BLOG TOUR ~ Mummy Needs A Break by Susan Edmunds

Hi Everyone,

 is my stop on the Blog Tour for Mummy Needs A Break by Susan Edmunds where I've an extract from her latest novel. I was thrilled to be asked by Sabah Khan from Avon Books to take part along with some other fab book bloggers. You can find out who else is taking part in this fabulous Blog Tour at the end of the review so without further ado, here it is:

‘What are you up to?’ Stephen had asked on Monday night. Monday night? I had been contorting myself at a prenatal yoga class, trying to maintain my zen. I’d dragged myself down for a rare class at the studio, though it would have been much easier to just stay home and do another YouTube workout on the LEGO-strewn lounge floor. Stephen had said he was working late, that night. I remembered because I’d had to send Thomas to my parents, where he’d wreaked overtired havoc. ‘Just lying on the couch,’ the mystery number replied. ‘Lucky couch.’ He signed the message off with a heart-eyed emoji. An emoji! Was that meant to be cute? ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Sitting here, thinking about you. See you soon?’ ‘Of course.’ Whoever the other number was, the message was ended with a heart in return. Then the exchange had fallen dead for a couple of days. I lowered myself to the kitchen floor, the too-trendy square handle of the cabinet sticking into my back, the cold metal of the phone in my hands. Lucky couch? Thinking about you? I could not get my thoughts to run in order. It was like watching television when Thomas had the remote, zipping forward then doubling back. The blood had retreated from my fingertips, and my stomach had started somersaulting. The tiles were cold under my shins. What was going on? I shut my eyes. Stephen had been away from home more than usual, blaming work. I’d assumed he was doing extra hours so that he could take some time off when the baby arrived. It had never occurred to me to question whether he might have been somewhere else.

BLOG TOUR ~ The Missing Wife by Sam Carrington

Hi Everyone,

Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for The Missing Wife by Sam Carrington where I've an extract from her latest novel. I was thrilled to be asked by Sabah Khan from Avon Books to take part along with some other fab book bloggers. You can find out who else is taking part in this fabulous Blog Tour at the end of the review so without further ado, here it is:

Tiff crouched down to peek inside the pram. ‘Aw, he’s getting bigger. It’s all that good milk he’s getting.’

‘Not sure he is getting enough milk, actually.’ Now Louisa was inside her best friend’s house, she let her guard down. Without even realising she felt sad, tears began to trickle down her face.

‘Oh, lovely. Come here.’ Tiff enveloped Louisa in a tight hug, rocking her gently. This only added to Louisa’s unexpected outpouring of tears and suddenly she was sobbing.

‘I don’t know what’s happening to me.’ Her voice was muffled in Tiff’s white T-shirt.

‘Baby blues, love. They’ll pass. Come on, let’s get you a coffee.’

Louisa left Noah, who was thankfully still asleep despite the movement of the pram ceasing, and followed Tiff into her huge kitchen, wiping her tears with her jumper sleeve as she walked.

‘Here.’ Tiff handed Louisa a small cube of coloured tissues. Louisa took a few sheets and swiped them across her nose, annoyed with herself for crying the second she’d walked in. She watched through tingling eyes as her friend of eight years filled the see-through kettle with bottled water – she didn’t trust tap water, convinced she’d get cancer from drinking it – and stared at the blue light radiating through the liquid.

‘So—’ Tiff turned to look at her ‘—I take it you’re not sleeping, looking at those bags.’

Louisa couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Hah! Thanks, I feel better already!’

BLOG TOUR ~ Truth or Die by Katerina Diamond

Hi Everyone,

Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for truth or Die by Katerina Diamond where I've an extract from her latest novel. I was thrilled to be asked by Sabah Khan from Avon Books to take part along with some other fab book bloggers. You can find out who else is taking part in this fabulous Blog Tour at the end of the review so without further ado, here it is:

Adrian wasn’t sure what she was getting at. Was she inviting him over? Over the last few weeks they had made a regular habit of staying over at each other’s houses, more as a comfort than anything else. Both happy to be alone, but still not totally OK with being lonely. They would sleep in the same bed together; it had become comforting, if a little strange. Almost platonic, but not quite. There was a definite undertone to what they were doing, but it had been a little over six months since the woman Adrian was seeing, the woman he was falling for, had been taken from him violently. It had been even less time since Imogen had ended her intense relationship with an ex-con. Neither of them particularly relished the idea of dating anyone right now, but still, they were growing closer. Despite that, Imogen hadn’t yet spoken to Adrian about her mother’s death, and her funeral was on Monday – Adrian kept wondering whether she wanted him to go with her.

‘Have you met the new DI yet?’ he asked, changing the subject. If she wanted him there she would ask. He hoped.

‘No, who is it?’

‘Someone who’s transferred in.’

‘Not from Plymouth, I hope,’ Imogen said quickly, shuddering at the thought of her old job.

BLOG TOUR ~ Forget Me Not by Claire Allan

Hi Everyone,

Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for Forget Me Not by Claire Allan where I've a review of her latest novel. I was thrilled to be asked by Sabah Khan from Avon Books to take part along with some other fab book bloggers. You can find out who else is taking part in this fabulous Blog Tour at the end of the review so without further ado, here it is:

I disappeared on a Wednesday afternoon. I was there one minute and the next I was gone.

Set in Derry during the hottest summer on record, it's 6am and Elizabeth O'Loughlin takes her dog Izzy, out for a walk when she comes across Clare who is a civil servant has been the victim of a horrific knife attack, desperately clinging to life on the side of the road.

Unfortunately, Clare dies minutes later but not before mumbling her haunting last words to Elizabeth but it soon becomes clear that Clare's killer has more then one murder on their mind and that the other women, Elizabeth included are in grave danger but she has to take drastic action or face loosing everything. What if she can't stop a killer determined can never to be forgotten?

Well, where do I start?? I didn't like this, I absolutely LOVED this book. It was fantastic, I was gripped from the first few pages, that prologue had me hook, line and sinker and I couldn't read the book fast enough to find out how it all panned out. Told over a two week time span it is told from two main characters perspectives, Elizabeth and Clare's friend Rachel where each chapter alternated between them and with a couple of extra characters thrown into the mix. At times, you could feel the fear and tension been palpable on every turning page. It has many themes running through the book including loss, grief, paranoia to the biggest one touching on bullying and it's repercussions. I thought I'd had worked out how it was going to end but was wrong on numerous occasions and that's the clever and skilful thing about Claire and her plots in books, you think you have it all worked out and something else is thrown into the mix to completely throw you off the scent. 

Claire Allan is well known for writing women's fiction for a long time but with no disrespect to her novels, she has definitely found her calling as a Crime/Thriller writer. She just keeps getting better and better with each novel she turns out with this one been her best in my opinion. I can't wait to read her next thriller (no pressure, Claire). A definite summer read to pack for your holidays, especially if you're going to the beach.

Forget Me Not is Claire's third thriller novel which is available in all good bookshops, libraries, on audio and on Kindle where it is currently £2.99 so grab it while you can as you definitely won't be disappointed. 

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

BLOG TOUR ~ Now You See Me by Chris McGeorge

Hi Everyone,

Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for Now You see Me by Chris McGeorge where I've a review of his latest novel. I was thrilled to be asked by Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers who organised this tour in conjunction with Orion Publishing to take part along with some other fab book bloggers. You can find out who else is taking part in this fabulous Blog Tour at the end of the review so without further ado, here it is:


Six people went in. Only one came out...

Introducing Standedge Tunnel: the longest canal tunnel in England.

Last year six students went in but two and a half hours later, the boat reappeared on the other side with only one of the students, unconscious, and the dog.

The case of the Strangeedge Six was largely kept from the national media. The police investigation concluded that the only remaining student Matthew killed his friends, hid the bodies on the boat and returned later to move them to an undisclosed location.

Matthew is in prison....but maintains he is innocent.

Robert Ferringham is grieving for his missing wife, Sam. So when Matthew contacts him for help with the case, promising information on Sam, Robert has no choice but to help. But can he trust Matthew?

And how will he solve the insolvable case?

Well.........I absolutely loved this book by Chris, I couldn't turn the pages fast enough, a very clever book full of mystery, doubt, thrills and spills with a bit of eeriness thrown into the mix and not knowing who to trust but once you read the blurb you'll be sucked in like I was. I would even go as far as to say I'd love to see this been made into a TV series. I don't want to say too much about this I case I may say something but buckle up for this ride and let's hope you don't have claustrophobia or a fear of tunnels.

Ashamedly I have his first book Guess Who here too which I will get around to reading as soon as I'm finished a few books for blog tours but after reading Now You See Me, I'm really looking forward to it.

Now You See Me is available in all good bookstores, libraries, on audio and on Kindle where it is currently £3.99 at the time of publication of this review. Now go and get it, you won't be disappointed.

BLOG TOUR ~ The Wolves At The Door by Gunnar Staalesen

Hi Everyone,

Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for Wolves At The Door by Gunnar Staalesen where I have an extract from his latest novel. I was thrilled to be asked by Anne Cater from Random Things Tours who organised this tour in conjunction with Orenda Books to take part along with some other fab book bloggers. You can find out who else is taking part in this fabulous Blog Tour at the end of this extract so without further ado, here it is:

She didn’t sound very friendly.

I told her who I was and said I had been asked to investigate her late

partner’s death.

She barked: ‘Who by?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Hah! It’ll be that bitch, I bet.’

‘May I visit you at home?’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Somewhere else then?’

‘I can’t see what the point is. It’s more than a month since it hap-

pened, and the police closed the case ages ago.’

‘Too early maybe?’

‘Too early! What do you mean by that?’

‘There are ... a few loose ends. I can explain when we meet.’ ‘If we meet.’

‘You must be interested in knowing what happened. Or...?’

‘Or what?’

I could have answered: Or perhaps you know already. But I didn’t. I

said: ‘You must’ve asked yourself a few questions afterwards, surely? And your daughter? How did she react to the drama?’

‘You bloody keep my daughter right out of this!’

‘By all means. It’s you I want to talk to.’

‘OK then. But it’ll have to be somewhere with lots of people around.

The café in the square inside Oasen. Could you be there in ... half an hour?’

I did a quick mental calculation. ‘I can jump on a bus. Give me a bit more time in case I’m unlucky with the schedule.

‘Three quarters of an hour. Not a second more.’

‘And how...?’

But she had already hung up. I would have to hope I knew who she

was when I got there.

In fact, catching a bus was the best option. I put my computer on

standby, pulled out the plug of the kettle, slipped on my winter coat and rushed off. The services to Fyllingsdalen went through Olav Kyrres gate and I jumped on a bus at the last moment, so in fact I was able to alight by Oasen within the thirty minutes she had first suggested. I ran through the entrance by the office of the insurance company that had given me plenty of jobs, that was until a few years ago, when my contact moved to pastures new and the link was lost, which meant my financial status sank a few more notches.

A long corridor with a view into one of the supermarket chains in the mall led to the large square in the centre of the massive building. They had planted a few palm trees in large containers to give the impres- sion that you were in the middle of the natural phenomenon the mall was named after. For me, the name Oasen had never appealed. Most of Fyllingsdalen was greener than the brick desert here. But then the shopping centre known as Lagunen was no sheltered idyll either. The choice of names for malls in the Bergen region owed more to a yearning for sunnier climes than what they were: overcrowded ant hills paying their dues to commercialism.

I stood at the entrance to the café that occupied a large part of the square and looked around, obviously searching for someone I knew – or didn’t know. I met the gaze of a robust, dark-haired woman sitting in the middle of the room and wearing black glasses and black clothes, from her jumper to her velvet trousers. She glared at me and I seemed to recognise the voice on the phone in her eyes.

I looked at her with raised eyebrows and she returned a belligerent glare. It had to be her. ‘Svanhild Olsvik?’

She nodded.

There was a free chair at her table. She had an empty cup of coffee in front of her. ‘I’ll go and get a coffee. Would you like a refill?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ll be off soon.’

‘I won’t be a moment.’

I joined the queue at the counter, poured myself a coffee from the

machine and ended up behind an elderly Bergensian lady at the cash till. She was so immersed in her account of her grandchild’s merits that I just elbowed in, threw the money on the counter and said to the listen- ing head that she could keep whatever was left over, which she accepted absent-mindedly, sweeping the money into her apron pocket without even so much as a question as to whether I wanted a receipt.

I hurried back, coffee spilling into the saucer, sat down on the free chair and adopted my most charming expression. ‘I apologise for both- ering you during your working day.’

She shrugged. ‘It’s over.’

‘What’s your job?’

‘Cleaning consultant,’ she answered with a defiant look, in case I

should be so bold as to call her job anything else. ‘I can’t understand why I’m talking to you.’

‘I’ll be as brief as possible. Let’s get straight to the point. Your partner, Mikael Midtbø, died after falling from the tenth floor of the block where you live. The police have called it a suicide. Is that your view, too?’

Her face, if possible, stiffened even more. ‘My view? What do you mean?’

‘Well ... that’s quite a brutal way of taking your life. Most people would choose another method.’

‘What do you mean? That he ...? That someone pushed him off?’ ‘Possibly.’

‘Surely the police would’ve investigated the case further, wouldn’t

they? All they did was to talk to me – twice – and then nothing hap- pened until I received a phone call telling me they’d decided it was suicide.’

‘And you were happy with that?’

‘If there was anyone who wanted to kill him it was that bitch, but he would’ve never let her in after all the trouble she’s caused.’

‘That bitch, as you call her. Are you referring to his ex-wife?’ 

‘She was the one who started all the rumours about him. You can bet your bottom dollar she’s the one who reported him to the police, too. She wanted to make sure she kept the kids. And to do that, she used the dirtiest of all the lies.’

Her face had loosened up now. Muscles twitched, her eyes wandered from side to side and her whole body was in motion. It was obvious that this was a matter that engaged her. She made a powerful impression in all ways. A large woman she may have been, but there was nothing flabby or limp about her. She seemed more like a bundle of muscle, a well-trained heavyweight wrestler. I could truly imagine the energy with which she set about the floors as a cleaning consultant.

‘Right. Did they keep in touch?’

‘Touch! He was banned from visiting his children. If he was ever seen near where they lived in Frekhaug, she would ring the police. And she never showed her face out here of course, as I was trying to tell you.’ She shifted uneasily. ‘But now I’ve got to go.’

‘Wait a minute. If we assume the police are right – in other words, that it was suicide – did you notice anything that pointed in that direc- tion, in the time before he died? Was he depressed, quick-tempered, unstable?’

She pulled a long face. ‘Depressed, quick-tempered, unstable? You talk like a social worker.’

‘ We l l ...’

Then she appeared to remember something. Her expression changed, from aggressive to more thoughtful. ‘Though something did change in him after he received a phone call.’

‘A phone call? Who from?’

‘“Do you believe in demons, Svanhild?” he said. “Get away,” I said. “Demons?” “Yes,” he said. “As much as I believe in the devil and hell,” I said. Then Astrid came home from school and there was no more talk about that, until the evening when she’d gone to bed. “What did you mean about demons earlier today?” I asked him. Then he looked, like, well, scared and he said: “There’s a pastor coming here tomorrow. He can help me,” he said. “A pastor?” I said. “A bloody priest? What do you want with him?” “Well, he insisted,” he said, and so I said he should just ring and cancel, but then he didn’t want to talk about it any more. But I could see it was on his mind for the rest of the evening, even while we were watching a decent action film on TV. And the following day it happened.’

‘He fell to his death?’

‘Yes, but now I’ve really got to go. I must be at home when Astrid comes.’

‘OK. Mm ... did you tell the police this? About the phone call?’

‘I don’t remember. Maybe.’ She stood up, took a big, dark-blue puffer jacket from the back of her chair and put it on. ‘You’d better ask them.’

‘Which school does your daughter go to? Løvås?’

She immediately leaned over me. Towering above me, her girth increased by the puffer jacket, with the nastiest expression I had seen since I was an army recruit, she made an even more aggressive impres- sion than before, bordering on dangerous. ‘That’s got bugger-all to do with you. If you go anywhere near my daughter I’ll fucking well report you. Have you got that?’

‘Loud and clear,’ I said. Sergeant, I added, in my head, but that was where it stayed. No reason for any slips of the tongue.

With long, bouncing strides she disappeared from the café and left in the same direction from which I had entered the mall. I stayed put and finally tasted the coffee, which had died a silent death in the mean- time, and tasted like it.

But now I had something to chew on. I took out my notepad and wrote a single word on it: Pastor. After some deliberation I added a question mark. I wanted to know a bit more about him. 

BLOG TOUR ~ The Lies We Tell by Niki Mackay

Hi Everyone,

Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for The Lies We Tell by Niki Mackay where I've a review of her latest novel. I was thrilled to be asked by Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers who organised this tour in conjunction with Orion Publishing to take part along with some other fab book bloggers. You can find out who else is taking part in this fabulous Blog Tour at the end of the review so without further ado, here it is:

Last night I betrayed my husband.

This morning my daughter disappeared.

My husband may have forgiven my first mistake. But he will never forget this.

And so I have to find her.

Before it's too late. For all of us.

Meet Miriam Jackson, she's a famous radio presenter with her own daily talk show. She is married to a very successful film director Nick and she has created the perfect life for herself, up until her daughter goes missing.

Miriam is desperate to fine her before her husband finds out and her perfect life will start  to crumble around her. But her daughter has gone missing before so has she just run away or is there something more sinister going on?? She calls on the only person who can help, in the for, of Private Investigator Madison Attallee, who has just solved the biggest case of her career.

Can Madison find Miriam's daughter before it's too late and more importantly will Miriam share the truth about her past??

Well, where do I start with this...........I didn't just like it, I LOVED it, full of suspense, mystery and fear was palpable on each page I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. I finished it in two sittings which is at times unusual for me with life always getting in my way but I couldn't put it down.

The sociopath/kidnapper character was absolutely brilliant, very well written and cleverly constructed. They were everything you'd expect with a sociopath - cold, calculating, manipulating and has no regard for anyone's feelings or who they hurt on their path of destruction. It was a spine-chilling, pulse pounding roller coaster ride of a read and at times, I could feel I was right there with the characters and felt my blood pressure rising on a couple of occasions, especially towards the end.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

A really well researched and well written book, I'm really looking forward to reading what Niki writes next (no pressure) but in the meantime I will be reading her previous novels.

The Lies We Tell is available in all good bookshops and libraries from June 27th, on audio and on Kindle where it is currently £4.99 at the time of publication of this review.