Good morning everyone and happy Sunday. Here are some of the fantastic books I’ve been lucky enough to receive this week!

🍁The Ice Retreat by Ruth Kelly
🍂The Baby Dragon Cafe by A T Qureshi
🍁A Training School For Elephants by Sophy Roberts
🍂 Burn After Reading by Catherine Ryan Howard
🍁What Will People Think? By Vedashree Khambete-Sharma
🍂 Patriot by Alexei Navalny
🍁The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny

I’m so excited to read these and will be including some of them in my November possible stack tomorrow. Huge thanks to all the lovely publishers for sending.

I’m back at work today after a few days off and I’m looking forward to seeing what new books we have had in store. I’m then getting the kids ready for school tomorrow before hopefully finishing my book. I’m currently reading The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins which I’m really enjoying. My reading has taken a bit of a hit with half term and tiredness but hopefully I’ll get back into it next week with the kids back at school.

What are your Sunday plans?

Find out more about the books below ⬇️

The Ice Retreat by Ruth Kelly

From bestselling author Ruth Kelly, The Ice Retreat is a spine-tingling thriller set in the world of controversial wellness treatments. Perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Sarah Pearse.

HEALER?

Meet Hollie Jenson, presenter of the smash-hit docu-series Bad Medicine, which exposes the perils of extreme therapies. Her next target: a new retreat run by wellness guru Ariel Rose, who claims to have discovered the secret to healing pain through her three-day ice rebirth treatment.

LIAR?

Acting on a mother’s plea to find her son, who vanished soon after his stay, Hollie ventures into the Swiss mountains where the retreat occupies a former observatory. There she will search for the boy, and hopes to expose Ariel as the charlatan she believes her to be.

KILLER?

As the isolation of the valley sets in, Hollie finds herself in an increasingly dangerous situation. There is much more to the retreat than meets the eye, and she must confront explosive secrets from her own past if she is to ever make it out alive . . .

The Baby Dragon Cafe by A. T.Qureshi

When Saphira opens her cafe welcoming pet baby dragons, she isn’t expecting it to be quite so hard to keep the fires burning. But her young dragon patrons keep incinerating her furniture, which means selling coffee isn’t covering all her costs.

Local heart-throb Aiden is a gardener, though his disobedient baby dragon is a major distraction from his beloved plants. However, Saphira’s café gives him an idea – he’ll ask Saphira to train his dragon, and pay her enough to keep the cafe afloat.

They know they’re the answer to each other’s problems, but happy-go-lucky Saphira and gorgeous-but-grumpy Aiden couldn’t be more different. Can they find a way to work together – and maybe even ignite some fire of their own?

The perfect dual POV, grumpy sunshine cozy fantasy, with HEA guaranteed!

Out 16th Jan 2025

A Training School For Elephants by Sophy Roberts

In 1879, King Leopold II of Belgium launched an ambitious plan to plunder Africa’s resources. The key to cracking open the continent, or so he thought, was its elephants ― if only he could train them. And so he commissioned the charismatic Irish adventurer Frederick Carter to ship four tamed Asian elephants from India to the East African coast, where they were marched inland towards Congo. The ultimate aim was to establish a training school for African elephants.

Following in the footsteps of the four elephants, Roberts pieces together the story of this long-forgotten expedition, in travels that take her to Belgium, Iraq, India, Tanzania and Congo. The storytelling brings to life a compelling cast of historic characters and modern voices, from ivory dealers to Catholic nuns, set against rich descriptions of the landscapes travelled. She digs deep into historic records to reckon with our broken relationship with animals, revealing an extraordinary ― and enduring ― story of colonial greed, ineptitude, hypocrisy and folly.

Out 20th Feb 2025.

Burn After Reading by Catherine Ryan Howard

The night Jack Smyth ran into flames in a desperate attempt to save his wife from their burning home, he was, tragically, too late – but hailed a hero. Until it emerged that Kate was dead long before the fire began.

Suspicion has stalked him ever since. After all, there’s no smoke without fire.

A year on, he’s signed a book deal. He wants to tell his side of the story, to prove his own innocence in print. He just needs someone to help him write it.

Emily has never ghostwritten anything before, but she knows what it’s like to live with a guilty secret. And she’s about to learn that there are some stories that should never be told . . .

Out 10th April 2025

What Will People Think by Vedashree Khambete-Sharma

It’s 1976 and in the Vile Parle suburb of Mumbai, bastion of the Maharashtrian middle-class, Ila Bendre’s mother is determined to get her four daughters married off as soon as possible.

Ila has no intention of snaring a proposal from some dull specimen of Marathi manhood so she can pretend to care about cricket for the rest of her life. She wants a career and life of her own, and she’ll do whatever it takes to escape married bliss, no matter what the neighbours might say.

But when Ila’s Bollywood-obsessed younger sister, Latika, takes the matter of marriage into her own hands, it looks as if the Bendre family’s reputation in this close-knit community will be ruined once and for all…

As we follow the Bendre sisters from dinners to parties to weddings, from Vile Parle to Pune, will love eventually conquer all in this ingeniously witty and charming tale of pride, prejudice and puran polis?

Out 7th November 2024

Patriot by Alexei Navalny

Patriot is the exhilarating life story of one of the most fearless and inspiring figures of our time, who became a beacon to millions and the sole political threat to Vladimir Putin.

This is Alexei Navalny’s life in his own words: his Soviet childhood, political awakening, his marriage and beloved family, his total commitment to taking on a corrupt regime and his enduring love of Russia and its people. His 2020 poisoning by the Russian security services was a global news event. In 2024 he died in a brutal Siberian prison. He began writing Patriot whilst recovering from his poisoning; it ends with his prison diaries, seen here for the first time.

We witness the growth of his nationwide support. We see his many arrests and harassment and, in stunning detail, the attempt on his life. We understand why he felt he had to return to Russia. In prison, he shows a spirit and a sense of humour that cannot be crushed.

Patriot is as dramatic as its author’s life – passionate that good and freedom will prevail. It is Alexei Navalny’s final letter to the world, a rousing call to continue his work, an unforgettably positive account of a life that will inspire every reader.

The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny

Relentless phone calls interrupt the peace of a warm August morning in the small village of Three Pines in Quebec. Someone has managed to track down Armand Gamache, head of homicide, as he sits with his wife in their back garden. When he finally answers the call, his rage shatters the calm of their quiet Sunday morning.

That’s only the first in a sequence of strange events that begin THE GREY WOLF. At first they seem small – a missing coat, a note for Gamache reading “this might interest you”, a puzzling scrap of paper with a mysterious list – but then a murder. All propel Chief Inspector Gamache and his team toward a terrible realization. Something much more sinister than any one murder or any one case is fast approaching. A threat unlike anything they’ve seen before.

Book Synopsis:

After three years behind a desk, Inspector John Barton wonders if he’s still got what it takes.

An opportunity arises to return to Major Crimes, so he jumps at it, after all he’s been around the block a few times. When he and his team are called in to investigate an attempted murder which seems to be linked to the case of a missing child, Barton is immediately thrust back into the life of a detective – early mornings, late nights and endless pressure to get to the truth.

Then a man dies.

Something deadly is going on behind the high walls and imposing gates of the mansions in the sleepy village of Castor. The locals are keeping each other’s secrets and if Barton doesn’t find out why soon, the bodies will start mounting up.

The Village Killer knows who’s next, and the clock is ticking…

The book all Ross Greenwood fans have been waiting for – Barton is Back! Ross Greenwood returns to his bestselling series, perfect for fans of Mark Billingham and Ian Rankin.

My Review:

The Village Killer is a gripping, twisty read from one of my favourite crime writers. It’s going to be a hard book to review as I don’t want to give anything away.

Firstly I loved being back with DC (now DCI) Barton following him doing what he does best. It was great to see him back in the action and I loved the traditional police method that he uses, like trusting his gut in certain situations despite there not being any evidence that it is correct. The closeness between his team members was lovely to read about, particularly as they all work so well as a team supporting each other when needed and distracting their team mates with often hilarious banter. It often made me wish that I was a part of their team as it seemed like a lovely close knit team.

I thought the book was very fast paced and there was always something happening to keep my attention. As with the other books in the series there were multiple suspects which made it impossible to guess and kept me on my toes as I tried to work out who the murderer was. Even in the slower moments I was just enjoying hanging out with DCI Barton and his fabulous team. I liked that the descriptions of the investigation showed the slog of police work and the slower moments of a case as it made it seem more realistic. This is actually the seventh book in the series and whilst it could be read as a standalone as everything you need to know is explained, it is probably best to read the series in order. I’m really hoping that there is more to come in this fantastic series.

Huge thanks to Rachel from Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Boldwood for my copy of this book through Netgalley. If you are a fan of crime fiction I highly recommend this fabulous author!

About The Author:

 I was born in 1973 in Peterborough and lived there until I was 20, attending The King’s School in the city. I then began a rather nomadic existence, living and working all over the country and various parts of the world.

I found myself returning to Peterborough many times over the years, usually when things had gone wrong. It was on one of these occasions that I met my partner about 100 metres from my back door whilst walking a dog. Two children swiftly followed. I’m still a little stunned by the pace of it now.

My first book Chancer was written after I decided to do something challenging while my knees permitted. No skydiving for me. I became a prison officer for four years. Ironically it was the four a.m. feed which gave me the opportunity to finish the book as unable to get back to sleep I completed it in the early morning hours.

It’s surprising for me to realise I’ve written sixteen books now. There are three strands, one where the books concern lives affected by prison, and then my detective series starring DI John Barton. The first Barton book, The Snow Killer hit the coveted number one spot on KOBO and AUDIBLE, with the rest of the series not far behind.

I’ve also written four detective books in a Norfolk series now, starting with Death on Cromer Beach. There are two more planned.

My publishers kindly told me I had reached over half a million sales with them in five years in July 2024

I hope you enjoy reading what I’ve written.

Good morning everyone I hope you’re having a great day. I’m excited to be on the cover reveal for The Sleepless by Jen Williams today.

It sounds really good, especially as it looks like it’s going to include dragons! I’m definitely in my dragon era when it comes to books ATM and that cover!! So pretty 😍

The Sleepless, which is the first in an epic new series, is out on the 22nd of May 2025 and you can find out more about the book below.

Do you like books with dragons in them? Any favourites?

Book Synopsis:

Welcome to a world where gods and monsters roam the earth . . .

Elver is the guardian of the wild and dangerous monster forest. Saved from the brink of death by a god, her skin will poison anyone she touches.

Artair is on a mission – one that takes him face-to-face with Elver at her most ruthless. But her defenses are useless when she discovers he’s the only human impervious to her deadly gift. For Artair isn’t human: he’s one of the Sleepless, cursed to share his body with an evil spirit. Lucian inhabits their body while Artair sleeps, and he is hell-bent on manipulating Elver for his dark purposes. But Elver is harbouring secrets too, and she has her own reasons for feigning an alliance with these two souls.

Caught in the crossfire of gods, monsters, and a dangerous magic they can barely understand, it is only a matter of time before the paths the three of them choose to take will set alight the very foundations of their world.

Get ready to fall hopelessly in love with The Sleepless, the first epic YA romantasy from multi-award-winning fantasy author Jen Williams.

About The Author:

About me

Jen Williams is a writer from London currently living in Bristol. A fan of witches and dark folklore from an early age, these days she writes character-driven fantasy novels with plenty of banter and magic as well as horror-tinged crime thrillers with strong female leads. In 2015 she was nominated for Best Newcomer in the British Fantasy Awards. She is represented by Juliet Mushens of Mushens Entertainment.

The Copper Cat trilogy consists of The Copper Promise, The Iron Ghost and The Silver Tide – all published by Headline in the UK – and the first two books in the trilogy are available in the US and Canada, published by Angry Robot. Both The Iron Ghost and The Silver Tide have also been nominated for British Fantasy Awards, and she is partly responsible for founding Super Relaxed Fantasy Club, a social group that meets in London to celebrate a love of fantasy. 

Her second fantasy series, the Winnowing Flame trilogy, kicked off with The Ninth Rain and The Bitter Twins, and ended with The Poison Song in May 2019. The Ninth Rain and The Bitter Twins both went on to win the British Fantasy Award for Best Fantasy Novel in their respective years. The Winnowing Flame trilogy was also published as a special limited edition by The Broken Binding. 

​

Her first crime novel, Dog Rose Dirt, was published in July 2021 in the UK by HarperCollins, and in the US by Crooked Lane under the title A Dark and Secret Place. This twisty crime thriller has also sold in Germany, Brazil, Poland and Spain. Jen had two novels out in 2023: Talonsister, a return to fantasy published by Titan which went on to win her a third British Fantasy Award, and Games for Dead Girls, a true crime inspired horror novel, published by HarperVoyager. 2024 will see the publication of The Hungry Dark and Titanchild, and in 2025 FirstInk will publish her first YA romantasy, The Sleepless.

Interests outside of reading and writing include drawing and painting, playing video games, and watching cartoons. She has a particular passion for animation, history, bats, mead, horror films, her very blue sofa and fantasy RPGs where you can get dumped by a sexy elf. 

(bio from author’s website)

Good morning everyone and happy Tuesday. Today on Two For Tuesday I thought I’d show you the two books I’m currently reading.

🤍The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins
💙 Black Woods Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey

I’m a huge fan of both of these authors so you can imagine my tat receiving these two books. The Blue Hour is a thriller and Black Woods Blue Sky has a bit of magical realism in it which I always love. I’m only a few chapters into both of these and I’m really enjoying them so far. As it’s half term I’m not getting much reading time but I’m trying to sneak in as much time as possible. You can find out more about these books below ⬇️

I’m taking the kids to have their hair cut today which is always a bit stressful, we then need to clean their rooms as they’re looking a bit of a tip and fetch some last minute things for my daughter’s birthday tomorrow. I’m then hoping we can snuggle up and watch a film together or another episode of the Bake Off which we’re all enjoying.

What are you currently reading?

The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins

WELCOME TO ERIS – A TIDAL ISLAND WITH ONLY ONE HOUSE, ONE INHABITANT, ONE WAY OUT. . .

A place that is unreachable from the Scottish mainland for twelve hours each day.

Once the hideaway of Vanessa, a famous artist whose husband disappeared twenty years ago.

Now home to Grace. A solitary creature of the tides, content in her own isolation.

But when a human bone is uncovered in Vanessa’s artwork, far away in London, Grace receives an unexpected visitor.

AND THE SECRETS OF ERIS THREATEN TO EMERGE. . .

Black Woods Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivy

Birdie’s keeping it together, of course she is. So she’s a little hungover on her shifts, and has to bring her daughter to the lodge while she waits tables, but Emaleen never goes hungry. It’s a tough town to be a single mother, and Birdie just needs to get by.
And then Birdie meets Arthur, who is quieter than most men, but makes her want to listen; who is gentle with Emaleen, and understands Birdie’s fascination with the mountains in whose shadow they live. When Arthur asks Birdie and Emaleen to leave the lodge and make a home, just the three of them, in his off-grid cabin, Birdie’s answer, in a heartbeat, is yes.

Out in the wilderness Birdie’s days are harsher and richer than she ever imagined possible. Here she will feel truly at one with nature. Here she, and Emaleen, will learn the whole, fearful truth about Arthur.

Good morning everyone and happy Monday. I saw this on the lovely @mel_lovesbooks page and, as Autumn is my favourite season, I knew I had to join in.

🍁 Favourite Autumn TV/ movies 🍁

I don’t tend to watch a lot of TV though I seem to have been watching more than normal recently. I’m loving The Great British Bake Off which is making me want to try baking more and catching up.woth Celebrity Race Around The World which I’m watching with the kids. I’m also hoping to watch Rivals soon as I loved the book!

Film wise I always have to watch Market & Me in the Autumn as well as Homeward Bound which I loved as a kid and my kids love now too. As it’s Halloween this week I’m also hoping to introduce the kids to Hocus Pocus another Halloween favourite.

🍂Favourite Autumn Drinks 🍂

Nothing beats a cup of tea for me but as I’m attempting to drink less caffeine I’m also liking the Berry tea from Aldi which I think tastes like hot squash. I’m determined to finally try a Pumpkin Spice Latte this Autumn too.

🍁 Favourite Autumn Activities 🍁
Nothing beats an autumn walk in the sunshine for me. I normally walk to work through our local park and I love seeing all the fantastic autumn colours on display as well as the squirrels running around trying to find nuts for the winter. My kids love going conker hunting and pumpkin carving which we’ll hopefully be doing this week. I actually took the picture above in that park this week!

🍂 Favourite Autumn Books🍂

I tend to like spooky or witchy books in the autumn. I’ve particularly loved Rewitched by Lucy Jane Wood which I highly recommend if you haven’t read already. The Pumpkin Spice Cafe series is another great autumn read as well as BK Borison’s Love light farm series!

I’ve tagged a few people on Instagram who might want to take part but, as always, no pressure.

What’s your favourite thing to do in Autumn?

Good morning everyone and happy Sunday. I was lucky enough to briefly work at the Malvern Festival Of Stories yesterday.and met the lovely Teddy Bear Ladies from the Repair Shop on BBC One.

The Malvern Festival Of Stories is an annual festival for children featuring lots of different author talks, shows and wonderful bookish activities for children. There are even free activities for children including story telling and some wonderful craft activities too.

The Teddy Bear Ladies are a favourite of my daughter’s so I was excited to meet them and tell them how they have sparked her interest in sewing. I wasn’t actually intending to get a photo with me in it but they insisted!

Their children’s book Bartie Bristle is out now and I think would make a perfect Christmas present for children. Find out more about the book below!

Bartie Bristle And Other Stories

Step into the magical world of Bartie Bristle and friends in this stunning treasury written by the Teddy Bear Ladies, Julie Tatchell and Amanda Middleditch, best known as stars of the BBC’s The Repair Shop.
Set in a village in the heart of the Old Woods, the magical world of the teddy bear shop and the heart-warming stories of Bartie and his teddy bear friends will captivate children and parents alike.

Julie Tatchell and Amanda Middleditch are best known as “the Teddy Bear Ladies” on the much-loved BBC show The Repair Shop. But before they joined the repair team in the BBC barn they ran a business restoring soft toys from their shop in a beautiful little village. The shop’s logo featured Julie’s sketch of an adorable bear, which Amanda made into a teddy known as Bartie Bristle.

Julie and Amanda began writing short stories all about Bartie Bristle and the other favourite toys for the children that came to their shop, with Julie reimagined as Mrs T and Amanda as Rose.

Book Synopsis:

Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.

Grady calls his wife as she’s driving home to share some exciting news. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by a cliff edge, the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there . . . but his wife has disappeared.

A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible: a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.

Wives think their husbands will change, but they don’t.
Husbands think their wives won’t change, but they do.

Beautiful Ugly is out on the 30th January 2025 & Rossiter Books in Malvern is hosting an event with Alice Feeney on the 31st January 2025! Tickets available via the Rossiter Books website!

My Review:

Beautiful Ugly is a dark, chilling thriller from one of my all-time favourite thriller writers! It’s going to be a difficult book to review as I don’t want to give anything away.  

The story is told mainly from the point of view of writer Grady who is struggling with grief after his wife goes missing and flashbacks from Abby detailing events a week before her disappearance. I started off quite liking Grady who seemed quite a sympathetic, lost character thrown into a situation he can’t seem to understand but that changed a bit as the story continues and we discover more about him. Abby was a fascinating character as she starts off quite mysterious with her past slowly coming out as the story continues.  There were times when I felt quite sorry for her but others where I felt frustrated with her as she often seemed to only care about what she wanted.

I really like the vivid descriptions of the fictional island of Amberley with its rugged beauty and interesting, tragic history.  As soon as Grady arrives on the island, he realises that nothing and nobody is quite what it seems.  The author does a great job at slowly increasing the tension in as we learn more about the characters and the secrets that they are hiding.  The tension was so intense at times that I found my self holding my breath as I read more about the truth of what was happening.  

The ending was brilliant, horrifying and very unexpected.  It’s definitely a book that I’ve continued to think about long after I’ve finished reading and I will be highly recommending it to everyone who enjoys a dark thriller.  

About The Author:

Alice Feeney is a New York Times million-copy bestselling author. Her books have been translated into over thirty-five languages, and have been optioned for major screen adaptations. Including Rock Paper Scissors, which is being made into a TV series by the producer of The Crown. Alice was a BBC journalist for fifteen years, and now lives in Devon with her family. Good Bad Girl is her sixth novel.

You can follow Alice on Instagram and Twitter: @alicewriterland

To find out the latest book and TV news, or to sign up for Alice’s free newsletter, please visit: http://www.alicefeeney.com

Good morning everyone and happy Tuesday. Today on Two For Tuesday I’m featuring two books I’ve received from the lovely people at Book Break.

A Beautiful Family is a story about dark family secrets which I always enjoy, while Rooms For Vanishing is a sweeping book following a family after the second world war … Or does it?!? Eek so intrigued!

These both sound brilliant and just my type of book so I’m very excited to read them both soon.

Huge thanks to @bookbreakuk and @panmacmillan for sending these to me.

A Beautiful Family is out on the 19th June 2025 & Rooms For Vanishing is out on the 21st August 2025.

Find out more about the books below ⬇️

A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan

In the past, we had always spent our summer holidays in remote places. That had always been my mother’s preference. This year was different . . .

A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan is a breathtaking novel of family secrets, dark mystery and searing atmosphere that promises to be the standout debut of 2025.

New Zealand, 1985. As the long summer holiday stretches ahead, ten-year-old Alix wants to spend every second on the beach and in the water. But with her parents unusually distracted and her older sister now more interested in boys, she finds herself alone.

Then Alix meets Kahu. He’s on holiday too, and he lets her in on a secret: a few years ago, a little girl went missing and was presumed drowned. But no one ever found her body.

Suddenly, the summer has purpose. The two friends will find the missing girl and become local heroes. But as their investigation progresses, Alix risks uncovering dark secrets about the neighbourhood – and her own beautiful family . . .

Rooms For Vanishing by Stuart Nadler

In the summer of 1938, Sonja is lifted onto a Kindertransport train that will take her from Nazi-occupied Austria to London. She leaves behind her parents, Fania and Arnold, and her baby brother Moses. She is the only member of her family to survive.

In 1966 Fania is working as a massage therapist in Montreal, a place that provided her safe haven after she lost her entire family in the Second World War. And yet there are strange echoes, impressions, of those she loves everwhere she turns. Has she lost her mind or is her family still alive?

In 21st century Vienna, Arnold receives a message from an Englishwoman claiming to be his long-lost daughter, Sonja. Daring to believe that she survived, Arnold waits for her at the train station.

Finally, in New York, 2002, Moses is haunted by the ghost of his best friend who was killed in the Prague Spring, and who exhorts Moses to return to Prague to make peace for the dead.

Moving from the Second World War to 2016, between Vienna and Prague, London and Montreal, New York and Miami, Rooms for Vanising is the story of a family blown apart and across the globe by war. They each believe that they are the sole survivor, and maybe they are, because this is a novel of maybe-lived lives, parallel worlds and possibilities, and one populated by ghosts. Spellbinding and profound, Rooms for Vanishing explores the collisions between desire and reality, memory and facts; it is a singular work that masterfully reimagines the lost possibilities of history itself.

Book Synopsis:

A city burning. A revolution raging. A woman on the run.

Nadezhda has never wanted to be a witch. But the occult is in her blood. Her mother, Militza, conjured Rasputin and introduced him into the Romanov court, releasing the devil himself. Now he is dead, but Militza still dreams of him – stalking her sleep and haunting her waking hours.

As Petrograd burns and the Russian Empire crumbles, Nadezhda escapes through the capital, concealing a book of generational magic. But as danger grows closer, she may be forced to embrace her heritage to save what she loves most…

Based on a true story, The Witch’s Daughter is an epic tale of women rising from the ashes of an empire, perfect for fans of Elodie Harper’s The Wolf Den and Madeline Miller’s Circe.

My Review:

The Witch’s Daughter is a fascinating, gripping read which is an amazing mix of real life historical facts with fantasy and magic mixed in.

Firstly I have always been fascinated with Russian history, especially the period surrounding the Russian Revolution as I studied it at GCSE. The author has done a great job of setting the scene in this book so I really felt transported to Russia at the start of the 20th Century, experiencing all the fear and upheaval of the period. It was particularly fascinating to learn more about court life at the time and the aristocrat’s understanding of the hatred directed towards them.

There are some fabulous characters in this book who I really enjoyed getting to know as story continues. I have always loved strong female characters so it was great fun following the two main characters as they live through the events leading up to the revolution and beyond. I thought they were incredibly courageous, doing things that I don’t think I’d be able to do in similar circumstances and so very resilient. I loved seeing how they tried to change and adjust to everything going on. I grew very fond of them and found myself caring about what happened to them.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and will definitely be interested in reading more from her in the future. I though there was a good level of intrigue in the book and there always seemed to be something happening to keep me interested. There were some quite brutal moments which were quite shocking but also some very sad moments which had me sobbing as I read. My only slight niggle with this book is that I was expecting a bit more about the main character’s magic in the book from the title but this didn’t affect my overall enjoyment of the book as I still thought it was a great read. The Witch’s Daughter is actually the second book in the series, but can easily be read as a standalone like I have as anything that you need to know is explained. I will definitely be going back and reading the first in the series.

Huge thanks to Anne from Random Things Tours for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Head Of Zeus for my copy of this book.

About The Author:

Imogen Edwards-Jones is the bestselling author of Hotel Babylon, Air Babylon and Fashion Babylon, as well as novels such as My Canape Hell and Shagpile. She lives in west London with her husband and their two children.