while and spend some time in a cottage by the sea in a remote location off the coast of Northumberland. They will be away from everyone and everything and Jane will be able to come to terms with her loss.
But no sooner have they arrived that strange things begin to happen. Peter believes that her sightings, visitations, whatever you wish to call them, are hallucinations, caused by her diagnosis of schizophrenia. Except Jane disagrees with the diagnosis and even stops taking her medication as it makes her groggy. And Jane believes the little girl in the red Minnie Mouse top is real.
She sees her everywhere – through the window, in the garden, on the beach. She asks her peculiar next-door neighbour Mrs Mortimer (who Jane and Peter call Morticia) if anyone has a child staying with them nearby, as she is worried that she may be in danger out alone so close to the cliffs.
It’s a mystery, but then so is Mrs Mortimer. Her cottage is the other half of theirs (it was originally one house) and she does the cleaning and tidying for each new holiday tenant on behalf of the landlord. Her backstory is as interesting as Jane’s hauntings.
This book is so good. Intriguing, a little scary at times (though not too much), ghostly and creepy.
Many thanks to @zooloo2008 for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
From the Author
‘I’ve always loved telling stories and putting them down on paper as soon as I could write. I began my working life in Hertfordshire as a local newspaper reporter – obits, weddings, Uncle George’s Kiddies’ Corner – then went on to teenage magazines (Fab and Rave) and women’s magazines.
‘I moved to Northumberland forty years ago and worked as an adult education tutor, teaching any subject I didn’t need a qualification for, including creative writing.
‘Over the years I’ve written dozens of stories for magazines, a commissioned biography, and several plays, one of which was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe. It was one of my plays that formed the basis for my novel Don’t Leave, winning entry in the 2020 Lindisfarne Prize, written during the first Lockdown.’
‘I’m married, with three grown-up children and two grandchildren. I live in Warkworth, a village on the Northumberland coast, an area that provides most of the inspiration for my stories.’
Follow her at:
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/pru.heathcote
Buy Link – https://geni.us/e7fKV
+ Belfast, Covid, crime fiction, dark humour, Detective novel, fiction, murder, mystery, pandemic, review, social distancing
Absent Victim by David Roy
No body, no motive, no name…so who did she kill?
When wealthy divorcee Stephanie Kuler asked a private detective to investigate a murder, he told her to go to the police instead. But when she told the rest of the story, he took the case.
#AbsentVictim @DavidRo02674885 @hobart_books @Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour
There was no body, no reason to kill and no name for her supposed victim, but she knew she was the murderer. Solving the mystery meant jail for her and a headache for him.
Premonition, false memories, deja vu…the mind playing tricks or reality distorted through time?
The unmissable new thriller from David Roy explores the dark side of memory and its impact on us all.
My Review
A very different book I have to say, but entertaining and totally unique. Wealthy divorcee Stephanie Kuler hires a private detective (the narrator whose name is never mentioned) to investigate a murder which she claims to have committed. However, there is no victim to name, no body, and no date when it took place, or where.
Sometimes it is a brilliant murder mystery, while at other times it is a way for the author to put forward his own, sometimes controversial, views:
‘The news was full of stories of protest, the rhetoric of BLM given over to a struggle with anyone whose views might differ. It was peaceful protestors versus right-wing thugs, The press and television media had created the story they wanted and now it was just a case of ensuring the protagonists acted it out for them.’
He says how Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela never resorted to these tactics. Then he mentions Brexit, but I never really got whether he was pro or anti. I got the impression maybe pro, but he didn’t seem like a Brexiteer.
There are also lots of references to the Troubles in Northern Ireland where the book is set. Once again the narrator can be very politically incorrect, particularly in his view of the types of people who do, or believe, certain things.
But the main thread running through the whole book is that of the pandemic. It is set during the first year of lockdown, pre-vaccinations and even pre-masks. And Boris and co on TV every night giving us instructions on what we must do to stay safe. Little did we know who would be the worst rule-breakers later on. Everyone is social-distancing, in theory, though there are plenty who don’t.
Then there is Billy, also ex-army like our narrator and his ‘Billy-isms’, his strange way of speaking. Zombies (a bit of a Billy obsession) are ‘a fig roll‘ of his imagination, he says Gongle instead of Google and that he was waiting for some fish to come home to roost. There are also the names he uses for everyday objects such as the interweb machine (computer), corporate transport module (bus), linked corporate transport module (train) or individual transport module, ITM for short (car). Sometimes I have to admit, I didn’t get the relevance.
I loved the narrator’s comedy take on things. It was just like the banter I have with my younger son, my one daughter-in-law and a colleague at work. Others often don’t get it. In the book only Stephanie’s friend Georgina is totally on his wavelength and I really enjoyed their interactions.
A highly recommended, interesting read.
Many thanks to @zooloo2008 for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
David Roy was born in Bangor, Northern Ireland in the mid ’60s. After a number of years in the army he left a life in uniform to read for a degree, ultimately qualifying as a secondary school teacher. He is the author of many books, the first written in 1994 as an account of his service in the first Gulf War. His book ‘The Lost Man’, the first of his Ted Dexter adventures, featured on ITV ‘The Alan Titchmarsh Show’; where it was shortlisted in The People’s Novelist competition.
As well as being a soldier, David has been a dishwasher, a teacher, a civil servant, a security guard, a welfare assistant and an ambulance crew member. He is married and now lives in the north of England with his wife and two daughters.
Follow him at:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigdaveroy/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DavidRo02674885
Buy Link – https://geni.us/PYFx
Sniffing out the culprits.
‘Two sugars please, love.’
My absolute favourites these two. I’ve followed their adventures from the start and they are just brilliant. And how would Arthur solve the latest crime of the stolen perfume without Deirdre’s help?
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:
I Have a Reservation by TrackTribe
Get Yer Glow byt Dan Lebowitz
Spring in my Step by Silent Partner
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…
+ alcoholism, bullying, care home, Copenhagen, crime fiction, Danish Noir, Denmark, Detective novel, fiction, journalist, magazine, murder, police drama, police procedural, revenge, review, Scandi noir, thriller
The Girl In The Photo by Heidi Amsinck (A Jensen Thriller #2)
Not all little old ladies are so innocent …
When ninety-year-old Irene Valborg is found brutally murdered in an affluent suburb of Copenhagen, her diamond necklace missing, it looks like a burglary gone wrong. When two more victims are attacked, the police lament a rise in violence against the elderly, but who is the young girl in the photo found by DI Henrik Jungersen on the scenes of crime?
Impatient to claim her inheritance, Irene’s daughter hires former Dagbladet reporter Jensen and her teenage apprentice Gustav to find the necklace. Questioning his own sanity, while trying to fix his marriage, Henrik finds himself once more pitched in a quest for the truth against Jensen – the one woman in Copenhagen he is desperate to avoid.
My Review
It all starts with the brutal murder of a little old lady in her mansion in an affluent district of Copenhagen. Bashed over the head with an ornamental elephant. Her Alsatian, Samson, is tied up in the garden and her house is like a fortress. So how did the killer get in and why is the dog well-fed and watered?
Just the first in a series of murders, two more elderly people – one on his allotment, the other in a nursing home. But how are they connected, or are they? A photo was left near the victims, though not in full view. Is it the same girl in the photos and what does it have to do with the murders?
This is the second novel in the Jensen Thriller series and it gets better and better. Jensen is almost as annoying as she was in the first book, though I liked her a lot more this time. DI Henrik Jungersen is still a slob, loud, rude and a bit of a creep where women are concerned. Following his affair with Jensen in book one, his wife has thrown him out and he is living at the office. I don’t know what Jensen ever saw in him.
But fellow Pigeon’s favourite character is still seventeen-year-old Gustav, all gangly legs and insatiable appetite. Typical teenager then. But he has a dark secret (he was expelled from school because of it) and no-one is talking. Jensen, with her investigative journalist’s hat on, is determined to find out.
However, there is so much more to this story. Another couple of threads run through it, which are no doubt setting up book three. I can’t wait!
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, the author, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
About the Author
Heidi Amsinck, a writer and journalist born in Copenhagen, spent many years covering Britain for the Danish press, including a spell as London Correspondent for the broadsheet daily Jyllands-Posten. She has written numerous short stories for radio, including the three-story sets Danish Noir, Copenhagen Confidential and Copenhagen Curios, all produced by Sweet Talk for BBC Radio 4. A graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, Heidi lives in London. She was previously shortlisted for the VS Pritchett Memorial Prize. Last Train to Helsingør is her first published collection of stories. Her crime novel My Name is Jensen, set in Copenhagen, was published in August 2021. The Girl In The Photo is the second in the series.
+ abuse, child abduction, childhood, eighties, family, fiction, Ireland, kidnapping, lies, loss, motherhood, mystery, relationships, review, secrets, thriller
Hide and Seek by Andrea Mara
The game of hide and seek is over, everyone has gone home, but little Lily Murphy hasn’t been found. Her parents search the woods and tell themselves that the worst hasn’t happened – but deep down they know this peaceful Dublin suburb will never be the same again.
#HideAndSeek @AndreaMaraBooks @TransworldBooks #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour
COUNT TO TEN
Years later, Joanna moves into a new house. It seems perfect in every way, until she learns that this was once Lily Murphy’s home. From that moment onwards, a sense of dread seems to follow her from room to room.
AND WHEN YOU OPEN THEM, YOUR CHILD IS GONE
As Joanna unravels the secrets at the heart of this close-knit community, her own dark past begins to resurface. Because she thinks she knows what really happened to Lily – and if the truth gets out, it might be her undoing…
My Review
Wow what a fantastic book this was! So many theories, so many red herrings and so many twists. Reading with The Pigeonhole we had numerous ideas, most of them totally wrong.
Hide and Seek is set in two timelines. The first one is ‘now’ or 2018, when Joanna moves into her new ‘forever’ home with husband Mark and their three children. It’s in the same suburb – Rowanbrook – where Mark lived as a child and his parents Tom and Susie still reside.
The second timeline goes back to the summer of 1985 when three-year-old Lily Murphy went missing. Did she drown in the nearby stream or was she taken? Her body was never found. I could not have guessed the outcome in a million years. It was a thrilling discovery, so unexpected. With a couple of further twists thrown in at the end for good measure.
But the first twist is that the house that Joanna and Mark have just moved into is the one where the Murphys lived when Lily disappeared. No-one told Joanna and she is unsurprisingly unsettled. Did Mark know? He must have done. So she starts digging.
But does anyone in Rowanbrook know what really happened that summer? Are they keeping secrets? Joanna keeps plenty of secrets of her own, even from her husband. But she can never tell, because the truth is too enormous, too ghastly and too damning to ever come out.
There are so many people who could have been involved at the time, but were they? Because half of them seem to have their own dirty little secrets, including numerous affairs, that have nothing whatsoever to do with Lily Murphy. But as we all know in great fiction, the truth must all come out in the end. And when it does it’s mind-blowing.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours and to The Pigeonhole, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
About the Author
Andrea Mara is a Sunday Times and Irish Times top ten bestselling author, and has been shortlisted for a number of awards, including Irish Crime
Novel of the Year. She lives in Dublin, Ireland, with her husband and three young children, and also runs multi-award-winning parent and lifestyle blog, OfficeMum.ie. All Her Fault was her first thriller to be published in the UK and internationally and was a Sunday Times bestseller.
+ adventure, crime fiction, Detective novel, family, fiction, grief, jealousy, lies, murder, police drama, relationships, revenge, review, secrets, serial killer, sisters, sixties, superstition, thriller
The Retreat by Sarah Pearse
Most are here to recharge and refresh. But someone’s here for revenge. . .
An eco-wellness retreat has opened on an island off the English coast, promising rest and relaxation—but the island itself, known locally as Reaper’s Rock, has a dark past. Once the playground of a serial killer, it’s rumoured to be cursed.
#TheRetreat @SarahVPearse #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour
Detective Elin Warner is called to the retreat when a young woman’s body is found on the rocks below the yoga pavilion in what seems to be a tragic fall. But the victim wasn’t a guest—she wasn’t meant to be on the island at all.
When a guest drowns in a diving incident the following day, Elin starts to suspect that there’s nothing accidental about these deaths. But why would someone target the guests, and who else is in danger?
Elin must find the killer—before the island’s history starts to repeat itself . .
My Review
My second book by this author, the first being The Sanatorium, and I really loved it. Same main protagonist Detective Elin Warner, plus her boyfriend Will, who I am not so keen on (when you read the book you may understand why) and a brief reference to her brother Isaac, who was in the previous book.
I loved The Sanatorium, but I think The Retreat shows a maturity in the author’s writing which I am sure will continue to improve with every book. I was particularly impressed with the action scenes involving Elin, as I can imagine they are hard to write, but she pulls it off perfectly.
Once again we are at a posh ‘retreat’ – in The Sanatorium it was a minimalist hotel, an imposing, isolated getaway spot called Le Sommet high up in the Swiss Alps, while this time it’s an eco-wellness island getaway, where people come to recharge and refresh. Or to get murdered.
Unfathomably Le Sommet was built on the site of an old TB hospital (we had some great discussions amongst my book club readers about old sanatoriums). Even stranger is that the retreat named LUMEN, has been built on an island famous for a weird school for misfit boys in the sixties AND the site of a murder spree many years later, in which a group of teenagers were stabbed whilst on an outward bound adventure. Superstition has it that the famous Reaper’s Rock, which looms over the island, is the cause of the evil that lives there. Then the bodies start piling up and we know we are going to be in for an exciting ride.
This was so good and I kept having to read on to find out what happens next. And that twist at the end – genius.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
Sarah Pearse lives by the sea in South Devon with her husband and two daughters. She studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick and worked in Brand PR for a variety of household brands. After moving to Switzerland in her twenties, she spent every spare moment exploring the mountains and the Swiss Alpine town of Crans Montana, the dramatic setting that inspired her novel.
Sarah has always been drawn to the dark and creepy – remote spaces and abandoned places – so when she read an article in a local Swiss magazine about the history of sanatoriums in the area, she knew she’d found the spark of the idea for her debut novel, The Sanatorium. Her short fiction has been published in a wide variety of magazines and has been shortlisted for several prizes.
You can find Sarah on Twitter @SarahVPearse and Instagram @sarahpearseauthor
+ brothers, childhood, coming-of-age, family, fiction, friendship, grief, loss, love, mid-life crisis, motherhood, relationships, review, sisters
The Wilderness by Sarah Duguid
Once it was a family home. Now they are all at sea . . .
When Anna and David receive a phone call late one evening, their lives are upturned. Within minutes, they are travelling to the west coast of Scotland, preparing to care for two young sisters, tragically and suddenly orphaned.
#TheWilderness @SarahDuguid4 @TinderPress #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour
It’s a beautiful place, the heather is in bloom, the birds wheel above the waves, the deer graze peacefully in the distance. But the large granite house is no longer a home for the girls, and Anna knows she can never take the place of their mother. Then David invites his friend to stay, to ‘ease them through’ and Anna finds herself increasingly isolated, with everything she – and the girls – once knew of life discarded and overruled by a man of whom she is deeply suspicious.
My Review
Very unlike the books I normally read, The Wilderness is not a thriller or a book in which things ‘happen’. It’s about what is and what was and what can no longer be. And how to move forward. It’s about grief and loss and finding oneself, not just for the children, but also for David and Anna and their friend Brendan.
I must say that I didn’t much like Brendan. His way of handling grief at times seemed inappropriate for such young girls, too hands-on and as they described him – creepy. Also too self-focussed – it should never have been about him. If he were their counsellor for real, his feelings would not have come into it.
But back to the story. Young teenagers, Isabella and Sasha, have tragically lost their parents, Peter and Rachel, in a car accident and are now orphans. Peter’s brother David and his wife Anna were named as the legal guardians of the girls in case of such an event, but neither ever expected it to happen. Anna is resentful – their two sons have grown up and left home and they have found a kind of freedom and independence of sorts. But Anna will cope, here in their lovely home in London. She always copes in her boring, housewifey way.
So it’s a shock when David decides to take a three month sabbatical and moves them up to the Scottish Highlands, to ease the girls into their new life, but staying put in their falling-down home on a remote island. It’s wet and freezing and Anna is constantly unhappy. And she misses her friend Avery and her cat.
Then Brendan arrives, having decided he can ‘fix’ them with his own unconventional version of psychotherapy. They will be born again. But he has an agenda and Anna is deeply suspicious.
It’s a very sad book at times, because nothing can change what has happened. Can there be a future for all of them and will it be a happy one?
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours and to NetGalley for an ARC.
About the Author
Sarah Duguid grew up on a farm in North Lincolnshire and now lives in London. Her stunning debut Look At Me was published in 2016. The Wilderness is her second novel.
+ crime fiction, dark humour, female friendship, fiction, friendship, jealousy, kidnapping, lies, marriage, murder, murder mystery, Psychological fiction, revenge, review, Scotland, Scottish Highlands, secrets, thriller
The Cliff House by Chris Brookmyre
One hen weekend, seven secrets… but only one worth killing for. Jen’s hen party is going to be out of control…
She’s rented a luxury getaway on its own private island. The helicopter won’t be back for seventy-two hours. They are alone. They think.
As well as Jen, there’s the pop diva and the estranged ex-bandmate, the tennis pro and the fashion guru, the embittered ex-sister-in-law and the mouthy future sister-in-law.
It’s a combustible cocktail, one that takes little time to ignite, and in the midst of the drunken chaos, one of them disappears. Then a message tells them that unless someone confesses her terrible secret to the others, their missing friend will be killed.
Problem is, everybody has a secret. And nobody wants to tell.
My Review
I’ve never read a Chris Brookmyre novel before, apart from the Ambrose Parry series, so I had no idea what to expect. Seven women on a hen weekend on a remote island in the Scottish Highlands. Seven more mature women, so this isn’t about silly costumes, blingy tiaras, too many shots and falling over drunk in the streets of Benidorm (or whatever young women do on hen nights these days).
Most of them go back years, some have fallen out and one or two have never met before. Jen is the one getting married. It’s her second time, the first time was to Jason, missing and declared dead, whose sister Beattie has come on the hen do. Why? None of us in our book club understood why Jen invited her, especially since Jen’s relationship with Jason was toxic (more so than we initially realise) and her soon-to-be-new sister-in-law Samira is also coming.
Jen is going to marry Zaki, but has never met his sister Samira until this weekend. Samira is a bit loud and outspoken, but that’s maybe because she’s been stuck at home with twin babies for the past six months and couldn’t wait to get away.
Michelle is a pop superstar, but fell out with childhood friend Helena when she ditched her for a record contract. I can’t remember how they know Nicolette, another childhood friend I think, but suffice to say, she’s super-glam, all TOWIE, boobs and pouty lips. She does something important at fashion house Reiss. Kennedy is the twenty-something tennis coach they met at the leisure club and have only known for a few months.
Throw Lauren into the mix – she owns the retreat and has pissed off quite a few people financially – and we have an explosive cocktail, even more so than the ones they are all drinking. Then one of them is kidnapped and all hell breaks loose. And we all know that hell hath no fury like seven drunk angry women on a hen night. With secrets and personal grudges to bear. What could go wrong?
I was never quite sure whether some parts were supposed to be funny, but I frequently laughed out loud at the improbability of it all. Jolly good fun and towards the end I believed some of it was tongue-in-cheek.
It’s probably an age thing but I certainly learnt some new vocabulary in The Cliff House. Words like ‘retconning’ which I’d never come across before. Or tabula rasa anyone? Look it up!
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
About the Author
Chris Brookmyre was a journalist before becoming a full-time novelist with the publication of his award-winning debut Quite Ugly One Morning, which established him as one of Britain’s leading crime writers. His 2016 novel Black Widow won both the McIlvanney Prize and the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award. Brookmyre’s novels have sold more than two million copies in the UK alone.
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