Blog Tours – Page 9 – Grab This Book

Bad Debt – William McIntyre

Defence Lawyer Robbie Munro’s wife has been stalked by a witness in a trial she is prosecuting. When the stalker is killed and Robbie is charged with murder his friends are only too willing to come up with schemes to prove his innocence. In the end though, will it be his enemies who make the difference?

My thanks to Sandstone Press for my review copy, received through Netgalley, and for the opportunity to host the publication day leg of the Bad Debt Blog Tour.

It is publication day for the latest in the Robbie Munro series: Bad Debt. That means you can use the purchase links at the bottom of this review and get reading this fun thriller without too much delay. It’s definitely a book I am recommending – I really enjoyed this one.

Proceedings begin with an ending, Robbie is at a funeral. The deceased was also a defense lawyer who appears to have written the book on sneaky plays in court to use every available twist to get his clients off the hook. His former partner asks Robbie a favour; a political candidate in the Scottish Parliament is accused of using excessive force to attack a housebreaker who entered his home late one night. Could Robbie take his case and ensure the accused isn’t found guilty?

Robbie is also no stranger to sneaky tactics and effective use of legal loopholes, so he takes on the case and promptly finds himself caught up in a venture which puts his family and his freedom at risk. The first shock for Robbie comes when he finds the prosecuting Fiscal is his own wife – drafted in as cover at the last minute. Still confident he can win there are further surprises in store when the attack victim gets into court and appears to have total amnesia over the alleged attack. Something is very strange about this case.

An attack on a family member leaves Robbie rattled so he enlists the help of one of his own dubious contacts to find the attacker. Things don’t go quite to plan and Robbie’s attempts to speak with the attacker find Robbie placed under arrest and sent to prison pending a hearing.

With his reputation and freedom at stake Robbie will need to be at his sharpest to uncover the truth and clear his name. Luckily for him he has expert legal support in the form of his wife and he can call on the vast array of his dubious contacts to provide help when needed. With a Buckfast swilling pugilist and a wannabe porn producer in your corner how can you not succeed?

Bad Debt is a hugely enjoyable read. A clever thriller with some wholly unexpected twists. Robbie Munro is a wickedly engaging lead character – the humour and quips come thick and fast but don’t undermine the tension or Robbie’s predicament.

Bad Debt is published by Sandstone Press and is available in paperback and digital format from today. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B086Y8RS96/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

Category: Blog Tours, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

September 21

How The Wired Weep – Ian Patrick

The Wire crosses the pond.

Ed is a detective who handles informants. He recruits Ben, a young man, who is treading a dangerous path into the criminal underworld.
Ben’s unsure of where his loyalties lie. They have to find a way to work together despite their differences.

Both men are drawn into the world of Troy, a ruthless and brutal leader of an Organised Criminal Network.

Ben is torn between two worlds as he tries to walk the impossible line between criminality and helping Ed combat crime.
He lives in fear of discovery.

When your life is thrown upside down who do you turn to in order to survive?

Set against the backdrop of the 2012 Olympic Games, How the Wired Weep is a fast paced urban thriller where time is against both men as they attempt to serve their own agendas.

My thanks to Emma at Damppebbles Blog Tours for the opportunity to join the tour for How The Wired Weep. I purchased this book prior to accepting the invitation to join the tour.

I don’t really know where to start with this review – I loved this book and I am not sure how to convey some of the emotions I had while reading.

How The Wired Weep is an intense story, small core characters living on the front line of police and gang divide. The story is told from both viewpoints. Ed is our police detective. He has a contact within a gang who is feeding him important information. He receives tip offs about where drugs are stashed, guns are moved around and other activities which the police will try to clamp down on.

Ed’s source is Ben (not his real name). Recently out of prison and keen not to return. He is an excellent driver and used by Troy (head of one of the London criminal networks) to run errands and pick up and deliver drugs and weapons. Ben seems to be moving up in Troy’s trust as he gets more important tasks to complete. But the greater the task the greater the risk.

Ben drips info to Ed but is ever aware that to be caught means certain retribution. Ed knows Ben is unreliable. He is a drug user and a criminal so it is a fine line the police need to tread to keep their source on the street while not digging too deep into what Ben may not be telling them about his daily activities.

Readers see Ed trying to keep Ben on yhe right side of the law where he can. We also see Ben’s reactions to Ed’s good intentions. It is a fascinating dynamic and both men are deeply entrenched in the life of the other – even if they may not always see it as such.

Away from their interactions with each other Ian Patrick shows the intensity of Eds job against his home life. Ed and his wife are trying fertility treatment but the demands of work always seem to stop Ed having conversations with his wife. It is quite distressing to see her desperately trying to get their family together but Eds job getting in the way. Making this worse is that we also see how close Ed is to his colleagues and the trust and reliance they need to have in each other. In terms of character development and authenticity everyone in this story feels solid and real – the life experiences we are seeing them handle make them so believable.

I can’t recommend this story enough. It is the police trying to manage the street but the street is too big and chaotic. It’s compelling and so vividly told that you will be hooked. Read this!

How The Wired Weep is available in paperback and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08B64GXK1/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2

Category: Blog Tours, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

September 10

You Can Trust Me – Emma Rowley

You can trust me.

But can I trust you?

Olivia is the domestic goddess who has won millions of followers by sharing her picture-perfect life online. And now she’s releasing her tell-all autobiography. For professional ghostwriter Nicky it’s the biggest job of her career. But as she delves deeper into Olivia’s life, cracks begin to appear in the glamorous façade. From the strained relationship with her handsome husband, to murky details of a tragic family death in her childhood, the truth belies Olivia’s perfect public image. But why is Olivia so desperate to leave an old tragedy well alone? And how far will she go to keep Nicky from the truth?

My thanks to the publishers for my review copy and the opportunity to join the blog tour

Who doesn’t love a story about secrets? In You Can Trust Me there are plenty of secrets which ghostwriter, Nicky, is determined to uncover.

Nicky is recently single and struggling to meet the rent on the flat she shared with her ex. Now that he is out the picture the rent has become steeper than she can comfortably manage making it difficult for Nicky to turn down work.

As a ghostwriter Nicky has developed a good reputation with the agency who engages her services. Obviously her CV cannot list the titles she has written (all confidential) but the agency will send her projects to consider. When we first meet Nicky she is just wrapping up a book for a celebrity chef and making minor amendments to reflect the fact secrets from his private life have just been splashed over the newspapers in recent days. All part of the job!

The underwhelming prospect of a new project with a Coupon Lady from TV is all the reward Nicky faces. However an urgent request that she write a book for one of social media’s high profile influencers leaves Nicky little time to prepare or to take a breather from her last project. She needs to make a snap decision but the lure of working with the enigmatic and seemingly perfect Olivia is too good an opportunity to turn down. Nicky hurriedly packs and dashes to meet Olivia in her country home.

From the moment the two meet there seem to be problems. Olivia is secretive, withdrawn from the writing process, reluctant to engage too fully or share personal information. Nicky needs to get her to open up and share some personal details or she may find it impossible to write Olivia’s book for her.

Olivia’s reluctance is only half the problem as Nicky seems overwhelmed and awkward in the presence of her client. Misunderstandings and accidents around Olivia’s home leave Nicky feeling exasperated and on the back foot. Unable to draw out her client in conversation Nicky starts to snoop around her home and to ask questions about the family in the nearby village. Here she stumbles upon potential dynamite – Olivia’s family has a huge secret and if Nicky can get her to talk about it there will be fireworks ahead.

Emma Rowley has woven a clever tale here – there are lots of secrets in this book for Nicky to uncover and once you know what they are you realise you have spotted some secrets too – only you didn’t know it. Nicky’s awkward demeanour and frustrated attempts to do her job won me onto her side and I got frustrated with the cool attitude of Olivia. However something happens which makes you consider Olivia in a new light. Can she trust Nicky to write her story? Will Nicky get to the truth or will she accept what Olivia has told her? How far does a high profile influencer need to go to protect the pictue perfect world ahead has built up for herself?

Nicely paced, clever surprises dropped into the story and some well realised characters made this a fun read.

You Can Trust Me is published by Orion and is available in paperback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07C1ZMHXH/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

Category: Blog Tours, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

August 17

Ash Mountain – Helen Fitzgerald

Single-mother Fran returns to her sleepy hometown to care for her dying father when a devastating bush fire breaks out. A heartbreaking, nail-biting disaster-noir thriller from the bestselling author of The Cry and Worst Case Scenario.

Fran hates her hometown, and she thought she’d escaped. But her father is ill, and needs care. Her relationship is over, and she hates her dead-end job in the city, anyway.

She returns home to nurse her dying father, her distant teenage daughter in tow for the weekends. There, in the sleepy town of Ash Mountain, childhood memories prick at her fragile self-esteem, she falls in love for the first time, and her demanding dad tests her patience, all in the unbearable heat of an Australian summer. As past friendships and rivalries are renewed, and new ones forged, Fran’s tumultuous home life is the least of her worries, when old crimes rear their heads and a devastating bushfire ravages the town and all of its inhabitants…

Simultaneously a warm, darkly funny portrait of small-town life – and a woman and a land in crisis – and a shocking and truly distressing account of a catastrophic event that changes things forever, Ash Mountain is a heart-breaking slice of domestic noir, and a disturbing disaster thriller that you will never forget…

My thanks to Orenda Books for my review copy and to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for the opportunity to join the Ash Mountain tour.

I make this point so frequently…stories set in small towns are the best for tales of secrets and surprises. This is very true for Helen Fitzgerald’s Ash Mountain – a small Australian town where our main protagonist Fran lives. What initially seemed to be a story about living and growing up in a small community evolved with a dark mystery lurking in the background. Oh and a fire. A huge fire.

Fran is caring for her elderly father, a teenage daughter and is boosted by having her son, Dante, around too. Fran became a mother at age 15; as she is in her 40’s now Dante is mid 20s and very popular around town. I got the feeling Fran is less popular than her son and enjoys the fact he is much loved within his community. Fran is charmingly nervous, insecure yet determined and independent – all the complex characteristics people have and they are briliantly utilised by the author who makes Fran one of the most believable characters I have encountered for many months.

Helen Fitzgerald tells Fran’s story in a fascinating chronology. Chapers go from today (the day of the fire), to last week (10 days before the fire) to 25 years ago when Fran was the awkward girl at school desperately trying to fit in. It keeps the narrative punchy and gives a great insight into why Fran acts as she does now, why her pregnancy is relevant to a secret kept for over 20 years and why small down enemies never let go of their childhood niggles. Characters in small towns linger for a long time, some people Fran would rather never meet again – some she feels she cannot do without. This is most acutely reflected in Fran’s father – dying a slow death with Fran caring for him. They are both scared by what the future may hold, neither admit it to each other and their buckle-down approach to getting on with things feels a mask for their impending seperation.

I haven’t mentioned the fire. Well I *have* mentioned it but not explained it. The book opens with a huge forest fire beating a fast path towards town. Everything is fleeing but not Fran, she is bunkered down and worrying if her father got clear, if her daughter was near or if she got away. Most chapters in the book are set in the days leading up to the fire. Some are many years earlier but every now and then we get a real-time chapter of Fran on the day of the fire and we are reminded that all the lives we have been reading about are all in grave peril from relentless flames.

It’s wonderful storytelling. Helen Fitzgerald has a wicked talent for capturing people and making you believe in them, root for them and cry with them. Ash Mountain is a bit of a departure from my regular crime thriller reads but it was a very welcome change. Now available in paperback if you had been hanging off on picking this up – now is the time.

Ash Mountain is published by Orenda Books and is available in paperback, audiobook and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ash-Mountain-Helen-FitzGerald-ebook/dp/B081S12YDL/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&qid=1597610021&refinements=p_27%3AHelen+FitzGerald&s=digital-text&sr=1-1&text=Helen+FitzGerald

Category: Blog Tours, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

August 8

The Witch House – Ann Rawson

Who can you trust, if you can’t trust yourself?

Alice Hunter, grieving and troubled after a breakdown, stumbles on the body of her friend and trustee, Harry Rook. The police determine he has been ritually murdered and suspicion falls on the vulnerable Alice, who inherited the place known locally as The Witch House from her grandmother, late High Priestess of the local coven. When the investigations turn up more evidence, and it all seems to point to Alice, even she begins to doubt herself.

Can she find the courage to confront the secrets and lies at the heart of her family and community to uncover the truth, prove her sanity, and clear herself of murder?

My thanks to Red Dog Press for my review copy and for the chance to join the blog tour

Witchcraft entwined with a murder story in The Witch House by Ann Rawson. The majority of the tale is very much the murder side though and Alice’s association with witchcraft giving more of a theme to the background story – well that and the fact the murder victim appears to have been laid out in a ritualistic position.

The opening scenes set us up nicely for what may follow. Alice lives in a remote location and stumbles upon the corpse of a rabbit. The rabbit has been laid out as if it has been used in a ritual. Chalkmarks depict symbols around its body and a stake has been thrust into the corpse. Alice is upset by her discovery but doesnt want anyone else to see the dead animal so she cleans the sight and throws the corpse off into the distance. Unfortunately for Alice that was just a precursor for what was to follow. She goes to see her friend (and Trustee) Harry Rook only to find he has also been killed. His body is positioned exactly the way the dead rabbit had been. Alice is naturally upset and moves the stake which had impaled Harry when searching for signs of life. Unfotunately for Alice the police take a very dim view of her decision to interfere with a crime scene – particularly when Alice appears to be their prime suspect.

The Witch House has a degree of uncertainty for the reader. Alice reveals to readers that she was sectioned after the death of her grandmother – the two were very close whereas Alice’s relationship with her mother is clearly a challenge for them both. The uncertainty I mention comes from the fact Alice seems to doubt her own memory on a number of ocassions. There are details and events which she has to discuss with the police but she cannot honestly recall some of the things they believe she may have done. This adds an extra layer of intrugue as while reading The Witch House I couldn’t shake the feeling that the information Alice was sharing with the reader may not actually represent the truth.

Despite the murder of Harry Rook, Alice is determined to get on with her life. She knows she is not a killer and before Harry’s body was found she was in the process of signing up to resume her studies. Alice’s grandmother appears to have amassed a healthy collection of rare treasures which Alice and her new professor are discussing and exploring. I found the archaeology elements of Alice’s life to be fascinating and they gave nice moments of respite from the murder scenes and the anxious moment Alice feels when having to deal with her mother or the intense questionning from the police.

I have purposefully not focussed too much on the detail of Alice’s life and the complexities of her mental health concerns while under suspicion of murder. The reading of The Witch House allows much of the information to be drawn out at the best time in the story, knowing too much too soon would detract from the reading enjoyment. Alice’s story is well worth exploring – she is a likeable lead character who you want to be able to trust. But should you?

The Witch House is published by Red Dog Press and is available in paperback and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B088S7PD5H/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

Category: Blog Tours, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

August 6

The Lies You Told – Harriet Tyce

Can you tell the truth from the lies?

Sadie loves her daughter and will do anything to keep her safe.

She can’t tell her why they had to leave home so quickly – or why Robin’s father won’t be coming with them to London.

She can’t tell her why she hates being back in her dead mother’s house, with its ivy-covered walls and its poisonous memories.

And she can’t tell her the truth about the school Robin’s set to start at – a school that doesn’t welcome newcomers.
Sadie just wants to get their lives back on track.

But even the lies with the best intentions can have deadly consequences…

My thanks to Tracy Fenton at Compulsive Readers for the opportunity to join the blog tour. I received a copy of The Lies You Told from the publisher.

I read crime and horror fiction. I don’t bat an eye at murder scenes, ghostly or monsterous carnage or even at depictions of evil crimes and wrong doings. I know it isn’t real. But I find reading about bullying to be hugely uncomfortable. I get annoyed, anxious and so very frustrated when I read about bullies. So Kudos to Harriet Tyce for dropping a big bundle of angst into my hands with her excellent depictions of loathsome bullies in The Lies You Told. It all seemed so believable that I experienced maximum bully-hating fury at some chapters.

In The Lies You Told we meet Sadie. She and her daughter (Robin) have left America for reasons we don’t immediately know, they have left Sadie’s husband and they are in Sadie’s mum’s old house. A house she hated as a child and it is clear she had no fondness for her late mother either. Robin is to be enrolled at Sadie’s old school which is somewhere Sadie also doesn’t seem to hold too many fond memories of. The reader knows Sadie is putting herself into a situation she is far from happy about but we don’t immediately get to know why Sadie is seeking this fresh start.

The early stages of the book follow Sadie and Robin trying to adjust to their new lifestyle. Neither find it easy. We see their engagements around the school and it left me with questions I needed to have answers to. Why is Robin forced to endure the misery of not being one of The Group? Why are the PTA mums so abhorrant and mean to Sadie? Though I did feel Sadie seemed to have a knack of saying the wrong thing around them…a nervousness of being picked on by the group? These questions kept me reading, I needed to understand what was happening and I was desperate for their respective upset to be resolved.

Away from school Sadie has other issues to contend with. Before leaving for America to have Robin – a decade before the events in The Lies You Told – she was a well regarded lawyer. On her return to the UK Sadie is given the opportunity to work on a high profile case, a teacher accused of grooming one of his pupils. The case should never have been brought Sadie is told by her colleagues. Harriet Tyce worked as a criminal barrister for a number of years and she draws upon that wealth of experience ensuring the the courtroom scenes in this book make for compelling reading.

For the reader we get the courtroom drama, Sadie and Robin’s domestic dramas and the overarching mystery around why the pair left the US to find themselves in this strained and unusual position. More than enough intrigue to keep the pages turning and certainly some fabulously realised characters to keep me emotionally engaged with Sadie’s plight. Blood Orange was a real high point in my 2019 reading, Harriet Tyce has another good ‘un on her hands with The Lies You Told.

The Lies You Told is published by Wildfire and is available in Hardback, audiobook and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07WWSCGVS/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

Category: Blog Tours, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

July 30

The Resident – David Jackson

THERE’S A SERIAL KILLER ON THE RUN
AND HE’S HIDING IN YOUR HOUSE

Thomas Brogan is a serial killer. With a trail of bodies in his wake and the police hot on his heels, it seems like Thomas has nowhere left to hide. That is until he breaks into an abandoned house at the end of a terrace on a quiet street. And when he climbs up into the loft, he realises that he can drop down into all the other houses through the shared attic space.

That’s when the real fun begins. Because the one thing that Thomas enjoys even more than killing is playing games with his victims – the lonely old woman, the bickering couple, the tempting young newlyweds. And his new neighbours have more than enough dark secrets to make this game his best one yet…

Do you fear The Resident? Soon you’ll be dying to meet him.

My thanks to Viper Books for my review copy and for the opportunity to join the blog tour.

Thomas Brogan. Serial Killer. Star of The Resident. This is his story, no detective being tormented by an elusive character leaving cryptic clues to taunt the police. No reporter chasing down a story and stumbling across a killer’s legacy. This is Brogan, a dangerous killer who from the opening pages is on the run as his latest murders have been discovered too soon. Brogan is on the run and the police are hot on his tail.

Fortunately for Brogan (and for the story) he eludes capture by hiding in an abandoned house at the end of a row of terraced properties. Seeking a safe place to lie low he makes his way to the attic space and makes a fascinating discovery – he can access all four houses in the terrace by moving along the loft space. Brogan’s first thought – he can find more victims to have fun with.

How do we know Brogan’s thoughts? Well author, David Jackson, shares Brogan’s inner dialogues – he talks to himself (argues frequently). We hear Brogan’s thought process, his internal debates over the next course of action and his common sense telling him what he should and should not consider to be his next move. This works well for driving forward the story. If nobody knows Brogan is in the loft and Brogan doesn’t have his conversations with himself then it would be difficult for the reader to understand why Brogan is acting the way he does because Brogan has a plan and he plans to have some fun while he waits for the coast to clear.

There is nothing of interest in the abandoned house which Brogan used to access the loft space. The other three houses in the terrace offer much more interesting fare. There is the elderly woman who only gets visited by her carer each day. The arguing couple who seem best ignored and the young professional couple in the last house. They have so much potential for Brogan and he plans to mess with their heads before he ends their lives.

Brogan is not a likeable character and his actions when he comes down from the attic space into the houses below re-enforce what a loathsome character he is. He purposefully stirs up disharmony in the young couple’s marriage. He digs into their secrets when they are out and moves items around their house. He steals food from all the houses where he can but soon finds an easier way to get the grub he needs. Being Brogan this involves upsetting another character in the book but this means little to him as the end result works to his advantage.

Following Brogan’s activities had a very real “one more chapter” dilemma, I just didn’t want to take a break from the book. I am very much a fan of serial killer stories and The Resident has a very different feel from the “normal” murder tales because the reader travels with the killer. I powered through The Resident in very short time and was nicely caught out by a few of the unexpected details which arose. It’s different, it zips along at a cracking pace and I loved it. Five star thrills once again from David Jackson.

The Resident is published by Viper and is available in physical and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B083ZL59H9/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

Category: 5* Reviews, Blog Tours, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

July 28

Written in Blood – Chris Carter

A serial killer will stop at nothing…

The Killer
His most valuable possession has been stolen.
Now he must retrieve it, at any cost.

The Girl
Angela Wood wanted to teach the man a lesson. It was a bag, just like all the others.
But when she opens it, the worst nightmare of her life begins.

The Detective
A journal ends up at Robert Hunter’s desk. It soon becomes clear that there is a serial killer on the loose. And if he can’t stop him in time, more people will die.

If you have read it
You must die

My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for the opportunity to join the Written in Blood tour. I recieved a review copy from the publisher.

I have always been a wee bit annoyed with myself that I let the first few Chris Carter books slip by when they first came out. Crime fiction has always been my favourite reading material and serial killer thrillers even more so. I love the cat and mouse element of a detective (usually) hunting down a prey. Carter’s Robert Hunter series are all dark tales consistently featuring some of the most grim crime scenes you can expect to read about. Despite being late to the series I swept up the early books and quickly caught up – over the last few years I now seek out the new Robert Hunter book as it is released…I don’t like the thought of there being a Chris Carter book I haven’t read.

When an author is assured of an immediate boost to the front of my teetering TBR pile it is a clear sign of the regard their books are held in. I read Written in Blood in two sittings over two evenings and it was everything I had hoped it would be.

Angela Wood is a pickpocket. One of the best in LA. THE best if you were to ask Angela. After a successful pre-Christmas afternoon she is over $600 to the good and decides to stop into a bar for a drink before she heads home. In the bar she overhears a big guy being extremely rude towards another patron so she decides to teach him a lesson by stealing his holdall. Angela is sucessful in securing the holdall but she has taken more than she bargained for – inside the bag is a notebook. Not the electronic kind – a large leather-bound book in which a killer has documented a number of murders he has committed. There are photographs attached to the pages to evidence his labours. Angela panics and delivers the book to the police where it soon reaches the attention of Robert Hunter.

Hunter and his partner, Carlos Garcia, determine the authenticity of the deaths described in the killers notebook and the hunt for a sadistic murderer begins. It appears he has committed multiple crimes over a prolonged period of time yet not drawn attention to himself. The manner of each murder varies and the documenation the cops are reviewing suggests the killer is being guided by voices he hears who then tell him what to do. Hunter thinks they are likely seeking someone with sever mental health issues but the more he reads into the notebook the less likely this appears.

Both Hunter and Angela have a problem though. The killer is not happy to have lost his notebook and he wants it back. He is clearly a resourceful individual as within a very short space of time he has identified the thief and established that the police have the notebook. He engages with both Angela and Hunter and demands his book be returned – there is no doubt in his mind that this is what is going to happen. A confrontation beckons and it is not clear how many lives may be lost before the killer gets his way.

Fast paced, clinical writing style and utterly engrossing. Written in Blood is easily one of my favourite books in the Robert Hunter series and without doubt one of the most enjoyable reads in 2020.

Written in Blood is published by Simon & Schuster and is available in Hardback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07XCRN85H/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

Category: 5* Reviews, Blog Tours, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

July 24

One White Lie – Leah Konen

Imagine you’ve finally escaped the worst relationship of your life, running away with only a suitcase and a black eye.

Imagine your new next-door neighbours are the friends you so desperately needed – fun, kind, empathetic, very much in love.

Imagine they’re in trouble. That someone is telling lies about them, threatening their livelihoods – and even their lives.

Imagine your ex is coming for you.

If your new best friends needed you to tell one small lie, and all of these problems would disappear, you’d do it . . . wouldn’t you?

It’s only one small lie, until someone turns up dead . . .

My thanks to Sryia at Penguin RandomHouse for my review copy and the opportunity to join the tour.

Ooft.

Psychological thrillers sometimes aren’t quite what they are billed as. No real thrills, a bit predicable, never a sense of peril – essentially some books just don’t quite hit the mark for me. But One White Lie didn’t just hit the mark, it smashed it…maybe with the hammer that protagonist Lucy King carries around with her.

Ooft.

This story got me hooked – started reading in a hot bath, looked up 2 hours and 250 pages later in a decidedly cold bath. As a reader there is nothing better than finding a book which just keep you turning pages – One Little Lie did that for me. Always that nagging worry, doubt that what Lucy was experiencing was all it seemed, questions around why her new friends were shunned by the townsfolk where they lived. But I get ahead of myself.

We first meet Lucy as she is moving in to a new cottage in a small town on the outskirts of the city. She is clearly terrified and on the run from a controlling and aggressive partner and she needs a safe haven to sort out what to do.

Lucy meets her new neighbours, John and Vera. They are a few years older than Lucy but a strong friendship bond soon forms as the couple show her a kindness and compassion which she has been missing from her life for so long. For John and Vera Lucy represents a new friend in a town where they are deeply unpopular with the locals. For a long time Lucy tries to piece together snippets of gossip to determine why her friends are being held as outcasts. A nice layer of mystery for the reader as we only get snippets and rumour too.

Just as Lucy begins to relax in her new surroundings two shocking twists will threaten to destroy the sanctuary she has created. One way to ensure her continued safety is to tell One Little Lie to help John and Vera. That shouldn’t be too difficult a task should it? Unfortunately for Lucy one lie will lead to another and fate will play her a cruel hand further threatening her safety.

During all these issues Lucy is ever aware her ex is out there somewhere and he will be looking for her. So it is paranoia that Lucy believes someone has been in her home or has her ex finally caught up with her?

Stories build on the need to lie and sustain that lie places the protagonist under extreme stress and Leah Konen delivers that tension brilliantly. I really enjoyed One Little Lie – it ticked all the right boxes and I’d definitely recommend it.

One White Lie is published by Penguin and is available in physical, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07YTHYLC6/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

Follow the tour:

Category: Blog Tours, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

July 20

The Big Chill – Doug Johnstone

Running private investigator and funeral home businesses means trouble is never far away, and the Skelf women take on their most perplexing, chilling cases yet in book two of this darkly funny, devastatingly tense and addictive new series!

Haunted by their past, the Skelf women are hoping for a quieter life. But running both a funeral directors’ and a private investigation business means trouble is never far away, and when a car crashes into the open grave at a funeral that matriarch Dorothy is conducting, she can’t help looking into the dead driver’s shadowy life.
While Dorothy uncovers a dark truth at the heart of Edinburgh society, her daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah have their own struggles. Jenny’s ex-husband Craig is making plans that could shatter the Skelf women’s lives, and the increasingly obsessive Hannah has formed a friendship with an elderly professor that is fast turning deadly.
But something even more sinister emerges when a drumming student of Dorothy’s disappears and suspicion falls on her parents. The Skelf women find themselves sucked into an unbearable darkness – but could the real threat be to themselves?

Following three women as they deal with the dead, help the living and find out who they are in the process, The Big Chill follows A Dark Matter, book one in the Skelfs series, which reboots the classic PI novel while asking the big existential questions, all with a big dose of pitch-black humour.

My thanks to Orenda Books for providing a review copy to allow me to participate in the blog tour and to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for giving me the opportunity to join the tour.

Picking up from events in last year’s A Dark Matter, Doug Johnstone takes us back to Edinburgh and reunites us with the Skelf family. The Skelf women are three generations of one family and they all work for the family businesses: undertakers and private investigators. As The Big Chill continues the family story is really is advisable to have read A Dark Matter – as both books are excellent reads this should not be too much of a problem.

It would be nice to think that during the six month period between the two books life had been a bit quieter for the Skelf family. Events in A Dark Matter were devastating for the family and a convalecence spell would have been required. As we rejoin their story we learn the youngest Skelf, Hannah, has been attending therapy sessions to help her come to terms with recent events. Hannah’s mother Jenny is also healing and is forging a new relationship while trying (and failing) to leave behind all memories of her ex-husband Craig. It is Jenny’s mother Dorothy that seems to have life more under control than her daughter and grand-daughter. The family matriach is still very much active in the family businesses and as The Big Chill opens we see Dorothy in a cemetry as another client of the Skelf’s is laid to rest. However the deceased does not get their eternal sleep off to the most restful start as a car crashes through the cemetry gates and heads straight at the funeral party only to end up in the open grave.

Dorothy is shaken by the incident and when she learns the driver died in the incident but cannot be identified by the police she begins a personal investigation and tries to trace the young man who nearly ended her life at the end of his own life. Dorothy also has a personal investment in another “case” which requires her investigative skills. She has been tutoring a young teenager who wants to learn to play drums – the girl didn’t show for a lesson and Dorothy goes to visit the girl’s mother to ask after her. Dorothy is puzzled by the reaction of the mother and the girls step-father; both seem upset she is missing yet their reaction to Dorothy’s interest is strange so she takes it upon herself to try and trace her student.

Doug Johnstone keeps all three Skelf women in the spotlight as the book progresses. Each get a chapter where they are the focus and their stories zip along nicely. Although Dorothy is chasing down potential leads to satisfy her personal curiosities it is Hannah’s chapters where the most tragedy seems to arise this time around. Ignoring the fact she works in a funeral home, Hannah appears to be facing a distressing number of deaths. I am trying to avoid steering into “spoiler” territory but early in the book she is preparing to speak at a memorial service for a friend when a random encounter brings fresh hurt and a lot of unanswered questions.

The third Skelf, Jenny, was having a quieter story this time around until suddenly she wasnt. Again I veer away from potential spoilers but as you can see from the blurb (above) her ex-husband is causing problems for the Skelf family and if he gets his way then life for Dorothy, Jenny and Hannah will never be the same again.

I always have a huge sense of anticipation when I pick up a new Doug Johnstone book. He is a wonderful storyteller but he also has a wicked imagination so his books never go where I think they will. I have given up on trying to second guess where the Skelf story is heading I just strap myself in and let him take me on the emotion rollercoaster. Love these stories – you should all be reading them.

The Big Chill is published by Orenda Books and is available in paperback and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0885ZNW86/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

Category: Blog Tours, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off