Emma's Anticipate Treasures – Emma's Biblio Treasures

SQUADPOD BLOG BLAST: Under Her Roof by A. A. Chaudhuri

Published June 13th, 2024 by Hera
Thriller, Psychological Fiction, Suspense

Happy Publication Day to A. A. Chaudhuri and welcome to my stop on the SquadPod Collective Book Blast for Under Her Roof. Thank you to Hera for my proof copy in exchange for an honest review.

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ABOUT THE BOOK:

‘Intense, intricate and packed with intrigue…a thrilling and addictive read.’ B.A. Paris

It seems too good to be true…

When struggling writer Sebastian finds a room to let in a palatial Hampstead residence he cannot believe his luck. The rent is ridiculously cheap and he immediately feels a connection with his beautiful widowed landlady, Adriana.

It is.

Things take a dark turn when he finds out what happened to the last lodger. Could this be why the house is a fortress of security, and why Adriana seems so fragile? Adriana doesn’t want to talk about the death and sadness that seem to follow her wherever she goes and Sebastian has secrets of his own.

Now someone is watching their every move and there is nowhere to hide.

This house of light becomes a dark nightmare as the threat ramps up – what does the watcher want? And how far will they go to get it?

A gripping, twisty thriller perfect for fans of B.A. Paris, Shari Lapena and Lucy Foley. If you were hooked by Netflix series You or The Watcher then you will love this.

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MY REVIEW:

When struggling writer, Seb, finds a cheap room for rent in a luxurious Hampstead house he worries it is too good to be true. His misgivings aren’t eased by the house’s fortress-like security or the dark circumstances of her last lodger’s tragic ending, but when he meets the mysterious widowed landlady, Adriana, he is put at ease and struck by an instant connection with her. But, what neither of them know is that there is someone watching their every move. What does this watcher want? And do the dark secrets they are both hiding have anything to do with it?

Intense, cryptic and suspenseful, Under Her Roof is another jaw-dropping thriller from A. A. Chaudhuri. Sizzling with dark secrets, suspicion and intrigue, I couldn’t put this down and devoured the book quickly. Chaudhuri is a must-read author for me and she gets better with every book. Expertly written and cleverly plotted, this was impossible to predict. My mind raced with theories and suspicions, but I couldn’t see how the many different threads of the story would connect until Chaudhuri skillfully intertwined them, delivering shocking twists that changed everything I thought I knew. Looking back, I can see the breadcrumbs she’d subtly sprinkled throughout the story, but I couldn’t see the full picture until she revealed it. Brava, Ms. Chaudhuri.

The story is told by multiple narrators in multiple timelines and all of the characters are richly drawn, complex and fractured. Adriana and Seb are two of the narrators and while both of them are likeable, we have no idea if they are reliable as they admit they are hiding dark secrets they are terrified of being revealed. No one in this story is completely innocent and an air of suspicion surrounds all of them and the tension radiates from the pages, keeping you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. The story’s other narrators’ identities are a mystery that isn’t revealed until the dramatic finale. One of these is the ‘villain’ of the story. The mysterious person watching Adriana and Seb under the cover of looking out for her. This is a dark, sinister and dangerous character who will go to any lengths to ‘help’ Adriana and while there were a number of suspects I had in mind, my mind was blown when their true identity was revealed.

Dark, devious, twisty and unpredictable, Under Her Roof is a high-octane psychological thriller that keeps you guessing until the last page. Once again Ms. Chaudhuri has shown why she is one of the best thriller writers you will read. Highly recommended.

Rating: ✮✮✮✮.5

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MEET THE AUTHOR:

A.A. Chaudhuri is a former City lawyer turned thriller writer, born and raised in Portsmouth, but who now lives in Surrey with her family. Once a highly ranked British junior tennis player, competing in the national championships and a member of the national squad, she went on to tour the women’s professional satellite circuit as a teenager and achieved a world ranking of 650.

THE SCRIBE and THE ABDUCTION, published by LUME BOOKS in July and December 2019, are her first crime book series, plunging readers into London’s glamorous legal world and featuring series’ heroine, Maddy Kramer, fiction’s first female City lawyer amateur sleuth, who teams up with charismatic DCI Jake Carver to solve a gruesome series of murders and a puzzling abduction. THE SCRIBE and THE ABDUCTION were published as audio books by Isis Audio on 1st January and 1st March 2021, both read by David Thorpe.

She has also contributed an original short story THE ENCOUNTER to crime anthology GIVEN IN EVIDENCE published by LUME BOOKS in May 2020, has written many articles and short stories for The Crime Writers’ Association.

Her first psychological thriller with HERA BOOKS, SHE’S MINE, was published in e-book, paperback and audio in August 2021, the second, THE LOYAL FRIEND, was published in all three formats in June 2022 and published in the USA by Canelo US on 20th June 2023. Her third, THE FINAL PARTY, was published on May 25th 2023. It will be released in audiobook on 1st February 2024.

Her fourth psychological thriller – UNDER HER ROOF – will be released on 13th June 2024.

Besides being an avid reader, she enjoys fitness, films, anything Italian and a good margarita!

All of Alex’s books have achieved bestseller status on Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon Australia and Amazon Canada.

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BUY THE BOOK:

Waterstones* | Bookshop.org* | Amazon*
*These links are affiliate links

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Thanks for reading, Bibliophiles xxxx

BLOG TOUR: A Truth For A Truth by Carol Wyer (Detective Kate Young 4)

Published April 6th, 2023 by Thomas & Mercer
Thriller, Crime Fiction, Crime Series, Police Procedural

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Today is my stop on the blog tour for the tense, twisty and gripping A Truth For A Truth. Thank you to Zoe at Zooloos Book Tours for the invitation to take part, and to Carol Wyer for the signed copy of the book.

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SYNOPSIS:
DI Kate Young’s team is hunting for a killer. What they don’t know…is that the killer is her.

DI Kate Young has known for years that her boss, Superintendent John Dickson, is a violent and evil man. But when she finally confronts him and accidentally shoots and kills him, she’s forced to cover her tracks before anyone can pin his death on her. With revelations about his corruption soon to become public knowledge, Kate sets up a trail of evidence to make it seem that Dickson has conveniently vanished…

But Kate knows the corruption doesn’t end with Dickson. As she heads up the team investigating his supposed disappearance, she also pursues other loose ends. Stanka, the sex worker who supplied the evidence against Dickson, leads her to crucial information on another corrupt officer, DI Harriet Khatri, and her dubious involvement with sex traffickers.

As the noose starts to tighten on Kate, she finds herself targeted by traffickers, the bent cops on her force and even her own team of detectives. Can she stay one step ahead of them all and bring Harriet to justice? Can she trust anyone around her? And can she possibly get away with murder?

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MY REVIEW:

DI Kate Young’s team is hunting for a killer. What they don’t know…is that the killer is her.

For years, DI Kate Young has known that her boss, Superintendent John Dickson, is not only dodgy, but cruel and violent. Finally armed with the evidence she needs to expose him, she decides to confront him. But things don’t go to plan and she accidentally kills him in self defence, leaving Kate covering her tracks with a trail of evidence designed to make her colleagues think he’s vanished after allegations of his crimes are printed by the press.

But avoiding capture for murder isn’t Kate’s only worry. Dickson wasn’t working alone and there is a whole team of corrupt officers she must track down before they discover what she did. With no idea who she can trust and feeling increasingly desperate to share her secrets with someone, things increasingly spiral out of control. Will Kate be able to bring the corrupt officers to justice and get away with murder?

“There is a way out of this.
But if she takes it, she will never be the same person again.”

Wow! The stakes are higher than ever in this fourth instalment of Carol Wyer’s Kate Young series, and you feel it from the first page. Fast-paced, tense and twist-filled, this is a crazy thrill-ride full of foreboding that I flew through in under a day. Wyer succinctly catches you up on the events of book three, allowing you to understand how Kate found herself in this shocking position. I was on tenterhooks from beginning to end, the menacing suspense leaping from the pages and into my bloodstream so that my heart was literally racing. Wyer’s ability to create such tension is one of the reasons I love her books. They are always brilliantly written, fast paced, filled with gritty storylines, and full of compelling characters.

DI Kate Young is a very different woman in this book than the one we are used to. She is still determined and feisty, but she is also a woman grappling with having become the very thing she detests and you can feel her heart-pounding anxiety, stress and strain radiating from the pages. Her mental state is also more shaky than ever, now haunted by the taunting voice of Dickson in her head instead of being comforted by the supporting voice of her late husband, Chris. Kate is having to put on the performance of her life and the cost of failure is unimaginable. Despite being wracked with guilt over what she’s done and the lies she must tell, she still burns with the need to unmask Dickson and his cohorts for the vile, evil people they are and find justice for their victims. I was rooting for her, but found myself torn because she’s covering up her crime. Was our moral protagonist now the villain? I wrestled with this but couldn’t deny I wanted her to succeed.

Intense, riveting and addictive, Ms. Wyer has once again delivered a first-rate thriller that isn’t to be missed. And that ending! I was not ready. I need book five ASAP!

Rating: ✮✮✮✮✰

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MEET THE AUTHOR:

Carol Wyer is a USA Today bestselling author and winner of the People’s Book Prize Award. Her crime novels have sold over one million copies and been translated into nine languages.

A move from writing comedies to the ‘dark side’ in 2017, saw the introduction of popular DI Robyn Carter in Little Girl Lost and proved that Carol had found her true niche.

In 2021, An Eye For An Eye, the first in the DI Kate Young series, was chosen as a Kindle First Reads. It became the #1bestselling book on Amazon UK, USA and Australia. Since then, two further books in the series have been published, with a fourth, A Truth for a Truth due out April 6th 2023.

Her first standalone psychological thriller, Behind Closed Doors, was an Amazon Editor’s Pick and selected as one of the Best Books of December 2022.

Carol has had articles published in national magazines ‘Woman’s Weekly’, featured in ‘Take A Break’, ‘Choice’, ‘Yours’ and ‘Woman’s Own’ magazines and written for the Huffington Post. She’s also been interviewed on numerous radio shows and on Sky and BBC Breakfast television.

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

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BUY THE BOOK:

Amazon | Bookshop.org

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Thanks for reading Bibliophiles xxxx