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Blog Tours book reviews Emma's Anticipated Treasures

The Nesting by C. J. Cooke

Published: October 15th, 2020
Publisher: Harper Collins UK
Format: Hardcover, Kindle, Audio
Genre: Fairy Tale, Mystery, Gothic Fiction, Ghost Story, Suspense, Thriller, Horror Fiction

Welcome to my stop on the tour for this creepy gothic thriller. Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part and Harper Collins for the gifted copy of the book.

SYNOPSIS:

Atmospheric, gothic, spine-chilling… The new thriller from C.J Cooke will haunt you long after you turn the last page…
It was like something out of a fairytale…
The grieving widower.
The motherless daughters.
A beautiful house in the woods.
Deep in a remote Norwegian forest, Lexi has found a new home with architect Tom and his two young daughters. With snow underfoot and the sound of the nearby fjord in her ears, it’s as if Lexi has stepped into a fairy tale

But this family has a history – and this place has a past. Something was destroyed to build their beautiful new house. And those ancient, whispering woods have a long memory.

Lexi begins to hear things, see things that don’t make sense. She used to think this place heavenly, but in the dark, dark woods, a menacing presence lurks.

With darkness creeping in from the outside, Lexi knows she needs to protect the children in her care.

But protect them from what?

MY REVIEW:

All month I’ve been itching to read a creepy, gothic book. The Nesting is both of those things and more. 

Returning to Norway after the recent death of his wife Aurelia, Tom hires Lexi to accompany the family as their Nanny. For him, it’s a chance to honour his wife the house she dreamed of while avoiding his grief, and for Lexi it’s a chance to reinvent herself and start again after a recent suicide attempt. 

But deep in the remote Norwegian forest, there is a threat lurking. But is it human? Are the things Aurelia and Lexi see really hallucinations or are they a real and sinister supernatural force that is out to harm them?

Atmospheric, eerie and haunting, this is the perfect book for this time of year. I’m a big fan of gothic novels, and Cooke executes this one expertly, with just the right amount of spine-tingling terror to keep you hooked and not wanting to turn out the light. 

The writing is simply gorgeous and so vividly descriptive that I felt like I was seeing and feeling everything alongside the characters. I particularly liked how well her description of Lexi’s first month as a Nanny captured the exhaustive nature of children and how she put us inside the mind of a young child so realistically. 

The imagery of Norway made me feel like I was standing in that forest myself and I think that her choice of a remote Norwegian forest in winter was perfect for a Gothic thriller. Beautiful, haunting, dark, chilling and hostile, it sets the scene by simply being itself. The author entwines this with eerie Norwegian folklore and unexplained occurrences,  creating the perfect recipe for this spooky tale.

Dealing with themes of motherhood, mental health and suicide, this isn’t a light-hearted read, but it examines each one with sensitivity and realism. It is clear that mental health and motherhood are subjects that heavily impact and influence the author, as she has woven them into both Lexi and Aurelia’s stories. I loved this, the way the women mirrored each other in so many ways and felt it gave them a deep connection despite the fact that they’d never met. I could personally relate to them both in their mental health struggles and they were definitely the characters I felt closest too. 

All of the characters, even the minor ones, were interesting and well written. I enjoyed the flashbacks as they gave us a chance to get to know Aurelia and gave us possible clues about her death. It also gives the reader the chance to see a clearer picture of Tom, though I found him suspicious and unlikeable all the same. I thought Lexi was a great protagonist who was relatable, flawed and likeable. But the one who really stole my heart was Gaia. How could she not? She broke my heart when she talked about her ‘Mumma’ and definitely creeped me out most of all with all her talk of the Sad Lady. 

An immersive, ethereal and chilling read, The Nesting is the perfect gothic tale for reading while cosy under a blanket this autumn. Just don’t turn out the light! 

Rating: ✮✮✮✮✰

MEET THE AUTHOR:

CJ Cooke wrote her first book aged seven. A few decades later, her work is published in 23 languages, has won numerous awards, and has been optioned for film and television.

CJ’s previous works include the novels The Boy Who Could See Demons (2012), which was critically appraised by The New York Times, The Guardian, Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, and The New York Review of Books, The Guardian Angel’s Journal (2011), which was an international bestseller, and I Know My Name, which was a No. 1 iBooks bestseller and optioned for TV.

Her latest book, a gothic thriller called The Nesting, was awarded funding from the Arts Council of England to carry out research in Norway and is published by Penguin Random House (US) on 29th Sept 2020 and HarperCollins (UK & Commonwealth) on 15 October 2020.

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Blog Tours Guest Post

Guest Post: Ten Things About Me by Catherine Wallace Hope

My novel Once Again is out this year, and you can find out about it and about me on my website, catherinewallacehope.com — and here are ten other things to know about me.

• If I could host fantasy dinner parties with literary guests, living or dead, I would start with: Leonardo da Vinci, Nora Ephron, William Shakespeare, Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood, David Foster Wallace, Dorothy Parker, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, David Sedaris, Sappho, Horace, and Agatha Christie. I would set the feast in a grand ballroom and serve ten courses and create a unique artisan alcoholic beverage for each one. Imagine the conversation!
• Autumn is my favorite season.
• I would love to start an artists’ retreat on an huge, rambling estate near the Côte d’Azur where we could spend the day by the shore and then have long, lovely dinners on a candle-lit terrace, followed by poetry and book readings, music and dance performances, and unveilings of new pieces of art.
• My favorite style of art is Art Nouveau, with special fondness for Clara Driscoll, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Maxfield Parrish.
• My greatest concern is that we might make an unlivable hell of this beautiful paradise we’ve been given.
• I don’t know how to knit, but I can crochet, and I have a collection of carved wooden hooks. Once, I was traveling across the country on a train, and the elderly woman in the seat next to me saw the yarnwork I had with me and taught me how to create stitches that look like waves. Years later, I crocheted baby blankets in that style for each of my three sons during my pregnancies. We still have those blankets, somewhere.
• When I was a kid, I used to run away from home quite often. I created adventures for myself as a forest princess, a midnight thief, a refugee from a royal murder plot. Though I never got into any serious trouble, I scared the living daylights out of my mother. By comparison, when she was four, she tried to run away from home too. She packed her little suitcase with her favorite doll and took off. However, she didn’t get far because she wasn’t allowed to cross the street, so all she could do was go to the end of the block.
• I used to spend summers in Beach Haven, a little seaside town on the East Coast, with my father and stepmother, and I loved nothing more than walking to the beach, diving into the clear water, swimming out to the sandbar, and then body surfing for the rest of the day. One morning, I arrived at the beach earlier than usual. There had been a storm the night before, and the shoreline was sparkling with thousands of tiny silver fish that had been stranded at the edge of the surf — alive, flipping and flopping in the sunlight. The other swimmers and I spent the morning tossing the fish back into the sea where they belonged — with our felicitations to the sea gods.
• I love hiking and photography.
• My favorite soup is tortilla soup, my favorite sandwich is grilled cheese on sourdough, my favorite salad is Waldorf, and my favorite dessert is chocolate ice cream — or German chocolate cake, or chocolate chip cookies, or chocolate brownies with vanilla ice cream, or chocolate pudding with cream — okay, anything chocolate really.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

What if you had the chance to save someone you lost? Isolated in the aftermath of tragedy, Erin Fullarton has felt barely alive since the loss of her young daughter, Korrie. She tries to mark the milestones her therapist suggests – like this day: the five hundredth – but moving through grief is like swimming against a dark current. Her estranged husband, Zac, a brilliant astrophysicist, seems to be coping better. Lost in his work, he’s perfecting his model of a stunning cosmological phenomenon, one he predicts will occur on this same day – an event so rare, it keeps him from being able to acknowledge this milestone alongside Erin. But when Erin receives a phone call from her daughter’s school, the same call she received five hundred days earlier when Korrie was still alive, Erin realises something is happening. Or happening again. Struggling to understand the sudden shifts in time, she pieces together that the phenomenon Zac is tracking may have presented her with the gift of a lifetime: the chance to save her daughter. As Erin is swept through time, she’s unable to reach Zac or convince the authorities of what is happening. Forced to find the answer on her own, Erin must battle to keep the past from repeating – or risk losing her daughter for good.

You can buy the book here.

Thank you Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part in the blog tour and to Catherine Wallace Hope for this post.

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book reviews

The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline

Published: October 22nd, 2020
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Format: Hardcover, Kindle, Audio
Genre: General Fiction, Historical Fiction

Happy Publication Day to this outstanding novel. Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part and to Allison & Busby for the eBook ARC.

SYNOPSIS:

London, 1840. Evangeline, pregnant and falsely accused of stealing, has languished in Newgate prison for months. Ahead now lies the journey to Australia on a prison ship. On board, Evangeline befriends Hazel, sentenced to seven years’ transport for theft. Soon Hazel’s path will cross with an orphaned indigenous girl. Mathinna is ‘adopted’ by the new governor of Tasmania where the family treat her more like a curiosity than a child. Amid hardships and cruelties, new life will take root in stolen soil, friendships will define lives, and some will find their place in a new society in the land beyond the seas.

MY REVIEW:

“Maybe she would always be alone and apart. Always in transition, on her way to someplace else, never quite belonging. She knew both too much and too little of the world. But what she knew, she carried in her bones.” 

The Exiles is a beautifully written, layered and nuanced piece of historical fiction. Set in London and Australia in the 1840s, it is a story about women, survival and redemption. It is a story about our need to belong, about love, loss and how we carry those we love inside us wherever we go.

The voices of three very different female characters tell their stories, which entwine as the novel progresses. Mathinna is an orphaned eight-year-old Aboriginal girl who is taken from her home by Lady Jane Franklin, an explorer who likes to collect anything to do with native people and wants to see if the child can be educated and ‘tamed’. Evangeline is a naïve young woman from a small village working as a governess who finds herself pregnant and alone on a transport ship to Australia after allowing her rage to get the better of her when she is falsely accused of theft. And, finally, there is Hazel, a seventeen-year-old girl who is on the transport ship with Evangeline after being forced to steal by her mother. 

“Here she was, torn from her family and everyone she knew at the whim of a lady in satin slippers who boiled the skulls of her relatives and displayed them as curiosities.”

Each woman has a character that is rich and compelling, a spark that draws you to them and makes you root for her and care about her story. And while their lives and stories may be different, they also have similarities. Each of them have been exiled from their home and those they love and all face the harsh reality of being female in a time and place where that is hostile and unforgiving towards women. They all navigate these obstacles with strength, resilience and determination. 

This is the first time I’ve read anything by this author, and I was struck by her exquisite storytelling and how she seamlessly wove fact and fiction together to create this lush and atmospheric tale. Her imagery makes you feel like you’re there and I could see so clearly the bleak, grim and squalid conditions of the prisons, slave ship and orphanage and could almost feel the heat of the sun bearing down on me in the Australian bush. She writes every character, however big or small, with authenticity, and the research that has gone into the novel leaps from its pages. I will definitely be buying her back catalogue and devouring it as soon as possible. 

“She’d learnt that she could withstand contempt and humiliation — and that she could find moments of grace in the midst of bedlam. She’d learnt she was strong.”

A powerful, heartbreaking and thought-provoking book, I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction.

Rating: ✮✮✮✮✮

MEET THE AUTHOR:

Christina Baker Kline is the author of seven novels, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train. Her other novels include Bird in Hand, The Way Life Should Be, Desire Lines, and Sweet Water, as well as Orphan Train Girl, a middle-grade adaptation of Orphan Train. Her essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Money, More, and Psychology Today, among other publications. She lives in New York City and on the coast of Maine.

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Blog Tours book reviews

Betrayal by Lilja Sigurdardottir

Published: October 1st, 2020
Publisher: Orenda
Format: Paperback, Kindle
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Crime Fiction, Psychological Fiction, Political Fiction, Lesbian Literature, Translated Fiction

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for this outstanding piece of Icelandic Noir. Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part in and Orenda for the eBook ARC.

SYNOPSIS:

When aid worker Úrsula returns to Iceland for a new job, she’s drawn into the dangerous worlds of politics, corruption and misogyny … a powerful, relevant, fast-paced standalone thriller.
 
Burned out and traumatised by her horrifying experiences around the world, aid worker Úrsula has returned to Iceland. Unable to settle, she accepts a high-profile government role in which she hopes to make a difference again.
 
But on her first day in the post, Úrsula promises to help a mother seeking justice for her daughter, who had been raped by a policeman, and life in high office soon becomes much more harrowing than Úrsula could ever have imagined. A homeless man is stalking her – but is he hounding her, or warning her of some danger? And why has the death of her father in police custody so many years earlier reared its head again?
 
As Úrsula is drawn into dirty politics, facing increasingly deadly threats, the lives of her stalker, her bodyguard and even a witch-like cleaning lady intertwine. Small betrayals become large ones, and the stakes are raised ever higher…

MY REVIEW:

Oops, they did it again. With this exciting new thriller Orenda once again prove they only publish the best and most original fiction. This is why they’re one of my top publishers and I’m always eager to read an Orenda book.

Ursula, a former aid worker, has returned to her native Iceland after being traumatised and burned out by the horrors she has seen. When she starts a new job as a minister, she hopes it will finally help her to find her place at home and that she’ll be able to continue to help others without having to leave her family or experience further trauma.

On her first day she promises to help a mother who begs for her help in getting justice for her daughter, saying the fifteen-year-old was raped by a police officer the year before but the investigation has stalled. But she finds she’s met with resistance at every turn and can’t help but wonder if there is something more going on. Why does no one seem to want to investigate the accusations? And is Ursula’s sense that she’s a pawn in a game that she’s not privy to just her imagination, or really happening?

This gripping thriller was a roller-coaster ride, full of so many twists and turns I got book whiplash. I loved the short, sharply written chapters, multiple points of view and the intricate, tangled web the author wove. I was on the edge of my seat from beginning to end. But every time I thought I’d untangled the clues the story would take another turn and I’d have to try and figure it out all over again.

Though this was an easy and quick read for me, it is far from an easy plot. Complex and richly drawn, our protagonists must navigate the sexist halls of politics while trying to figure out what game they are playing, dealing with threatening messages, and being stalked by a homeless man who says he knows her and claims to be trying to warn her of some danger only he can see. It’s unclear how it all fits together, but I loved how the author slowly unveiled the truth, taking the reader on a journey that examines topics such as the dark side of politics, misogyny, police corruption, mental health and betrayal.

Like the story, the characters are all well written and readable, but it is Ursula who is the star of this story. She’s a strong, determined and fiesty who is also flawed. Over the course of the book we follow her journey to accept and come to terms with some of those flaws, including PTSD from her time doing charity work and the deep, dark trauma from her childhood: her father’s murder. She is a gutsy and fascinating character who I loved reading, even if I didn’t always agree with her actions.

Atmospheric, harrowing and very real, Betrayal is an immersive page-turner. This is Icelandic Noir at its best. I highly recommend this book to any thriller lover and can’t wait to read more by this talented author.

Rating: ✮✮✮✮✰

MEET THE AUTHOR:

Lilja Sigurðardóttir is an Icelandic crime-writer born in 1972. She is the author of novels, stage plays and screenplays.

Her novels have been published in Norwegian, Danish, Czech, Macedonian, Polish, French and English and film rights to the Reykjavík Noir Trilogy (Snare, Trap and Cage) have been sold to Palomar Pictures.

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Blog Tours book reviews Support Debuts

In Black and White by Alexandra Wilson

Published: August 13th, 2020
Publisher: Endeavor
Format: Hardcover, Kindle, Audio
Genre: Biography, Autobiography

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

SYNOPSIS:

Alexandra Wilson was a teenager when her dear family friend Ayo was stabbed on his way home from football. Ayo’s death changed Alexandra. She felt compelled to enter the legal profession in search of answers.

As a junior criminal and family law barrister, Alexandra finds herself navigating a world and a set of rules designed by a privileged few. A world in which fellow barristers sigh with relief when a racist judge retires: ‘I’ve got a black kid today and he would have had no hope’.

In her debut book, In Black and White, Alexandra re-creates the tense courtroom scenes, the heart-breaking meetings with teenage clients, and the moments of frustration and triumph that make up a young barrister’s life.

Alexandra shows us how it feels to defend someone who hates the colour of your skin, or someone you suspect is guilty. We see what it is like for children coerced into county line drug deals and the damage that can be caused when we criminalise teenagers.

Alexandra’s account of what she has witnessed as a young mixed-race barrister is in equal parts shocking, compelling, confounding and powerful.

MY REVIEW:

“It was watching moments like these that made me realise how important diversity is in the legal profession. I wanted to be able to give people a voice and be instrumental in changing the path of their lives.”

In Black and White is a sensational debut that tells the author’s own story; charting her journey to become a barrister.

Bold, intelligent, thorough-provoking, affecting and inspiring, Ms. Wilson draws the reader in quickly, beginning her story with her cousin’s tragic murder when they were both just seventeen. This event was a major turning point in her life and is what set her on her path to a career as a barrister. We then follow each step, from her first interest in the law, her early days in pupillage, to finally qualifying as a fully-fledged barrister. 

As both a woman and person of mixed heritage, she finds herself facing obstacles of multiple kinds of discrimination along the way and examines a range of issues faced not only by her, but by people in all facets of the criminal justice system.  The writing is fantastic, the story as compelling as any courtroom drama. But it’s all real. She holds the reader in her thrall, educating them  without getting overly academic, using her own experiences and observations alongside the facts and figures. 

Ms. Wilson is a remarkable woman who has overcome so much. Her warmth, compassion, strength and tenacity shine from every page. She often talks about not being sure if she’s the right fit for the Bar, but it is clear that she is exactly what it needs. Our justice system needs understanding, empathy, diversity and people who believe in justice and equality for all. Ms. Wilson ticks all of those boxes and is someone who can not only make great changes herself, but inspire others to do the same. 

This powerful story is essential reading for anyone who cares about equality and diversity. It is a reminder of the reality of sexism, classism, racism and misogyny facing those in our legal system every day. And a reminder that through our own actions we can affect change in the places it is needed, one step at a time. 

Rating: ✮✮✮✮✰

MEET THE AUTHOR:

Alexandra Wilson is a junior barrister. She grew up in Essex and is the eldest of four children. Her mother is White British, her father is Black British and her paternal grandparents were born in Jamaica and came to England as part of the Windrush generation.

Alexandra studied at the University of Oxford and was awarded two prestigious scholarships, enabling her to research the impact of police shootings in the US on young people’s attitudes to the police. She went on to study for a Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) and her Master of Laws at BPP University in London. Alexandra was awarded the first Queen’s scholarship by the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, a scholarship awarded to students showing exceptional promise in a career at the Bar.

Alongside her paid family and criminal law work, Alexandra helps to facilitate access to justice by providing legal representation for disenfranchised minorities and others on a pro-bono basis.

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Blog Tours book reviews

The Philosopher Queens by Rebecca Buxton and Lisa Whiting

Published: September 17th, 2020
Publisher: Unbound
Format: Paperback, Kindle, Audio
Genre: Biography

Today is my stop on the tour for this fascinating book. Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part and Unbound for the gifted copy.

SYNOPSIS:

Where are the women philosophers? The answer is right here.

The history of philosophy has not done women justice: you ve probably heard the names Plato, Kant, Nietzsche and Locke but what about Hypatia, Arendt, Oluwole and Young?

The Philosopher Queens is a long-awaited book about the lives and works of women in philosophy by women in philosophy. This collection brings to centre stage twenty prominent women whose ideas have had a profound but for the most part uncredited impact on the world.

You ll learn about Ban Zhao, the first woman historian in ancient Chinese history; Angela Davis, perhaps the most iconic symbol of the American Black Power Movement; Azizah Y. al-Hibri, known for examining the intersection of Islamic law and gender equality; and many more.

For anyone who has wondered where the women philosophers are, or anyone curious about the history of ideas it’s time to meet the philosopher queens.

MY REVIEW:

The Philosopher Queens is a beautifully illustrated non-fiction book that introduces the reader to the forgotten female voices of philosophy. A subject long dominated by the works of men, the author’s of this book decided it was time to bring those forgotten voices into the light for all to hear and finally give them the credit for their contributions they deserve.

The book is written as a series of essays that each focus on a different woman. The essay outlines the key points of her ideas and influence on philosophy, as well as personal details such as her upbringing, education, personal life and character. At the end of the book there is information about where you can read more about them should you wish to further explore their ideas. For me, it was the personal details combined with the stunning portrait of each woman that accompanies each essay, that brought each woman to life and made them leap from the pages in vivid technicolour.

I am not a philosopher. I’ve never studied it, and know very little about the subject. But I found this to be a fascinating read that educated me without feeling too heavy or academic. It surprised me to see some familiar names in this book, like George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans, to give her non-pen name), Iris Murdoch and Angela Davis, and I will certainly look at them, and their impact on our society, differently after reading this book.

If you’re looking for something different that you can pick up and read a little of when you have some time here or there, something educational or a book about amazing women and their ideas, then this is a book for you. It is in an important book that I hope will come to be studied in schools and universities for many years to come so that the future generations never forget the Philosopher Queens.

Rating:✮✮✮✮✰

MEET THE AUTHORS:

Rebecca Buxton is a PhD student in International Development at the University of Oxford, specialising in philosophy, ethics and forced migration. Rebecca previously studied Philosophy at King’s College London. When she’s not working on her PhD she writes as a Community Fellow for Refugees Deeply, a news organisation specialising in forced displacement. In her spare time Rebecca likes to visit her one-eyed goldendoodle, Duffy, back at home in Worthing.


Lisa Whiting is currently studying for an MSc in Government, Policy and Politics following her undergraduate degree in philosophy. She studies whilst working as a policy professional focused on the intersection of policy and ethics with a particular interest in data ethics. In her spare time, she listens to podcasts, watches documentaries and tries to keep her house plants alive.

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Blog Tours Book Features

Extract: Under the Camelthorn Tree by Kate Nicholls

Published: August 6th, 2020
Publisher: W&N
Format: Paperback, Kindle, Audio
Genre: Biography, Autobiography, Travel Literature

Today I’m delighted to share with you an extract from this book as part of the blog tour to celebrate paperback publication. Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part and W&N for the extract.

Extract

Gomoti Camp, Botswana 2001
The distant chugging of a car struggling through deep sand aroused a certain nonchalant curiosity, most likely it would continue on towards the Gomoti River –nevertheless all ears in camp casually attuned to the engine.

I was concentrating on the barefoot boys high above me in the spreading branches of the camelthorn acacia tree. During the night, a funnel of wind had blown down the radio mast, and Pieter and the boys were reattaching the antenna. Relaxed andNfocused on their task, they were moving easily among the thick branches, while I imagined them lying in crumpled, lifeless heaps at my feet.

‘It’s not fair,’ grizzled seven-year-old Oakley, ‘I’m the best climber. Why aren’t I allowed to do that?’

‘Because you are my favourite child, and thus indispensable.’

‘I heard that, Mum,’ Angus laughed, wrapping his arm around a gnarled branch for support, before leaning out precariously to hand the rope up to Pieter who was reaching down from the branch above.

‘You concentrate on what you’re doing,’ I snapped. Watching my tousled blond boy dangling forty feet above me made my bones ache.

The tree was coming into flower, a smattering of soft, mimosa- yellow blossoms releasing an earthy sweetness. She was an old tree: she must have been producing seeds for many decades, for the elephants had learned her ways, and came from far and wide to feast on her grey-velvet seedpods. Usually, I shooed the huge animals out of our unfenced camp by shouting and banging a wooden spoon on a saucepan, but when the seeds ripened the beasts would gather under the wide umbrella of our tree and browse undeterred by my Betsey Trotwood vehemence. Four years ago Oakley had renamed the irresistible pods ‘elephant Smarties’, and annually we declared a pachyderm truce until the last crescent had been hoovered up.

Maisie was sitting cross-legged on the roof rack of the Land Rover, observing her older brothers and drawing the action in a notebook. It was a late-winter morning, and she had a blanket wrapped lightly around her thin shoulders, but the sun was moving up in a clear sky and soon she would be as warm as her sweaty siblings. Her animated, delicate face was already smeared with grey Kalahari sand, and when her dusty, unbrushed hair fell over her eyes she carelessly tied it back in an untidy knot in the nape of her neck. Briefly she tipped her head in response to a new sound –
the gears of the distant car had shifted down a tone.

‘They’ve turned into the palm scrub,’ she remarked, ‘are we expecting anyone,
Mum?’

‘Nope. It’s probably the wildlife department,’ I replied, looking up and briefly catching Pieter’s eye. Maybe there would be some news. Our life was precariously rooted – a thin slip of paper could puff us away. I had grown used to pinpricks of anxiety spiking my bloodstream – fear keeps you alive in the wild. But the fear of losing home sat in a deeper place – its movement through my body was whittling and wearing.

‘Whoever it is can’t drive,’ Travers commented wryly, lying out- stretched along a branch with the radio antenna dangling from a wire in his hand, ‘did you hear those gears grinding, Pete?’ I hadn’t got used to my sixteen-year-old son’s man voice, it still had the lilt of youth but the androgyny had gone.

‘Will all of you stop drivelling, and get that bloody antenna up? I can’t stand the tension,’ I barked, marching to the kitchen tent to put the kettle on. If my progeny were going to fall to their deaths I didn’t want to witness it, and whoever was coming to see us would need some sustenance. Bush etiquette was simple in the Okavango: help those in trouble, and offer food and drink to new arrivals.

Maybe the wildlife department was coming to tell us about a problem lion killing cattle on the other side of the buffalo fence, or maybe they’d found another poisoned lion. I looked at Sauvignon’s skull, bleached salt-white by the sun, lying on the sand beside the campfire. A month ago Pieter had found the female’s desiccated body beside a pool of water – her cubs’ carcasses scattered nearby – and all around lay dead vultures that had nibbled on the lions’ toxic flesh.

MEET THE AUTHOR:

Born in London, into a theatrical family in 1954, Kate Nicholls has lived her life energised by her favourite quote.“An unexamined life is not worth living.”

She is insatiably curious and self-educated. She left home, and school, age sixteen to pursue a successful career in the theatre. Age twenty-one she had her first of six children. Now, she has five children, and three grandchildren: with another on the way. She gave up her acting career age thirty-nine to study biology.

In 1996 she moved to Botswana with her children and worked for an NGO Women Against Rape. Later she became co-principal researcher at the Okavango Lion Conservation Project– where for eleven years she studied lions–raising and home-schooling her children under a tree.

In 2010 she returned to the UK where she continued educating her youngest son and started her home-school business. Her children all graduated into top Universities in the USA and the UK. She moved to Rome, Italy in 2015 where she wrote her first book Under the Camelthorn Tree. 

Passionate about educational reform, and integrated learning, she continues her business devising bespoke programmes for individual students.

She is writing her second book.

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Blog Tours book reviews

The Twins of Auschwitz by Eva Mozes Kor

Published: August 6th, 2020
Publisher: Monoray
Format: Paperback, Kindle, Audio
Genre: Biography, Autobiography

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for this moving novel . Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part and Monoray for the gifted copy of the book .

SYNOPSIS:

The Nazis spared their lives because they were twins.

In the summer of 1944, Eva Mozes Kor and her family arrived at Auschwitz.

Within thirty minutes, they were separated. Her parents and two older sisters were taken to the gas chambers, while Eva and her twin, Miriam, were herded into the care of the man who became known as the Angel of Death: Dr. Josef Mengele. They were 10 years old.

While twins at Auschwitz were granted the ‘privileges’ of keeping their own clothes and hair, they were also subjected to Mengele’s sadistic medical experiments. They were forced to fight daily for their own survival and many died as a result of the experiments, or from the disease and hunger rife in the concentration camp.

In a narrative told simply, with emotion and astonishing restraint, The Twins of Auschwitz shares the inspirational story of a child’s endurance and survival in the face of truly extraordinary evil.

Also included is an epilogue on Eva’s incredible recovery and her remarkable decision to publicly forgive the Nazis. Through her museum and her lectures, she dedicated her life to giving testimony on the Holocaust, providing a message of hope for people who have suffered, and worked toward goals of forgiveness, peace, and the elimination of hatred and prejudice in the world.

MY REVIEW:

“There are not many children of the Holocaust, much less Mengele twins, who lived to tell their stories. Eva did. And this story is told in her voice, in the first person, as an adult looking back over sixty-five years; to a time when a little girl, clutching at the trembling hand of her identical twin sister, showed up at the gates of horror—and survived.”

Eva and Miriam Mozes were just ten years old when they were herded onto a cattle car with around 100 other Jews and taken to Auschwitz. Upon their arrival the twins are selected for ‘special treatment’ by Dr Josef Mengele – also known as the Angel of Death – who used twins, dwarves, the disabled and Gypsies as human guinea pigs for his experiments.

This is the story of their daily fight to survive in Auschwitz and Eva’s life after the war as an advocate for education and change.

“We were Jews, and we were guilty.”

The Holocaust is one of the times in history I am most fascinated with. My dad has always read about it voraciously and I was definitely influenced by his interest in the subject. Mengele’s experiments are obviously something I’m aware of, but I hadn’t read much about them. Certainly not a first person account. So I knew this was a book I wanted to read as soon as I read the synopsis.

“We never thought they would come to our tiny village.”

The book starts out with how life was for the family before and at the beginning of the war and talks about seeing the rise in anti-semitism amongst not only the government, but in school and among the people they know in their village. Reading about how children were given books talking about killing Jews and how propaganda films such as ‘How To Catch And Kill A Jew’ were shown in school and at the theatre, brought tears to my eyes. I can’t imagine how scary that must have been to a child. One of the things that broke my heart most of all is reading of the family’s missed chances at escape before being sent to Auschwitz, knowing they may have all survived if only they’d been able to flee.

“We shrieked. We cried. We pleaded, our voices lost among the chaos and noise and despair. But no matter how much we cried or how loud we screamed, it did not matter. Because of those matching burgundy dresses, because we were identical twins so easily spotted in the crowd of grimy, exhausted Jewish prisoners, Miriam and I had been chosen. Soon we would come face to face with Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor known as the Angel of Death… But we did not know that yet. All we knew was that we were abruptly alone. We were only ten years old.

And we never saw Papa, Mama, Edit or Aliz again.”

Eva talks about losing trust in her parents’ ability to protect her and her sisters as the hatred progresses and how she lost any sense of safety. That hit me right in my mother’s heart. I would do ANYTHING to protect my children and couldn’t imagine the pain of not being able to do that and their lives were at risk. I pictured my own children at 10 years of age being all alone in a fight for survival and completely alone. It is unfathomable. I will never understand how people can be so cruel to other humans, especially innocent children.

“At Auschwitz, dying was easy. Surviving was a full-time job.”

Eva is a survivor and shows a quiet strength from the moment she arrives at Auschwitz. That strength continued throughout her life and she was a tiny, but mighty who was promoted Holocaust education and toured giving speeches on the life lessons she had learned, hoping to encourage others to live in kindness rather than hate. She was open about her struggle with anger, hate and bitterness towards not only the Nazis, but her parents, for many years before choosing to forgive. This, along with her advocacy for change, saw her become a controversial figure among survivors, who often misunderstood what that meant. But she stayed true to herself and fought for change until her death in July 2019.

“Anger is a seed for war; forgiveness is a seed for peace.”

Poignant, powerful and lingering, this, like any Holocaust story, is a harrowing read. Dire living conditions, the daily struggle to survive and the cruel experiments that were supposed to kill her are described in detail which, while avoiding being gruesome, are still upsetting. But what stands out is that this is a story of courage, survival and triumph over evil.

Rating: ✮✮✮✮✫

MEET THE AUTHOR:

Eva Mozes Kor was a Romanian-born survivor of the Holocaust. Along with her twin sister Miriam, Kor was subjected to human experimentation under the direction of SS Doctor Josef Mengele at the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland during World War II

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Categories
Blog Tours book reviews

Hinton Hollow Death Trip by Will Carver

2020-08-12-09-17-09

Published: August 13th, 2020
Publisher: Orenda
Format: Paperback, Kindle, Audio
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Crime Fiction, Psychological Fiction, Political Fiction, Dystopian Fiction, Religious Fiction

Trigger Warnings: Suicide, Animal Cruelty

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for this outstanding novel. Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part and Orenda for the gifted ARC.

SYNOPSIS:

Five days in the history of a small rural town, visited and infected by darkness, are recounted by Evil itself. A stunning high-concept thriller from the bestselling author of Good Samaritansand Nothing Important Happened Today.

‘Cements Carver as one of the most exciting authors in Britain. After this, he’ll have his own cult following’ Daily Express

________________

It’s a small story. A small town with small lives that you would never have heard about if none of this had happened.

Hinton Hollow. Population 5,120.

Little Henry Wallace was eight years old and one hundred miles from home before anyone talked to him. His mother placed him on a train with a label around his neck, asking for him to be kept safe for a week, kept away from Hinton Hollow.

Because something was coming.

Narrated by Evil itself, Hinton Hollow Death Trip recounts five days in the history of this small rural town, when darkness paid a visit and infected its residents. A visit that made them act in unnatural ways. Prodding at their insecurities. Nudging at their secrets and desires. Coaxing out the malevolence suppressed within them. Showing their true selves.

Making them cheat.
Making them steal.
Making them kill.

Detective Sergeant Pace had returned to his childhood home. To escape the things he had done in the city. To go back to something simple. But he was not alone. Evil had a plan.

MY REVIEW:

“I am Evil. 

And I have come to destroy your town.”

Deliciously dark, malevolent and addictive, this is a small story about the small town of Hinton Hollow, and the five days when Evil came to stay. 

Written with Carver’s distinct quirky, unique and affecting prose, this is a darkly atmospheric story that pulls you in from the first pages. Carver’s novels aren’t easy reading. They are uncomfortable and deep, but also thought-provoking, timely and brilliant. In this story he examines a range of topics such as the concept of good and evil, what drives us to do bad things, a mother’s love for her children, social media and having an online persona, the parts of ourselves that we hide from others, bystander behaviour, adultery, anger, bullying, animal cruelty and gluttony.  He also poses questions to the reader, making them think about their own lives and behaviour, challenging them to be better and kinder people. 

“Don’t read this.

You can leave now, if you want. Don’t even bother finishing the page. Forget you were ever here. There must be something else you could be doing. Get away. Go on.

This is the last time I try to save you.”

This strange and sinister story is narrated by Evil itself, who warns the reader of the nightmare to come at the start. Evil isn’t able to force people to commit terrible acts, just nudge and encourage. They also surprisingly have morals, leaving children alone and appearing shocked at some of the actions of the residents of Hinton Hollow. Evil’s voice was sly, cunning and alluring; whispering in the ears of those it touched as they move through the town infecting it with it’s poison. Evil’s sights are set on Detective Sargeant Pace, the main character in the series. 

Pace is a troubled and lonely figure who is trying to come to terms with the awful events of book two and has fled London to find solace in his small hometown. Only it didn’t work. Evil followed him. I find Pace a peculiar character who I am ambivalent about. But he is well written, as are the array of other characters in the book. The author created a relatable community full of flawed characters who you could imagine knowing. There were some I really liked, others I couldn’t stand, but they were all compelling and pulled me deep into their story, needing to know their fate. 

“A THOUGHT ABOUT BEING BETTER

Forget your job, forget your relationship, forget about being the best parent in the world, 

forget about perfection. 

Put in the most work, each day, on yourself. 

Be better. Get fitter. Learn more. 

Do this every single day. 

Work the hardest on YOU. 

The rest will fall into place.

If more people thought about how they could be better, do better, you may find yourself in a position to form this tide of social-media lies and self-loathing and talent shows for people who only want to be famous and don’t care what it’s for.

There  could be more good. Therefore, less need for me. And that would be perfect.” 

Both times I’ve read this author’s work I’ve had two thoughts: 

  1. This man is a genius
  2. What on earth must it be like in his head?! 

Carver is one of the most original fiction voices I’ve come across. I promise you that you won’t have read anything like this before. Though it is the third in a series and continues on immediately after the events of book two, it is able to be read as a standalone novel, so don’t let that put you off.

Lingering, immersive, poignant and disturbing, Hinton Hollow Death Trip is one of the best books I’ve read this year. An absolute tour-de-force that I can’t recommend highly enough. Carver is now on my auto-buy list and I can’t wait to see what utterly fantastic and twisted story he writes next. So, what are you waiting for? READ. THIS. BOOK. 

Rating: ✮✮✮✮✮

Will Carver Author pIc

MEET THE AUTHOR:

Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series. He spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He turned down a professional rugby contract to study theatre and television at King Alfred’s, Winchester, where he set up a successful theatre company. He currently runs his own fitness and nutrition company, and lives in Reading with his two children. Good Samaritans was book of the year in The Guardian, The Telegraph and the Daily Express, and hit number one on the ebook charts.

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FINAL Hinton Hollow BT Poster

Categories
Blog Tours book reviews

The Big Chill by Doug Johnstone (The Skelfs 2)

2020-08-05-14-06-40

Published: August 20th, 2020
Publisher: Orenda
Format: Paperback, Kindle, Audio
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Fiction, Urban Fiction, Lesbian Literature

Welcome to my slightly late stop on the blog tour. Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part and Orenda for the ARC.

SYNOPSIS:

Running private investigator and funeral home businesses means trouble is never far away, and the Skelf women take on their most perplexing, chilling cases yet in book two of this darkly funny, devastatingly tense and addictive new series!

Haunted by their past, the Skelf women are hoping for a quieter life. But running both a funeral directors’ and a private investigation business means trouble is never far away, and when a car crashes into the open grave at a funeral that matriarch Dorothy is conducting, she can’t help looking into the dead driver’s shadowy life.

While Dorothy uncovers a dark truth at the heart of Edinburgh society, her daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah have their own struggles. Jenny’s ex-husband Craig is making plans that could shatter the Skelf women’s lives, and the increasingly obsessive Hannah has formed a friendship with an elderly professor that is fast turning deadly.

But something even more sinister emerges when a drumming student of Dorothy’s disappears and suspicion falls on her parents. The Skelf women find themselves sucked into an unbearable darkness – but could the real threat be to themselves?

Following three women as they deal with the dead, help the living and find out who they are in the process, The Big Chill follows A Dark Matter, book one in the Skelfs series, which reboots the classic PI novel while asking the big existential questions, all with a big dose of pitch-black humour.

MY REVIEW:

The Big Chill is the second book in the Skelfs Series, which follows the Skelf women – Dorothy, Jenny and Hannah – as they work together running the family funeral home and private investigation company. I haven’t read the first book but the author quickly catches you up on the traumatic and life-changing events that occurred.

The story jumps straight into the action with a car chase interrupting a funeral that leaves the unidentified driver dead. The family matriarch, Dorothy, can’t let it go and is determined to find out who he was and lay him to rest. But this isn’t their only investigation, with others running simultaneously, as well as the funeral business always keeping them busy.

This was a complex and layered novel, with lots of drama, tension and things bubbling beneath the surface. I loved the fascinating mix of three generations working together in dual roles that is an unusual pairing. It’s a brilliant basis for a series, so different from anything else I’ve read.

The characters are well-written, compelling and full of depth. They are each trying to come to terms with the distressing and painful events of book one, and are still haunted and trying to make sense of it all. In the three women, the author shows how trauma and PTSD can affect people in different ways in a very real and relatable way that hit home with me a number of times. The background characters were also fully drawn with interesting storylines and back stories of their own. I’m very eager to read more about Archie and his unusual condition.

If you’re looking for something different that will hold your attention and make you come back for more, this is the book for you. I’ll definitely be reading book one and look forward to seeing what’s next for the Skelf women.

Rating: ✮✮✮✮✫

Doug Johnstone Author Pic

MEET THE AUTHOR:

Doug Johnstone is the author of ten novels, most recently Breakers (2018), which was longlisted for the McIlcanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year. Several of his books have been bestsellers and award winners, and his work has been praised by the likes of Val McDermid, Irivine Welsh and Ian Rankin. He’s taught creative writing and been writer in residence at various institutions, and has been an arts and journalist for twenty years. Doug is a songwriter and musician with five albums and three EPs released, and he plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a band of crime writers. He’s also player-manager of the Scotland Writers Football Club. He lives in Edinburgh.

Website |Twitter

BUY THE BOOK:

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The Big Chill BT Poster