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The Hand of An Angel – Mark Brownless

How far would you go to get a glimpse of the afterlife, and what would you bring back?

A shattering medical thriller with a heart-stopping climax.

Devoted family man and respected cardiologist Tom Boyand is obsessed with the near-death experiences of his patients. An obsession that leaves him dead on a table with his colleagues battling desperately to resuscitate him.

But Tom has pushed the limits of the experiment too far and he’s gone for too long, seeing more of the other side than anyone before.
They get him back but he isn’t the same person. And he’s not alone.

My thanks to Sam at Lounge Marketing (Lounge Books) for the chance to join this blog tour and for providing a review copy.

I reviewed The Hand of An Angel a few weeks ago but now that the official tour is running I am re-sharing my review. Coming up in a few short hours will be my wee chat with Mark Brownless, but before we discuss his chilling thriller I thought a recap may help….here is what I loved about this book.

I cannot remember the last time I read a medical thriller, however, The Hand of an Angel made me appreciate how much I had missed them. Doctors playing God, patients suffering mysterious ailments and so many long corridors with many, many closed doors…love, love, love a good medical drama. It is pleasing to be able to confirm that The Hand of an Angel is every bit a good medical thriller!

Tom Boyand is about to embark on the final journey. But he also plans to make it a return trip and live to tell the tale. In order to cheat death he has amassed a huge wealth of medical knowledge, assembled team of researchers and physicians who can help him “die” and then bring him back to life. Everything will be carefully monitored, all done under controlled conditions and Tom hopes that he will remember exactly how it feels to die so that he can share the knowledge.

The first half of the novel draws readers into Tom’s world. His project, his colleagues, his family and we get a very good idea as to the type of person that Tom is…a nice guy!

When the time comes to begin his experiment we are excited for Tom and his team and as a reader I was also keen to find out what he may experience after his death. Suffice to say I was shocked by how the story changed – perhaps I should have read the blurb before reading…

Tom becomes a changed man. His easygoing personality changes and he becomes paranoid, suspicious, aggressive and confrontational. Having spent so much time getting to know Tom it is upsetting to see the changes he appears to be undergoing. More so when when we see the impact it is having on his family and friends. Mark Brownless handles this change in dynamic brilliantly and it makes for gripping reading.

Unfortunately for Tom he has more pressing problems to contend with than a change to his moods. He believes that he may not have returned from the dead on his own. Tom keeps seeing the same strange figure in different places he visits…at work, at home and he cannot understand why other people don’t appear to notice.

What had been a great medical thriller now becomes a dark and sinister tale. The change up in tension is marked and it had me flicking the pages like a demon (as it were) trying to reach the end of the book as quickly as I could so I could find out what happened. And Wow.

This story totally sucked me in – what more could a reader ask for?

The Hand of an Angel is available in paperback and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hand-Angel-Mark-Brownless/dp/1976248744/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1527016541&sr=8-1

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May 15

The Louisiana Republic – Maxim Jakubowski

New York, and the world, have been transformed by an unexplained global catastrophe now known as ‘the Dark. Once a modest researcher, has now become an involuntary detective.

He is recruited by her elder sister to find the missing daughter of a local gangster in a city in chaos where anarchy and violence are just a step away. He soon discovers the case is anything but straightforward and compellingly close to home. Compromising photographs and the ambiguous assistance of a young woman with ties to the criminal gangs lead him to New Orleans, which has seceded from the rest of America in the wake of the Dark.

A perilous journey down the Mississippi river, murderous hit women and sidekicks, and the magic and dangerous glamour of the French Quarter become a perilous road to nowhere and to madness in his quest for the amoral daughter, his own lost love and his sanity. Will he find the missing women or lose himself?

My thanks to Anne Cater and Random Things Blog Tours for my review copy and the chance to join the Louisiana Republic Blog Tour.

Been staring at a blank document for 10 minutes trying to find a way to begin a review of The Louisiana Republic…tricky…very tricky as this is the book which I loved for its striking difference to everything else I have read recently.

Okay, I think we are in.

The Dark has changed the modern world as we know it, a dystopian America is the setting for The Louisiana Republic and it is not a place for the faint of heart. Savage criminal gangs are running rampant through the cities and there is more than one President (some may see this as an improvement on our present reality). Battles are being fought over key strongholds, libraries are revered (because of what the Dark is) and people are required to learn lost skills.

Into this mix steps a gorgeous femme fetale who wants to recruit the our lead character (a detective) to find her missing sister. He should have said no, but that would have made a much shorter book. The missing sister is a legend among purveyors of specialist pornography. Before the Dark she was happy to pose for any picture which people would request and people had some very extreme requests. Her father used his vast wealth to try to remove every trace of these images from the hands of strangers, he also disowned his daughter and most certainly does not want some private detective to find her. No problem – he has a number of employees who can deliver very persuasive messages!

I should probably make it clear that The Louisiana Republic is not going to be to everyone’s taste. It is dark, violent, sweary, ~~shaggy,~~ though I think “erotic” is the official designation and dystopian thrillers are not to everyone’s liking. The deeper I got into The Louisiana Republic the more I lost the link to a releatable reality – and the more I enjoyed what I was reading. It is not easy to create a new world and breath such compelling life into the society you have built whilst also keeping the main story spinning along.

There are not many books like The Louisiana Republic but when a story like this comes along I cherish the opportunity it gives me to enjoy something so very different.

The Louisiana Republic is published by Caffeine Nights and is available in digital and paperback format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Louisiana-Republic-fantastic-distopia-erotica-ebook/dp/B07C5SJDHJ/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1526326337&sr=1-8

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March 20

Crook’s Hollow – Robert Parker

In the quiet village of Crook’s Hollow, almost exactly between Manchester and Liverpool, land and pride are king.

And now someone has just tried to kill Thor Loxley – but Thor has no clue as to why. As the estranged youngest of the omnipresent Loxley farming dynasty, all of whom view him as a traitorous turncoat, in a village where everybody knows everybody else’s business, life is hard enough.

But here, farmers do things the old way. You deal with problems on your own terms. You keep everything in house where possible. You avoid involving the authorities. With nobody to turn to, Thor sets out to uncover who wronged him. But with corrupt land developers circling, the rival Crook family seeking to unsettle the Loxley’s at every turn, his own family despising him, and jealous old acquaintances lurking, the mystery plunges ever deeper – and up floats more greed, betrayal, secrecy and blood than Thor could possibly imagine.

My thanks to Linda MacFadyen for my review copy

I jumped the gun on Crook’s Hollow and read it too early. It was sitting beside me and calling out to be read and I *knew* it was still 2 months until publication date and that I should really wait so I could review it “fresh” from finishing it…but I am weak dear reader, weak. I raced through Crook’s Hollow in two sittings and have had to sit on my hands for a few weeks and not share how much I enjoyed it until publication date loomed large.

Crook’s Hollow releases on 29 March 2018 and I recommend getting it ordered as soon as you can.

I have mentioned more than once that I love a small town story. Usually there are secrets to be uncovered but sometimes there are small town rivalries and feuding families and the town becomes a powder keg with the reader waiting for someone to light the fuse…that’s Crook’s Hollow.

There are secrets too. The biggest secret as far as Thor Loxley is concerned is that someone is trying to kill him and he has no idea who that someone may be. Now…had he given this problem any prior consideration I don’t believe that Thor would have said ANYONE would want to kill him, however, someone tried and now everyone in Crook’s Hollow is a suspect. Finding the responsible party is not going to be easy though. Thor cannot rely upon his family for help as he has alienated himself from their loving embrace. His best friend is a suspect so there is no help available there and as for his girlfriend, well they have to keep their relationship hush-hush…one of those secrets I spoke of earlier.

I really enjoyed following Thor’s story, the book had a claustrophobic feel and thinking back to when I read it I have a memory of dark rooms, shady places and the prevailing feeling of sinister overtones. It felt like I’d been drawn in to a tale spun by a story-teller as the listeners sat around a campfire on a dark night. This may sound a bit odd but Crook’s Hollow drew me in and the fondest memory I have of reading it is of a sinister darkness.

While Crook’s Hollow may not be the longest story you will read this month, there is a lot of story packed into this tale and Thor will face more than a couple of moments of peril to keep readers highly entertained. Robert Parker held my attention from page one and while my TBR pile is threatening to rage out of control it is not easy to command my full attention the way that Crook’s Hollow did.

Crooks Hollow is published by Black Rose Writing on 29 March 2018 and will be available in digital and paperback format – order your copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crooks-Hollow-Robert-Parker-ebook/dp/B078WDQV4X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1518650638&sr=8-1&keywords=crook%27s+hollow

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