Book Synopsis:

Illusionist turned sleuth Joseph Spector investigates a sinister conundrum at a 1930s theatre in this thrilling new mystery novel from Tom Mead, author of Death and the Conjuror, one of Publishers Weekly‘s Mysteries of the Year 2022.

1938, London. Young lawyer Edmund Ibbs has a new client: a woman accused of shooting her husband in the already infamous ‘Ferris Wheel Murder’ case.

The case proves to be a web of conspiracy, and Ibbs himself is accused when a second suspicious death occurs, during a magic act at the crowded Pomegranate Theatre.

Also present at the theatre is Joseph Spector, illusionist turned highly respected sleuth. Spector begins to investigate the mystery, but when another body is discovered later that same night, all evidence points to Ibbs being guilty.

With time against him, and a host of hangers-on all having something to hide, can Spector uncover the guilty party, or will he and Inspector Flint of Scotland Yard conclude that Ibbs is the culprit after all?

My Review:

The Murder Wheel is a fun, clever and entertaining locked room mystery that combines magic with mystery to make a very intriguing read.

Firstly I love a good locked room mystery so this book instantly appealed to me. It reminded me a lot if an Agatha Christie book as it was very cleverly plotted with the reader unable to guess who the murder was which I always love. Despite it being a murder mystery with a high number of victims there isn’t a lot of violence which I liked as it helped me relax into the story a bit more.

The characters were all fantastic creations who I enjoyed following throughout the book. I like how they all brought something different to the story and I enjoyed getting to know them better so I could work out what their motivations might be. It’s one of those books you need to pay attention to the little details as they often seemed to come back to haunt the character later. I found this very clever and enjoyed seeing what would be revealed next.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more from this author in the future. The book had a great pace to it and the many twists made the book hard to put down as there always seemed to be something happening. The inclusion or magic or illusions in the book was very interesting as it helped give the story a unique twists as well as adding a bit of unpredictable into the story as the reader isn’t sure what is actually real.

The ending was very clever and thought provoking as I have kept thinking about it long after reading, wondering what I’d have done.

Huge thanks to Sophie from Ransom PR for inviting me onto the blog tour and to the publisher for my copy of this book. If your a fan of locked room or golden crime mysteries I highly recommend this book.

About The Author:

Tom Mead is a UK crime fiction author specialising in locked-room mysteries. He is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association and the International Thriller Writers’ Organization. His debut novel is DEATH AND THE CONJUROR, featuring magician-detective Joseph Spector.

Good morning everyone I know I’m a bit late but here is my Spell The Month Challenge for October.

O- Our Hideous Progeny by C.E. McGill
C- Conviction by Jack Jordan
T- The Beast Of Paris by Stef Penney
O- One Puzzling Afternoon by
Emily Critchley
B- Bad Men by Julie Mae Cohen
E- Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia Of
Faeries by Heather Fawcett
R- Romantic Comedy by
Curtis Sittenfeld

These are all tbr but I’m hoping to make a debt in my list over the next two weeks as I’m going to try and not buy too many books in the run up for Christmas (famous last words).

I’m off to the Cheltenham Literature Festival today to see Sarah Winman, JoJo Moyes and Mike Gayle which I’m excited about. Trying to decide whether to carry three books around all day to get them signed….

Do you like a signed book?

Happy Thursday!

Book Synopsis:

The new novel from the bestselling author of Icebreaker….

When Russ and Aurora cross paths at a university party, a drinking game ends with them spending the night together. The next day, Aurora slips away before Russ learns her full name. 

This anonymity ends when they both turn up to their first day of work as camp counsellors. A job they had both chosen to escape Maple Hills for the summer. 

Given their history, there’s still an obvious tension between the two but the camp has a strict “no staff fraternizing” rule. Russ doesn’t want to risk heading home early but Aurora has never been one for rules.  

As things heat up, they’ll have to resist or risk starting something they just can’t stop.    

My Review:

I was a huge fan of Ice Breaker so I was very excited to read Wildfire the next book in the series. Once again the author has written an incredibly absorbing, romantic and spicy book that I really enjoyed.

Firstly I absolutely loved the characters in the last book so I really enjoyed being back with the gang who are starting to feel like old friends. The author cleverly writes these scenes so that I felt like I was actually there, experiencing everything alongside the gang which I absolutely loved. They are such a close knit group and I loved feeling a part of all their in jokes.

This book follows Russ, who was a secondary character in the last book, and Aurora through their relationship. It was lovely to follow them as they grow closer and get to know each other better. The two have a lot of issues relating to work out and it was wonderful that they were able to support each other through them.

The setting of the summer camp was an interesting one that I wasn’t too sure about to begin with as it did make the story a little bit less spicy then Icebreaker but it grew on me as the story continued. It was sweet watching the two trying to fight their feelings (and their instincts) while at the camp, especially as it meant they got to know each other first.

Overall I really enjoyed this book which had a great pace to it and made it hard to put the book down as there always seemed to be something happening to keep me reading. The ending was brilliant and I’m now very excited to read more from this series. My understanding is that the next book features Henry as the main character which I’m excited about as I find him hilarious.

About The Author:

Hannah is an English self-labelled “fluffy comfort book” author, writing predominantly new adult and contemporary romance from her home in Manchester.

When she’s not describing everyone’s eyes ten-thousand times a chapter, accidentally giving multiple characters the same name, or using English sayings in her American book that nobody understands, you can find her hanging out with her husband and two dogs, Pig and Bear.

Good morning everyone today on Two For Tuesday I’m featuring two books I think look like perfect books to read this Autumn!

I absolutely loved Lovelight Farms so I’m very excited to read In The Weeds the sequel and find out more about Beckett who was a bit of a mysterious character in the first book. The Pumpkin Spice Cafe is a book I’ve been hearing lots of great things about from my fellow book friends so I’m excited to read it this month.

What book are you most looking forward to reading this month?

In The Weeds by B. K Borison

In the Weeds is a sweet and steamy second-chance romance about finding your happiness, from TikTok favourite author B. K. Borison, for fans of Elena Armas and Hannah Grace.

Evelyn St. James isn’t the kind of woman you forget. Beckett Porter certainly hasn’t. One incredible weekend in Maine and he’s officially a man distracted.

So when she suddenly appears on his farm as part of a social media contest, he’s . . . confused. He had no idea that the sweet and sexy woman he met at a bar is actually a social media influencer and global phenomenon.

Feeling disconnected from her work and increasingly unhappy, Evelyn is trying to find her way back to something real. She returns to the last place she was happy – Lovelight Farms and the tiny town of Inglewild. It has absolutely nothing to do with the hot farmer she spent two incredible nights with. Nothing at all . . .

In the Weeds is the second book in a quartet of cosy romances. Enjoy more seasonally-inspired stories with Lovelight Farms and Mixed Signals.

The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore

When Jeanie’s aunt gifts her the beloved Pumpkin Spice Café in the small town of Dream Harbor, Jeanie jumps at the chance for a fresh start away from her very dull desk job.

Logan is a local farmer who avoids Dream Harbor’s gossip at all costs. But Jeanie’s arrival disrupts Logan’s routine and he wants nothing to do with the irritatingly upbeat new girl, except that he finds himself inexplicably drawn to her.

Will Jeanie’s happy-go-lucky attitude win over the grumpy-but-gorgeous Logan, or has this city girl found the one person in town who won’t fall for her charm, or her pumpkin spice lattes…

The Pumpkin Spice Cafe is a cozy romantic mystery for fans of Gilmore Girls, with a grumpy x sunshine dynamic, a small-town setting and a HEA guaranteed!

Book Synopsis:

A stunning gift book drawing together mythological poems – classic and brand-new – from around the world, illustrated throughout in black and white by award-winning former children’s laureate Chris Riddell. Compiled by bestselling anthologist Ana Sampson, with an introduction by Natalie Haynes, author of Stone Blind.

People all over the world have always told each other stories. And from the very earliest times, many of these stories were told in verse. This collection of poems includes retellings and reimaginings of Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Norse, Celtic, Aztec, Japanese and Inuit mythology.

You will meet gods, monsters, tricksters, heroes, magical creatures and objects, magicians and spirits including Medusa, Icarus, Loki, Osiris, the Minotaur, Pegasus, Bunyip, Kukulcan, Cerberus, Beowolf and Mjolnir and there are footnotes to shine a light on stories themselves.

Includes poems from Neil Gaiman, W B Yeats, Kae Tempest, Sylvia Plath, Shakespeare, Benjamin Zephaniah, Joseph Coelho and many more. . .

My Review:

God’s And Monsters is a really beautiful anthology that would make a great gift for a child.

Firstly I absolutely love Greek mythology so I found it very interesting to learn a bit more about this whilst reading this book. It was especially interesting to learn more about the mythology from other countries as there were a few legends featured in this book that I hadn’t heard of before. I spent lots of time on the computer trying to find out more about them which I always love and I think would create a great learning opportunity for a child.

The book is divided into different sections starting with The First Rays Of Sunshine and ending with The Dark World: Underworlds & Afterlife. I thought this was very clever and I enjoyed following the myths through the different parts of life. You can either read the book from cover to cover or it’s easy to dip in and out of depending on what you’re interested in.

This book is beautifully illustrated, with full page illustrations at times that are just stunning to look at. They really help to bring the stories to life and my children loved flicking through the book just looking at them. My daughter loved retelling the poems to her younger brother too showing how fascinating the poems are to younger readers.

Overall I absolutely loved this book and would highly recommend it to children of all ages. I think it’s aimed at children aged 9 and over but as mentioned earlier my daughter and son (age 8 & 5) were able to really enjoy it too. I think it’s the type of anthology I’d have treasured when I was younger so would make a great gift for Christmas or a special occasion.

About The Author:

Ana has been editing poetry anthologies since 2009, when I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud and Other Poems you Half-Remember from School was the third bestselling poetry title that year. More recently she has edited two volumes of poetry by women, She is Fierce (an Amazon number one category bestseller) and She Will Soar, a collection of poetry about motherhood, Night Feeds and Morning Songs, and Wonder: The Natural History Museum Poetry Book. She has contributed articles to books including Writers’ Market UK and The Book Lover’s Companion and to newspapers and magazines, and talked about poetry and publishing at literary festivals, bookshop events, at libraries, in schools and online. Ana has also appeared on television and radio talking about books, poetry and teenage diaries. She lives in Surrey with her husband, two daughters, two demanding cats, and far too many books.

You can visit her website and sign up for her author newsletter at http://www.anasampson.co.uk.

Good morning everyone here are some of the great books I’ve added to my tbr this week:

❤️The Other Lives Of Miss Emily White by A.J Elwood
🧡 Wildfire by the Grace
💛Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter
💚The Book Of Beginnings by Sally Page
💙The Beginning Of Everything by Jackie Fraser
🩵Wild Houses by Colin Barrett *
💜Tales From The Cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi *
🩷The Scarlet Veil by Shelby Mahurin
🤍 Remember, Remember by Elle Machray
🩶 Doppelganger by Naomi Klein *

The Other Lives Of Miss Emily White and Ripe are bookclub reads, the books with stars next to them are books I got from the returns pile at work or proofs sent to the shop and The Scarlet Veil was kindly sent to me by the lovely @indie_thinking . The rest of the books I bought as I keep hearing great things about them.

Have you read any of these?

Book Synopsis:

When does a story begin?

For Edwin Hope, it begins with a childhood dare and a forbidden tree. It begins with him falling … in more ways than one.

Called home from his studies by the grandfather who has always hated him, eighteen-year-old Edwin is once again trapped in a house that is colder than the winds whipping across the fields. Seeking sanctuary, he escapes into the untamed beauty of the Peaks and meets a woman who sparks an old memory. A memory of the sycamore that broke him, and the little girl who saved him.

Drusilla has had many acolytes over the centuries but none like Edwin. With the Great War looming and Edwin’s future uncertain, she knows the right thing to do is to set him free from her spell, but can she do so if it means breaking her own heart?

My Review:

The Promise Tree is an absorbing and thought provoking book that is the perfect mix of romance and fantasy.

I loved the premise of this book which sounded really different from anything else that I’ve read. The idea of a mysterious women somehow connected to a tree was very intriguing and I soon found myself drawn into the story. It was very interesting to follow the story through the years and find out exactly what was going on.

The author has a wonderful way of describing things so that the reader feels like they are actually there seeing everything for themselves. I loved her incredibly vivid descriptions of nature and the seasons especially as they really helped me imagine the setting. I actually wish this had been an illustrated story as I think the illustrations would be beautiful.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more from this author in the future. The story is a little slow in places but I didn’t mind as I was so absorbed in the story. The author cleverly weaves all the strands of the story together and I loved the ending which I thought was really beautiful.

Huge thanks to Rachel from Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me onto the blog tour and to the publisher for my copy of this book via Netgalley.

About The Author:

Elisabeth’s writing career began in 2013 when she entered Harlequin’s So You Think You Can Write contest and it turned out she could. She writes romantic Historical fiction as Elisabeth Hobbes and Historical folklore/fantasy inspired romance as Elisabeth J. Hobbes.

She teaches Primary school but would rather write full time because unlike five year olds her characters generally do what she tells them. She spends most of her spare time reading and is a pro at cooking one-handed while holding a book.

She lives in Cheshire because the car broke down there in 1999 and she never left. Elisabeth has two almost grown kids, two cats, two dogs and a husband. The whole family are on the autistic spectrum and that probably includes the pets! She dreams of having a tidy house one day.

Book Synopsis:

THE LEGEND
1913. Captain Scott and his four companions reach the South Pole to find their Norwegian rival Roald Amundsen has won the race. Defeated, they set out on the 850-mile journey to their ship. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the explorer sent out to meet them at One Ton depot, peering South through thick spectacles, sees only an infinity of white, and turns back. A year later Scott’s pitched tent is found, just ten miles from the depot, and the bodies within speak of hunger, the unbearable strain of hauling the sledge, and the brutal winter cold. They lie in a tomb of ice. Cherry is left forever tormented by thoughts of what might have been.

THE TRUTH
1969. Ten years after Cherry’s death, Falcon Grey – who as an orphan of the Blitz was brought up at the explorer’s country estate – receives a bequest: a small red notebook that was found in Scott’s tent. It is a diary: and it states that they were not victims of the cold, or hunger, but murder, in the coldest of blood. Suspects range from envious foreign powers – such as the Kaiser’s Germany – to revolutionaries and even Scott’s own men. Vital clues lie in the tent, so Falcon goes South to the ice to see it for himself, but someone is desperate to conceal the truth and will kill to keep the secrets under the ice.

My Review:

The White Lie is an absorbing, intriguing book from a new author for me.

Firstly I always love books set in cold locations so I really enjoyed exploring the artic alongside the Falcon Scott. I had heard of the famous explorer before reading this book but I didn’t know much about his ill fated expedition. It was really interesting to learn more about it and what artic exploration entailed.

I loved the main character Falcon who I warned too immediately as soon as I learnt about his sad past and realised he was the same age as my youngest son. He’s a very sympathetic character and I often wished I could reach into the book to give him a hug. Cherry was also an interesting character who I felt a lot of sympathy for as his guilt over what happened was almost palpable at times. It was heartwarming to read about his special relationship with Falcon and how he looked after him when he was younger.

I thought this book had a great pace to it and I enjoyed following events in both timelines equally. It was great fun trying to figure out what was happening and the link between the expedition with events in WW2. My only slight niggle with this book is that I found the change between the timelines a bit confusing at times as it often happened quite quickly but this did get easier as the book progressed. The ending was interesting and, despite having many theories, I was pleased that I hadn’t guessed.

Huge thanks to Emily from Hodder and Stoughton for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book. I’ll definitely look forward to reading more from this author in future!

About The Author:

James Kelly is the author of the Nighthawk crime series for Allison and Busby and the Philip Dryden series for Penguin. He was born in 1957 and is the son of a Scotland Yard detective. He went to University in Sheffield, later training as a journalist and worked on the Bedfordshire Times, Yorkshire Evening Press and The Financial Times. His first book The Water Clock, was shortlisted for the John Greasy Award and he has since won a CWA Dagger in the Library And New Angle Prize for Literature. He lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire.

Good morning everyone I’m very excited to have received a copy of this fabulous sounding book this week. I love a good murder mystery and I’m intrigued that this story is told in the format of a true crime podcast as I think that will make it very interesting to follow.

Huge thanks to the tagged publisher for sending me a copy of this book. I’m looking forward to the blog tour next month!

What are your weekend plans?

Book Synopsis:

Supper for Six . . . but murder is on the menu

The mystery of Bruton Square has never been solved. On that infamous night in 1977, six strangers were invited for dinner at Lady Sybil Anderson’s Mayfair apartment. Only five made it out alive.

Welcome to Supper for Six, the true crime podcast. I’m your host, Felix.

Together, we’ll uncover what really happened that night . . . Let’s dig in.

A murderous Abigail’s Party – Fiona Sherlock’s Supper for Six is immersive and incredibly entertaining. Join Elizabeth Chalice and Felix Caerphilly on their quest to get to the bottom of this rather deadly dinner party . . .

About The Author:

Fiona Sherlock is a crime writer from Bective, in Ireland. Her murder mystery games are played across the world. She also writes poetry and prose but cannot stay away from a good murder. After spending a decade in Dublin working in public relations and journalism, she moved to the country for midday fires and elderflower champagne.

Play one of her immersive games at BespokeMurderMystery.com

Good morning everyone I thought I’d share a stack of some of the books kindly passed onto me by my lovely book friends!

❤️ Operation Nassau by Dorothy Dunnett
🧡 Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
💛Arms & Legs by Chloe Lane
💚 Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
💙Stone Blind by Natalie Hayes
💜The Mystery Of Yew Tree House by Lesley Thomson

Thanks so much to the lovely @lovedreadingthis and @acottageofbooks for sending these to me.

I’ve got a busy day today I’m going into my kids’school this morning to hear children read and then I’m going to work where I have an event tonight too which should be fun.

Happy Friday everyone!