November 5

Written in the Blood – Stephen Lloyd Jones

Written in the BloodHigh in the mountains of the Swiss Alps Leah Wilde is about to gamble her life to bring a powerful man an offer. A promise.

Leah has heard the dark stories about him and knows she is walking into the lion’s den. But her options are running out. Her rare lineage, kept secret for years, is under terrible threat. That is, unless Leah and her mother Hannah are prepared to join up with their once deadly enemies.

Should the prey ever trust the predator?

Is hope for future generations ever enough to wash away the sins of the past?

With a new and chilling danger stalking them all, and the survival of their society at stake, they may have little choice…

 

Thanks to Headline and Bookbrigr for my review copy.

 

The sequel to The String Diaries and Stephen Lloyd Jones picks up with his narrative so we learn what happens to Hannah Wilde and her daughter Leah after the life-changing events outlined in his debut novel. We join the action 15 years after the events of The String Diaries and find that Hannah has been busy but her activities require her to keep a continued low profile.

Leah has grown into a strong, independent woman, however, her mother’s ongoing project is not yielding success as quickly as Leah would like – driven by her own personal demons – she decides to take a more proactive approach to assist Hannah’s project.

The avoidance of spoilers is key here so I am not going to give too much detail into the underlying story threads of Written in the Blood. Suffice to say that the story that began in The String Diaries is developed with much more depth in Written in the Blood. The society of hosszú életek is explored and the turmoil of survival for its members is displayed in all its savagery. Stephen Lloyd Jones has no apparent qualms over putting his characters to the sword and many characters suffer at his hands.

Always looking
The String Diaries

For the new reader I would urge caution – read The String Diaries first. Written in the Blood is a great read but without fully understanding the back history you may lose some of the fun that goes with joining a tale half-way through. There are twists in Written in the Blood that reward The String Diary readers and the concepts of hosszú életek are much easier to take on board when you have seen the evolution of the characters from the first book.

With the deepening of the mythos of the hosszú életek there is a greater emphasis on the factions within the society and the politics of power always bring a nice edge to stories. On a personal note, the broader cast of characters had me slightly disadvantaged (as I must confess to a terrible memory for names) so there were one or two occasions where a recap was required.

At the end of the book I find I am a happy reader. A strong follow-up to a debut novel and I am keen to read more from Stephen Lloyd Jones. I give Written in the Blood 4 stars out of possible 5 and urge you to treat yourself to The String Diaries and Written in the Blood – dark and different thrillers.

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October 27

Blog Tour – Leigh Russell Escapes to Solitude

This is the last stop on Leigh Russell’s Race to Death Blog Tour. My review of Race to Death follows below, but before we get there time to let Leigh cool the pace a little.

While the virtual tour has been progressing, Leigh has also been touring in York, where Race to Death is set. After a very hectic few weeks Leigh is heading for a well earned break. Before she finally escaped, however, she agreed to answer my request to consider what she may take on a desert island escape.

Borrowing heavily from Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, I asked Leigh what books she would take to a desert island escape, one piece of music and a luxury item – she kindly replied and has planned her escape…

 

Right now my life is so hectic, the idea of an “island get-away” seems very appealing. To give you an idea of how busy my life has become, just yesterday I returned home from a promotional tour of Yorkshire, today I’m in Brighton today at a meeting discuss establishing the International Thriller Writers in the UK, and then tomorrow I’m off to Barcelona to do some research. In November I’m travelling North again, through Birmingham to Buxton, for more book events, and then going South to Chichester before returning to York in December… I am rarely at home these days! So when I was asked to consider what I might take to a desert island, I was happy to accept the opportunity to dream about it…

If I could take just six books with me to my desert island retreat, the first would be the complete works of Shakespeare. If a complete works is not allowed, I would choose Hamlet and Macbeth as two of my six books, as I particularly love the language of those two plays. My third choice would be Milton’s Paradise Lost. The language is magnificent, and the poem is long enough to keep me engaged for weeks. My next choice would be Pride and Prejudice, for entertainment value and because, like my other choices, it is so beautifully written. My two final choices would be Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, and Kazuo Ishiguru’s The Remains of the Day, which are both intensely sad novels, beautifully written.

The one CD I would take would be any Mozart as I find his music sublime. I don’t think I could ever tire of it. Lying on the beach on my island retreat, gazing at the ocean and listening to Mozart would be very relaxing. (When can I go, please?)

My one luxury item would be my ipad, and a source of electricity. That way I would never feel bored or lonely, because I would be busy writing books.

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October 27

Race to Death – Leigh Russell

Race to Death‘Moments before, he had been enjoying a day out at the races. Now he could be dying…. As he fell a loud wind roared past his ears, indistinguishable from the roar of the crowd. The race was over’.

A man plummets to his death during the York Races. Suicide or murder?  Newly-promoted DI Ian Peterson is plunged into a complex and high-profile case, and as the body count increases, the pressure mounts for his team to solve the crimes quickly.

But the killer is following the investigation far more keenly than Ian realises and time is running out as the case suddenly gets a lot closer to home…

 

Leigh Russell is the author of the successful DI Geraldine Steel books. Having firmly established Steel as a strong lead character Leigh then plucked Steel’s colleague, Ian Peterson, from an underling role to the principle character in his own series of books. Peterson takes the lead for the first time in Cold Sacrifice – Race to Death is the second Peterson book.

This was actually the first time I had read one of Leigh Russell’s books – it will not be the last as I really enjoyed Race to Death. At no stage did I feel that I was disadvantaged from not knowing Peterson’s back story. His character was outlined well in the opening stages of the book and the fact he had just moved house and job made Race to Death feel like a good jumping on point.

The action kicks off during the buzz of race day at York races, however, tragedy soon strikes for one family. The opening chapters are very nicely written and you actually get to experience a murder from the viewpoint of the victim – nice twist which was very well written (even if it was a little disconcerting).

Enter Peterson, newly in role, who tasked with solving the murder. We get to share his anxiety at the challenge of proving himself and we see his obsession in puzzling the half clues and unreliable witnesses. The story also follows Peterson’s wife, she is struggling to come to terms with the move to York and we see her largely ignored by her husband while his work takes over every waking minute.

One minor irk while I was reading was that I felt Peterson should have been paying more attention to his home life and I felt annoyed with him for ignoring his wife. Why can’t he see that he is not paying her enough attention? When I get annoyed with characters it is always a good sign that I am engaging with a book!

As with any murder story I like to try and puzzle out who the killer is before the author reveals all. Race to Death was no different, my brain was wracked and I formulated my suspicions – even to the point I was beginning to think this was a random attacker story and that there was no connection between the characters in the book to the killer. But all became clear in the end with a nice twist which I certainly did not see coming.

For the uninitiated this is a great introduction to Leigh Russell’s books. It works as a stand alone novel but clearly there is also a back story to enjoy too so the returning fan will not be disappointed. As I write I should also highlight that Leigh’s books are reduced in the Kindle Store and most are available for under £1 each. On the evidence of Race to Death these should be great reads.

Race to Death gets 4 out of 5 and makes me want to read more Leigh Russell books.

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