I’m thrilled to be able to finally post my review for White Out by Ragnar Jonasson.  This review was meant to be part of the blog tour last month but due to moving and being totally let down by our broadband provider I wasn’t able to post when scheduled.

Thank you to Anne Cater and Orenda Books for their help and patience at what was a frustrating and stressful time.

White Out is now available to buy in paperback and ebook here.

Book Blurb:

Two days before Christmas, a young woman is found dead beneath the cliffs of the deserted village of Kalfshamarvik. Did she jump, or did something more sinister take place beneath the lighthouse and the abandoned old house on the remote rocky outcrop? With winter closing in and the snow falling relentlessly, Ari Thor Arason discovers that the victim’s mother and young sister also lost their lives in this same spot, twenty-five years earlier…

My Review:

Whiteout has to be one of the most unusual crime books I have read.  It’s not faced paced and there isn’t a lot of action in it.  Instead it’s the atmospheric setting and the characters that draws you in and keeps you reading.

The setting of the novel is an isolated, half abandoned village near the coast in Iceland.  The Isolated house, along with the suspicious circumstances of the case help to create an eerie, unsettling atmosphere that is very intriguing. From the start the reader realises that there is something strange about the house’s set up and the character there,  This definitely makes you want to keep reading while you try and figure out what this is.

The character development in the book is also very clever. Not much is revealed about the characters at the beginning and more is very revealed throughout the investigation mainly through reveals by the other characters.

I liked the main investigator, Ari Thor.  I thought he was very thorough and I liked that he tried to ensure things were being done correctly.  He seemed determined to try and find out the truth and was uneasy wen he didn’t think they had done things right or had arrested the right person.  I felt very sorry for Thora and Ostar who seemed to have had a few disappointments throughout their lives and their current demeanor seemed to reflect that.  I did wish they were more vocal and said what they actually meant rather than skirting around their opinions.

The facts and information about Asta’s murder are very gradually revealed.  This gradual unraveling is cleverly done and I was definitely kept guessing until the end. I was surprised by some of the revelations as I hadn’t expected the story to go that way.

This is the 5th book in the Dark Iceland series but it is the first book that I have read.  I will be going back and reading the rest of the books in the series as soon as possible.

Huge thanks to Karen and Orenda books and Anne Cater for my copy of this book and for inviting me on the blog tour.

About The Author:

Ragnar Jonasson (www.ragnarjonasson.com) is the Icelandic writer of the Dark Iceland crime series set in Northern Iceland. Snowblind (2015) is the first book in the Dark Iceland series. Ragnar was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, and works as a lawyer in Reykjavik. He is also a teacher at Reykjavik University Law School and has previously worked on radio and television, including as a TV news reporter for the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service. Before embarking on a writing career, Ragnar translated fourteen of Agatha Christie novels into Icelandic. Ragnar is the co-founder of the Reykjavik international crime writing festival Iceland Noir, and has appeared on panels at Crimefest in Bristol, Left Coast Crime in the USA, Bloody Scotland in Stirling and Iceland Noir in Iceland. Ragnar’s short story Death of a Sunflower was published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine January 2014 issue, the first story in the magazine by an Icelandic author. His second Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine story, A Letter to Santa, was published in the January 2015 issue. Ragnar’s short story Party of Two was published in the Crime Writers’ Association 2014 anthology Guilty Parties, edited by Martin Edwards. Ragnar lives in Reykjavik with his wife and daughters.

I’m very please to be able to re-share by review of Electric Souk by Rose McGinty as part of The 12 Days of Christmas Urbane Book Tour.  This tour is highlighting some of the fabulous tiles Urbane Publications have published this year.

Electric Souk is available to buy in paperback and ebook here. .  The ebook is currently only 99p!

Book Blurb:

Ireland’s gone bust, and with it Aisling Finn’s life. She flees austerity for adventure in the desert. But the Arabia she finds is not that of her dreams. Everyone is chasing a fast buck, a fast woman and another G&T. Expats and locals alike prickle with paranoia. Debonair fixer, Brian Rothmann, charms Aisling with champagne brunches and nights at Bedouin camps. But is Brian a hero or a desperate expat prepared to go to any lengths to get what he wants? Is this Aisling? Or is he using her as bait? Her only hope is Hisham, a local activist. But where do his loyalties lie? Aisling faces severe peril when the sleazy expat and blood-lusting desert worlds collide, as the Arab Spring erupts. She has to ask, whom can she trust? Can she trust her instincts? Humanity blisters in this haunting, lyrical thriller about trust and treachery.

My Review:

When Aisling arrives in the Middle East she is looking forward to a grand adventure in a new country. She soon immerses herself in the new culture, enjoying meeting new people and experiencing the night life. However Aisling soon discovers that everything is not as it seems. Strange and sinister things start happening at work and her expat colleagues are arrested or disappear. Not knowing who to trust Aisling must try and find out the answers but will she be able to or will she disappear like her colleagues.

Electric Souk is vivid, colorful and unique. What makes it so unique is the way it is written. For most of the book it seems to just be a description of Aisling’s everyday life but then something will happen that makes you think otherwise. Slowly sinister things start coming to the surface as people reveal their true natures and things start happening at work. This gradual unveiling helps add a lot of tension to the book which kept me reading as I wanted to know what was happening. It is hard to put this book into one genre as it has bits of all of them in it but this never seems forced or is confusing and adds to the books uniqueness.

The author managed to take you to another time and place with her brilliant description. I especially loved the description of the Souk where I could perfectly imagine the hustle and bustle and almost smell the spices. It was very interesting to learn more about daily life in a middle Eastern country and how different it is to ours. The characters are very varied and quite colourful. I enjoyed reading about them and found I cared about what might happen to them. Some of the evil characters I loved to hate. Brian in particular who was quite scary at times! The ending was brilliant and very fitting to the story. It was nice that the author didn’t go for the easy ending and instead chose one quite hard hitting.

This is Rose McGintry’s debut novel and I look forward to reading more from her. Huge thanks to Matthew from Urbane Publishers for my copy of this book.

Exclusive Q&A with Rose McGintry:

Q) For the readers, can you talk us through your background and the synopsis of your new novel?

I live in Kent, and work for the NHS in London. I have also worked overseas in Ireland, Canada, Sweden and the Middle East. My passions are reading, writing and travel – all take you to different worlds. I’ve always been a day dreamer, it’s where my characters and ideas for stories come to me and take shape. Moving on to writing down my day dreams was the natural next step. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing stories, in fact one of my first memories is of learning to write the alphabet. I enjoy writing short stories, flash fiction and poetry, in between novel writing. I love that about writing some stories can be told and can gut the reader in just three hundred words others are an emotional odyssey of eighty thousand words.

Electric Souk was inspired by my time living in the Middle East, and the parts of the story that are true, I probably wish were not; while the parts that are not, I probably wish were true.

The story opens as Ireland’s gone bust, and with it Aisling Finn’s life. She flees austerity for adventure in the desert. But the Arabia she finds is not that of her dreams. Everyone is chasing a fast buck, a fast woman and another G&T. Expats and locals alike prickle with paranoia.

Debonair fixer, Brian Rothmann, charms Aisling with champagne brunches and nights at Bedouin camps. But is Brian a hero or another desperate expat prepared to go to any lengths to get what he wants? Is this Aisling? Or is he using her as bait? Her only hope is Hisham, a local activist. But where do his loyalties lie?

Aisling faces severe peril when the expat and desert worlds collide, as the Arab Spring erupts.

Q) Can you talk us through the journey from idea to writing to publication?

Electric Souk started out as a letter home – from the desert. I had taken a job in the health service in the Middle East. The day started early and finished by 1pm so everyone could go home to sleep in the heat. Only, I couldn’t sleep, so while the desert afternoon was still I wrote a diary and long letters home. My time in the Middle East magical time but also brutal, so I kept the journals and letters as a way of trying to make sense of what was happening to me. When I came home, people said that I should really try and get the letters and journals published, but it seemed too personal and raw. So I started to write a story that was burning inside of me, and drew on my experiences of the perfumes, sights and sounds of the Middle East.

During the course of writing I started going to literary festivals and workshops to keep me inspired, motivated and to learn my craft. At the West Cork literary festival I met Richard Skinner, Director of the Faber Academy and he encouraged me to apply for a Faber Academy course. I completed my novel with the support of Richard and the wonderful group of fellow writers on my course in the summer of 2015. That summer I went to the Margate Bookie and sat next to a man, who turned out to be Matthew Smith of Urbane Publications. He asked me about my novel and also talked about his collaborative approach to publishing. I liked what I heard as I wanted to be part of the creative process and learn as much as I could about all elements of the publishing business. I submitted my novel, and in the best Christmas Eve email ever, was signed.

Q) What are your favourite authors and recommended reads?

So many writers, so I will mention one special one to me and Electric Souk.

Isabelle Allende starts The House of the Spirits with a letter to the grandfather. This is one of the best ways to start writing as a new writer. It can really help you overcome the terror of the first blank page, and it’s how Electric Souk begins, with Aisling scribbling a last, desperate note as she flees the desert. It was also how my novel came about, from a letter. I am drawn to the way that for Allende and the magical realists the personal is political and vice versa. The love and passing of wisdom, protection and magic between the generations of women also stands out for me in contrast to the violence and persecution handed down from the colonists to the dictatorship in more recent Chilean history. I love stories that span epic moments in history with the most intimate family and personal relationships.

Q) What were your childhood/teenage favourite reads?

Snow in the Maze by Barbara C Freeman. I first found this mysterious story about a young girl, called Rosa, haunted by a portrait, when I was living at my grandmother’s and took it out of the local library. The story switches centuries, has ghosts, a strange blue eyed man, missing painted fans and a snowy maze, where the climax of its quietly thrilling adventure unfolds. Nothing is as it seems and the beautiful, oblique writing is as much a maze. After we left my grandmother’s, this story haunted me and I took it out every time we visited until one day it was no longer in the library. That then provoked a twenty year long search, before the days of the internet and being able to easily trace books that had gone out of print. I scoured every second hand bookshop in every town I visited over the years, my own maze. I finally found it in Kent, where I now live, in Baggins Book Bazarre in Rochester – where curiously Urbane is based and my first meeting with Matthew took place.

Q) What has been your favourite moment of being a published author?

Strangely enough it is the thing I was dreading the most – reader reactions. In the months up to publication I nearly made myself sick with worry about this as sharing your writing is such a deeply intimate and exposing experience. The first time I saw my novel in a bookshop, after I had burst into tears at seeing my dream coming true, I just wanted to bundle up all the copies and run off with them so no one could read it. However, when a reader contacts you or leaves a review saying how much they enjoyed your story and when they tune into the heart of the story and understand what you have been trying to reveal and share with them, nothing feels as good as that.

Q) Who has been your source of support/encouragement, throughout the writing process?

My writing group is my greatest source of support. We met at the Faber Academy and two years later we are still meeting on a monthly basis to critique each other’s work, share our love of reading, pass on tips about the publishing world, and support each other through good times and bad. And – drink wine, possibly the greatest source of support for us all.

Giveaway!:

I’m very excited to be able to give away 3 copies (yes 3) of the fabulous Electric Souk by Rose McGintry.  All you have to do is comment on this blog post or RT the pinned post on my blog before the 21st December.  I will then pick a winner at random with the help of my lovely kids.  Good luck everyone!

About The Author:

Rose McGinty was born with itchy feet, which she has yet to decide is a blessing or a curse. Certainly, surviving Hurricane Sandy, an earthquake, a spider bite, jumping 192 metres off the Sky Tower in Auckland, and nearly being arrested for inadvertently smuggling a rocket in Vietnam, make her wonder about locking up her passport. But then, it was her adventures in the Middle East that gave her the itchy fingers to write. Rose lives in Kent, where as well as enjoying writing short stories, flash fiction and poetry, she also paints. She works in community health services and has worked overseas in Ireland, Canada, Sweden and the Middle East. She completed the Faber Academy Writing a Novel course, under the guidance of Richard Skinner, in 2015. Electric Souk is her debut novel and Rose says of her story, ‘The parts of the story that are true, I probably wish were not; while the parts that are not, I probably wish were true.’

I’m so pleased to be able to bring you my blog tour review for Solitaire by Jane Thynne.  I have heard a lot of great things about her books and was thrilled to be invited onto the blog tour for her most recent book.  Thank you to the lovely Abby Fairbrother for recommending me!

Solitaire is available now in paperback and ebook here.

Book Blurb:

TO SAVE HER OWN LIFE, WILL SHE SACRIFICE ANOTHER?

June 1940: the first summer of the war. Berlin is being bombed and nightly blackouts suffocate the city. Then France falls and a shadow descends.

A shadow has fallen over Clara Vine’s own life, too. She is an Anglo-German woman in a country that hates England. Then she is summoned to meet the Propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, who has decided that Clara should adopt a new role – as his spy.

Much as she dislikes the idea, Clara realises this might be the chance to find an escape route to England. But Goebbels has other ideas and soon Clara is drawn into a web that threatens to destroy her. As everything she holds dear is taken as ransom, she must fight to protect her family – and to survive…

Solitaire delivers brilliantly engrossing wartime fiction for fans of  Sadie Jones, Rosie Thomas and Irene Nemirovsky.

My Review:

As a huge fan of historical fiction I can’t believe I haven’t read anything by Jane Thynne before.  I have heard some great things about her books but for some reason have never actually got around to reading anything by her.  I’m on a bit of a role with books at the moment as this was another 5 star read for me.

I have read a lot of world war two fiction but not much about what life was like inside of Germany for ordinary people during the war and not much from the German point of view.  I therefore found this book really fascinating.  It was very interesting to realise how much Hitler influenced people’s everyday life in areas, that perhaps naively, I hadn’t realised that they influence before which was a bit of an eye opener.  This is especially true about their treatment of influential people who happened to be married to Jews and the steps that were taken to try and break up this relationship.  It was also very interesting to learn more about some of the high ranking Nazi members, their personal lives and their jobs during the war.  I had obviously heard a bit about them before reading this book but not in a lot of depth so i enjoyed learning more about what was happening behind the scenes for them and more about the policies they were in charge of during the war.

The author has clearly done her research into this time with all the people and events in the book being real things that actually happened.  I love being able to look up people and events from a book and being able to learn more about them.  I was able to do this a lot with this book and lost many an evening to learning more about the characters and events mentioned.  I had heard about the appalling treatment of the Polish people by the Nazi’s during the war but from what I have read previously I thought this was only in the concentration camps so it was interesting to learn that the mistreatment of them was present in everyday life.  It’s little details like this which sets apart this authors work and kept me thoroughly intrigued and increased my enjoyment.

As I might have mentioned before I love strong female characters and I was therefore a huge fan of Clara Vine, a strong confident women who wasn’t afraid of putting herself in difficult situations.  This was especially impressive in a time when women were very much thought of as inferior to men and when the Nazi’s seemed to prefer women who stayed at home, kept house and had loads of children.  I liked that she had a lot of empathy and didn’t just think of herself and how a situation would benefit her, but tried to get the best results for all involved.  I didn’t always understand her actions and did find myself getting a little frustrated with her when she made decisions that I didn’t agree with but the author was always able to explain Clara’s actions and made me understand why she had made them.  I also liked Katerina who I felt both sorry for and had huge admiration for.  It was very poignant to learn how such children came to be living in orphanages when they had living relatives and shocking to learn how some children were taken from their parent’s purely because of how they looked.  Her need to find family and to try and find her sister was really lovely to read about and I was very impressed with how far she was willing to go to find this.

This is the 5th book in the Clara Vine series but the first book that I have read.  It definitely won’t be my last and I will look forward to reading more from Jane Thynne in the future.  Despite being part of a series I found that this book read easily as a stand alone book, as anything that had happened in previous books that I needed to know was explained.  This would be a fantastic book group book as I think there would be a lot for people to discuss and that it would appeal to a lot of people.

Huge thanks to Sian Devine, Simon & Schuster publisher and Jane Thynne for my copy of this book and for inviting me onto this blog tour.  If you like gripping and fascinating historical fiction that is brilliantly researched you will love this book.

About The Author:

Jane Thynne was born in Venezuela and educated in London. She graduated from Oxford University with a degree in English and joined the BBC as a journalist. She has also worked at The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Independent, as well as for numerous British magazines. She appears as a broadcaster on Radio 4. Jane is married to the writer Philip Kerr. They have three children and live in London.

Find out more at http://www.janethynne.com connect with her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter @janethynne

Follow The Blog Tour:

If you liked the sound of Solitaire from this review do follow the blog tour and find out what these other fabulous bloggers thought.

Today I’m delighted to bring you my review for Know Me Now by CJ Carver.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book and have given it 5*’s, though I would give it more if I could as i thought it was fabulous!

Know Me Now will be available in ebook on the 14th December and in paperback on the 11th January 2018, but is available to pre-order here.

Book Blurb:

A SUICIDE. A MURDER. A CONSPIRACY. 
DIGGING UP THE PAST CAN BE DEADLY . . .

A thirteen-year-old boy commits suicide.

A sixty-five-year old man dies of a heart attack.

Dan Forrester, ex-MI5 officer, is connected to them both.

And when he discovers that his godson and his father have been murdered, he teams up with his old friend, DC Lucy Davies, to find answers.

But as the pair investigate, they unravel a dark and violent mystery stretching decades into the past and uncover a terrible secret.

A secret someone will do anything to keep buried . . . 

My Review:

It’s so lovely to start a book and realise within a few pages that you are going to love it!  It makes you relax into the book and means that you are able to enjoy it more.  This is what happened when I started reading Know Me Now.  I knew almost instantly that I was going to like it and felt certain that I had found a new favourite author.

The story unfolds slowly but with enough action/revelations to keep the reader interested and intrigued enough to keep on reading.  I soon found the book very hard to put down, reading long into the night when I should have been sleeping.  You know you are reading a good book when you are thinking about it constantly and trying to work out when you will next get a chance to read a bit.  I found myself trying to hide upstairs from the kids or even attempting to read whilst cooking, not a good idea i don’t recommend it, just so I could read a few more pages.

I loved the three main characters, but particularly loved the two women Grace and Lucy.  I’m a big fan of strong female characters, especially those that are in normally male dominated jobs like Grace and Lucy are.  I admired the way they held their own against quite strong opposition at times and how they were able to get results from tricky situations.  The author does a brilliant job at not resorting to typical stereotypical methods normally used by female characters in such books.  Instead the women get results by using their intelligence and by showing that they know what they are talking about which made for a very refreshing change.

CJ Carver perfectly describes what life in a small community is like, with everyone knowing everyone else and thinking they know their business.  I could definitely imagine how this might hamper a murder investigation with local residents thinking they knew what what was going on when in fact they didn’t.  I could almost feel Lucy and Grace’s frustrations coming off the page and felt frustrated on their behalf when their investigation was hampered because of this.  The small community environment did however help inject some humour or light relief into the book when you realised just how much everyone knew each other and in what way.  Some of these revelations actually had me laughing out loud as they were so funnily described and unexpected.

This is the first book by CJ Carver that I have read and it definitely won’t be my last as I have already bought the first two books in this series to read.  It is probably best to read the series in order as there were a few events mentioned in the book that I was unaware of but this wasn’t enough of an issue to stop me enjoying it.

Huge thanks to Emily Palmier-Bignold and Bonnier Zaffre for my copy of this book and for letting me be part of this blog tour.

About The Author:

CJ Carver is a half-English, half-kiwi, author living just outside Bath. She lived in Australia for ten years before taking up long-distance rally driving – she has driven London to Saigon, London to Cape Town, and completed 14,500 miles on the Inca Trail.

Since then she has written nine critically acclaimed novels that have been published in the UK, USA and translated into several languages.  CJ’s first novel Blood Junction won the CWA Debut Dagger and was short listed for the USA Barry Award for Best Crime Fiction Novel of the Year.  Spare Me the Truth, the first in the Forrester and Davies series, was shortlisted for the 2017 Ngaio Marsh Best Crime Novel Award.

CJ is a co-founder and one of the first judges for the Women’s World Car of The Year Award.

Find CJ Carver on her website, on her Facebook page and on Twitter – @C_J_Carver

Follow The Blog Tour:

If you like the sound of Know Me Now from my review, do follow the blog tour and see what these other fabulous bloggers are saying.

I’m excited to be on the blog tour for Brighter Days Ahead by Mary Wood and to be able to share my review.  I enjoyed this book very much and would recommend it to anyone who likes a good historical saga.

Brighter Days Ahead is available in paperback and ebook here.

Book Blurb:

War pulled them apart, but can it bring them back together?

Molly lives with her repugnant father, who has betrayed her many times. From a young age, living on the
streets of London’s East End, she has seen the harsh realities of life . . . When she’s kidnapped by a gang and forced into their underworld, her future seems bleak.

Flo spent her early years in an orphanage, and is about to turn her hand to teacher training. When a kindly teacher at her school approaches her about a job at Bletchley Park, it could be everything she never knew she wanted.

Will the girls’ friendship be enough to weather the hard times ahead?

My Review:

Wow Mary Wood’s definitely knows how to write a thrilling, action packed and emotional saga.

The book follows the lives of both Molly and Flo separately at first until they meet about half way through.  I was immediately drawn into Molly and Flo’s story and felt like I was there watching all the action unfold. When a story is split like this I usually find myself favouring one of the narratives over the other but this wasn’t the case for this book as I found I enjoyed both of their stories equally.  I did have a bit of a soft spot for Flo though, as I loved her attitude towards life.  Her ability to always try and see the good side of things was really heart warming to read about, especially as she suffered a few disappointments throughout the book.

This isn’t necessarily a happy book at times with the author covering some quite difficult subjects that was fascinating though quite poignant to read about.   This definitely kept me reading as I was very keen to discover how the character fared and how the incidents were resolved.  It was interesting to discover what types of underhand activities may have been going on in war time London that went undiscovered due to resources being occupied elsewhere.

Mary Wood is brilliant at setting the scene for the book and making the reader feel like they are in London during world war two.  There were times, particularly during a very detailed account about an air raid toward the beginning of the book, when I felt I could have actually been there watching all the action unfold.  Some of the prejudices society had at that time, in particular towards homosexuality was shocking to read about and really brought into focus how far we have come since.  I really felt for poor Simon experiencing all the hatred towards himself and some of his colleagues actions were just appalling.  Its awful to think that people may have experienced similar things.  I loved how Flo stood up for him against everyone, despite overwhelming opposition and this was another reason that really drew me toward her.  Flo and Simon work at Bletchley Park and this intrigued me as it is a place that I have heard lots about.  I did enjoy learning a bit more about what it was like to work there and a little bit about what type of work was carried out there.

This is an easy book to read as the writing just flows brilliantly.  It is quite fast paced with a lot of action happening throughout which helps to build the tension and keeps the reader wanting to read more.  For this reason it would be a good holiday read as I think anyone would find it hard to put down.

This is the first book by Mary Wood that I have read and I will look forward to reading more from her in the future.

Thank you to Mary Wood and Kate Green from Pan Macmillan for inviting me onto the blog tour and for giving me a copy of this book.

About The Author:

Born in Maidstone, Kent, in 1945, the thirteenth child of fifteen children, Mary’s family settled in Leicestershire after the war ended.

Mary married young and now, after 54 years of happy marriage, four children, 12 grandchildren and many great-grandchildren, Mary and her husband live in Blackpool during the summer and Spain during the winter – a place that Mary calls, ‘her writing retreat’.

After many jobs from cleaning to catering, all chosen to fit in with bringing up her family, and boost the family money-pot, Mary ended her 9 – 5 working days as a Probation Service Officer, a job that showed her another side to life, and which influences her writing, bringing a realism and grittiness to her novels

Mary first put pen to paper, in 1989, but it wasn’t until 2010 that she finally found some success by self-publishing on kindle.

Being spotted by an editor at Pan Macmillan in 2013, finally saw Mary reach her publishing dream.

When not writing, Mary enjoys family time, reading, eating out, and gardening. One of her favourite pastimes is interacting with her readers on her Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/HistoricalNovels
And on her web page: http://www.authormarywood.com
She is also on Twitter: @Authormary

Mary welcomes all contact with her readers and feedback on her work.

I’m on the blog tour for The Runaway Children by Sandy Taylor today.  The Runaway children is now available to buy in paperback and ebook here.

Book Blurb:

A heart-wrenching, unforgettable journey of two evacuee sisters during World War Two as they try to find their way home…

London, 1942: Thirteen-year-old Nell and five-year-old Olive are being sent away to the countryside to escape the devastation of the East End during the Blitz. Leaving behind their beloved mother and brothers, they don’t know if they will ever see them again.

As the sisters adjust to their new life in a close-knit Welsh village, they gradually find hope in the friendships they make. And Nell kindles a special bond with fellow evacuee Jimmy, who makes her smile even at the hardest of times.

But when little Olive’s safety is threatened, Nell makes a decision that will change their lives forever. They must run from danger and find their way home.

Together, through tears and laughter, the two sisters hold each other’s hands as they make an incredibly brave journey across bombed-out Britain. Will they be reunited with the family they have missed for so many years? Or is there more heartache to come?

An unputdownable story of unconditional love, friendship and the fight for survival during a time of unimaginable change. This book is guaranteed to find a place in your heart. If you enjoyed Orphan Train and The Girl With No Name you’ll love this book.

My Review:

The thing that most stands out about this book is the child narrator that helps add an element of innocence to a difficult situation and gives the reader a different slant on the events of world war two.  The book is narrated by Nell, the oldest of four siblings with an attitude older than her years.  She is very much used to looking after her brothers and sister and often takes on the mother role when her mother is incapacitated.  She particularly looks after her younger sister Olive and their relationship and the closeness they enjoy is lovely to read about and leads to some very heartwarming scenes.  It also helps to add humor to the story which often had me laughing out loud, particularly at Olive’s very truthful observations and Nell’s replies.  The two sister’s, Nell and Olive where my favourite characters in the book and I really enjoyed reading about them and the huge journey they go on throughout the book.

It’s hard to believe how shambolic and dis-organised the evacuation system was.  The fact that children didn’t know where they were going and to whom chills my heart as a mother and must have been very difficult for the mothers who chose to evacuate their children.  The children were given to anyone who would take them without them being vetted or checked up on in any way which lead to some horrific situations with children being taken advantage of in many ways.  Some of the passages relating to the experiences of the evacuees where quite heart breaking and lead to some quite poignant scenes.

The author does a brilliant job at setting the scene and making me feel that i really was in world war two watching all the action unfold.  I loved the descriptions of the community in the (in)famous tennament blocks and the way that they all looked out for each other, solving their own problems without getting the authorities involved.  It was really nice to read about neighbours caring about one another in this way, something that has unfortunately been lost today.   Her descriptions of village life in world war two was also brilliantly described leading to some lovely heartwarming scenes, especially when the children realise how different life is in the village to what they are used to at home.

This is the first book by this author that I have read and I will definitely be reading more from her in the future as I loved her style of writing and the characters that she has managed to bring to life in The Runaway Children.  In parts this book reminded me of Goodnight Mr Tom, especially the description of the children’s experiences in the village.

Thank you to Kim Nash from Bookouture and Netgalley for my copy of this book and for inviting me on the blog tour.

About The Author:

I’m delighted to finally be able to share with your my review for The Man In The Needlecord Jacket!  A huge thank you to the lovely Anne Cater and Linda MacDonald for their patience with me when I firstly couldn’t post due to moving and then due to no internet.

The Man in the Needlecord Jacket in available now in paperback and ebook here.

Book Blurb:

The Man in the Needlecord Jacket follows the story of two women who are each struggling to let go of a long-term destructive partnership. Felicity is reluctant to detach from her estranged archaeologist husband and, after being banished from the family home, she sets out to test the stability of his relationship with his new love, Marianne.

When Felicity meets Coll, a charismatic artist, she has high hopes of being distracted from her failed marriage. What she doesn’t know is that he has a partner, Sarah, with whom he has planned a future. Sarah is deeply in love with Coll, but his controlling behaviour and associations with other women have always made her life difficult. When he becomes obsessed with Felicity, Sarah’s world collapses and a series of events is set in motion that will challenge the integrity of all the characters involved.

The Man in the Needlecord Jacket is a thought-provoking book, written from the perspectives of Sarah and Felicity. The reader is in the privileged position of knowing what’s going on for both of the women, while each of them is being kept in the dark about a very important issue.

Inspired by the work of Margaret Atwood and Fay Weldon, Linda explores the issue of mental abuse in partnerships and the grey area of an infidelity that is emotional, not physical. The book will appeal to readers interested in the psychology of relationships, as well as fans of Linda’s ‘Lydia’ series.

My Review:

The Man In The Needlecord Jacket is an emotional and compelling book that I wasn’t expecting to like as much as I did.

The story follows two women who are both unwittingly attracted to the same man Coll.  From the beginning the reader is privy to both sides of the story as they take it in turns to describe their experiences with Coll.  This intimate, fly-on-the-wall glance into the relationship really make for fascinating reading.  I soon felt completely immersed into their lives and I felt like i knew both of them intimately.  It is unusual for a story to feature relationships involving older characters so I found it very interesting to see what affect this had on their relationship and how it meant it was approached differently.

My favourite character was Sarah.  I found i could really relate to her and her experiences as she reminded me a bit of myself in the past.  She brought out a lot of emotions in me and I found myself alternating between wanting to scream at her to wise up and wishing I could give her a cuddle.  The character development for her throughout the book was amazing thought and I was very pleased to see the person she had become at the end.  The character development for Felicity was also brilliantly done.  I started off not really liking her but ended up admiring her and the way she dealt with things so bravely.

This book covers the difficult subject of mental abuse, which I wouldn’t have realised was happening if it hadn’t been mentioned in the blurb.  I think this is the difficulty with it, that it is very hard to prove as it is so subtle.  In this the author has done a great job in helping to raise awareness for it.

The ending was brilliant!  It made me want to stand up and cheer as it was so good.  This will definitely be book I’m going to remember and be recommending to people for a while!

Thank you to Anne Cater and Linda MacDonald for my copy of this book and for inviting me onto the blog tour.

About The Author:

Linda MacDonald is the author of four novels: Meeting Lydia and the stand-alone sequels, A Meeting of a Different Kind, The Alone Alternative and The Man in the Needlecord Jacket. All Linda’s books are contemporary adult fiction, multi-themed, but with a focus on relationship issues.

After studying psychology at Goldsmiths’, Linda trained as a secondary science and biology teacher. She taught these subjects for several years before moving to a sixth-form college to teach psychology. The first two novels took ten years in writing and publishing, using snatched moments in the evenings, weekends and holidays. In 2012, she gave up teaching to focus fully on writing.

Linda was born and brought up in Cockermouth, Cumbria and now lives in Beckenham in Kent.

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If you liked the sound of this book from my review, do go back and check out these fabulous bloggers reviews too!

Book Blurb:

You can run from your past, but it will always catch up with you…
 
Susie was forced to do something she will always regret: giving her baby son up for adoption. Everything that led to this child, this choice, had to be buried and forgotten.

Her secret echoes down through the years, tainting everything it touches. Her husband wonders why his wife is so distant. Her daughters can’t understand their changeable mother. 

Susie knows her past is pushing her family apart, and the guilt is eating her up, but she can’t escape the longing for her lost son. No-one but Susie knows the whole story, and when her daughters discover a piece of the puzzle, she must face the question she has struggled with for most of her life:

Would the truth bring them back together, or break them?
 
From the bestselling author of The Silent Wife, The Secret Child is a heartbreaking and unputdownable novel about family secrets and lies. Perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty, Jojo Moyes and Diane Chamberlain.

My Review:

The Secret Child is a very emotional and heartbreaking story that will stay with me for a long time.  It is told in two parts, 1 from the point of view of Susie and the second from her younger daughter Grace.  This is very interesting way of telling the story as it helps you to see the characters from different angles which make is easier to understand them and how they act.

It is hard to believe that such attitudes towards unmarried mothers and children born out of wedlock existed only 50 years ago and that mothers were faced with such awful decisions in the face of societies prejudices.  In this Kerry Fisher writes about a difficult subject very sensitively creating some very poignant moments which had me rushing to hug my kids even when they were asleep.  I often found myself on the verge of tears reading about her feelings on having to adopt her son and hoping for a happy ending where she would be able to keep him.  The author has obviously done her research as the feelings that Susie feels after losing her baby are very similar to mine after I lost my baby, albeit in different circumstances.  I must admit that I found some of these passages quite hard to read and often had to put the book down for a little while when it got a little too emotional for me.

The book cleverly intersperses the present and the past which helps the reader to glean more knowledge about what happened and to understand more about why the characters acted the way they did.  This helped add to the emotional impact of the book especially as the reader becomes more aware of the whole story and how events transpired.

This is the first book by Kerry Fisher that I have read and I will definitely go back and check out some of her other books in future.

Huge thanks to Kim Nash at Bookouture and Netgalley for my copy of this book and for inviting me onto the blog tour.

About The Author:

Born in Peterborough, Kerry Fisher studied French and Italian at Bath University, followed by several years working as an English teacher in Corsica and Spain before topping the dizzying heights of holiday rep and grape picker in Tuscany. She eventually succumbed to ‘getting a proper job’ and returned to England to study Periodical Journalism at City University. After two years working in the features department at Essentials magazine in London, love carried her off to the wilds of the West Pennine moors near Bolton. She now lives in Surrey with her husband (of whisking off to Bolton fame), two teenagers and a very naughty lab/schnauzer called Poppy. Kerry can often be seen trailing across the Surrey Hills whistling and waving pieces of chicken while the dog practises her ‘talk to the tail’. In her third book, After The Lie, Kerry shamelessly exploits every embarrassing dog misdemeanour to create her fictional hound, Mabel.

Kerry has spent half her life talking about writing a novel, then several years at Candis magazine reviewing other people’s but it wasn’t until she took some online courses with the UCLA (University of California) that the dream started to morph into reality, culminating in the publishing of The Class Ceiling. The Avon imprint of HarperCollins picked it up and retitled it The School Gate Survival Guide, published summer 2014. Her second book, The Island Escape, came out in May 2015. It won first prize at the York Festival of Writing for the opening line: ‘I was wearing the wrong bra for sitting in a police cell’. Her latest book, After The Lie, the story of how small lies become more toxic as they pass down the generations, is out on 29 April 2016.

Best advice ever received: ‘This is fiction, we can skip the boring bits.’ Lynn Hightower, UCLA Writers’ Program. 

Read more of her thoughts on life at http://www.kerryfisherauthor.com or follow her on twitter at @kerryfswayne

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I’m thrilled to be on the blog blitz for the fantastic The Liverpool Girls.  This was a 5 star read for me and I really recommend it to everyone who likes historical fiction or a good saga.  The Liverpool Girls is available now in paperback and ebook here.

Book Blurb:

Will tragedy tear them apart – once and for all?

It’s 1966 and in Liverpool two sisters are about to have their lives turned upside down…

Sisters Carol and Jackie haven’t had the easiest of childhoods, but as they grow up and begin their own lives both hope for happier times ahead. Stylish Carol works in Lewis’s department store, while Jackie dreams of drama school, and a career on the stage.

But the sisters are heartbroken when they discover they have been dating the same man, and an unexpected pregnancy causes a rift between them. Parents Dora and Joe must overcome their past hurts and help their daughters, despite the meddling of Joe’s second wife Ivy.

As the sisters’ troubles spiral and difficult decisions must be made, can the family pull together – or will Jackie and Carol’s sisterly bond be destroyed forever?

The Liverpool Girls is a heart-breaking and compelling story of family, loss and love. Perfect for fans of Annie Groves, Anne Baker and Kitty Neale.

My Review:

I was immediately drawn into The Liverpool Girls and found myself quickly immersed in their story.

The author does a great job of setting the scene for this novel and I loved the descriptions of Liverpool in the 1960’s with the MOD’s, scooters and of course the fabulous music.  The writing just flows and makes the book very easy to read.  There is a lot of action in the book, withe events happening very fast which also helps keep the reader interested and makes the book hard to put down.  I looked that the author did this that way and didn’t dwell on certain situations when I felt it would have been easy to do this.  She didn’t take the easy option either which made the book seem more real and kept it very interesting.

It would have also been easy to write this book as a happy, sweet book but its not like that and I enjoyed reading about how the characters dealt with the situations that were thrown at them and how they were changed as a result of it.

I had a love/hate relationship with the two sisters.  There were times when I really related and felt for the two of them and the predicaments they found themselves in.  However there were other times when they really annoyed me with their over the top actions and selfishness.  Jackie was perfectly described in her reactions as a typical, love struck teenager and I recognised some of her behaviours from my own, misguided relationships at the same age.  My favourite character was Dora the sister’s mother.  I thought she was a very strong, loving character who really looked after her daughters and some of the passages regarding their mother-daughter relationship were very heart warming to read about.  I think all girls could do with a Dora type character in their lives!

The ending was very emotional and I thought it was a brilliant, brave way to end it.  I definitely had a tear in my eye as I read the last few pages and I was sorry to leave The Liverpool Girls and their world.

This is the first book by this author that I have read and the first book in this trilogy that I have read so I will definitely be going back to read the other books in the series.

Huge thanks to Kim Nash at Bookouture and Netgalley for my copy of this book and for inviting me onto the blog tour.

About The Author:

Pam Howes was born in Cheshire. She is a retired Interior Designer who began writing seriously in the mid nineties. The idea for her first novel, set in the sixties, was inspired by her time as a teenager, working in a local record store and hanging around with musicians who frequented the business. That first novel evolved into a series set in the fictional town of Pickford, based on her home town of Stockport. Three Steps to Heaven; ‘Til I Kissed You; Always On My Mind; Not Fade Away, and That’ll Be The Day, follow the lives and loves through the decades of fictional Rock’n’Roll band The Raiders. Pam is a big fan of sixties music and it’s this love that compelled her to write the series. A stand-alone true-life romance, Fast Movin’ Train, set in the nineties, was published in early 2012. A new series of Fairground Romances, set in the sixties, begins with Cathy’s Clown, to be followed by Ruby Tuesday early 2016. Pam is mum to three adult daughters, grandma to seven assorted grandchildren, and roadie to one musician partner. She still lives in Cheshire and is currently involved in raising awareness of her home-town’s musical heritage with campaigns to have Blue Plaques erected on the walls of local clubs, The Manor Lounge and The Sinking Ship, where the likes of The Walker Brother’s, The Who and Jimi Hendrix played; now closed, but still firmly in the hearts of Stockport’s recycled teenagers.  

Pam recently signed a contract with the award winning publisher Bookouture and the first novel in her new trilogy, The Lost Daughter of Liverpool, will be on sale in February 2017

All books are available in Kindle format, paperback, and Fast Movin’ Train is also available as an audio book. 

Follow her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pam-Howes-Author/260328010709267 

And Twitter @PamHowes1

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To celebrate the paperback publication of Hold Back The Stars by the lovely Katie Khan, I thought I would re-post the review I wrote before I took the plunge and started my blog.

I loved this book and I have been recommending it to everyone.  It’s currently only 99p on eBook too!

Book Blurb:

Ninety minutes.

A few years from now, not too far in the future, two people meet.

It is a classic story of boy meets girl.

Except that it’s not.

When we find them, they have an hour and a half left.

Unless they can save themselves, they won’t survive.

The clock is ticking.

Bittersweet and life-affirming, Hold Back the Stars is the love story of the year.

My Review:

About The Author:

Katie Khan is a writer from London whose first novel, HOLD BACK THE STARS, is being translated into twenty-one languages and published around the world across 2017. In the UK, the novel was published in January by Transworld (Penguin Random House), and in May by Gallery (Simon & Schuster) in the USA and Canada.

A graduate of the acclaimed Faber Academy writing course, and a fan of love stories with epic settings both on the page and on screen, Katie spent 10 years working in editorial and digital technology, including 4 years as Head of Digital at Paramount Pictures, before joining Warner Bros. in April 2017 to work on a major film production. Named in the 40 Under 40 working in European Cinema at CineEurope 2016, and The Drum’s Top 50 most influential people in social media marketing in the UK, Katie was also selected as a Rising Star by The Media Eye. people in social media marketing in the UK, Katie was also selected as a Rising Star by The Media Eye.