Good morning everyone I was lucky enough to receive a copy of this fabulous sounding book recently. I always love books that involve folk lore and that stretch my imagination so I can’t wait to read this soon.

Huge thanks to the lovely publishers for sending this to me.

Do you have a favourite folklore/ fairy tale?

Out 7th September 2023

Book Synopsis:

Twice upon a time – for that is how some stories should continue . . .

Phoebe, an eight-year-old girl, lies comatose following a car accident. She is a body without a spirit, a stolen child. Ceres, her mother, can only sit by her bedside and read aloud to Phoebe the fairy stories she loves in the hope they might summon her back to this world.
But it is hard to keep faith, so very hard.

Now an old house on the hospital grounds, a property connected to a book written by a vanished author, is calling to Ceres. Something wants her to enter, and to journey – to a land coloured by the memories of Ceres’s childhood, and the folklore beloved of her father, to a land of witches and dryads, giants and mandrakes; to a land where old enemies are watching, and waiting.

To the Land of Lost Things.

For anyone who loved THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS and for all readers who enjoy dark, beautifully written fables that explore the heart of the human condition: love, loyalty and sacrifice.

About The Author:

John was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1968 and has, at various points in his life, worked as a journalist, a barman, a local government official, a waiter and a dogsbody at Harrods department store in London. (A dogsbody, for our North American friends, is a ‘go-fer’.) He studied English in Trinity College, Dublin and journalism at Dublin City University, subsequently spending five years working as a freelance journalist for The Irish Times newspaper. He divides his time between Dublin and Portland, Maine; makes regular donations to the wine industry; and keeps a number of dogs in a remarkable degree of comfort.

Book Synopsis:

They’re your best friends.

Lucy and her husband do everything with their closest friends Cora and Scott. They’ve even bought a beach house together to enjoy summers with their kids. They’re more than friends: they’re family.

They’re hiding something.

When a colleague passes around photographs from her honeymoon in the Maldives, Lucy is shocked to see Scott in one of the pictures, his arm around another woman.

The truth will change everything.

Then news breaks that the woman from the photograph has mysteriously vanished. Why was Scott there and what is he hiding?

As Lucy looks for answers, her whole life begins to unravel. If the lies start here, where do they end?

EVERYONE IS ALREADY LOVING THE COUPLE IN THE PHOTO . . .

My Review:

The Couple In The Photo is an entertaining, easy read that I raced through in a few days.

The story starts slowly as the author describes the characters lives which helps lull the reader into thinking that everything is just mundane and ordinary. Things soon become very interesting with the discovery of the photo however and my mind was whirling with the possibilities of what it could mean- especially when it’s discovered that the lady in the photo is missing.

I couldn’t decide whether I liked the main character Lucy or not. On one hand I admired her determination to discover the truth but in the other I found her inability to let it go a bit annoying at times. I did feel for her though as it can be awful discovering that a friend isn’t like you thought they were.

The author gradually increases the tension in the book as Lucy discovers more about what happened and there’s some interesting twists that kept my reading. I did guess some of what was going on and guessed who the murderer was fairly early but I felt this didn’t detract from my enjoyment of watching the story unfold and I had to keep reading to discover whether I was right!

Huge thanks to Ollie for inviting me onto the blog tour and to the publisher for my copy of this book.

About The Author:

Helen Cooper is a writer of psychological thrillers from Derby, England.

She has taught English and Academic Writing in both Further and Higher Education and was Head of Learning Enhancement at the University of Birmingham. She has a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University and has been published in Writers’ Forum, Mslexia, the Lincolnshire Echo and Derbyshire Life. She was shortlisted for the Bath Short Story Prize in 2014 and came third in the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize in 2018. The Downstairs Neighbour is her first novel.

Helen has also co-authored two books on academic writing for university students, ‘Where’s Your Argument?’ and ‘Using Feedback to Boost Your Grades’, published by Macmillan International and written in collaboration with Michael Shoolbred.

Good morning everyone I’ve been seeing this challenge around Instagram and I’m curious to find out if anyone likes the same books as me.

❤️10 points for every book you’ve read

💛 5 points for every book your currently reading

💚 2 points for any books on your tbr list

💔 -1 for any book you DNF’d

Comment your score below!

I found this challenge very interesting as I tend to give away my books after reading so the fact I still have these books proves I must have liked them. I would have included Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo and The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper but I think I must have lent them out as I can’t find them. If you’ve read either of those or have them on your tbr count these too!

Book Synopsis:

For Inspector Hunkeler the New Year begins with a most unwelcome phone call. He is summoned back to Basel from his holiday to unravel a gruesome killing in a gardening allotment on the city’s outskirts. An old man known as Anton Flockiger has been shot in the head and found hanging from a butcher’s hook from the roof of his garden shed – like butchers hang the carcasses of dead animals. Hunkeler must deal not only with the quarrelsome tenants of the allotment but with the challenges of investigating a murder that has taken place outside his jurisdiction, across the French border in Alsace. The case becomes increasingly mystifying when Hunkeler stumbles upon a sinister Second World War connection. What exactly happened in the Alsatian village of Ballersdorf in February 1943? And how are those events connected to the case?

My Review:

The Murder Of Anton Livius is a gripping, twisty read from a new author for me.

Firstly I really like Hunkeler who came across as a hard working, likeable character that was easy to get behind. I liked that he didn’t just take the obvious answer to his investigation and instead probes deeper until he discovers the whole truth behind the murder. He’s also a very funny guy and some of his interactions with his colleagues were hilarious to read about. They helped break up the tension at times, which was needed as some parts of the book get very intense.

The book is told in the present day but part of the investigation involves events that happened in world war two when French men were forced to enlist in the German army. I hadn’t read much about this so found it very interesting to learn more. It must have been such a hard thing to do and heartbreaking to fight for a cause you didn’t believe in.

This book had a great pace to it and I soon found myself absorbed into the story. The author does a great job of building up the tension and atmosphere in the book so it quickly becomes hard to put the book down. I liked how Hunkeler methodically works out the clues and the dead ends are slowly whittled down until the truth is revealed.

This is actually the third book in the series but it can easily be read as a standalone, like I have done, as anything you need to know is explained.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to the publisher for my copy of this book.

About The Author:

Hansjörg Schneider lives in Basel and began his professional career as a journalist and essayist.
He is the author of a number of highly acclaimed plays and of the bestselling Hunkeler crime series, now with ten titles published.

About The Translator:

Astrid Freuler lives in Lidney, Gloucestershire. She is a young translator from German and has published translations of non-fiction and fiction, including the crime thriller A Shadow Falls by Andreas Pflüger.

Yay for amazing book friends! Today on Two For Tuesday I’m featuring two books that the lovely @lovedreadingthis has passed onto me.

I’ve been hearing lots of great things about The Girls Of Summer and Lucy Atkins has been one of my favourite authors for a while and I’ve loved all of her books. I’m very excited to read both of these very soon.

What do you do with proofs you receive after you’ve read them?

The Girls Of Summer by Katie Bishop

Rachel has loved Alistair since she was seventeen.

Even though she hasn’t seen him for sixteen years and she’s now married to someone else.

Even though she was a teenager when they met.

Even though he is almost twenty years older than her.

Now in her thirties, Rachel has never been able to forget their golden summer together on a remote, sun-trapped Greek island. But as dark and deeply suppressed memories rise to the surface, Rachel begins to understand that Alistair – and the enigmatic, wealthy man he worked for – controlled much more than she ever realized.

Rachel has never once considered herself a victim – until now.

Windmill Hill by Lucy Atkins

One night in a remote hunting lodge with a Hollywood director causes an international scandal that wrecks Astrid’s glittering stage career, and her marriage. Her ex-husband, the charismatic Scottish actor Magnus Fellowes, goes on to find global fame, while Astrid retreats to a disintegrating Sussex windmill.

Now 82, she lives there still, with a troupe of dachshunds and her long-suffering friend, Mrs Baker, who came to clean twenty years ago and never left. But the past is catching up with them. There has been an ‘Awful Incident’ at the windmill; the women are in shock. Then Astrid hears that Magnus, now on his death bed, is writing a tell-all memoir. Outraged, she sets off for Scotland, determined to stop him.

Windmill Hill is the story of two very different women, both with painful pasts, and their eccentric friendship – deep, enduring, and loyal to the last.

Good morning everyone. I’m excited to be on the Tandem Collective read-along for God Is An Octopus by Ben Goldsmith which starts today. I think this book sounds really interesting and I’m looking forward to learning more about Ben’s story.

Have you read this book?

Book Synopsis:

Struggling to comprehend the shocking death of his teenage daughter, Ben Goldsmith finds solace in nature by immersing himself in plans to rewild his farm.

In July 2019, Ben Goldsmith lost his fifteen-year-old daughter, Iris, in an accident on their family farm in Somerset. Iris’s death left her family reeling.

Grasping for answers, Ben threw himself into searching for some ongoing trace of his beloved child, exploring ideas that until then had seemed too abstract to mean much to him. Missing his daughter terribly and struggling to imagine how he would face the rest of his life in the shadow of this loss, Ben found solace in nature, the object of a lifelong fascination. As Ben set about rewilding his farm, nature became a vital source of meaning and hope.

This book is the story of a year of soul-searching that followed a terrible loss. In an instant, Ben’s world had turned dark. Yet, unbelievably to him, the seasons kept on turning, and as he immersed himself in the dramatic restoration of nature in the place where it happened, he found healing.

In God is an Octopus, Ben tells a powerful, immersive and inspiring story of finding comfort and strength in nature after suffering loss and despair.

About The Author:

Ben Goldsmith is a British financier, philanthropist and environmentalist who has been at the forefront of campaigns for more rewilding in Britain and Europe.

Ben founded and chairs the Conservation Collective, a network of locally-focused environmental foundations.

Ben is the Chief Executive Officer of Menhaden, a London-listed, sustainability-themed investment company.

Ben is also a Trustee of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), one of the world’s largest climate change focused philanthropic funds.

Ben served from 2018 until 2022 as a Non-Executive Director of the UK Government’s Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs.

Good morning everyone I was lucky enough to receive these books from the fabulous Orenda books this week.

⭐You Can’t See Me by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir
⭐Someone Like Her by Awais Khan
⭐ Thirty Days Of Darkness by Jenny Lund Madsen
⭐ The Fascination by Essie Fox

I absolutely love their books as they are always a bit different to other books. I often face them.outwards at the book shop so other people might get tempted to buy them. These all sound amazing and I can’t wait to read them soon.

Thanks so much for sending these!

I’m working all day today at the Three Counties show. Rossiter Books has a stall there so if you happen to be coming do come and say hi!

What are your Saturday plans?

You Can’t See Me by Eva Ægisdóttir

A wealthy Icelandic family is investigated and dark secrets are exposed when a body is found on the lava fields outside the hotel where they’ve gathered for a reunion … the chilling, gripping prequel to the addictive Forbidden Iceland series
 
The wealthy, powerful Snæberg clan has gathered for a family reunion at a futuristic hotel set amongst the dark lava flows of Iceland’s remote Snæfellsnes peninsula.
 
Petra Snæberg, a successful interior designer, is anxious about the event, and her troubled teenage daughter, Lea, whose social-media presence has attracted the wrong kind of followers. Ageing carpenter Tryggvi is an outsider, only tolerated because he’s the boyfriend of Petra’s aunt, but he’s struggling to avoid alcohol because he knows what happens when he drinks … Humble hotel employee, Irma, is excited to meet this rich and famous family and observe them at close quarters … perhaps too close…
 
As the weather deteriorates and the alcohol flows, one of the guests disappears, and it becomes clear that there is a prowler lurking in the dark.
 
But is the real danger inside … within the family itself?
 
Masterfully cranking up the suspense, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir draws us into an isolated, frozen setting, where nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted, as the dark secrets and painful pasts of the Snæberg family are uncovered … and the shocking truth revealed.

Someone Like Her by Awais Khan

A young Pakistani woman is the victim of an unthinkable act of vengeance, when she defies tradition … facing seemingly insurmountable challenges and danger when she attempts to rebuild her life.
 
Multan, Pakistan. A conservative city where an unmarried woman over the age of twenty-five is considered a curse by her family.
 
Ayesha is twenty-seven. Independent and happily single, she has evaded an arranged marriage because of her family’s reduced circumstances. When she catches the eye of powerful, wealthy Raza, it seems like the answer to her parents’ prayers. But Ayesha is in love with someone else, and when she refuses to give up on him, Raza resorts to unthinkable revenge…
 
Ayesha travels to London to rebuild her life and there she meets Kamil, an emotionally damaged man who has demons of his own. They embark on a friendship that could mean salvation for both of them, but danger stalks Ayesha in London, too. With her life thrown into turmoil, she is forced to make a decision that could change her and everyone she loves forever.
 
Exquisitely written, populated by unforgettable characters and rich with poignant, powerful themes, Someone Like Her is a story of love and family, of corruption and calamity, of courage and hope … and one woman’s determination to thwart convention and find peace, at whatever cost…

Thirty Days Of Darkness by Jenny Lund Madsen

Copenhagen author Hannah is the darling of the literary community and her novels have achieved massive critical acclaim. But nobody actually reads them, and frustrated by writer’s block, Hannah has the feeling that she’s doing something wrong.
 
When she expresses her contempt for genre fiction, Hanna is publicly challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days. Scared that she will lose face, she accepts, and her editor sends her to Húsafjöður – a quiet, tight-knit village in Iceland, filled with colourful local characters – for inspiration.

But two days after her arrival, the body of a fisherman’s young son is pulled from the water … and what begins as a search for plot material quickly turns into a messy and dangerous investigation that threatens to uncover secrets that put everything at risk … including Hannah…
 
Atmospheric, dramatic and full of nerve-jangling twists and turns, Thirty Days of Darkness is a darkly funny, unsettling debut Nordic Noir thriller that marks the start of a breath-taking new series.

The Fascination by Essie Fox

Victorian England. A world of rural fairgrounds and glamorous London theatres. A world of dark secrets and deadly obsessions…

Twin sisters Keziah and Tilly Lovell are identical in every way, except that Tilly hasn’t grown a single inch since she was five. Coerced into promoting their father’s quack elixir as they tour the country fairgrounds, at the age of fifteen the girls are sold to a mysterious Italian known as ‘Captain’.

Theo is an orphan, raised by his grandfather, Lord Seabrook, a man who has a dark interest in anatomical freaks and other curiosities … particularly the human kind. Resenting his grandson for his mother’s death in childbirth, when Seabrook remarries and a new heir is produced, Theo is forced to leave home without a penny to his name.

Theo finds employment in Dr Summerwell’s Museum of Anatomy in London, and here he meets Captain and his theatrical ‘family’ of performers, freaks and outcasts.

But it is Theo’s fascination with Tilly and Keziah that will lead all of them into a web of deceits, exposing the darkest secrets and threatening everything they know…

Exploring universal themes of love and loss, the power of redemption and what it means to be unique, The Fascination is an evocative, glittering and bewitching gothic novel that brings alive Victorian London – and darkness and deception that lies beneath…

Book Synopsis:

More than two hundred feet below the surface, engineer Will Kent and his eleven-year-old daughter Shannon are waist-deep in water and fighting for their lives.

Their only chance at survival is an elite rescue team on the surface led by professional diver Chris Kent – Shannon’s mother and Will’s soon-to-be ex-wife – who must work together with Will to find a way to save their daughter and rescue the passengers from the sealed airplane, which is now teetering on the edge of an undersea cliff.

There’s not much time.

There’s even less air.

With devastating emotional power and heart-stopping suspense, Drowning is an unforgettable thriller about a family’s desperate fight to save themselves and the people trapped with them – against impossible odds.

My Review:

Drowning is a thrilling , addictive and gripping read that I raced through in a couple of days.

I felt quickly drawn into the story and into the, quite frankly, terrifying situation, the characters find themselves in. I’m not a fan of the ocean and I get a bit claustrophobic so this was a nightmare situation for me. I really felt for the characters as their fear was almost palpable. I could feel myself getting more tense and anxious on their behalf as I read.

There are some fabulous characters in this book which were all beautifully written. There were some characters I absolutely adored and some I loved to hate but somehow in the end it didn’t matter as I wanted them all to survive. The reader slowly gets to know the characters as the story develops and I soon found that I cared about them. This made the story more emotional for me and my heart was in my mouth in some of the scenes as I desperately hoped they’d all get out alive.

This book is incredibly fast paced and I quickly found that I couldn’t put the book down. There are lots of twists that kept me guessing and just when I though nothing else could possibly go wrong something else would happen to make the situation more precarious. The author does include some technical information about how planes work in this book, which mostly went over my head but I enjoyed trying to learn more about it.

Huge thanks for Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to the publisher for my copy of this book.

About The Author:

T.J. Newman is a former bookseller and flight attendant whose first novel, Falling, became a publishing sensation and debuted at number two on the New York Times bestseller list. The book was named a best book of the year by USA Today, Esquire, and Amazon, among many others, and has been published in more than thirty countries. The book will soon be a major motion picture from Universal Pictures. T.J. lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Drowning is her second novel.