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Somebody’s Daughter by Carol Wyer (Natalie Ward Book 7)

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Published: July 9th, 2020
Publisher: Bookouture
Format: Kindle, Paperback, Audio
Genre: Crime Fiction, Crime Series, Police Procedural, Mystery, Thriller

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for this sensational thriller. Thank you to Bookouture for the invitation to take part and the gifted eBook ARC.

SYNOPSIS:

One by one the girls disappeared…

When the frail body of a teenage girl is discovered strangled in a parking lot, shards of ice form in Detective Natalie Ward’s veins. As Natalie looks at the freckles scattered on her cheeks and the pale pink lips tinged with blue, she remembers that this innocent girl is somebody’s daughter…

The girl is identified as missing teenager Amelia Saunders, who has run away from home and her controlling father. Natalie’s heart sinks further when it becomes clear that Amelia has been working on the streets, manipulated by her violent new boyfriend Tommy.

A day later, another vulnerable girl is found strangled on a park bench. Like Amelia, Katie Bray was a runaway with connections to Tommy, and Natalie is determined to find him and track down the monster attacking these scared and lonely girls.

But when a wealthy young woman is found murdered the next morning, the word ‘guilty’ scrawled on her forehead, Natalie realises that the case is more complex than she first thought. Determined to establish a connection between her three victims, Natalie wastes no time in chasing down the evidence, tracing everyone who crossed their paths. Then, a key suspect’s body turns up in the canal, a mole in Natalie’s department leaks vital information and everything seems to be against her. Can Natalie stop this clever and manipulative killer before they strike again?

An unputdownable crime thriller from an Amazon bestselling author that will have you sleeping with the light on. This gripping rollercoaster ride is perfect for fans of Angela Marsons, Rachel Abbott and Rachel Caine. Prepare to be totally hooked!

MY REVIEW:

“Look around you. Do you really know what dark secrets your neighbour or your husband or your daughter are hiding? You judge people by how they look or how they seemingly live their lives, but if you could spend an hour in my shoes and really see what goes on, you would be horrified. Truly horrified. “

The discovery of the body of a teenage girl is the start of a new investigation for DCI Natalie Ward and her team. Amelia Saunders is a teenage runaway who worked the streets and was found strangled to death in a car park. Just a day later, the body of another vulnerable teenage girl is found on a park bench. Katie Bray was also a runaway who worked the streets and had connections to the same man thought to be Amelia’s pimp. But when the body of a wealthy woman is found with the word ‘guilty’ written on her forehead, the team is forced to reassess everything they thought they knew. As they search for a connection between her and the other victims, Natalie and her team are in a race against the clock to find their killer before they strike again.

Carol Wyer has done it again. This fast-paced, layered thriller was impossible to put down. In the seventh installment in the Natalie Ward Series we see a happier, more settled Natalie in her private life. But professionally, things are as intense and crazy as ever.  Natalie has recently been promoted to DCI, with Lucy Carmichael taking over her old role, and she and the team are still getting used to the new dynamics. There’s some tension in the ranks, Lucy feels unsure of her abilities, and someone is leaking information to the press; all while they are hunting a clever, confident and methodical killer and a case that keeps throwing up surprising developments at every turn. The pressure is as the body count increases and they race to stop the killer. 

As with all Wyer’s books, this is skillfully written and had me hooked from the first page. I found this one impossible to predict, keeping me on my toes and then knocking me for six with the big reveal. I feel like with each book she just gets better and better, proving why she is one of my favourite authors and her books are ones not to be missed.

Seven books in, I know Natalie and her team well, and I really enjoyed seeing a happier and more settled Natalie this time. I liked her and Mike together and she deserves a bit of a break. I liked that we also finally got some answers about why she is estranged from her sister, Frances, and am looking forward to seeing where the author takes that in the next book. Compelling, tense, intricate and twisty, Somebody’s Daughter is a spectacular thriller from a series every crime lover should read. And, please, someone pick this up for a TV series already!

Rating: ✮✮✮✮.5

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MEET THE AUTHOR:

Winner of The People’s Book Prize Award, Carol Wyer is a best-selling author and stand up comedian who writes feel-good comedies and gripping crime fiction.

A move to the ‘dark side’ in 2017, saw the introduction of popular DI Robyn Carter in LITTLE GIRL LOST, the #2 best-selling book on Amazon, #9 best-selling audiobook on Audible and Top 150 USA Today best-seller.

A second series featuring DI Natalie Ward quickly followed and to date her novels have sold over 750,000 copies and been translated for various overseas markets, including into Norwegian, Italian, Turkish, Hungarian Slovak, Czech and Polish.

Carol has been interviewed on numerous radio shows discussing ”Irritable Male Syndrome’ and ‘Ageing Disgracefully’ and on BBC Breakfast television. She has had articles published in national magazines ‘Woman’s Weekly’ featured in ‘Take A Break’, ‘Choice’, ‘Yours’ and ‘Woman’s Own’ magazines and the Huffington Post.

She currently lives on a windy hill in rural Staffordshire with her husband Mr Grumpy… who is very, very grumpy.

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Nine Elms by Robert Bryndza

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Published: June 25th, 2020
Publisher: Sphere
Format: Paperback, Kindle, Audio
Genre: Psychological Thriller, Mystery, Police Procedural, Crime Series.

I read this as part of a readalong with Tandem Collective UK. Thank you to Tandem Collective for the invitation to take part and Sphere for the gifted copy of the book.

SYNOPSIS:

From the breakthrough international bestselling author of The Girl in the Ice, a breathtaking, page-turning novel about a disgraced female detective’s fight for redemption. And survival.

Kate Marshall was a promising young police detective when she caught the notorious Nine Elms serial killer. But her greatest victory suddenly became a nightmare.

Fifteen years after those catastrophic, career-ending events, a copycat killer has taken up the Nine Elms mantle, continuing the ghastly work of his idol.

Enlisting her brilliant research assistant, Tristan Harper, Kate draws on her prodigious and long-neglected skills as an investigator to catch a new monster. But there’s much more than her reputation on the line: Kate was the original killer’s intended fifth victim . . . and his successor means to finish the job.

MY REVIEW:

Kate Marshall was at the start of a promising career when she unmasked the identity of the Nine Elms serial killer. But solving the case costs the young detective her career and fifteen years later she is still haunted professionally and personally by the case. Now working as a Criminology lecturer, the case comes back to plague her when a copycat takes up the Nine Elms Cannibal’s mantle and continues his idol’s gruesome killings. With the help of her research assistant Tristan Harper, Kate finds herself once again hunting a monster. But will she catch him before he finishes what the Nine Elms Cannibal didn’t?

Wow! What a ride! Dark, sinister, tense and atmospheric, this is exactly the kind of gripping thriller I love. I had heard great things about Robert Bryndza, and as a fan of crime fiction and investigative thrillers, I always planned to read his books. So, when the opportunity to read the first book in his new crime series with Tandem Collective came along, a book that was on my first ever list of Emma’s Anticipated Treasures when the hardback was released in January, I jumped at the chance and am now an instant fan. Bryndza is a seasoned thriller writer, and it shines through. Filled with well developed, memorable and compelling characters and with foreboding and suspense dripping from every page, I was on the edge of my seat from beginning to end.

Kate is a great protagonist and I really like her as the focus for a crime series. I liked that she is an ex-police officer in a break from the norm and her personal connection to the Nine Elms killer gave her, and the story, a bit of an edge.  The dynamic between her and her assistant was interesting and I liked how they worked together as they investigated the case. I’m looking forward to seeing where the author takes them in book two and hopefully learning a bit more about Tristan’s background. 

The Nine Elms Cannibal and the Fan are both predatory, merciless and ruthless killers. I found their relationship interesting. I am a self-confessed true crime fan, but can not imagine idolising a killer or wanting to copy or continue his or her ‘work’. Getting an insight into someone who does was both fascinating and disturbing. But strangely enough, it wasn’t the killers I loathed most of all. It was Enid, the mother of the Nine Elms cannibal. I don’t want to go into why as it will ruin the book, but I will say she is a vile, sickening woman who was very well written. 

Sharp, succinct, twisty and addictive, Nine Elms is one of my top thrillers this year. Gritty, gruesome and not for the faint hearted, it is a strong start to a new series that I will certainly be following and I am counting down impatiently to book two in November. 

Rating: ✮✮✮✮✮

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MEET THE AUTHOR:

Robert Bryndza began his career training at the Guildford School of Acting. He spent six years as an actor, doing all kinds of strange jobs in between, which was the perfect training for being an author. He began to write during a long period of unemployment, first comedy sketches, a show which he took to the Edinburgh Festival, and then four romantic comedy novels which he self-published, and they became Amazon charts bestsellers selling over 250,000 copies.

His debut crime thriller The Girl in the Ice was the first book in his Detective Erika Foster series. It has sold over 1 million copies in the English language, and won the Dead Good Reader Award for best kick-ass female character at the 2016 Harrogate Crime Festival. Erika Foster has gone on to kick-ass in five further books; The Night Stalker, Dark Water, Last Breath, Cold Blood and Deadly Secrets. The series was twice nominated in Goodreads Choice Awards (Mystery and Thriller category) in 2016 for The Girl in the Ice, and in 2017 for Last Breath. Robert’s books have sold over 3 million copies in the English language, and have been translated into 29 languages.

Nine Elms, the first book| in his new Kate Marshall private detective series was published late in 2019 and was an instant Amazon USA no.1 bestseller, an Amazon UK top 10 bestseller and topped bestselling charts around the world. The second book in the series, Shadow Sands, will be published in November 2020. Robert is British and lives in Slovakia.

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The Paper Bracelet by Rachael English

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Published: July 9th, 2020
Publisher: Headline
Format: Paperback, Kindle, Audio
Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery

Welcome to my stop on the tour for this poignant novel. Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tour for the invitation to take part, and Headline for the gifted copy.

SYNOPSIS:

Every paper bracelet held a mother’s heartbreaking secret…

Inspired by heartrending true events in a home for unwed mothers, set in Ireland, Boston and London, this novel is perfect for readers of Jill Childs, Emily Gunnis and Kathryn Hughes.

For almost fifty years, Katie Carroll has kept a box tucked away inside her wardrobe. It dates from her time working as a nurse in a west of Ireland home for unwed mothers in the 1970s. The box contains a notebook holding the details of the babies and young women she met there. It also holds many of the babies’ identity bracelets.

Following the death of her husband, Katie makes a decision. The information she possesses could help reunite adopted people with their birth mothers, and she decides to post a message on an internet forum. Soon the replies are rolling in, and Katie finds herself returning many of the bracelets to their original owners. She encounters success and failure, heartbreak and joy. But is she prepared for old secrets to be uncovered in her own life?

MY REVIEW:

“For the first time, she was seeing how the sins of the past reverberated around them. She’d realised that the story wasn’t confined to black-and-white film and bleached-out Polaroids. The women weren’t exhibits in a museum.”

Moving, powerful, compelling, and utterly heartbreaking, The Paper Bracelet is a fictional novel based around the infamous unwed mother and baby homes and forced adoptions that took place in Ireland in our not too distant history. 

Told in dual timelines from multiple points of view, we follow Katie, a former nurse at Carrigbrack, a home for unwed mothers in west Ireland, as she tries to reunite babies born during her time at the hospital with their paper identity bracelets, which she has kept secretly in a box for nearly fifty years, and twenty-year-old Patricia, an unmarried, pregnant woman who is taken to Carrigbrack under a cloud of shame. But there is more to Katie’s story of her time at the home than she’s admitting. Is she ready for her own secrets to be revealed?

What an emotional read. This is certainly one of those books where you need a pack of tissues close to hand whilst reading. I have obviously heard of the homes for unwed mothers in Ireland and some of the horrors that took place there, but it isn’t a subject I’d read a lot about. Rachael English has clearly done a lot of research, and her wealth of knowledge, along with richly drawn and believable characters, made the novel feel so authentic it was like I was reading Katie and Patricia’s memoirs, rather than a work of fiction. This was my first read by the author and I will be buying her previous books after falling in love with her wonderful storytelling. 

While the whole novel is moving, it was the flashbacks to Patricia’s time at Carrigbrack and the stories of what happened to the young women forced to live in the homes, that touched me most of all. Patricia is a twenty-year-old woman studying to be a nurse when she falls pregnant. Knowing that if this had happened just a decade or two later, she would have not been sent to a home and been allowed to make her own choice about whether or not she kept her child was devastating. The lack of autonomy she had, even as a grown woman, was unimaginable to those of us living in the UK in 2020. While there is nothing graphic, it was still difficult, and eye-opening, to read about the bleak, cruel life they were forced to live at the home and the appalling way in which they were treated. I don’t want to say more about the storyline or characters as I don’t want to ruin the book for those yet to read it. 

The Paper Bracelet is a  poignant, affecting and beautifully written novel. There are still many people living today that are living with the repercussions of the events depicted and it is vital we remember them and what they were subjected to. 

Rating: ✮✮✮✮.5

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MEET THE AUTHOR:

Rachael English is a presenter on Ireland’s most popular radio programme, Morning Ireland. She lives in Dublin, but was born in England and grew up in County Clare on Ireland’s west coast. Her first novel, GOING BACK, was shortlisted for the most-promising newcomer award at the 2013 Bord Gáis Irish Book Awards.

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The Bad Mother’s Virus by Suzy K. Quinn

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Published: May 30th, 2020
Publisher: Amazon Media
Format: Kindle
Genre: Humourous Fiction

Thank you to Megan at Ed Public Relations for the invitation to read this book and the gifted eARC.

SYNOPSIS:

100% of net profits donated to coronavirus healthcare initiatives (details below)

Laugh out loud for your immune system with this parenting comedy
Single mother, Juliette Duffy, is getting married. Again. And this time, she is determined to make it all the way down the aisle. But you never know what’s around the corner, do you?

Follow Juliette as she tries to plan a wedding that may never happen, cheers up a grandmother quarantined on a cruise ship and experiences self isolation hell with her dramatic ex-partner and his mother.

If you’re feeling gloomy and fed up, and looking for a REALLY good laugh and the ultimate feel-good book, download on Kindle Unlimited and laugh your way to better immunity.

A note from your author
I think we all need a bit of cheering up. There are so many real, human funny and heart-warming stories in the midst of this pandemic, and that’s what this book is about. But there’s a serious side to all this too, that hasn’t been forgotten.
THANK YOU EVERYONE who donates to healthcare heroes by reading this book. You are contributing to many good causes AND hopefully laughing and feeling good, even if things feel scary or uncertain.
We’ll get through this everyone!
Huge love,
Suzy xxx

MY REVIEW:

“But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about life, it’s to expect surprises.”

The Bad Mother’s Virus is the fifth installment in the popular Bad Mother’s series. In this book Juliette Duffy is starting 2020 in a positive mood. She is planning her wedding to Alex and declares that 2020 will be the year of health and wellness, not banking on the coronavirus derailing not only her plans but the lives of the world. The story follows the early days of the virus, its spread to a global pandemic that sees Juliette attempt to navigate panic buying, homeschooling and life in quarantine while fighting a custody battle with her ex.

Though I have two of the other books in this series, this was the first time I’ve read any of the Bad Mother’s books. When I was contacted asking if I wanted to read and review a copy and learned that Suzy was donating all profits from the book to finding a coronavirus vaccine and healthcare heroes, I jumped at the chance. Despite taking my first foray into the lives of the characters five books deep, I never felt confused about their backstories as the author succinctly catches the reader up with past events in the early pages of the book.

Though it is full of humour, there are some emotional and more serious topics covered in the book too. As someone who’s fought custody battles that element of the story is very real and brought back some unwelcome memories for me. I felt a camaraderie with Juliette and was rooting for her every step of the way. In fact overall I found the characters to be compelling, real and relatable and laughed most at Nana Joan’s antics. 

An entertaining, quick and easy read that offers a relatable look at our current crazy times. 

Rating: ✮✮✮.5

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Suzy K. Quinn is the author of feel-good romance and page-turning thrillers and published her hilarious parenting memoir Lies We Tell Mothers last year. She wrote The Bad Mother’s Virus exclusively during the lockdown, while juggling homeschooling, the inevitable extra cleaning and cooking, and generally not having a moment’s peace! Suzy’s books have sold over three quarters of a million copies worldwide and have been translated into 7 languages. Suzy is also a journalist and has previously written for The Guardian, Perfect Wedding Magazine, Sunday Times Magazine and The Sun. Suzy currently lives in Essex with her husband Demi and two daughters, Lexi and Laya and is available for interview and to write features.

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All Fall Down (DI Helen Grace 9) by M. J. Arlidge

78c4a0fcPublished: June 11th, 2020
Publisher: Orion
Format: Hardcover, Kindle, Audio
Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Crime Series

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for the latest installment in my favourite crime series and one of my most anticipated books this year. Thank you to Tracy at Compulsive Readers for the invitation to take part and Orion for the gifted copy of the novel.

SYNOPSIS:

“You have one hour to live.”

Those are the only words on the phone call. Then they hang up. Surely, a prank? A mistake? A wrong number? Anything but the chilling truth… That someone is watching, waiting, working to take your life in one hour.

But why?

The job of finding out falls to DI Helen Grace: a woman with a track record in hunting killers. However, this is A case where the killer seems to always be one step ahead of the police and the victims.

With no motive, no leads, no clues – nothing but pure fear – an hour can last a lifetime…

MY REVIEW:

D.I. Helen Grace and her team are back in another gripping installment of my favourite crime series. I had been eagerly anticipating this one for months and it was worth the wait. 

There is a killer lurking in the shadows, stalking their prey. Their targets are the survivors of a group of schoolchildren who were abducted by Daniel King eight years ago. All but one of them got away but the killer was never caught and has been an illusive phantom ever since with no definitive sightings despite rumours over the years. Could he be back and looking to finish what he started all those years ago? And are the survivors telling the full story about what happened in that farmhouse? Are there secrets still waiting to be revealed?

M. J. Arlidge has done it again. I was hooked from the first page and immersed in the world he’s created, one that feels so familiar after eight previous books with Helen Grace and her team. The narrative uses multiple points of view and extracts from a book written by one of the survivors to slowly reveal the shocking truth about the killer they are hunting and the events eight years ago. 

Arlidge has a knack for writing characters that feel real and jump from the pages. The ones in this book felt so real that I had to go back and check his previous books as it felt like I’d read the story of the kids in the farmhouse before. I hadn’t, he’s just that good at immersing you in their world. Helen is the kind of flawed, complex and compelling character I love and I’ve enjoyed following her journey over the course of this series. This time Arlidge explores the politics of policing through the lens of interpersonal relationships, with Helen and her colleague Joseph Hudson in a fledgling relationship when the story opens. Their dynamic shifts as the story progresses and I am excited to see where he takes things next for them after how the book ended. 

Skillfully and cunningly crafted, Arlidge has once again written a dark, twisty, layered and tantalising thriller. I can’t wait to see what he has in store for this series in book ten. 

Rating: ✮✮✮✮✫

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MEET THE AUTHOR:

M. J. Arlidge has worked in television for the last twenty years, specializing in high-end drama production, including prime-time crime serials Silent Witness, Torn, The Little House and, most recently, the hit ITV show Innocent. In 2015 his audiobook exclusive Six Degrees of Assassination was a number-one bestseller. His debut thriller, Eeny Meeny, was the UK’s bestselling crime debut of 2014. It was followed by the bestselling Pop Goes the Weasel, The Doll’s House, Liar Liar, Little Boy Blue, Hide and Seek and Love Me Not. Down to the Woods is the eighth DI Helen Grace thriller. In 2019 he published a standalone thriller, A Gift for Dying.

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The Silent Wife (Will Trent Book 10) by Karin Slaughter

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Published: June 23rd, 2020
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Format: Hardcover, Kindle, Audio
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Crime Fiction, Police Procedural

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for this electrifying thriller. This was one of Emma’s Anticipated Treasures for June and exceeded expectations. Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part and HarperCollins UK for the eBook ARC.

SYNOPSIS:

He watches.

A woman runs alone in the woods. She convinces herself she has no reason to be afraid, but she’s wrong. A predator is stalking the women of Grant County. He lingers in the shadows, until the time is just right to snatch his victim.

He waits.

A decade later, the case has been closed. The killer is behind bars. But then another young woman is brutally attacked and left for dead, and the MO is identical.

He takes.

Although the original trail has gone cold – memories have faded, witnesses have disappeared – agent Will Trent and forensic pathologist Sara Linton must re-open the cold case. But the clock is ticking, and the killer is determined to find his perfect silent wife….

MY REVIEW:

“Witnessing an unnatural death came with the job, but something about this particular victim, this particular case, sent dread into every fiber of his being.

He has hunted his share of murderers and rapists.

He had never before hunted a predator.”

A sly and sadistic killer is brutally raping and murdering women and then managing to make it look like an accident while another man sits behind bars for his earlier crimes. But was it a set up like he claims or a mistake? In this sizzling new installment of the Will Trent series, agent Will Trent and pathologist Sara Linton are not only hunting a predator but trying to determine if there is evidence of police corruption in the first investigation. But it’s been a decade since the murders started, memories have faded and not all those involved are still alive to tell their side of the story. Can they find the truth and their killer before he strikes again?

Dark, sinister, gritty and compelling, The Silent Wife is the twentieth book in twenty years from the thriller queen. When you read a Karin Slaughter novel you know you’re getting a first-class thriller. The writing is sharp, intelligent, bold and filled with dark humour. The Silent Wife is all this and more as creeping menace, dread and tension drip from every page, creating a heart-pounding, atmospheric read.

“She had seen first-hand evidence of his madness. He hadn’t been content to rape the women. He had destroyed them.”

Ms. Slaughter’s novels aren’t for the faint hearted, and this one was certainly no exception, with some gruesome, stomach-churning descriptions that made even this seasoned thriller reader have to pause to collect myself at times. But it never feels gratuitous. The villain in this book is also without a doubt one of the most cruel, cunning and sadistic predators I’ve read. A number of times there are comparisons between the man they are hunting and Ted Bundy and reading this certainly gave me the same chills that I got from reading about Bundy and his crimes. This is a villain who will stay with me for a long time. The author uses this character’s crimes to highlight the sickening ways women are sometimes brutalised and the long term physical and psychological effects that it can have on the victim. She discusses her decision to do cults in a letter to the reader at the end of the book.

When you reach the tenth book in a series you get to know the characters pretty well so reading them feels a little like meeting up with old friends. I will confess that I haven’t read all the books in this series; but I was an avid reader of the author’s earlier Grant County series and read the last book in this series. So while part of me felt like I was among friends, it was also like being with a new crowd where you don’t know all the in-jokes. But Ms. Slaughter has a way of catching you up in a concise manner so you can read it with or without having read the rest of the series. 

The Silent Wife is a wonderfully dark and twisted thriller that will leave you breathless.

Rating: ✮✮✮✮✮

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MEET THE AUTHOR:

Published in 37 languages, with more than 35 million copies sold across the globe, her nineteen novels include the Grant County and Will Trent books, as well as the Edgar-nominated Cop Town and the instant New York Times bestselling novels Pretty Girls and The Good Daughter. Her most recent novel, The Last Widow, features Sara Linton and Will Trent. A native of Georgia, Karin currently lives in Atlanta. Her novels Cop Town, The Good Daughter, and Pieces of Her are all in development for film and television.

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The July Girls by Phoebe Locke

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Published: June 25th, 2020
Publisher: Headline
Format: Paperback, Kindle, Audio
Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Fiction

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for this gripping thriller . Thank you to Antonia at Headline for the invitation to take part and my gifted copy of the book.

SYNOPSIS:

Every year, on the same night in July, a woman is taken from the streets of London; snatched by a killer who moves through the city like a ghost.

Addie has a secret. On the morning of her tenth birthday, four bombs were detonated across the capital. That night her dad came home covered in blood. She thought he was hurt in the attacks – but then her sister Jessie found a missing woman’s purse hidden in his room.

Jessie says they mustn’t tell. She says there’s nothing to worry about. But when she takes a job looking after the woman’s baby daughter, Addie starts to realise that her big sister doesn’t always tell her the whole story. And that the secrets they’re keeping may start costing lives . . .

MY REVIEW:

“There is a moment with each of them. A look in their eyes when they know it’s over. He likes to watch that realisation finally dawn, see them accept that there is no escape. The feeling of it is electric.”

“Soon he begins to look forward to the day when he can take the next.”

 

Every year, on the same night in July, a killer takes a woman from the streets of London. He is invisible, moving through the city in the shadows. On the same night one year, Addie’s father comes home covered in blood. At first she assumes the blood is from being caught up in the bombs that exploded in the city that morning, but when she and her older sister find a missing woman’s purse hidden behind his bed, she begins to wonder what really happened.

Mysterious and compelling, this had me hooked from beginning to end. The story is told from the perspective of Addie, following her and older sister Jessie over the course of twelve years as they navigate life under the shadow of their father’s suspected involvement in a series of murders. 

I loved how this book was written. From the start there was an unsettling feeling and throughout the book I got a sense of something else lurking beneath the surface, something with the potential to shatter everything we thought we knew. These feelings were only heightened as the story went on and I read with baited breath, wondering if my suspicions would be proved right or it was a clever ploy by the author to throw me off track. The best part of the writing for me was the author’s inclusion of real events that shook London, such as the 7/7 bombings and the shooting of Mark Duggan, along with the extracts from a book about the case, that gave the novel a true crime feel that was so authentic I often forgot I was reading a work of fiction. I also loved the menacing voice of the killer that is included in short, sporadic chapters. Each time we would hear from his perspective the hairs on the back of my neck would stand on end and I would get chills; exactly what you want when you read the voice of evil. 

Addie was a compelling and sympathetic protagonist. As the life of her dysfunctional family became increasingly shrouded in secrets and lies, we see her barely holding on by a thread. As she desperately tries to uncover the truth, becoming increasingly haunted and anxious, even developing OCD tendencies. Her relationship with Jessie, which should be her solace, is also riddled with secrets and lies, leaving her feeling unmoored and lost. The author made me feel like I was right there beside her every step of the way and as eager as she was to learn the truth about her family and the murders.

Tense, twisty and engaging, this had me on the edge of my seat and guessing right until the final pages. The July Girls is a fantastic thriller that will leave you breathless.

Rating: ✮✮✮✮✰

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MEET THE AUTHOR:

Phoebe Locke is a full-time writer, part-time doer of odd jobs. These jobs have included Christmas Elf, cocktail waitress, and childminder. Her first novel (written as Nicci Cloke), Someday Find Me, was published in 2012 and her second, Lay Me Down, in 2015. She has also written three novels for young adults: Follow Me Back (2016), Close Your Eyes (2017) and Toxic (2018).

She lives and writes in Cambridgeshire, and her debut psychological thriller is The Tall Man.

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Monstrous Souls by Rebecca Kelly

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Photo Credit: Agora Books

Published: July 23rd, 2020
Publisher: Agora Books
Format: Kindle, Paperback
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Trigger Warning: Sexual Abuse

Welcome to my spot on the blog tour for this compelling debut. Thank  you to Peyton at Agora Books for the invitation to take part and the gifted copy of the novel.

SYNOPSIS:

Over a decade ago, Heidi was the victim of a brutal attack that left her hospitalised, her younger sister missing, and her best friend dead. But Heidi doesn’t remember any of that. She’s lived her life since then with little memory of her friends and family and no recollection of the crime.

Now, it’s all starting to come back.

As Heidi begins retracing the events that lead to the assault, she is forced to confront the pain and guilt she’s long kept buried. But Heidi isn’t the only one digging up the past, and the closer she gets to remembering the truth, the more danger she’s in.

When the truth is worse than fiction, is the past worth reliving?

An addictive thriller about a case gone cold and the dangers lurking on our doorsteps, Monstrous Souls will have you gripped to the very end.

MY REVIEW:

“It had been a policewoman who had eventually discovered them – not on an illicit camp-out as they had assumed, but a devastating scene of death.” 

At thirteen-years-old Heidi was the lone survivor of a brutal attack that left her hospitalised, her little sister missing and her best friend dead. She has no memories of that day or her life leading up to it. Now, just over a decade later, small fragments of memories are beginning to reappear. As Heidi tries to put the pieces of her past together she finds herself in danger from those who want to keep the truth about that night hidden. But she is determined to find out what happened. Whatever the cost.

“I don’t like the way the memories come, like a letter bomb on the doormat. I don’t like the way they are tagged to feelings of grief and rage and self-recrimination. I am never prepared.”

Monstrous Souls is a pacy, gripping and layered thriller that was hard to put down. The story moves between the dual timelines and multiple narrators as we are given glimpses of events leading up to the night Heidi was attacked and follow her fifteen years later as she begins to regain her memories. As terrible truths are slowly unveiled it is soon clear that there is much more to the events of that night than anyone first imagined.

In this novel the author doesn’t shy away from the exploration of deep and difficult subject matters. She examines our psychology, the things we hide from the world, our deepest secrets and fears, and the effects they have on our actions and relationships with others. She also tackles the difficult subject of abuse with sensitivity, avoiding graphic descriptions while still managing to convey the full horror and depravity. She also shines a light on the reasons victims stay quiet, the guilt they feel and the long-lasting effects of abuse exploring if there are fates that can be worse than death.

“I don’t want to think about these places, about this other life she has to endure… what I have seen in the photograph seeps through me like a toxin.” 

For me the characters are a vital part of any book and the characters this author created were authentic and compelling. I found Heidi to be a very sympathetic and likeable character with an interesting character arc as her memories returned. We witness a seemingly fragile woman emerge into someone with great strength. In the flashbacks we witness the usual teenage angst and squabbles with her best friend become something much more serious when Nina confides in her. Heidi is filled with turmoil as she’s torn between the solace and security of her home and wanting to help her friend escape her private hell. We watch her anguish over how to help and if she should betray her friend’s confidence to do so. Nina is definitely the character I had a soft spot for. Between her awful homelife, the horrors she endures and the knowledge that she is brutally murdered so young, I desperately wished I could save her. Her sorrow, anguish and desolation lept from the page and left me heartbroken.

While I enjoyed all the different perspectives, the mysterious and sinister person stalking Heidi provides some of the best narration of the whole book and his story arc was probably the most nuanced of them all. When his identity was revealed I learned that all my predictions were wrong and my jaw hit the floor.

Monstrous Souls is a sensational, twisty and riveting debut that will have you hooked from start to finish.

Rating: ✮✮✮✮✰

Rebecca Kelly Author Photo

MEET THE AUTHOR:

Rebecca Kelly was brought up with books but denied the pleasure of a television. Although she hated this at the time, she now considers it to have contributed to a life-long passion for reading and writing.

After a misspent education, Rebecca had a variety of jobs. She’s spent the last years raising her children but has lately returned to her first love – writing.

Rebecca lives in the UK with her husband and youngest son and an over-enthusiastic black Labrador, who gives her writing tips.

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The Miseducation of Evie Epworth by Matson Taylor

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Published: July 23rd, 2020
Publisher: Scribner UK
Format: Kindle, Paperback, Audio
Genre: General Fiction, Humour

Welcome to my spot on the tour for this spectacular debut. Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part and to Scribner UK for the gifted copy of the book.

SYNOPSIS:

July, 1962

Sixteen year-old Evie Epworth stands on the cusp of womanhood. But what kind of a woman will she become?

The fastest milk bottle-delivery girl in East Yorkshire, Evie is tall as a tree and hot as the desert sand. She dreams of an independent life lived under the bright lights of London (or Leeds). The two posters of Adam Faith on her bedroom wall (‘brooding Adam’ and ‘sophisticated Adam’) offer wise counsel about a future beyond rural East Yorkshire. Her role models are Charlotte Bronte, Shirley MacLaine and the Queen. But, before she can decide on a career, she must first deal with the malign presence of her future step-mother, the manipulative and money-grubbing Christine.

If Evie can rescue her bereaved father, Arthur, from Christine’s pink and over-perfumed clutches, and save the farmhouse from being sold off then maybe she can move on with her own life and finally work out exactly who it is she is meant to be.

Moving, inventive and richly comic, The Miseducation of Evie Epworth is the most joyful debut novel of the year and the best thing to have come out of Yorkshire since Wensleydale cheese.

MY REVIEW:

“I am Evie, sixteen and a half, as wise as a tree, as tall as time, the fastest milk bottle in East Yorkshire, hurtling towards Womanhood.
This is all really strange.”

Witty, uplifting and simply irresistible, I devoured this book in almost one sitting; staying up until 3am to finish it. As a proud Yorkshirewoman I admit that it was the setting of this novel along with the brilliant cover that drew me to this book, but it is the delightful story between the pages and the fabulous characters that will make it linger in my heart long after reading.

1962. Evie Epworth,, sixteen-and-a-half, is on the brink of womanhood. But she has no idea what kind of woman she wants to be or what she wants to do next. She lives on a small farm in Yorkshire with her dad, Arthur, and Christine, the gold-digging housekeeper. This novel follows Evie over the course of one summer as she tries to figure out womanhood, the future, and how to help her dad escape Christine’s evil clutches.

“I don’t think I’m ready to be an Adult.
It’s all far too complicated and messy. Not to mention unfair. And cruel. In fact being an adult is so far proving pretty unpropitious (adjective – disappointing, not very promising). It’s not at all what I thought it would be like.
They don’t tell you this part of being an adult in Bunty or on the telly, about having your world torn asunder and being thrown into a world of enforced coiffured labour, wicked stepmothers and grisly water features.”

I love Evie Epworth. From the moment I opened the book and she leapt from the page I adored her. Feisty, funny, quirky, intelligent and caring, Evie is easy to like and root for and is someone I would love being around in real life. I loved how she would randomly  give the reader the definition of a word she’d read in the dictionary they kept in the downstairs loo. I think she could be one of  my favourite comic heroines of all time.

There is a lively cast of compelling and memorable characters in the book but the only one I hated was Christine. Christine was the epitome of the evil stepmother:  narcissistic, cruel, vapid and greedy. She is a wonderfully written villain and I loved her dynamic with Evie that was ripe for conflict, which the author exploits to perfection. 

Matson Taylor is a comedy master. He had me hooked from the first page with his witty, offbeat prose and he clearly has a talent for uproarious characters you won’t soon forget. Using richly drawn imagery he brought the Yorkshire countryside of the 1960s and the community he’d created to life as  vividly as any movie screen. 

Fresh, wry, and laugh-out-loud funny, this addictive debut  was like a hot cup of Yorkshire Tea on a cold day. It evoked a real sense of home for me and was a joy to read from beginning to end. Mastson Taylor is sensational new talent and I am excited to see what he writes next. 

I do have one small complaint about this book before I finish. And that is that the  many mentions of Bettys made me hungry and I started browsing online for their cakes. I’m still craving them days later! 

All jokes aside, I highly recommend this book if you need a pick-me-up, or are just wanting something fun to read.

Rating: ✮✮✮✮✰

Matson Taylor Author Pic

MEET THE AUTHOR:

Matson Taylor grew up in Yorkshire but now lives in London. He is a design historian and works at the V&A museum, where he teaches on the History of Design programme and spends a lot of time trying to convince people that the luxury goods industry helped win the Second World War.

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The Phone Box at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina

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Published: June 25th, 2020
Publisher: Manilla Press
Format: Hardcover, Kindle, Audio
Genre: Literary Fiction

Thank you to Manilla Press for the gifted copy of this novel .

SYNOPSIS:

We all have something to tell those we have lost . . .

When Yui loses her mother and daughter in the tsunami, she wonders how she will ever carry on. Yet, in the face of this unthinkable loss, life must somehow continue.

Then one day she hears about a man who has an old disused telephone box in his garden. There, those who have lost loved ones find the strength to speak to them and begin to come to terms with their grief. As news of the phone box spreads, people travel to it from miles around.

Soon Yui makes her own pilgrimage to the phone box, too. But once there she cannot bring herself to speak into the receiver. Then she finds Takeshi, a bereaved husband whose own daughter has stopped talking in the wake of their loss.

What happens next will warm your heart, even when it feels as though it is breaking.

When you’ve lost everything, what can you find . . ?

MY REVIEW:

 “Grief, Yui had once told him, is something you ingest everyday, like a sandwich cut into small pieces, gently chewed and then calmly swallowed. Digestion was slow. And so, Takeshi thought, joy must work in the same way”

The Phone Box at the Edge of the World is an extraordinary novel. A soulful, moving and uplifting study of grief and honouring the spirits of those we have lost.

In Belle Garcia, Japan there is a phone box that isn’t connected to anywhere. Known as the ‘wind phone’, it is a place for the broken and lost. A place people come to spend time in the adjacent garden and to talk to the people they have loved and lost and hear their words carried out onto the wind.  This is the story of Yui and Takeshi. Of their journey through grief, to the phone box and to find happiness once again.

I truly believe there are times a novel will come to you at exactly the time you need it . And that is what happened for me with this book. Being in the early stages of grief after losing a close friend I was anxious about reading it but could not have chosen a better book to read. I am thankful that I read this as a buddy read with one of my closest book friends as it was great to be able to discuss our thoughts and feelings while reading such a moving story. 

Wonderfully constructed with delicate, lyrical prose, reading this novel was like a balm for the soul. Powerful, poignant, heartwarming and hopeful, it also doesn’t shy away from the raw pain grief leaves behind. I loved the author’s use of  little interludes filled with facts to break up the narrator’s chapters, which acted as a kind of palate refresher for your emotions.

Yui and Takeshi are both great characters. I loved how they brought out a better side to each other and taught each other it was okay to be happy again without it dishonouring those they had lost.  Their story could have so easily been cheesy but instead it felt authentic and natural.

Wholly immersive and breathtakingly beautiful, I can’t recommend this novel highly enough. The Important Note and Acknowledgements are vital reading at the end as they offer more information about the real phone box and story this novel is based on and the author’s intentions for writing it. 

Rating: ✮✮✮✮.5

 

Website for the real phone of the wind

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MEET THE AUTHOR:

Laura Imai Messina has been living in Japan for the last 15 years and works between Tokyo and Kamakura, where she lives with her Japanese husband and two children. She took a Masters in Literature at the International Christian University of Tokyo and a PhD in Comparative Literature at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. The Phone Box at the Edge of the World has been sold in 21 territories.

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