Blog tour: 30 March to 3 April 2020

Synopsis

You thought you’d escaped your past
It’s been 20 years since Neve’s best friend Chloe went missing. Neve has never recovered and promised herself she’d never go back to that place.

But secrets can come back to haunt you
When Neve receives news that her first boyfriend Jamie has gone missing, she’s forced to return. Jamie has vanished without a trace in a disappearance that echoes the events of all those years ago. Somebody is watching and will stop at nothing until the truth about what took place that night is revealed …

My review

Dark Corners tells the story of Neve Chambers, in her late thirties, who lives near Brent Lodge Park in Hanwell, London and is the joint partner, with her university friend, Esther, of a coffee shop called The Tea Tree, which they’d set up three years before. Her fiance, Oliver, splits up with her after nearly seven years together and Neve starts drinking heavily and begins to let things slide at work. After an incident at the cafe, Neve decides that she needs to take control of her life and when she coincidentally hears from an old school friend, Holly, who says Neve’s first boyfriend, Jamie Hardman, is missing, she decides it’s the perfect time to get away for a while.

Neve hasn’t been home to the small, ex-mining village for several years. She left after the disappearance of her school friend, Chloe Lambert, over 21 years ago, and has only been back a couple of times to see her father, Sean, who used to be a miner.

There was a gang of seven of them from school, Baz, Chloe, Georgia, Holly, Jamie, Michael and Neve, who used to hang around together and they often met up in an old abandoned and boarded-up security hut near the mine. Chloe went missing in the summer of 1998 after exams, when they all turned 16, and was never found, despite numerous searches. A mysterious man who was nicknamed the Drifter was blamed for her disappearance as the gang had spotted him lurking at night around the village and near the mine, which had been closed the year before.

When Neve returns to the village, she gets a rather cold reaction from most people, especially her old friends, who were disappointed that she just upped and left straight after the tragedy, leaving them to deal with things, and never returned. Neve ran away to live with her mum who herself had left the village and her family, just before Chloe disappeared, and didn’t return.

Neve stays with her dad but even he is a bit off with her and is frail and seems to be suffering from memory problems as he keeps forgetting things and leaving the oven on. Him and Neve rarely spoke over the years, except on the phone occasionally, and they have to get to know each other again after all this time and everything that has happened.

Set in two timelines, June to August 1998 and November to January 2019, we learn about the events leading up to Chloe’s disappearance that summer. And the current day, with Neve reacquainting herself with old friends and trying to work out what has happened to Jamie while laying the ghosts of the pasts to rest. All of Chloe’s friends were deeply affected when she went missing and none of them have been able to put things behind them.

I really liked the atmospheric and dark setting of an old mining village for this intriguing tale; it was something a bit different and the mine’s headstocks and past seemed to cast a shadow over the whole area, even decades later, with many of the men who used to work there still struggling to move on after its closure in 1997.

The story was cleverly written with several twists and turns and I didn’t guess the truth of what had happened to Chloe and Jamie. There were definitely a few of the characters who were not to be trusted and I wasn’t sure exactly what was going to be revealed at the end!

I liked Neve’s friend, Esther, who was very supportive and kind despite being let down several times by Neve and having her own family, a two-year-old daughter, to look after. Neve didn’t have a very good relationship with her father as he felt that he’d failed her and her mum when he lost his job at the mine but it was good to see things between them improve as the story went on.

Overall, I really enjoyed this intriguing, absorbing mystery, which was well plotted and entertaining. I sped through it in my rush to work out exactly what secrets everyone was hiding and where the missing were. I already have the author’s other books, Our Little Secret, Close Your Eyes and Closer Than You Think, on my Kindle so will have to read them all soon!

Buy the book

Dark Corners by Darren O’Sullivan can be purchased from 2 April from Amazon on Kindle and in paperback, and as an eBook from Kobo and iBooks.

About the author

Darren O’Sullivan is the author of psychological thrillers, Our Little Secret, Close Your Eyes and Closer Than You Think. He is a graduate of the Faber Academy and his debut novel, Our Little Secret, was a number one bestseller in the UK and bestseller in four countries.

He lives in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire where his days are spent either behind his laptop writing, in front of a group of actors directing theatre, or rolling around pretending to be a dinosaur with his young son.

Twitter: @darrensully
Facebook: @darrenosullivanauthor
Instagram: @darrensully

Blog tour

Thanks to Sian Baldwin at HQ Stories for my digital and paperback copies of Dark Corners and for my place on the blog tour.

See the banner below for more stops on the #blogtour.

Blog tour: 1 to 31 March 2020

Synopsis

Chaos reigns in the sleepy village of Aramoana on the New Zealand coast, when a series of shipping containers wash up on the beach and looting begins.

Detective Constable Sam Shephard experiences the desperation of the scavengers first-hand, and ends up in an ambulance, nursing her wounds and puzzling over an assault that left her assailant for dead.

What appears to be a clear-cut case of a cargo ship running aground soon takes a more sinister turn when a skull is found in the sand, and the body of a diver is pulled from the sea … a diver who didn’t die of drowning …

As first officer at the scene, Sam is handed the case, much to the displeasure of her superiors, and she must put together an increasingly confusing series of clues to get to the bottom of a mystery that may still have more victims …

My review

The story begins with the rather dramatic event of a cargo ship, Lauretia Express, running aground in the harbour of the village of Aramoana, near the spit, and when the shipping containers wash up ashore, the scavenging locals rush to carry off as much loot as they can! Detective Constable Sam Shephard is one of the first officers on the scene and when she confronts two of the looters, she is assaulted and ends up unconscious and in an ambulance with the man who hurt her, who is in a bad way after being beaten up by the other man.

An old lady finds a skull in one of the boxes from the container ship and then, later on, a diver is discovered dead and DC Shephard, still battered and bruised with a pounding headache, is thrust headlong into a murder investigation. We get some great forensic descriptions of the state and smell of a nibbled, water-bloated body and the subsequent post-mortem, which both make gruesome reading.

Sam Shephard is great; she’s a feisty character and I love her no-nonsense attitude, sense of humour, confidence and directness. She has a difficult relationship with some of her work colleagues as she was fast tracked into the detective training programme and her boss, Detective Inspector ‘Dickhead’ Johns, is really unfair and treats her badly. He delights in giving her the most menial or demeaning tasks. She has a good relationship with her work partner and mentor, Detective Malcolm Smith (Smithy) and he looks out for Sam and stands up for her.

She has been with her boyfriend, Paul Frost, a detective in Gore, for several years but doesn’t let him get close and pushes him away when he suggests they move their long-distance relationship on a bit. I loved Sam’s flatmate; they have a great friendship and seem to understand each other well and Maggie knows exactly what to say to Sam, especially when discussing her relationship with Paul.

This was a suspenseful and cleverly plotted story with a few surprising twists, turns and misdirections. The investigation developed well and I hadn’t guessed in which direction it was going to go; there were some surprising revelations. We got to know a fair few interesting characters, dodgy and otherwise, and it was fun trying to work out whether they were connected or not and what linked the various threads of the story.

An entertaining and intriguing thriller, with some great descriptions of the New Zealand scenery, and I enjoyed getting to know Sam Shephard and her colleagues, friends and family.

I visited Dunedin when I was travelling round the South Island of New Zealand in over 10 years ago and I was fascinated to read about the city and surrounding area in this novel. It’s beautifully described and I could really picture the place. I’d love to visit again one day!

Containment is the third book in Vanda Symon’s Sam Shephard series and I’m ashamed to say it’s the first one I’ve read, despite having the other two, Overkill and The Ringmaster, on my Kindle! I’ll definitely be rectifying this now as I love a good police procedural and this was gripping, absorbing and really well written, and I raced through it!

Buy the book

Containment by Vanda Symon can be purchased from Amazon on Kindle and in paperback, and as an eBook from Kobo and iBooks.

About the author

Vanda Symon is a crime writer, TV presenter and radio host from Dunedin, New Zealand, and the chair of the Otago Southland branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors. The Sam Shephard series has climbed to number one on the New Zealand bestseller list, and also been shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award for best crime novel. She currently lives in Dunedin, with her husband and two sons.

Twitter: @vandasymon
Facebook: @vandasymonauthor
Website: http://www.vandasymon.com

Blog tour

Thanks to Orenda Books and Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for my digital copy of Containment and for my place on the blog tour.

See the banner below for more stops on the #blogtour.

Blog tour: 20–26 March 2020

Synopsis

Ryan and Emily appear to have it all, successful jobs, a beautiful house and the secret to a happy marriage. A secret that involves certain ‘rules’.

Beneath the surface trouble is brewing in the shape of Ada. Whimsical, free spirited and beholden to no-one, she represents the freedom Emily’s been striving for, and the escape that Ryan didn’t know he wanted.

As they are separately, and secretly, drawn to her, things start to unravel. The ‘rules’ are still the rules, to be taken seriously, not to be broken …

My review

Beautifully written, The Codes of Love tells the intriguing story of married couple Ryan and Emily Bradshaw, who have a rather unconventional open marriage. They have been together 22 years and have two teenage sons, Tom and Sam. Ryan is a successful architect and Emily is a creative writing lecturer at University College London (UCL) and the family live in London.

The title of the book refers to the rules of an open marriage, all 25 of them, which are listed by chapter. When the couple married, Emily insisted that they should draw up some rules to try and save their marriage from failing. Ryan wasn’t quite so keen but he went along with it as he was so in love with Emily.

It’s certainly a different marriage, and then Adeline (Ada), a consultant on Ryan’s project, joins the mix and you’ve got a recipe for disaster, with the rules being challenged one by one. One of Emily’s students takes a liking to her too, causing further problems in her and Ryan’s relationship.

It’s a fascinating look at an unusual relationship and I felt almost voyeuristic reading about it from Ryan and Emily’s points of view. It’s compelling and absorbing and I was drawn into the story, especially the almost ethereal world of Ryan’s holiday cottage in Wales, which is beautifully described. I was curious to read that the cottage, named Cyfannedd Fach, was first mentioned by the author in a short story, which was published in 2016, and can be found on her blog.

Throughout the book, there’s a great sense of foreboding and tension. I kept expecting bad things to happen and there were a few instances of misdirection, which were cleverly done. It’s quite a haunting, disturbing tale and builds up well.

The main protagonists in the story were rather volatile and untrustworthy and all seemed to be hiding secrets and not revealing their true selves to each other. The passion and desire they were experiencing led to some rather rash decisions and feelings of being out of control and reckless. It made uncomfortable reading at times, almost like watching a car crash about to happen!

Overall, I really enjoyed this cleverly written story and I found it very absorbing and something a bit different from the norm. I’m already looking forward to reading the author’s next novel. And I can’t finish this review without mentioning that stunning and eye-catching rainbow-like cover! So vivid and bright, it deserves a closer look and will definitely stand out on the shelf.

Buy the book

The Codes of Love by Hannah Persaud can be purchased from Amazon on Kindle and in paperback, and as an eBook from Kobo and iBooks.

About the author

Hannah Persaud was born in Yorkshire and spent her childhood in Devon, before her family moved to South East Asia, where she lived in Kathmandu, Nepal and, later, India. She now lives in Stroud, Gloucestershire, with her husband, children and two boisterous cocker spaniels.

She spends much of her time freezing in a writing hut at the bottom of her garden, and writes short stories, poetry and novels. When not writing, Hannah is mainly wandering the woods with her dogs, wild swimming, running, reading and drinking wine (not simultaneously).

Hannah won the InkTears Short Story Contest with her story Cyfannedd Fach, and The Codes of Love, her debut novel, is based on the winning story. She is currently working on her second novel.

Twitter: @HPersaud
Website: http://www.hannahpersaud.com/

Blog tour

Thanks to Fiona Brownlee at Muswell Press for my digital copy and beautiful hard copy of The Codes of Love and for my place on the blog tour.

See the banner below for more stops on the #blogtour.

Blog tour: 15 to 19 March 2020

Synopsis

It was always going to end in trouble. But how did it end in murder?

Jenny Kennedy appears to have it all. She’s the perfect daughter, the popular girl at school and a successful beauty queen. But then Jenny is found dead, in a murder that rocks the small town she grew up in to the core.

Her estranged half-sister Virginia finds herself thrust into the spotlight as the case dominates the news and is desperate to uncover who killed Jenny. But she soon realises that maybe Jenny’s life wasn’t so perfect after all. The truth is that Jenny has more than a few secrets of her own, and so do her neighbours …

What really happened that night?

My review

The Prized Girl tells the story of Jenny Kennedy, aged 13, and a former pageant queen who was found murdered in the woods bordering cornfields, near her home in Wrenton, New England. The police think they’ve got the killer, a man who is a fan and attended all her pageants, but her estranged half-sister, Virginia, who’s 13 years older, isn’t convinced and begins to do a bit of digging herself to try and find out the truth.

Jenny’s mum, Linda, adores her but pushes her to perform in the pageants. She eventually rebels, which sets off a chain of catastrophic events. Jenny shares a father, Calvin, with Virginia, who was 11 when her mum died.

Told in two timelines, before and after the murder, and from the points of view of Jenny and Virginia, we learn more about the secrets that both sisters are hiding and how things are connected between various people in the small town in which they live. Everyone seems to be mixed up in each other’s business to a large extent!

Virginia has her own demons, after a traumatic childhood, and she doesn’t get along with her father, stepmother or stepsister but she joins forces with the local cop, Detective Brandon Colsen, to investigate Jenny’s murder and together they uncover some new evidence, which sends the story in several different directions.

Neither of the main protagonists is very likeable but they were both rather misunderstood, abused and vulnerable. It’s a shame the two sisters weren’t closer as they were more similar than they realised and had both been mistreated by people around them.

The Prized Girl is well paced and secrets are slowly and intriguingly revealed until things come to a dramatic conclusion with several shocking revelations. It was twisty and cleverly plotted and I didn’t have a clue how it was all going to be concluded or work out who the killer actually was!

Overall, I really enjoyed this dark, chilling story and liked the various twists, turns and misdirection. Gripping reading at times. Just when I thought I knew who had done it, another thing was revealed by one of the sisters that sent me back to the drawing board! I’m looking forward to reading the author’s next book.

Buy the book

The Prized Girl by Amy K. Green can be purchased from Amazon on Kindle and in paperback, and as an eBook from Kobo and iBooks.

About the author

Amy K. Green was born and raised in a small New England town where she was once struck by lightning. She was a practicing CPA before leaving the corporate life to work in film production, write, and wear fewer high heels. She now lives in Los Angeles but spends as much time as she can in Boston.

Twitter: @amykgreen
Instagram: @amykgreen1

Blog tour

Thanks to Sian Baldwin at HQ Stories for my copy of The Prized Girl and for my place on the blog tour.

See the banner below for more stops on the #blogtour.

Blog tour: 9 to 20 March 2020

Synopsis

Be careful what you wish for …

It’s 1952. The switchboard operators in Wooster, Ohio, love nothing more than to eavesdrop on their neighbours’ conversations, and gossip about what they learn. Vivian Dalton is no different (despite her teenage daughter’s disapproval), and always longs to hear something scandalous. But on the night of December 15th, she wishes she hadn’t. The secret that’s shared by a stranger on the line threatens to rip the rug of Vivian’s life from under her.

Vivian may be mortified, but she’s not going to take this lying down. She wants the truth, no matter how painful it may be. But one secret tends to lead to another …

This moving, heart-felt and ultimately uplifting novel brilliantly weaves together an irresistible portrayal of a town buzzing with scandal, and an unforgettable story of marriage, motherhood and the unbreakable ties of family.

My review

In December 1952, Vivian Dalton is 38 years old, mum of Charlotte (15) and wife to Edward, and a switchboard operator at Ohio Bell in Wooster, Ohio. Vivian is also rather nosy and after connecting callers with their requested numbers, she often stays on the line to have a listen for any good gossip! Most of it is usually mundane but Vivian takes delight in knowing these secrets facts about everyone.

Late one night, she gets more than she bargained for when she hears four-flusher (someone who makes false or pretentious claims) Betty Miller and another woman swapping some scandalous gossip about Vivian’s family! Getting a taste of her medicine, Vivian is horrified and paranoid that people are talking about her and feels uncomfortable around everyone in the small town where she lives. She vows to uncover the whole truth about the saga and find out who the caller was.

We also learn about a bank robbery, which keeps the locals talking as the couple who carried out the crime, Gilbert Ogden and Flora Parker, are still at large. Ogden was a teller at Wayne Building and Loan and he embezzled $250,000 and absconded with the bank director’s secretary and married woman, Flora Parker. Betty’s father, J. Ellis Reed, is the mayor of Wooster and also the owner of the bank and he had promised to reimburse people in the town who’d lost money with his own cash.

The story is set in 1952–53 and told in flashbacks to various points in Vivian’s life (1925, 1931 and 1936) when she is 10, 16 and 21 respectively. Her maiden name was McGinty and she has four siblings: Henry, Vera, Violet and Will. She first joined Ohio Bell at aged 16, before moving out to upstate New York shortly after marrying her husband, Edward, in June 1937, after he took up a job at The Institution for Male Defective Delinquents. They returned to Wooster a few years later, with a young Charlotte, after Edward quit his job at the prison.

Interspersed in the story are dictionary definitions, newspaper articles and tasty-sound recipes, which add to the familiarity and homeliness. Vivian’s daughter, Charlotte, is rather intelligent and mocks her mother for not knowing what words mean and how to spell them correctly. Vivian is very emotional and screams into a pillow and smokes when she’s angry and uses baking to calm herself down.

The Operator was delightfully written and cleverly woven and I enjoyed getting to know all the characters and learning their secrets and hearing more about some of the events that had shocked the town over the years. Some surprising revelations are revealed throughout the book and I certainly hadn’t imagined half of the scandals in this small town!

There were lots of twists and turns and various storylines and I especially enjoyed getting to know the women, who all seemed rather two faced and petty and took great delight in each other’s failures and loss of face! It was interesting to look back at their pasts and see how everything had come about in the story.

Overall, this was a lovely read and an intriguing, authentic look at 1950s small town America. There was plenty to keep my attention and I loved the way nearly all the characters had hidden, juicy secrets! Not my usual read but it was a great insight into how life was in the time period and it was fascinating to learn that the book was loosely based on the author’s switchboard operator grandmother and family history details from her little brown notebook!

Buy the book

The Operator by Gretchen Berg can be purchased from Amazon on Kindle and in hardback, and as an eBook from Kobo and iBooks.

About the author

Gretchen Berg grew up in the US Midwest and now lives in Oregon. She has always been curious about history and families, and has a personal family tree of over 16,000 people. Her family research started with her own grandmother’s little brown notebook full of details, and it was the story of her grandmother – herself a switchboard operator in Wooster, Ohio, in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s – that inspired The Operator.

Website: http://www.gretchenbergbooks.com

Blog tour

Thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for my hardback copy of The Operator and for my place on the blog tour.

See the banner below for more stops on the #blogtour.

Blog tour: 10 to 14 March 2020

Synopsis

The drinks are flowing. The jazz is swinging.
But for the city’s newest arrivals, the party can’t last.

With the Blitz over and London reeling from war, jazz musician Lawrie Matthews has answered England’s call for help. Fresh off the Empire Windrush, he’s taken a tiny room in south London lodgings, and has fallen in love with the girl next door.

Touring Soho’s music halls by night, pacing the streets as a postman by day, Lawrie has poured his heart into his new home – and it’s alive with possibility. Until, one morning, he makes a terrible discovery.

As the local community rallies, fingers of blame are pointed at those who had recently been welcomed with open arms. And, before long, the newest arrivals become the prime suspects in a tragedy which threatens to tear the city apart.

My review

This Lovely City tells the story of the Windrush generation; the people who came over to the United Kingdom after the Second World War from countries like Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and other Caribbean islands, to help with the post-war labour shortages that were being experienced. Many of them had served in the British armed forces and decided to come to live in Britain.

The Windrush generation was so called after the ship, MV Empire Windrush, which arrived at Tilbury Docks in Essex on 22 June 1948 carrying nearly 500 men, women and children. The aim was for them to be welcomed into and be housed in the local communities to help rebuild the country, but they were treated with contempt, suspicion, discrimination and racism rather than being received with open arms and appreciation.

In this fictional story, one of the Windrush men is 19-year-old Lawrie Matthews who spent nearly all his savings on a ticket to England and was shown to a deep-level shelter in Clapham Common when he arrived. He ‘hated that they’d been shoved down into the bowels of the city, unexpected guests that no one knew what to do with’ and initially struggles to find work after a run in with a local man leaves him with a black eye.

Lawrie is a musician and enjoys playing his clarinet in the dance halls in Soho at night time with his band, formed with some of the other men, and then rushes to his morning job as a postman. While playing their music, the men are respected and admired but Lawrie soon discovers that this turns to suspicion and mistrust afterwards and, fearing for his safety, he learns how to keep his head down and avoid antagonising anyone.

He moves into new lodgings, a tiny boxroom, next door to his 16-year-old girlfriend, Evie, and her mum, Agnes Coleridge, and all seems to be going well for him at last. Until, one day, while delivering a ‘special package’ for the rather dodgy Derek, his housemate and son of his landlady, Nóirín Ryan, he makes a startling discovery on Clapham Common, which has far-reaching repercussions that affect all that he knows.

In the quest for the truth of the matter, the local policeman, Detective Sergeant Kenneth Rathbone, questions Lawrie, Evie and others connected to them, and locals start to turn against anyone black, in shocking displays of racism and unrest, blaming them for the awful incident.

The story was told in a few time periods, 1948 and March to April 1950, and from the points of view of Lawrie and Evie, cleverly interspersed with articles from newspapers and letters between Agnes and her sister, Gertrude.

I really enjoyed this beautifully written, compelling story and it was an eye-opening insight into the Windrush generation and how they were so badly treated when they were just here to help the country rebuild. It was cleverly plotted with some intriguing twists and turns and tense moments. Several of the characters were hiding some big secrets from each other and I certainly hadn’t guessed how everything would pan out!

This Lovely City was so captivating and absorbing and I could really imagine all the scenes in the book and was desperate to see how the story unfolded and hoped it would have a satisfactory and happy conclusion for all. The Windrush migrants were so unfairly and unjustly treated at times and I felt quite upset and angry at some of the unsettling incidents I was reading about.

Overall, I really enjoyed this touching, though-provoking story, which evoked some strong emotions about an event and period in history that I didn’t know much about, and I’m looking forward to reading the author’s next book.

Buy the book

This Lovely City by Louise Hare can be purchased from Amazon on Kindle and in hardback, and as an eBook from Kobo and iBooks.

About the author

Louise Hare is a London-based writer and has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. Originally from Warrington, the capital is the inspiration for much of her work, including her debut, This Lovely City, which began life after a trip into the deep level shelter below Clapham Common.

Twitter: @LouRHare
Facebook: @louisehareauthor
Instagram: @LouRHare
Website: http://louisehare.com

Blog tour

Thanks to Sian Baldwin at HQ Stories for my hardback copy of This Lovely City and for my place on the blog tour.

See the banner below for more stops on the #blogtour.

Blog tour: 4 to 13 March 2020

Synopsis

Everyone brings baggage to a new relationship.

When Alex met Natalie she changed his life. After the tragic death of his first wife, which left him a single parent to teenage daughter Jade, he’s determined to build a happy family.

But his new-found happiness is shattered when the family home is gutted by fire and his loyalties are unexpectedly tested. Jade insists she saw a man in the house on the night of the fire; Natalie denies any knowledge of such an intruder.

Alex is faced with an impossible choice: to believe his wife or his daughter? And as Natalie’s story unravels, Alex realises that his wife has a past he had no idea about, a past that might yet catch up with her.

But this time, the past could be deadly …

My review

In September 2017, it’s past midnight and Alex Carmichael is walking home after an evening of socialising with clients from London when he spots strange lights and an unusual smell and realises that something is burning and, to his horror, realises it’s his house that’s on fire. His second wife, Natalie, has escaped and is standing outside but there’s no sign of his 14-year-old daughter, Jade.

Eventually after much confusion, a fireman walks out of the burning house carrying Jade and paramedics look her over and check her pulse and perform compressions on her chest. She’s put on a stretcher and into an ambulance, which races to the hospital, and is rushed to the intensive care unit, where she remains unconscious in a coma due to smoke inhalation.

Alex and Natalie end up being housed in the Sea Breeze hotel while they wait for Jade to recover. When she eventually comes round after a few days, Jade tells her dad that it wasn’t an accident and that she saw a strange man in the house but Natalie denies there was anyone there and says her stepdaughter imagined it. This makes Alex suspicious and he wonders what exactly Natalie is hiding. Eventually, she confesses some truths about her past and we learn a bit more about her.

Jade was only five years old when her mother, Heather, died of cancer and Alex wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to love someone again until Natalie came into their lives a few years ago. They’ve only been married six months but he thought he knew her; now it appears that she’s been hiding things from him.

The story is told in the present day (2017) and the period from 1999 to 2000, and from the perspectives of several different protagonists, who all seem to be hiding secrets, and lots more is revealed as the book progresses. It’s a dark, intense story of obsession, desire, egotism, narcissism, lack of trust, violence, menacing characters and dodgy dealings in nightclubs, as well as a family struggling to make sense of things after a shocking event. What initally seems like a horrible, accidental domestic incident is actually a more complicated situation that has far-reaching consequences.

It’s difficult to say too much without giving anything away but this was an exciting, action-packed psychological thriller with a few twists, turns and red herrings, and I read it quickly to try and discover the truth! It made tense and uncomfortable reading at times and I was shocked by some of the events that happened.

Overall, this was an enjoyable, sinister read and cleverly crafted! There were a few clues scattered throughout and I sort of guessed how the story would pan out but there were still a few shocks and revelations! I’ll be checking out the author’s debut, House Swap, now as it’s on my Kindle already!

Buy the book

The Second Wife by Rebecca Fleet can be purchased from Amazon on Kindle and in hardback, and as an eBook from Kobo and iBooks.

About the author

Rebecca Fleet lives in London and works in Windsor. Her debut thriller, The House Swap, was published in 2018 to great acclaim.

The Second Wife is her eagerly anticipated second thriller. It examines love, loyalty and trust in a family torn apart by tragedy. It marries all of the suspense, tension and compulsion of the best psychological thrillers with a powerful, emotional portrait of our closest relationships.

Twitter: @RebeccaLFleet

Blog tour

Thanks to Hayley Barnes at Transworld Books and Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for my digital copy of The Second Wife and for my place on the blog tour.

See the banner below for more stops on the #blogtour.

Blog tour: 20 February to 24 March 2020

Synopsis

Their children are friends first. They hit it off immediately, as kids do. And so the parents are forced to get to know each other. Three wildly different couples. Three marriages, floundering.

There are barbeques, dinner parties, a holiday in Greece. An affair begins, resentments flare, and despite it all the three women become closer.

Unnoticed, their children run wild. The couples are so busy watching each other that they forget to watch their children. Until tragedy strikes.

But the summer won’t be over until the story twists, and twists again, while three families search desperately for answers. Because while they have been looking the other way, evil has crept into their safe little world – and every parent’s biggest nightmare is about to come true …

My review

Little Friends tells the story of three couples and their children who become friends after one of the mums, Eve Kershaw, a teacher, takes an online course to enable her to teach dyslexic children. She arranges a Sunday class at their home to tutor her daughter, Poppy (11), and two other children, Blake (11) and Isabelle (Izzy), aged 13. Their younger brothers and sisters also come round to play.

Eve is married to Eric, a landscaper, and they have three children, Poppy, Sorrel (6) and Ash, nearly three, and a Labrador puppy called Noah. Eric has a co-worker called Igor, who is Polish. They live in Eve’s childhood home, with its two acres of land that the children love exploring, which was left to her by her parents when they died, along with a beautiful villa in Greece.

Melissa, an interior designer, is married to architect Paul and they have a daughter, Isabelle (13), and a kitten called Venus. Their live-in maid/cleaner, Lina, is from Syria.

Grace, originally from Zimbabwe, is a hotel receptionist and aspiring author and married to Booker prize-winning author Martin Cowan. They have two children, Blake (11) and Charley (9), and live on the thirteenth floor of a tower block in a rather dodgy area.

I’m rather hopeless with character names and there were rather a lot in this book so I made a list of all the families that I could refer to! This helped me keep track of who was who, especially in the beginning when I was getting to know them all.

The children hit it off straightaway and were soon thick as thieves running around the grounds of the house and getting up to mischief. Eve believes in allowing children to have free rein to explore and so they were left to their own devices and not closely watched by any of the adults, allowing them to run wild. Izzy was the ringleader and the others looked up to her and wanted to impress her.

The families spend lots of time together and even holiday in Greece for a week in the Kershaw family’s villa. This is when an affair begins, more secrets are revealed and the children start to turn even more feral and get up to all sorts that their parents are unaware of; geeing each other on, teasing the younger ones, elements of bullying, playing unpleasant games and challenging each other to do things. There was so much going on and events were rather chaotic at times, with children running amok!

The story is told from the points of view of Eve, Grace and Melissa, with short chapters in italics that give us an idea of what the children are getting up to while the adults are socialising. The couples are all rather unpleasant and dysfunctional and hiding secrets from each other. Their marriages are in trouble, they’re out of control and so are the kids and it all builds up to be an extremely toxic environment all round!

Things take a sinister turn one night after a midweek party at Eve and Eric’s house following a homework session for the children and from then on everything escalates and the revelations come thick and fast! The tension was great and I could just tell that it was all building up to a climax with tragic events but I didn’t see half of that coming.

Little Friends was a dark, engaging, intense read and extremely chilling and unsettling at times. Covering some difficult topics, it was well-written, with great pacing to the story that kept me intrigued, and I was quickly turning the pages to see what would be revealed next.

Overall, I really enjoyed this cleverly plotted domestic thriller, which had numerous twists and turns, red herrings and instances of misdirection throughout! I was never really sure what was going to happen next – it was certainly an action-packed read with lots of shocks and revelations, and made tense, uncomfortable reading at times. I’m looking forward to checking out some more of the author’s books that I already have in my collection: Daughter, The Drowning Lesson and How Far We Fall.

Buy the book

Little Friends by Jane Shemilt can be purchased from Amazon on Kindle and in paperback, and as an eBook from Kobo and iBooks.

About the author

While working as a GP, Jane Shemilt completed a postgraduate diploma in Creative Writing at Bristol University and went on to study for the MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa, gaining both with distinction. Her first novel, Daughter, was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club, shortlisted for the Edgar Award and the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, and went on to become the bestselling debut novel of 2014.

Jane and her husband, a professor of neurosurgery, have five children and live in Bristol.

Twitter: @Janeshemilt
Facebook: @Jane-Shemilt
Instagram: @jane.shemilt
Website: https://janeshemilt.com

Blog tour

Thanks to Sriya Varadharajan at Michael Joseph Books for my copy of Little Friends and for my place on the blog tour.

See the banner below for more stops on the #blogtour.

Blog tour: 2 to 8 March 2020

Synopsis

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Type-A Manhattan lawyer Dannie Kohan has been in possession of her meticulously crafted answer since she understood the question. On the day that she nails the most important job interview of her career and gets engaged to the perfect man, she’s well on her way to fulfilling her life goals.

That night Dannie falls asleep only to wake up in a different apartment with a different ring on her finger, and in the company of a very different man. The TV is on in the background, and she can just make out the date. It’s the same night – December 15th – but 2025, five years in the future.

It was just a dream, she tells herself when she wakes, but it felt so real … Determined to ignore the odd experience, she files it away in the back of her mind.

That is, until four and a half years later, when Dannie turns down a street and there, standing on the corner, is the man from her dream …

In Five Years is a love story, brimming with joy and heartbreak. But it is definitely not the love story you’re expecting.

My review

The main protagonist of In Five Years is Dannie Kohan, a 28-year-old corporate lawyer who lives in New York. She seems to have everything sussed in her life – she has a lovely boyfriend, David Rosen, also 28, who works in finance as an investment banker and they have an apartment in Murray Hill that overlooks Third Avenue.

Dannie does everything by numbers and has a plan: she’s very ambitious, likes to be in control and knows exactly what she wants and when. She knows how long it takes her to get ready in the morning, how long it takes to walk to work and she believes that 20 months is the ideal time to date before you move in with someone, 28 is the best age to get engaged and 30 is the right age to be married.

Dannie and David even have a five-year plan themselves, which they devised after six months of dating when they realised things were serious between them. Their ultimate aim is to live in Gramercy and for Dannie to be a senior associate and aspiring junior partner and David will be working at a hedge fund for more money and less corporate bureaucracy.

It’s 15 December 2020 when we first meet Dannie, on the day of her interview at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz, the top law firm in the city, the place she’s always wanted to work since she was 10 years old and what she’s been aiming for ever since then. She’s focused, organised and determined, she’s prepared well and, as expected, aces the interview. To celebrate, David has made a reservation at the Rainbow Room on the 65th floor of the 30 Rockefeller Plaza, which has amazing views of the city skyline, and Dannie knows that this is the night he’s going to propose. It sounds incredible!

The couple have a dance, eat their salad and lobster, drink champagne and wine and finish their desserts but David still doesn’t propose. Eventually, he gets down on one knee, says some lovely things and pops the question and it’s perfect. Two hours later, the couple are back home and ordering Thai food online and then Dannie falls asleep on the couch.

She wakes up and doesn’t recognise where she is. She’s in a loft apartment in Dumbo, Brooklyn, that overlooks the Manhattan Bridge and there’s a different engagement ring on her finger and a strange man starts talking to her! On the TV, the news is on and she sees a graphic showing the date, which is 15 December 2025! While the man makes them some food, she looks in his wallet for his driving licence and discovers he’s called Aaron Gregory and is 33. All rather confusing – what’s going on? Dannie is drawn to him and she falls asleep in his arms and when she wakes up, she’s back in her apartment with David and all seems back to normal.

Dannie gets the job and life carries on and she tries to put the dream to the back of her mind, even going for therapy to try and forget it. They follow the plan and move to Gramercy but, for various reasons, the couple don’t get married. Their lives seem perfect but are they really happy? What’s stopping them from taking the plunge?

Four and a half years after she first dreams of Aaron, she meets her best friend, Bella’s new boyfriend, an architect, who is nicknamed Greg but turns out to be Aaron! Dannie is shocked by this revelation and can’t understand how he can be the man from her dream. Her friend, Bella, is smitten by Aaron and their relationship quickly develops and become serious.

After this point, the focus of the book changes and we learn more about Dannie’s friendship with Bella and Aaron. They’ve been friends since they were seven years old but Bella is rather different to Dannie and she’s a great contrast but, at times, they rather clash and aren’t on the same wavelength. Bella falls in and out of love easily, she’s impulsive, dramatic and intense, is rarely awake before noon, always chronically late, enjoys travelling and partying but is rather fragile and emotional.

When the worst happens and life tests them both, we see how strong their friendship is and that they’re loyal, supportive and really care about each other. The story is so poignant and moving but engaging and an easy read, which I really enjoyed.

By the end of the book, Dannie realises that life is unpredictable and throws curveballs and you can’t always plan how things will work out. Things happen, emotions alter, life changes and you’re not always in control of your own destiny. It was certainly a thought-provoking chain of events and made me think there’s more to life than having a plan and following it so rigidly.

In Five Years is cleverly written, a bit different from the norm, and it definitely didn’t pan out how I expected when I began reading the story. It was touching and emotional and really made me think about relationships and friendships. I also enjoyed the descriptions of everyday life in Manhattan and the various bars, delis, buildings and sights. This was my first book by the author but I’m keen to read some of her other books now, especially The Dinner List.

Buy the book

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle can be purchased from Amazon on Kindle and in hardback on 10 March, and as an eBook from Kobo and iBooks.

About the author

Rebecca Serle is an author and television writer who lives between New York and Los Angeles. Serle most recently co-developed the hit TV adaptation of her young adult series, Famous in Love, for Freeform. She loves Nancy Meyers films, bathrobes and giving unsolicited relationship advice.

Twitter: @RebeccaASerle
Facebook: @RebeccaSerle
Website: https://www.rebeccaserle.com

Blog tour

Thanks to Milly Reid at Quercus Books for my proof copy of In Five Years and for my place on the blog tour.

See the banner below for more stops on the #blogtour.

Blog tour: 5 to 10 March 2020

Synopsis

Can you ever truly know those closest to you?

When Sadie moves with her husband Will and their two children to a tiny coastal town, it’s a fresh start. Will swears the affair he was having back in the city is over and Sadie believes him. But their new beginning is tainted when a local woman is murdered, leaving Sadie convinced there’s a killer in their midst.

Hot-headed, beautiful Camille is obsessively in love with Will. She’s even prepared to follow him thousands of miles to stake out his new home in secret – and in doing so, becomes the only witness to a brutal crime.

But who is Camille really, and what is her connection to the dead woman? And as the murder investigation deepens, whose secret will be revealed as the darkest of them all?

My review

The Other Mrs tells the story of Sadie and Will Foust and their sons, Otto, aged 14, and seven-year-old Tate, who have recently moved from Chicago to a small island off the coast of Maine after the sudden death of Will’s sister, Alice, who suffered from fibromyalgia. Will has been given guardianship of her 16-year-old daughter, Imogen, as well as possession of Alice’s estate, a large foursquare farmhouse.

The move comes at a good time for the family: Will has been having an affair, which he assures his wife has ended, Sadie is a doctor and was forced to resign after an incident at work, and Otto was being bullied at school and, after he brought a weapon onto the premises and was facing expulsion, his parents removed from the school. They’re hoping that this fresh start will enable them to put things behind them, difficult though it will be looking after the grieving Imogen. She dresses all in black, has piercings and black hair and whitens her face with talcum powder, and is described as brooding and melancholic.

The rocky and rugged island with tall pines that they live on is small – a mile by a mile and a half wide – and isolated – only accessible by ferry – and three miles from the mainland. The settings added to the creepiness and eerieness of the story and the sense of fear and uncertainty. As Sadie comments: ‘There’s something unsettling in knowing that when the last ferry leaves for the night, we’re quite literally trapped.’

Will is a part-time adjunct professor, teaching human ecology on the mainland, while Sadie, who was an emergency room doctor in Chicago, is now working as a physician on the island.

Seven weeks after they move there, their neighbour Morgan Baines is murdered late one evening. She was found dead by her six-year-old stepdaughter. The murder does nothing to ease Sadie’s feeling of uneasiness and fear as the murderer must have remained on the island overnight, and suspicion falls on everyone, including Sadie, who was supposedly witnessed arguing with Morgan by another neighbour, George Nilsson. There’s lots of small town gossip and they aren’t very welcoming to Sadie, especially.

The story is told from the viewpoints of three characters: mainly Sadie, with insights from Camille and a six-year-old girl called Mouse, who is being abused by her stepmother. As events unfold, we learn more about the beautiful, ‘vivacious, untamable’ Camille and how she first met Will in Chicago. They didn’t get together but she remained obsessed with him and, eventually, 15 years later, she looked Will up and seduced him and they began an affair. She continued to stalk him around the city and has even followed him over a thousand miles to Maine so she can keep an eye on him.

The story is tense and creepy and there are several twists and turns and red herrings, as well as disturbing incidents. I was never really sure who to believe as most of the characters seemed rather untrustworthy and they all seemed to be unreliable narrators and hiding secrets from each other. For Morgan’s murder, I had suspicions about everyone from the local policeman, Officer Berg, to the elderly couple next door, George and Poppy Nilsson, and Morgan’s husband, Jeffrey, was obviously on the list too, despite being away on business at the time!

Even the children of the story, Imogen and Otto, were hiding things from Will and Sadie. I really felt for Imogen: she’d just lost her mum, she feels angry, abandoned and rejected, her uncle, aunt and cousins have moved into her family home and she feels that Sadie is trying to replace Alice. Will and Sadie don’t really know how to handle Imogen as they don’t know her and Sadie even admits to being scared of her, which is really sad.

As the story progresses, we learn revelations about several of the characters and all is definitely not what it seemed! The plot line was unpredictable and chilling and I didn’t guess how it was all going to unfold till very close to the end! I definitely didn’t see a lot of that coming! I thought I knew who Mouse was and how she fitted into the story but I was completely wrong.

Overall, The Other Mrs was an intriguing, atmospheric read and I enjoyed getting to know all the rather unlikeable characters. The setting of the island in Maine was really unsettling and well described and I could imagine what it was like to live there. Cleverly plotted, with numerous twists and turns and misdirection, this was a chilling, disturbing read. I’ve got another of the author’s books, The Good Girl, on my Kindle so will be checking that out soon.

Buy the book

The Other Mrs by Mary Kubica can be purchased from Amazon on Kindle and in paperback, and as an eBook from Kobo and iBooks.

About the author

Mary Kubica is The New York Times bestselling author of five novels, including The Good Girl. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in History and American Literature. She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two children.

Twitter: @MaryKubica
Facebook: @MaryKubicaAuthor
Instagram: @marykubica
Website: http://www.marykubica.com/

Blog tour

Thanks to Sian Baldwin at HQ Stories for my proof copy of The Other Mrs and for my place on the blog tour.

See the banner below for more stops on the #blogtour.