+ brothers, child abduction, child abuse, childhood, crime fiction, Detective novel, fiction, loss, mental illness, murder, narcissist, obsession, police drama, psychiatric hospital, psychopath, rape, revenge, review, Scandi noir, serial killer, split personality, Sweden, thriller
The Mirror Man by Lars Kepler
IF YOU SEE HIS REFLECTION IT’S ALREADY TOO LATE . . .
Seventeen-year-old Jenny is abducted in broad daylight and taken to a dilapidated, isolated house where she is chained and caged along with several other girls. Their captor is unpredictable, and as wily as he is cruel: he foils every one of their desperate attempts to escape . . . and once caught they rarely survive their punishment.
#TheMirrorMan #larskepler Instagram @larskepler @ZaffreBooks #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour
Five years later, Jenny is found dead in a public park, and the police are scrambling to find a lead among the scant evidence. But Detective Joona Linna realizes that this murder has an eerie connection to a death that was declared a suicide years before. And now when Mia, a seventeen-year-old orphan, goes missing, it becomes clear to Joona that they are dealing with a serial killer-and the murderous rampage has just begun.
As the police close in on the killer, Mia and her fellow captives are plunged into ever greater danger, and Joona finds himself in a seemingly impossible race against time to save their young lives.
My Review
This moves at such a breakneck speed I almost forgot to breathe. At times too nasty to read – I skipped much of the dog fight – almost too far-fetched to be believable, but I still carried on, only stopping to work and sleep.
I said this in another review, but I am going to repeat is at it relevant to The Mirror Man. ‘There’s something about Scandi noir that makes it different from our own crime novels and police procedurals. It’s stripped back, realistic, never shies away from anything. It’s quite ‘hard’ though I’m not sure how to explain what I mean by that. The hero or heroine is usually tired, in or out of a messy relationship, drinks too much, has been around the block a few times.’
Our hero in this case is Joona Linna, a detective with The Swedish National Crime Unit, who appears damaged beyond repair, to the point where his daughter is distancing herself from him and he sometimes resorts to visiting an opium den. However, it’s not Joona who is the drinker – that is reserved for Pamela, whose husband Martin almost died when he fell through the ice on a fishing trip and Pamela’s daughter from a previous relationship is missing, presumed drowned.
Martin is in shock after the accident, and has totally retreated into himself, suffering from complex PTSD. So when he sees a murder in the local park while walking his dog Loke in the middle of a rainy night, he freezes and remembers nothing, other than that he was there.
The murder he has seen is that of Jenny Lind, abducted five years earlier while walking home from school. The autopsy reveals that she was freeze-branded on the back of her head, which triggers a memory in Joona about a ‘suicide’ many years before.
In the present day, Pamela wants to foster a troubled teenager called Mia as she feels she is ready to offer a stable home. Unfortunately social services turn her down because of Martin’s unstable behaviour and his arrest for the murder. And now Mia has also been abducted and the police are struggling to find any clues.
The plot becomes more and more complicated, the abductions and treatment of the victims kept in cages more and more sinister, a raid on a house just weird and the trip by Joona and two undercover police officers to a horrendous secret ‘night club’ called Eagle’s Nest the worst of all. Illegal boxing, dog and cock fighting, prostitution, drugs – it has it all.
This is not a book for the squeamish or faint-hearted – I’ve said that before – but I really mean it in this case. It’s dark, really dark, and there is no humour or police banter to lighten it. Having said that it’s brilliantly written, terrifying and compulsive.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours and to NetGalley for an ARC
About the Author
Lars Kepler is the pseudonym of critically acclaimed husband and wife team Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril (b. 1966) and Alexander Ahndoril (b. 1967), authors of the No. 1 internationally bestselling Joona Linna series.
With seven instalments to date, the series has sold 15 million copies in 40 languages. The Ahndorils were both established writers before they adopted the pen name Lars Kepler, and have each published several acclaimed novels.
About Bonnier Books UK
Bonnier Books UK is a major UK publisher with sales of £80m. Home to 12 adult and children’s imprints, we publish across a wide variety of genres for different ages. From crime to reading group fiction; memoir to self-help; activity to reference – we believe every book matters.
Our talented authors include Wilbur Smith, Lynda La Plante, Heather Morris, Rosie Goodwin, T.M. Logan, Stacey Halls, Prof. Steve Peters, Ollie Ollerton, Konnie Huq, Garth Nix, Jonny Duddle and Rochelle Humes – to name but a few. We’re also proud to publish for major brands including Disney, Marvel and Bear Grylls.
Bonnier Books UK is owned by Bonnier Books, a family-owned company headquartered in Sweden. Bonnier Books is a top-15 world publisher.
+ crime fiction, dark humour, Detective novel, fiction, murder, police drama, police procedural, review, serial killer, thriller
The Murder Book – A Tom Thorne Novel by Mark Billingham
Tom Thorne finally has it all.
In Nicola Tanner and Phil Hendricks, Thorne has good friends by his side. His love life is newly reformed by a promising relationship and he is happy in the job he has devoted his life to.
As he sets off hunting the woman responsible for a series of grisly murders, Thorne has no way of knowing that he will be plunged into a nightmare from which he may never wake. A nightmare that has a name. Thorne’s past threatens to catch up with him and a ruinous secret is about to be revealed. If he wants to save himself and his friends, he will have to do the unthinkable.
Tom Thorne finally has a lot to lose.
@MarkBillingham #TomThorne #TheMurderBook
My Review
I have read one of Mark Billingham’s Tom Thorne novels before – Cry Baby – but this one was even better. Mark is an experienced, clever writer who combines excitement, gory murder, dark humour, comradeship, serial killers and hilarious police banter and wraps them all up seamlessly with no loose ends. No mean feat.
Reading this with my fellow Pigeons was a great way to enjoy the book, as we could discuss our theories, try and work out who might be untrustworthy, and even hand out a death sentence when we thought it was justified. Metaphorically speaking of course.
Detective Inspector Tom Thorne is a complex character, with a great deal of history, which can sometimes cloud his judgment. He is prone to losing his temper at times. Sidekick DI Nicola Tanner is also complex, something she did a while ago coming back to haunt her.
My favourite though is still Phil Hendricks, a wonderfully drawn character, with a wicked and often inappropriate sense of humour. More tattoos than Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, plus piercings in places we probably prefer not to know about, Phil is the pathologist who examines the murder victims.
Thorne has a new girlfriend – forensic psychiatrist Dr Melita Perera – Hendricks tells him she’s out of his league, but I disagree, I didn’t warm to her. She has clients with certain predilections (one of them gets aroused by giving and receiving enemas) and/or a history of violence, but she resents Thorne’s warnings to be careful. It’s her job.
I can’t say much more because of spoilers, but Thorne will meet his nemesis, which will drag up the past for him and his colleagues and put a number of people’s lives in danger.
A thrilling read by a master of his genre, I look forward to more of the same very soon.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
About the Author
Mark Billingham was born and brought up in Birmingham. Having worked for some years as an actor and more recently as a TV writer and stand-up comedian his first crime novel was published in 2001. Mark lives in North London with his wife and two children.
+ childhood, cult, eighties, family, fiction, lies, love, narcissist, psycopath, religion, review, secrets, Voodoo
Angel Town by Fiona Cane
What if you were born into a doomsday cult and knew nothing of the outside world? What if everything you’d been told was a lie?
The clock is ticking …
Wayward teenager, Lola, is stunned when, out of the blue, she is summoned by her leader. Oblivious to the resentment her promotion has whipped up and determined to shine, she enters Michael’s inner sanctum.
#AngelTown @FionaCaneWrites #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours
Single mother and activist, Donna’s search for her son takes her from Brighton to Edenville, a once-peaceful commune in the Colorado desert. Trouble is brewing. The guards on the gate are armed. No one can leave; no visitors allowed.
But who is Michael? And what exactly is his agenda? As the line between what’s true and what is not grows increasingly blurred, time is fast running out …
My Review
There’s nothing I like better than a story about a religious cult and they don’t come much better than Angel Town. I read this in two sittings, it was that exciting, I just had to keep reading.
Activist Donna lives in Brighton, having brought up her three children on her own after her husband Rupert just upped and disappeared when the youngest, Jos, was only six months old. She never heard from him again. Sixteen years later, Jos has left home and moved into a squat, his behaviour having become more and more irrational. Then one day he vanishes and all she has to go on is that he left with someone called Naomi, and that he found a picture of his father.
Over in California, fifteen-year-old Lola lives with her mother, Esther, in Edenville, a once-peaceful commune in the Colorado desert. The Guardians of God live in relative harmony, believing that the world will end on Thursday, 12th May 1983, Ascension Day. That’s only a few months away, but their leader, Michael, has told them that his followers will all ascend with him to heaven and be reunited there with God. And they believe him. After all, he can fly and has wings and can hear the voice of God.
I used to work for someone who told me that at the second coming, all those who had found Jesus would be saved and everyone else would be ‘zapped’. Edenville believes in something similar, just narrowed down to a few hundred people ie its residents.
Lately, however, things have changed. The guards on the gates are dressed like ninjas and carry guns. And Michael’s behaviour has become more erratic. Then he summons Lola to live with him and everything changes. Why has he chosen her – no-one knows but it certainly causes unrest amongst the citizens of Edenville. Only Esther knows the truth and now she is in mortal danger.
I love this book. I have always been fascinated by religious cults. You don’t hear as much about them nowadays as you did in the eighties and nineties. I remember hearing about people who ran off to join the Moonies (most came back eventually), but the most famous was the Waco siege in 1993. The Branch Davidians as the sect was known, lived a simple life, preparing for the imminent return of Jesus. But when David Koresh, who declared himself the final prophet of the Branch, took over, things took a sinister turn and he began taking ‘spiritual wives,’ several of whom were reportedly as young as 11. This led to allegations of child abuse, but more famously, a stand-off with the FBI lasting 51 days resulted in a massive fire and almost 80 men, women and children, including Koresh himself, were killed.
Of course, Angel Town is set ten years before Waco, but the parallels are still there. Jim Jones and Jonestown are mentioned in the book – another religious cult which resulted in the mass murder-suicide in 1978, of 909 people.
I find it so fascinating, partly because I never understand the concept of brainwashing to this extent, not that I deny its existence, I just don’t get it. I suppose these people pray on the vulnerable, but that is probably too simplistic. Though for Lola and the other children, they have never known any other life.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
Born and educated in Sussex, Fiona Cane graduated from Exeter University with a degree in philosophy. She worked in London in film, TV and entertainment PR, before moving back to Sussex with her husband and young family. When she wasn’t coaching tennis or looking after her two children, she’d be scratching away at her latest novel.
She says: “I’m unusual in that I write across several genres – mystery, cosy mystery, psychological thriller, literary thriller and coming of age – but the one thing my books have in common is that they will keep you turning the page. I have written five other books: the mystery, A Song Unsung (2021); the literary thriller, The Other Side of the Mountain; the cosy mystery, A Push Too Far, the psychological thriller, When the Dove Cried; and the mystery Killing Fame.”
The author explains her inspiration for Angel Town:
“I was a teenager in the eighties and wanted to travel the world, but my mother wouldn’t allow it. She was convinced I would fall in love and join a cult. ‘It’s what girls did in those days,’ she is fond of telling me. She had a point, cults such as The People’s Temple, The Branch Davidians, The Children of God, and The Bagwan Shree Rajneesh, were grabbing global headlines at the time. But having read Philosophy at university, where my religious beliefs were actively drummed out of me, I was convinced I could never be taken in by the nonsense spouted by a superficially charming person and give up everything – family, wealth, possessions – to blindly follow. However, during my research I discovered that, under the right conditions, there are plenty of sane, intelligent people who do. No one, it seems, is immune.”
+ Aussie Noir, Australia, child abduction, childhood, crime fiction, family, fiction, jealousy, lies, loss, murder, obsession, private investigator, revenge, review, secrets, sisters, thriller, twins
Wake by Shelley Burr
EVERYBODY THINKS THEY KNOW MINA McCREERY.
EVERYONE HAS A THEORY ON WHAT HAPPENED TO HER SISTER.
NOW IT’S TIME TO FIND OUT THE TRUTH…
Mina McCreery’s sister Evelyn disappeared nineteen years ago. Her life has been defined by the intense public interest in the case. Now an anxious and reclusive adult, she lives alone on her family’s destocked sheep farm.
When Lane, a private investigator, approaches her with an offer to reinvestigate the case, she rejects him. The attention has had nothing but negative consequences for her and her family, and never brought them closer to an answer.
Lane wins her trust when his unconventional methods show promise, but he has his own motivations for wanting to solve the case, and his obsession with the answer will ultimately risk both their lives.
Superbly written, taut and compassionate, Wake looks at what can happen when people’s private tragedies become public property, and the ripples of trauma that follow violent crimes. Wake won the CWA Debut Dagger in 2019.
My Review
Nineteen years ago Mina’s twin sister Evelyn disappeared from their home. Did she have a terrible accident or was she abducted and killed. Her body was never found, making the former unlikely, but the area around the property is huge so finding her is almost impossible. Even using cadaver dogs like Echo.
Mina’s mother wrote a book about the disappearance and Evie became public property. Everyone had an opinion, particularly the members of the MyMurder forum. Did Mina kill her sister because she was the pretty one and she was jealous? Did the parents do it (think Madeleine McCann and the hate-filled tweets about the McCanns)?
Alanna’s sister also went missing, but her case was never so high profile. No link to Evie could ever be found. It was thought at the time that her father took her and they were living miles away under false names.
In the meantime Lane Holland, a private investigator, believes he can solve the mystery. Because he’s done it before and anyway there’s a huge reward and he’s broke. His mum died and his father is in prison, so he has to look after younger sister Lynnie and put her through university. But his father could be eligible for parole soon and Lane is terrified for Lynnie.
A complicated plot and one where you can never be sure who is telling the truth. Because Mina lies, so does Alanna and even Lane is hiding something.
Mina is not very nice to be honest. She’s not quite a recluse – she works and has a friend which turns out to be Alanna, but she’s not very nice either. I suppose you can’t blame them after what happened, but Mina is also selfish and puts others at risk.
I loved reading this book with my fellow book club readers. We had theories (of course) but the developments are so much bigger than who took Evie. A brilliant book.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
About the Author
Shelley Burr is a writer and public servant from Canberra, Australia. Wake is her first novel.
+ alcoholism, brothers, child abuse, crime fiction, fiction, friendship, love, murder, mystery, revenge, review, secrets, thriller
Cielo by Jane Markland
Who do you trust when you can’t trust yourself?
Following his release from prison, Nathan arrives at Cielo determined to change his life for the better.
After prison, and beating addiction, he has a vision, and he’s discovered a talent, a gift with plants. Max Harrison wants him to create a special garden, The White Terrace, full of scent and white petals, Max wants to die there, his addiction to vodka and grief consuming everything.
#Cielo @markland_jane @SpellBoundBooks @Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour
Slowly Nathan begins to fall under his spell, Max is full of insight, kindness. His affinity to music and playing Rachmaninov on the piano reduce Nathan to tears of joy. Only underneath the surface, and the seductive surroundings of Cielo, Nathan discovers the other gardeners disappeared. Never to be heard of again.
As he begins to uncover disturbing clues, Nathan must ask himself, just who is Max Harrison? Can he trust him? Can he love him?
My Review
The first half of the book gives no clue as to the horror of the second half. It starts out as a story about someone who has been redeemed after a life of drugs and crime. Nathan robbed houses to fund his drug habit and sold drugs on the street. He ended up living on the streets and going to prison numerous times. The book is written from his point of view.
Eventually, Nathan got help and therapy through the prison and his probation officer, and learnt about gardening, which became his life and passion. Then a dream job came his way. His employer is the once famous and extremely wealthy DJ Max Harrison, who is now an alcoholic recluse, living in the massive house he won in a card game. He wants his garden turned into a thing of beauty, particularly the rose garden, which he wants to be all white, so he can die there as if it were ‘heaven’s gate’.
I’m not quite sure how I feel about Nathan or Max or the rest of Max’s family. Everyone feels a bit sorry for themselves, though one can understand why. There’s a lot of negativity going on which Nathan needs to rise above if he’s going to turn his life – and Max’s – around.
I have to be honest, I much preferred the second half. The first half feels like the warm up, setting the scene for what’s about to come. Then suddenly it turned into a murder who dunnit, a thriller. The pace quickened and the excitement grew.
PS The whole DJ thing went right over my head, I’ve never understood the genre, but the idea of listening to someone playing the piano beautifully, ‘That was Rachmaninoff,’ says Max to Nathan, ‘his second concerto, the easy one,’ would be a dream.
Many thanks to @zooloo2008 for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
Some Words from the Author
“I started writing Cielo in August 2014, it goes like this, I used to live on the North Norfolk coast, and one day cycled past this old mansion, it’s still lived in, it had pony paddocks and turrets and was all old flint (the stone of Norfolk) but with lots of newer additions. The sort of house you saw in earlier Midsomer Murders episodes in fact.
“I thought what could I do with that house, who would live there? So, Cielo was born. I knew I wanted to do a story about someone with addictions (it’s where I worked in the past and the whole homeless issue is so misunderstood). What if? What if an ex addict goes there for a new start to work in the gardens. Who would own a house like that, half decaying, yet round the next corner – pure luxury.
“Nathan was a dream to write, he’s half me, half every hopeless, yet hopeful person I’ve ever met. I knew I had to give him a focus; and gardening seemed perfect. I made him choose gardening as something fresh and new and full of new growth. The roses thing is real, I have Alberic Barbier in my small terrace garden deep in the city of Norwich.
“Max is someone I used to know, how he talks, how he is, the two together took a bit of time, I didn’t want Max to overwhelm Nathan, and first person made that easier for me, rather than both narrating, which they did in the very first draft. Someone I was very close to once was that DJ, but it was making that piano come alive which made the book flow for me. I am not musical, but somehow that while piano and the white garden made everything flow from there.
“The first draft grew through taking part in my first writing course with Dr Stephen Carver, at the Unthank School of Writing. From there Stephen (a reader with TLC) did two manuscript assessments with me and I sent it out on submission, and didn’t get anywhere. I then met Hayley Webster while trying to re-draft Cielo during NaNoWriMo, we met in a café between Cromer and Norwich during a write-in, and she’s been my mentor and saviour ever since.
“Hayley read what was by now my fourth draft and loved it, but suggested subtle changes. I turned that book around in about a month and sent it back and she said it was wonderful, had made her cry and she loved all the food and the flowers and somewhere I knew it was almost right. I sent it out again and ten agents later, nothing.
“It sat on my computer until a few weeks ago, when Hayley suggested I sent it to SpellBound Books. So that’s what I did.
“Since Cielo I’ve written another novel, The Hunt for Delphi, which is currently having yet another edit! I am now outlining my third novel.
“When I am not writing, I am a busy medical secretary at the local hospital working with consultants who look after patients with liver conditions. I have two grown up children, and two grandchildren. My loves in life (since the age of 11 when I read Jane Eyre all the way through), are reading, making up stories about other people, nature, gardening and the joy and pain following my local football team (current state extreme pain).”
Follow her at:
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1256024161
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/janemarkland/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/markland_jane
Buy Links
Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cielo-beautifully-evocative-thriller-nothing-ebook/dp/B09Z31HTW7
Amazon US – https://www.amazon.com/Cielo-beautifully-evocative-thriller-nothing-ebook/dp/B09Z31HTW7
+ art, fiction, history, literature, museum, mystery, mythology, religion, review, short stories, short story, supernatural
Perfect: Stories of the Impossible by Sally Emerson
In these stories of the impossible, master of the domestic thriller Sally Emerson introduces the eerie and supernatural into her keen-eyed portraits of everyday life …
A clerk working in a public register office begins to receive death certificates dated in the future, but can she alter fate and save their victims? A woman unable to have children discovers a way of cloning her husband, but is their cloned son destined to repeat the mistakes of his father? A suburban mother is prescribed health supplements with rather amorous side-effects; can she resist its sway and keep her hands off her neighbours?
#Perfect #StoriesOfTheImpossible @sallyemerson8 @GracePublicity
Emerson’s tales of quotidian life invaded by forces beyond our control are both beguiling and uncanny, and ultimately uplifting as she celebrates reality and unreality in its many forms.
Fantastical, humorous and unfailingly honest in its depiction of humanity, Perfect will stay with the reader long after they leave the magic of its pages.
My Review
What great fun these stories are in a dark sort of way.
We start with Perfect and Portia and husband Jack want a child. After numerous unsuccessful attempts including IVF, she announces she has found another way.
‘IVF hasn’t worked,’ she says… ‘my proposal is this….you know that certain animals have been cloned…’
Jack is understandably unimpressed, ‘That’s out of the question…it is a monstrous idea.’
But Portia is not so easily deterred. What happens when Jack himself is cloned? Will the child turn out to be ‘perfect’?
Next we have a story called Lust. Emma feels under the weather so she takes the advice of an assistant at the local health food shop. An array of vitamin and herbal supplements especially for her. But which should she take and in what order? She was sure the assistant had told her but she couldn’t remember. Google came up with nothing. Oh well, go for it. Just take one of each. But the combination has some very unusual side effects and when the plumber rings the doorbell, and he turns out to be rather attractive, well…..
In Death Certificates, Susan looks after her cantankerous, dying father, but also works full time in London sending out copies of death, marriage and birth certificates. Then one ordinary day, two certificates appear in her tray. The death of a politician in an explosion and also that of a child. But the strange thing about them is that they are dated in the future. She puts them on her boss’s desk but he says he never saw them. What should she do? If she alerts the ‘victims’ they will think she is mad. If she doesn’t, how can she live with herself if it turns out to be true.
I loved this story. Just up my street.
But story four – Fairy Tales – was initially my favourite. Charlie is delighted to move out of his parents’ house into a flat at a price he can afford. He is at college studying to be an architect, when he sees the advert for a room with private bathroom and shared kitchen in a lovely house in Clapham. The ten page form he had to fill in, with questions about his likes and dislikes, including his favourite foods, was a bit unusual, but he may as well take a look.
When he arrives at his new lodgings, Mrs Watson tells him there is to be another lodger, an art student called Elinor. They would be sharing the kitchen, which always seemed to be stocked with the food he had said he liked. There is also regular ‘visitor’ – a fox in the garden, which Charlie watches with interest.
But all is not as it seems and things just get weirder and weirder.
Storms Like This is much shorter. Probably my least favourite, Phillip and Lydia are a totally mismatched couple who don’t seem to love each other very much. Lydia did love Phillip, or anyway feel compassion for him, in part because there was something so fearful about his brown eyes and his short, stocky body.’ Sounds more like my now sadly gone elderly Jack Russell. Lydia plays the violin and wants to join an orchestra, but Phillip finds her playing really annoying.
Everything about Phillip is annoying. I can’t understand why she married him. However, they are on their third anniversary cruise when a massive storm hits in more than just the weather.
Lucky With The Weather is the story of Mary, her two gorgeous grandchildren, Luke and Emily, and her rather odd husband of over 40 years, Matthew. What does he get up to in his locked office and with his even stranger ‘friends’? What are the weather maps for?
Another of my favourites, I could see myself in Mary – I have four gorgeous granddaughters – but my husband doesn’t have any weird secrets (at least I hope he doesn’t – though if they are secret….)
Mary wants to organise a treasure hunt for the whole family the following week, but the weather forecast is horrendous. However, that doesn’t deter Matthew from telling them to go ahead. What is he up to? Truly original and entertaining.
It took me a while to understand The Couple. I had no idea what was going on initially. Martin Carter, whose ancestor John Carter, The Master of St Edmunds, was burned to death as a heretic in the thirteenth century, is trying to find out more about him and his wonderful paintings.
In Los Angeles, while visiting a museum, Martin encounters two mysterious people, a beautiful woman with long white hair and a slightly overweight man in a linen jacket, who is a juggler (not sure why). No-one else sees them, apart from a girl called Alice who was knocked over by them on the steps outside. Who are they? Are they real? Were they actually there?
‘Oh, I’m always around,’ says the white-haired woman, ‘I’m on every street, on every corner, in every room, you only have to call me. But if you do, there will be trouble, that’s the problem.’
Martin has nightmares about the woman, while Alice has weird dreams about the man.
‘Terrifying, but electrifying. Did they frighten you?’ she asks.
Wow this final story was in a totally different league to the rest. Terrifying and electrifying, just like Alice’s description of The Couple. Good and Evil working together. Think Good Omens but without the humour – just brilliant.
Many thanks to Grace Pilkington Publicity for inviting me to be part of the blog tour.
About the Author
Sally Emerson is the award-winning author of six novels, including the bestselling Fire
Child, Heat and Separation, and a trio of anthologies of poetry and prose. Perfect is her first collection of short stories. She lives in London. Her website is www.sallyemerson.com
Sweets from Strangers
In search of adventure
Orphans were far more likely to have adventures. And although I did love my parents, they were a hindrance. I wanted to be free from piano practice and Sunday School. So I must appear to be alone in the world, like Jane Eyre. I chose Marianne Fairfax as my new name as it was far less mundane than Linda.
But a trip to the beach turns out to be a stark warning. Never take sweets from strangers – they may be disguised as almond tarts and heart shaped crockery, but the danger remains the same.
Another great short story from Barbara Jennings. I really enjoyed it.
Written by Barbara Jennings
Performed by Emmeline Braefield
Produced by Cat on a Piano Productions
Music: Seaside Piazza by Aaron Kenny
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…
+ community, Devon, fiction, folklore, friendship, literature, music, review, seventies, sixties
Villager by Tom Cox
Tom Cox’s masterful debut novel synthesises his passion for music, nature and folklore into a psychedelic and enthralling exploration of village life and the countryside that sustains it.
There’s so much to know. It will never end, I suspect, even when it does. So much in all these lives, so many stories, even in this small place.
Villages are full of tales: some are forgotten while others become a part of local folklore. But the fortunes of one West Country village are watched over and irreversibly etched into its history as an omniscient, somewhat crabby, presence keeps track of village life.
#Villager @cox_tom Instagram @21stcenturyyokel @unbounders #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour
In the late sixties a Californian musician blows through Underhill where he writes a set of haunting folk songs that will earn him a group of obsessive fans and a cult following. Two decades later, a couple of teenagers disturb a body on the local golf course. In 2019, a pair of lodgers discover a one-eyed rag doll hidden in the walls of their crumbling and neglected home. Connections are forged and broken across generations, but only the landscape itself can link them together. A landscape threatened by property development and superfast train corridors and speckled by the pylons whose feet have been buried across the moor.
My Review
Villager is written from the point of view of a number of different ‘characters’, one of whom is an American folk musician called RJ McKendree who ‘blows through’ in the late sixties and stays a while, writing songs inspired by the people of the village of Underhill and the surrounding countryside. He meets many interesting people while he is there. Years later his iconic album Wallflower, recorded in 1968 and released in 1975 becomes the focus of a cult following.
‘Two decades later, a couple of teenagers disturb a body on the local golf course. In 2019, a pair of lodgers discover a one-eyed rag doll hidden in the walls of their crumbling and neglected home.’ The book jumps around between the decades and sometimes feels a bit disjointed but stay with it. Towards the end, we hear from the man who was living in the same house in 1932 and he tells us the origin of the one-eyed doll and why it was hidden in the wall.
I put ‘characters’ above in inverted commas because one of them is not a person – it’s the moor itself. It watches what goes on – a jet skier and his sons disturbing the peace and creating a dangerous situation for the people swimming. But the moor remembers what this man did years ago, when he knocked down a pony and left it to die. The moor is privy to secrets no-one else knows. And it remembers the dark, the old dark, before ‘the time of light’.
‘I honestly can’t tell you how dark it once was around here. I couldn’t even begin to make you understand.’
But my favourite part is about Bob and Sally in 2021 at the start of the pandemic and then 22 years later in 2043. Sally has died and we see what the world might look like in the future.
‘Everyone knew the state of play now, the chorus of denial of two decades ago had fizzled down to a low hum, and. while plenty was being done to stop the acceleration into the void, the two major obstacles standing in the way – corporate greed, and the illusory drive towards convenience – could not be circumnavigated.’
Visors had been introduced ten years earlier – Bob refused to be fitted – Shropshire is disappearing under water, and Bob, now 73, believes that, ‘the planet as it had been known for the last few thousand years would end soon.’ He has nothing electronic, no phone, no internet, little access to news. He believes he is lucky in that he can afford to make that choice and join the Resistance.
His cousins in Stroud chose not to join the Resistance. Now if anyone is going to join the Resistance it would be the people in Stroud!
There is so much in this book that is prophetic, often funny, sometimes sad, and always makes you think. I frequently had to go back and read a sentence or a paragraph again because if you read too quickly you might miss something important.
It’s not a quick, easy read. The language is lyrical and meandering and sometimes the individual stories appear a tad overlong. This is a book to be savoured when you are not in a rush, when you are sitting in the sunshine, on holiday, and without the daily interruptions of life. It breaks all the rules of traditional storytelling and replaces them with its own.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author and more
‘I’m writing a novel. My first. It was twenty years ago this month that I took a pen and a notebook up to a hillside in the south of England and decided I was going to write a novel and that doing so was more important to me than anything else in the whole universe, so I thought it was about time. The novel is called Villager and already feels like the most exciting flood of words I’ve ever put down on paper. It also feels new and at times quite frightening, which I have learned, from my previous experience of writing books, both tend to be positives. I would be extraordinarily grateful if you, dear readers, who have so kindly funded my previous four books, were able to help me transfer this new, exciting, frightening experience into something real that will appear on bookshelves late next year. A bit more grateful than before, even, to tell the truth. Because, for me, this feels like the big one. Not big in the sense of “This book could be big, commercially!” But big in the sense of what I’m trying to do, the challenges and risks it represents, and what an enormous, emotive place it occupies on the map of my own personal and creative history.’
Tom Cox lives in Devon. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling The Good, the Bad and the Furry and the William Hill Sports Book longlisted Bring Me the Head of Sergio Garcia. 21st-Century Yokel was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize, and the titular story of Help the Witch won a Shirley Jackson Award. @cox_tom
Tom Cox has 80k followers on Twitter and 33k on Instagram. He is also the man behind the enormously popular Why My Cat is Sad account, which has 240k followers.
Tom is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Good, the Bad and the Furry.
+ coming-of-age, family, female friendship, fiction, friendship, lies, literature, love, Magical realism, motherhood, review, secrets, sisters, wales, whimsical, World War Two, WW2
Only May by Carol Lovekin
A young woman haunted by ghosts, magic and long-kept family secrets, in a new novel from the author of the Wales Book of the Year 21 shortlisted Wild Spinning Girls.
I give you fair warning, if you’re planning on lying to me, don’t look me in the eye. It’s May’s 17th birthday – making the air tingle with a tension she doesn’t fully understand. But she knows her mother and her aunt are being evasive; secrets are being kept.
#OnlyMay @carollovekin @honno #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour
Like her grandmother before her, May has her own magic: the bees whisper to her as they hover in the garden … the ghosts chatter in the graveyard. And she can’t be fooled by a lie.
She becomes determined to find out what is being kept from her. But when May starts to uncover her own story, she threatens to bring her mother and aunt’s carefully constructed family to the edge of destruction….
My Review
“When my bees swarm….I tell myself it is the death of a lie. I keep still, let the vibrations surround me….Come with us. And, as I am pulled into the hive mind, the bees lay a sleep spell on me. Their best remedy.”
Such poetry, such lyrical writing. I just love this. So many beautiful passages I could quote, but then it wouldn’t be a review, just a series of extracts. Maybe no bad thing.
It’s the 1950s. Just-turned-seventeen-year-old May lives with her mother Esme, her father Billy, seriously wounded and shell-shocked from his experiences in the second world war, and Esme’s sister Ffion. Esme, Billy and May live in the main family house, while somewhat-Bohemian Ffion lives in a caravan in the garden. May and Esme both work at the Drovers Hotel, owned by the indomitable and slightly scary Constance Cadwallader and her live-in lover Amelie Griffin.
‘Keep it under your hat though, May,’ says Ffion, ‘It’s a secret, okay, and no-one’s business but theirs.’ If it became common knowledge, certain people might hate them. ‘They aren’t hurting anyone. Trouble is, I’m afraid prejudice brings out the coward in a lot of people.’
But Constance is lying to her about something else and May can tell. Because May can see who is telling lies – it’s a special gift – like conversing with the bees and hearing ghosts in the graveyard. And Esme and Ffion also have secrets, secrets that will change everything if they ever come out. Yes, even Esme, who ‘loved so deeply, she was in danger of wearing out her heart.’
What can I say. I loved this book. It’s a slow burn, but you need to savour every word, every phrase, every sentence. Just look at this quote. It’s pure poetry:
‘Years later, she was still finding them – slivers of her heart floating in her body. She collected them, like the shards of broken crockery she unearthed in the garden, patterned with grief, saved them for better times that never seemed to come.’
The story is both sad and joyous, the characters among the loveliest I have read about in recent years. There are no bad people here, just a group of characters who thought that what they did was for the best.
Sometimes it takes a while for a story to sink in and it’s only afterwards that you realise you have read something really special. This is such a book.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
As an aside, my friend and I were out on a walk when she spotted a big, fluffy bee on what I think was a Californian Lilac. I could see her little legs (the bee’s not my friend’s) and feet working away, flicking petals all over the place. ‘She’s working so hard isn’t she,’ said my friend. Thinking of May, I started talking to the bee. We both did. I wish I’d taken a photo.
About the Author
Carol Lovekin has Irish blood and a Welsh heart. She was born in Warwickshire and has lived in mid Wales since 1979. A feminist, she finds fiction the perfect vehicle for telling women’s collective stories. Her books reflect her love of the landscape and mythology of her adopted home.
Also by Carol Lovekin:
GHOSTBIRD: ‘Charming, quirky, magical’ Joanne Harris
SNOW SISTERS: ‘… a novel of magic, of potent spells, and of great beauty.’ Louise
Beech
WILD SPINNING GIRLS: ‘an author with magic in her writing whose words enhance
the lives of those who read her.’ Linda’s Book Bag
+ cosy mystery, crime fiction, Detective novel, fiction, murder, murder mystery, private investigator, review
Framed (Jax Diamond Mysteries#2) by Gail Meath
It’s a deadly game of who’s who, and who isn’t.
Things get pretty sticky for PI Jax Diamond and his courageous canine partner, Ace, when their best friend, a cop, is framed for murder. And not just anyone’s murder. The victim is the fiancée of the most notorious gangster in the city, Orin Marino, Jax’s worst enemy.
#Framed @GailMeathAuthor @Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour
Laura Graystone, the budding Broadway Star and Jax’s new squeeze, proves to be an ingenious partner as they sift through clues trying to find the real murderer. But when Jax is pinched for another crime, Laura and Ace are forced to go undercover.
Hang on to your seat as Jax, Laura and Ace take you on another crazy, whodunit ride during the Roaring Twenties. Where no one is who they seem, and those who do, aren’t. Anything goes during an era of fun and frolic, song and dance, speakeasies, gangsters, bootlegging, and bribes.
My Review
I adored Songbird – the first book in the Jax Diamond series – and this one is just as good, if not better. It’s a rip-roaring ride through a world of murder, gangsters, night clubs, jazz and bootlegging.
Sometimes you can’t help liking the enemy (remember Denzel Washington in American Gangster) and I had a soft spot for Orin Marino right from the beginning. After all, he was Jax’s best mate in the army back when, but then people do change over time, so we need to keep an open mind.
Jax Diamond is our hero – tall, blond and handsome, with a wicked sense of humour. Ex-police officer turned private detective, Jax counts Ace the German Shepherd as his faithful and very clever sidekick. And now he has ‘songbird’ Laura Greystone, feisty, fearless, beautiful and talented on his side. And she knows all about cars. What’s that all about?
So when Orin’s fiancée is found murdered, the intrepid three must discover who is responsible as Jax’s police officer friend Murph is being set up for the murder. One problem though, the last time Jax and Orin met they had a real physical fight, and Jax is blinkered as to who is involved. Orin Marino, end of.
But what’s his motive – apparently he adored his fiancée – and why was Murph hit over the head and almost drowned if he was the killer? It all gets very complicated and then Jax is also implicated and wanted for murder. Where will it end?
It’s a fast-paced, quick and easy read, always exciting and with a brilliant cast of characters. I can’t wait for the next in the series. I’m already casting it for its Netflix series.
Many thanks to @zooloo2008 for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
Award-winning author Gail Meath writes historical romance novels that will whisk you away to another time and place in history where you will meet fascinating characters, both fictional and real, who will capture your heart and soul. Meath loves writing about little or unknown people, places and events in history, rather than relying on the typical stories and settings.
Follow her at:
Facebook: https://facebook.com/Gail-Meath-Author-121289219261348
Instagram: https://instagram.com/gailmeathauthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GailMeathAuthor
Website: https://www.gailmeath.com
Buy Links
Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/FRAMED-JAX-DIAMOND-MYSTERIES-Book-ebook/dp/B09L8FG6DH
Amazon US – https://www.amazon.com/FRAMED-JAX-DIAMOND-MYSTERIES-Book-ebook/dp/B09L8FG6DH
+ community, dementia, feel-good, fiction, friends, friendship, loneliness, love, review, romance
The People on Platform 5 by Clare Pooley
Nobody ever talks to strangers on the train. It’s a rule. But what would happen if they did? From the New York Times and Globe and Mail bestselling author of The Authenticity Project, a heartwarming novel about unexpected friendships and the joy of connecting.
Every day Iona, a larger-than-life magazine advice columnist, travels the ten stops from Hampton Court to Waterloo Station by train, accompanied by her dog, Lulu. Every day she sees the same people, whom she knows only by nickname: Impossibly-Pretty-Constant-Reader and Terribly-Lonely-Teenager. Of course, they never speak. Seasoned commuters never do.
Then one morning, the man she calls Smart-But-Sexist-Manspreader chokes on a grape right in front of her. He’d have died were it not for the timely intervention of Sanjay, a nurse, who gives him the Heimlich maneuver.
This single event starts a chain reaction, and an eclectic group of people with almost nothing in common except their commute discover that a chance encounter can blossom into much more. It turns out that talking to strangers can teach you about the world around you – and even more about yourself.
My Review
I enjoyed The Authenticity Project, but The People on Platform 5 takes feelgood to a whole new level. Warm, funny and totally relatable – it’s a masterclass in how to write a heartwarming story.
Magazine therapist Iona, high-flyer Piers, cancer nurse Sanjay, pretty bookworm Emmie (who Sanjay fancies like mad) and teenager Martha are thrown together every day on a journey of ten stops from Hampton Court to Waterloo Station. We also meet David, whose marriage is on the rocks, gym owner Jake and of course Iona’s dog Lulu who has her own seat on the train and God help anyone who tries to sit there.
No-one ever speaks – Iona’s first rule of commuting – until one morning the man opposite starts to choke on a grape and Sanjay comes to the rescue. And this mismatched group of misfits (my apologies for calling them that – it’s not meant as an insult) are forced to speak to each other. And Iona is the glue that holds them together.
This is such a lovely story and I adored reading it in daily staves with my online book club friends, as we could discuss all the characters and their sometimes strange behaviour. Why does Iona think she is an old, saggy, baggy, has-been at 57? She had a colourful life, so why give up now? And why does Piers behave like a 50-year-old when he is only 38? We did laugh at some of the crazy goings-on and never more so than at the tale of Sanjay’s mother Meera and her innocent use of inappropriate emojis.
It’s such a happy book, though often tinged with sadness, because not everything can be fixed. And it also inspired what is now my new favourite hashtag #bemoreiona.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, the author and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
About the Author
Clare Pooley graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge and spent twenty years in the heady world of advertising. Clare’s memoir – The Sober Diaries – has helped thousands of people around the world to quit drinking. The Authenticity Project, Clare’s first novel, was a New York Times bestseller, a BBC Radio 2 book club pick, and winner of the RNA debut novel award.
Clare’s second novel – The People on Platform 5 in the UK, and Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting in the USA – is out now.
+ child abduction, fiction, grief, healing, lies, loss, motherhood, psychiatric hospital, psycopath, relationships, review, secrets, sisters
How To Spot A Psychopath (Oscar de la Nuit #1) by MQ Webb
Could you tell…
Would you?
When four-year-old Mia Edwards goes missing on a play date, everyone suspects Jessica Green knows what happened, especially Mia’s mother, Holly…
But Jess won’t tell anyone.
#HowToSpotAPsychopath @marswebb1 @Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour
Psychiatrist, Dr. Oscar de la Nuit, is perceptive and determined to save Jess from the same regret and secrets he lives with.
Oscar thinks he has Jess figured out, but will she lead to Oscar’s redemption, or will she be his downfall?
My Review
Two complex characters – Dr Oscar de la Nuit, forensic psychiatrist at Whitner Psychiatric Hospital and his patient, Jessica Green. Jess is keeping secrets and can Oscar get her to trust him enough to reveal what they are.
Because a child has gone missing – Mia Edwards – and everyone believes Jess knows where she is, or maybe even killed her and hid the body.
But Jess is not the only one shrouded in mystery. Her husband Clay was almost killed by an intruder but the police believe it was Jess who tried to kill him. But what was her motive? She swears she didn’t do it. Is she telling the truth?
Then we have Holly who has tried to infiltrate her way into Jess’s friendship group, succeeding with Jess’s sister Niki. Their children all go to the same school and Mia has attached herself to Zoe, Jess’s five year old daughter. Mia also has secrets of her own. Is mummy hurting her? She is too scared to tell. And her daddy Ray is dead according to Holly, but Holly is the worst liar of all, claiming that Ray beat her up, but is that the truth? Even Zoe has secrets. Does she know what happened the day Mia went missing?
This is the main story, but this is also about Oscar. He is trying to get over a tragedy in his own life while rebuilding a new one. Can he form a relationship with a colleague and overcome his own feelings of guilt? And can he prevent Charles from discretiting him?
A lot of questions to be answered and secrets to be revealed in this exciting debut from a new author. 3.5/5 stars.
Many thanks to @zooloo2008 for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
MQ Webb has always believed in the transformational nature of words, and a medium to utilise them. How to Spot a Psychopath is the first book in the Oscar de la Nuit Psychological Thriller series.
Born without a Middle name, Q is such an undervalued letter of the alphabet, only appearing with u, so thought they would give it some respect by acknowledging it in their name.
A fascination with human behavior and motivation led them to study psychology. They once worked in a building that was converted from a gaol and is a marketing consultant for NFP’s, universities, and the public sector.
Follow her at:
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/MQWebbAuthor
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/mqwebbauthor/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/marswebb1
Buy Links
Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09NW85VRH
Amazon US – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NW85VRH
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